new to your group

[jim bidwell]

Hi everyone

I just finished reading, (and studying) THE BODY FAT SOLUTION. I have some comments about the book that I would like you to comment on. I also have some questions that I would like your opinion in especially if you have faced these problems.

Comments.
The book seems to follow alot of the diet guides of the South Beach
Diet. I have noticed over the past few years that most diets such as Weight Watchers and Adkins have gravitated towatds The SB principles: good fats, good carbs, exercise, etc. SB has more detail in metatolism but not nearly as much about goal setting and exercise as the Body Fat Solution.
I am very excited to read about a program as committed to goal setting as I believe in. The informatin about planning and setting goals, to me is essential. I previously lost 100 lbs on weight wathchers in the early 90's then gained it back, and more, and I attribute it to reaching my weight goal and then not setting the goal to maintain it. Which leads me to my next comment about the book.

The program including setting AND adjusting goals, lifelong, has to be done to keep improving, and this is the first book I have read that includes this as an integral step.

I also was grateful to see the amount of informatin on keeping weight off and how to break platueus. I also learned alot about weight training. I have exercised, off and on, for over 50 years but have done it on my own, so the information of how to lift weights, exercise routine, ie supersets, exercises designed to burn fat etc., I think, will be very beneficial to me.

My bigest question has to do with gaining weight because of lifting weights. I started south beach 10 months ago and have lost 70 lbs and have 80 more to go. Last Nov. I started lifting weights knowing that I might gain weight, but when I ACTUALLY did I became very frustrated. I started lifting again three days ago, but don't know how successfull I can be if the weight doesn't continue to drop. My first priority is to lose weight, period. Before, I thought I would start lifting again after getting under 220 but after reading the book started now. Do any of you face similar problems with apprehension about going back to weight lifting and gaining instead of losing.
this is covered in the book and I sure hope it works this time.

My next question is about losing 2 to 2 1/2 lbs per week. This was my goal when I started last June and I have failed miserably, I felt is was attainable then and this is reinforced stronly in the book, but I have not been able to maintain that rate it is very dissappioning to me, still I'm 70 lbs less than 10 months ago. My question is how many of you have been able to lose the 2 to 2 1/2 lbs per week? I did for the first three months but not since then. Have any of you found the instruction on ajdusting and reevaluating weight and calories works as well as described?

My last question is, have any of you found a source for an accurate calorie esstimate? I found several sources on the internet and they ranged, for me, from 2200 to 3450 caloires daily when I entered my age, sex, weight and actifity level. Obviously basing calorie needs on the wrong calorie estimate could lead to bad news, gain instead of loss. Because I have been following South Beach where you don'tcount caloires, and now want to follow this program, I think it is very important to have accurate daily calorie requirement or it won't work.

Thanks for any info you can give me, I know what Tom Venuto writes about synergy is true, especially when it pertains to the wisdom and exerience you can find in a chat group.

[Angie]

Hi Jim,

Wow that's a lot of questions. I'll deal with a few of them and let the others jump in and help out. Oh, and huge props on losing 70 pounds. Well done.

First, lifting and weight loss. You will not lose weight unless you are in a calorie deficit. If you are losing weight, you are obviously IN a calorie deficit. If you are in calorie deficit you will not be able to gain significant amount of muscle. It is physiologically impossible to gain large amounts of muscle whilst losing fat at the same time. You can alternate between the two, if that is what you want, but so long as you are in deficit, don't worry about putting on too much muscle and not seeing the scales shift. Your two main reasons for weight training are (1) to MAINTAIN your current lean body mass whilst you are in deficit as loss of this LBM would result in a reduced metabolic rate and less calorie burning at rest; and (2) to burn calories through exercise, afterburn, and at rest. When you first start weight training after a long break, you may notice some quick gains, but this is unlikely to continue at this pace. Don't worry about it. Don't diet (calorie deficit) without lifting as you will LOSE LBM, worsen your body composition, and stuff up your metabolism. Pump away.

Second, rate of weight loss: 2 to 2.5 pounds a week is quite high. Aim for 1 to 1.5 pounds per week of FAT. More than that amount and you are likely to be losing LBM as well as fat. I know it's frustrating, I really do, but slow and steady does it.

Third, there are a number of ways of calculating your calorie requirements. The most accurate take account of your body composition. Do you have a way of measuring your % body fat?

Angie

[jim bidwell]

no, i don't have a way of measuring body fat, never even thought about it until reading the book, How much do calopers cost? where do you get them? are they accurate? Venuto writes that it is difficult to measure yourself accutately, Is that true? Since this is about losing body fat, measuring it and knowing how to gauge improvement seems like an important no- brainer to me so I am anxious to get started on measuring b ody fat.

[Rob Devlin]

Welcome Jim. Great first post.

Lose body fat is only the first step. The diets out there seem to only focus on the weight lose but don't really tell you what to do after. Tom speaks to this in the book. Look at it this way... the weight we all want to lose only just a small part of a total lifestyle change.

Here are my thoughts on your questions.

Weight training- as Tom stated in the book calorie deficit plus weight & interval training is what is needed. I found that I needed to focus on al three before I started to see changes. My weight did not drop as much as my body started to change shape. The weight lose will come. Start the BFS training protocol and stick with it until you complete all 12 weeks.

2-2 1/2 pounds per week- I have never hit those numbers. I seemed to lose little each week but then had a big drop. Since January 3rd I went from 183.5 lbs to 170.1 lbs at the end of March (roughly 1 pound/week). Not what I was looking for but like I said above I saw changes in my body.

Calorie counting- You don't need to count (for some it cause them to obsess about food and calories) but you do need to know how much you are taking in each day. If you are not making gains then you may need to dig deeper and start counting. I say what works for you. If you plan your meals knowing the calories and are not making gains then you need to adjust. As to where to get an accurate I am not sure. Hope some has an answer for us.

We have an The BFS Accountability Challenge going on the forum. Every week we post how the week went. Did we reach or goals, what went well and what did not. There is only a few posting but I would like to see as many people as possible. Come join us.

[Rob Devlin]

Try here for calipers

[jim bidwell]

I like the idea of your accountability challenge, how does it work? I go from
Sat to Sat in measuring my results but keep a daily weight and activity log so all i would need to do is post since i already have the info. let me know the mechanics of your program

Thanks
Jim

[Rob Devlin]

Jim each week Friday I will start a new thread. Just post away anytime that week.

[Angie]

I am currently reading Tom's Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle - a much more intensive programme, and possibly somewhere to progress to once you have the habits from BFS down to a T and results are starting to slow. In BFFM there are some great formulas for calculating calorie requirements, but they are much more accurate if you know your body fat.

There are a variety of ways of measuring body fat, some more accurate than others. If you are carrying around a lot of weight, your best options are something like the Tanita scales which measure %BF (and other stuff) as well as weight OR the AccuMeasure calipers Rob linked to above. Generally, multisite caliper measurements are very hard to take on a very overweight person - are difficult to get consistent accuracy, require a skilled operator to perform, and can't be done yourself. The exception is the AccuMeasures, which you can use yourself, take just one reading (from the hip - one of the easier places to get an accurate reading on a heavy person) are cheap and easy to use.

Other good ways to measure progress (although not of calculating % BF) are circumference measurements (eg. waist, chest, bicep) and taking photographs of yourself at weekly (or daily!) intervals.

If you want to know your body fat though, and don't want to shell out a chunk of cash on Tanita body scales, the AccuMeasures are the way to go.

Having said that, if your diet is not great, and your exercise levels are low, BFS provides you with some 'rules to live by' which should see you clean up your diet and increase your activity levels. What Tom is saying in this book is that it doesn't have to be rocket science, at least not in the beginning if you are starting from a low base. My advice would be to order the accumeasures, but in the meantime, get started, take weight, circumference and before photos, and start implementing the nutrition and exercise guidelines in BFS. If you do this, the calories should take care of themselves and you should start to lose around a pound a week of FAT (not weight). This has been my experience on the programme with nary a calorie counted.

[alityson]

Is your body changing? Clothes fitting better, etc? I don't put much store in numbers on a scale since so many factors can come into play.......time of day, salt retention etc. If your clothes are fitting better and you are seeing results, i'd worry less about the numbers on the scale and keep doing what you're doing. Just my two cents worth :-)