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Fad diets and killer six pack gimmicks

As I browse the net perhaps one of the number one adds on the sides of various sites is the scheme to learn the secret to get an incredible six pack in weeks. Or the secret to loose 25 lbs of fat with little or no work. These adds always show some sort of grotesque before shot (you know the one with white blubber rolls and cellulite) and then a comparison photo that we are meant to believe is the same person with a tight body and bronzed skin, just weeks after following these three easy steps or this one simple rule was obeyed. I am amazed that people buy into this. I find this very troubling.

First it is scary how many people are suffering from obesity. America leads the charge followed by Canada and England right behind. I feel that part of the problem can be traced back to school lunch. I can't tell you how many hot ham and cheese I dipped into a gallon of frysauce at school lunch. Or how many lunch lady butter fingers I downed. I must have devoured hundreds of pounds of french fries. It seems that my average veggie intake at public school lunch was less than one scoop of canned veggies per meal or no more than 10 % of the food I ate while in school. The healthy options were limited and being a high school boy with a great metabolism I just ate what tasted the best. This is one of many problems I thought I would bring up. The terrible thing is that the capitalists have gotten a hold of the diet industry and are coming up with schemes and gimmicks daily. These schemes take basic knowledge like diet and exercise and present this information in a slightly different way and try to make money off from people who want that movie star appearance. The sad thing is how many people fall for these adds and pay money with hopes of gaining those chiseled abs. I wonder what the actual success rate of any of these gimmicks really is. I have a suspicion that the drop-off rate is ridiculous.

The first point I want to make about diet is that genetics play an important role. I used to think that weight loss was a simple equation of if kcalories in < kcalories out = weight loss. Some studies that show this is not the case include a study by Miller and Parsonage (1975) in which 29 volunteers were incarcerated in a country home and given the same starvation diet of 1500 kcalories per day for three weeks. 19 lost weight but 9 failed to change their weight at all. The shocking thing was two individuals gained weight on a starvation diet. I think that overweight individuals are often viewed as having little control of their eating and that is why they gain weight. There is no scientific evidence that the obese eat more than lean individuals (Rothwell and Stock, 1981). There is plenty more on this subject but it can be observed from the science that weight gain is a complex problem and that there is not a miracle diet that works universally.

The second point is that weight and health is quite relative. It is funny as far as ultra distance runners go I am actually a sumo at 141 lbs. My ideal race weight is closer to perhaps 136lbs. Yet most sedentary people view me as too thin. There are many endurance runners who run consistent high mileage (100 miles a week) and still maintain a certain base level of fat that won't decrease even though they are elite long distance runners. The human machine is incredibly efficient and wants to burn the least amount of calories to get the job done. If you do the exact same exercise without variance the body will often plateau and burn just enough to get the job done. To combat this there needs to be a lot of variance in the type, intensity and duration of exercise.

My diet over the last 27 years has been shameful. I am blessed with a metabolism that allows me a little bit of wiggle room as far as being able to eat white flour and refined sugars and not instantly gain but this has started to slow significantly since about 25 years old. It has only been in the last two years that I began to watch what I ate (after I reached a whopping 173 lbs in 2007). I wonder how much of my digestive woes which ended in the removal of 4 major organs was a direct response to a very unhealthy diet for a long time or perhaps led to the immune system turning on my own body. It is amazing to see how a diet with tons of veggies and fruits leads to increased levels of energy and weight loss. I am toying with a few different experiments to see how diet effects athletic performance and energy during the day. I will most likely try the vegetarian 30 day diet just to see how my body reacts. This also appeals to me morally.

It appears that to get that killer six pack or that stunning body, you need to have some sort of genes that predispose you for that type of body (just like I will never have large beefy muscles, I have way too much type 1 muscle). Secondly you have to eat better. This includes eating mostly veggies and fruits and healthy carbs. Last you need to exercise a lot. I think the only way to get rid of belly fat is crazy amounts of cardio and endurance work which is conducive to fat burning. I know that the muscles and liver have enough stores of carbs to work out for up to 90 minutes, it is only after these are burned up that the true fat burning occurs. It is important to work your abs so they are defined but it doesn't do any good if there is a thick layer of fluff covering them. I think that the coveted six pack is not something that can be obtained following three simple steps or obeying one rule, or even through a pill. I feel some people are set up to obtain the flat stomach with minimal effort but for the rest of us who don't enjoy the same hand dealt us by nature it is a battle against genetics, careful choice of diet, and long bouts of exercises like running, rowing, and swimming etc. that will finally allow us to see the vague outline of a six pack if the lighting is just right (or a five pack in my case).

Well now that I got that off my chest I think I am going to go eat a big piece of cake and drink some soda. My main reason for this rant is just to point out that weight and the coveted six pack are much more complex than these fad diets let on. I am really bothered by the claims that it is simple and easy to obtain the flat stomach or lose all this weight but it is an issue that takes tons of dedication and work. Each person has a preprogrammed base weight level that their bodies want to be at and we should be happy with this base level whether it is considered too heavy or too thin as long as we are eating right and exercising we are healthy.




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