T-Nation and the T-Forums are growing at an astounding rate. To help those new to T-mag catch up and to breathe some life back into our older articles, we’ve decided to “reprint” a few here on the forum.
The info below came from John Berardi’s “Appetite for Contruction” column, paper issues #6 and #7.
Appetite For Construction
Building Results From Research
By John M. Berardi
Outsmart Your Body Fat Set Point
Q: John, you’ve written that people can “program” themselves to get used to low calorie eating and therefore gain fat easily when they increase calories. I know several people, most of them women, who have to basically diet just to maintain their bodyfat levels. Is there a way to fix this?
A: The body, a fantastic homeostatic machine, can get used to virtually every physiological condition it encounters. This is especially the case with caloric intake. When most people eat more calories than usual, after a short period of adaptation and weight gain, they adapt to this intake and become weight stable. On the contrary, when eating fewer calories than usual, after a short period of adaptation and weight loss, they adapt and again become weight stable.
The time it takes to stabilize and the body fat percent at which this stabilization occurs is known as the “set point”. In some people, the set point is very lean (8-10%) while in others it’s much higher (15-17%). The further away from that set point you get, the harder the body works against you to get back there. So for those whose set point is at a higher percent fat, it would be very difficult (without a consistent, long term training and eating routine) to maintain a year-round fat percent of 8-10%.
With this said, there are two explanations for the scenario above. The first explanation is more a matter of individual perspective than anything else. What happens is that an individual eats a chronically low calorie “diet” in an attempt to lose fat. However, since they adapt to this low calorie intake, what was once a “diet” is now “maintenance” eating. Therefore they need to continue eating at this level just to maintain their weight.
At this point, if they want to lose fat, they have to manipulate diet or exercise ever further to create a more negative energy balance. Since they still feel deprived and they feel like they?re “dieting”, their perception is that they have to continue dieting just to maintain their body fat when in essence, it’s no longer a diet. This can be remedied however.
In this scenario, the goal should be to raise calorie intake and allow the body to reach homeostasis at a higher calorie level. The problem, though, is that if this person increases calorie consumption, they may begin to gain more weight than they want. So rather than simply raising calories alone, the best strategy is to increase both calorie intake and exercise expenditure. Then, once the calorie intake has increased to “true maintenance” and the exercise is keeping the individual weight stable, slowly decrease the exercise expenditure. This should allow the body to adapt to this new calorie intake while establishing a new maintenance level. Here’s an example:
The Problem:
A 150 pound woman who has 20% body fat is chronically underfed at 1500 kcal per day. Whenever calories increase, fat is gained. This woman trains with weights three times per week for one hour and does cardio three times per week for 30 minutes.
The Solution:
Since the true maintenance level is between 2300-2700 kcal per day I’d have the woman begin to increase calorie intake by 350 kcal every two weeks. After six weeks, this woman would be eating 2550 kcal per day. During these six weeks, an extra day of weight training would be incorporated into the program so that she’s training four days per week. In addition, cardio work would be progressively increased so that by the last two weeks she’d be doing four 45 minute sessions per week. Then I’d ramp the exercise down while keeping calories up.
Week 1 - 1850 kcal - 4 days of weight training, 3 days of cardio (45 min)
Week 3 - 2200 kcal - 4 days of weight training, 4 days of cardio (30 min)
Week 5 - 2550 kcal - 4 days of weight training, 4 days of cardio (45 min)
Week 7 - 2500 kcal - 4 days of weight training, 3 days of cardio (45 min)
Week 9 - 2500 kcal - 4 days of weight training, 3 days of cardio (30 min)
There’s another, less optimistic explanation for the scenario in question. Some people, women in particular, are very efficient at fat storage and quite resistant to fat loss even during periods of under-nutrition and exercise expenditure. While the women may hate this and rage against the genes, this phenomenon makes complete sense from an evolutionary perspective. The burden of the human race falls on female shoulders and therefore when food is limited, the bearers of the children will maintain body weight and survive, while the men will plant their seed, waste away, starve, and die, their reproductive function served.
Therefore, the above scenario could be due to this physiological “efficiency”. But although this more typically occurs in women, it can also occur in men. For these unfortunate individuals, only extremes of exercise and/or more restricted diets will allow them to lose fat. Therefore only low calorie fare will keep the fat off.
Although it’s more difficult for these individuals to improve their physiques, hope is not lost. A long-term program of high intensity exercise, smart nutrition, and thermogenic supplements will gradually re-shape the body. So, when evaluating a client or yourself, experimentation will determine which of the two types you are. Then you can take the appropriate measures to improve your metabolism and your physique.
Post-workout Drinks and Fat Loss
Q: I read in one of your columns at T-mag.com (issue #175) that you now recommend drinking half your normal post-workout drink before training. That makes sense when bulking up, but you said to do it when dieting too. Won’t that prevent fat loss? Could it be that I caught the great JB making a mistake?
A: No mistake about it. Actually, I once thought I made a mistake, but it turned out I was wrong. Now does that mean I made a mistake or not?
Seriously, this question has often been raised and the first response uttered is usually, “All that insulin will prevent fat loss because insulin inhibits lipolysis, the release of fat from fat cells.” Sorry, but this is an outdated argument.
First, insulin does inhibit lipolysis in both trained and untrained people. Therefore any carb-containing workout and post-workout drink will cause an insulin release and this will prevent some fat from being mobilized from adipose tissue and dumped into the blood. However, I believe the magnitude of the response is much lower in trained people than untrained. This means that if you train regularly you’ll release more fat into the blood than will an untrained person when both of you consume a sugary drink. But, as you’ll see, this doesn’t mean a whole lot either way you look at it.
Just because lipolysis from adipose tissue is inhibited with a sugary drink, that doesn’t mean that fat burning in the muscle will be inhibited. The two processes are independent. You see, the body mobilizes a lot of fat at rest and during exercise from the fat stores. This mobilization is far greater than the actual amount of fat that’ll be burned (oxidized) during these times. In fact, during higher intensity exercise, only 10% of the mobilized fat will be used for fat burning. So even if you inhibit the amount of lipolysis by 50% or greater, you still may not cut down on the actual amount of fat burned. This shows that lipolysis gives us no indication of actual fat burning (oxidation).
But, just to finish off that thought, even if fat burning were prevented to a small extent (I emphasize the word small), the insulin response to these types of drinks is relatively rapid, the actual amount of fat burning that you’d end up losing out on would be quite negligible.
At this point, I want to shift the focus away from what the drink won’t do and talk about what it will do during and after a weight training bout, then we can see if these benefits outweigh the potential negatives. In a sluggish dieter, the pre-workout drink will most likely increase workout intensity, reps performed, and weight handled. This is crucial since it may lead to:
The better preservation of muscle mass while dieting as the training stimulus is maintained.
A better metabolic stimulus during the training session leading to more calories burned during training.
A higher post-exercise metabolic rate leading to a longer increase in metabolism and more calories burned up to 24 hours after the workout.
A higher GH response to exercise. Since workout intensity is closely linked with anabolic hormone release after exercise, such a drink may actually preserve that GH response to exercise that one would get if not dieting. Our lab has shown that the GH response to exercises tends to diminish during dieting as a result of lower workout intensity.
Better maintenance of muscle glycogen and muscle protein synthesis leading to better muscle mass preservation. The longer muscle mass is maintained during a diet, the easier it is to maintain a high metabolic rate and maintain muscle strength.
Better ability to continue to lose fat as a result of a larger active muscle mass and higher intensity workouts.
I hope it’s now clear that although most people would tell you otherwise, using a workout and post-workout drink may actually improve your ability to lose fat as long as you diet very well during the remaining hours of the day.
I’d mention, however, that while I certainly recommend this to most dieters, there are probably a few situations where I might have someone drop the drink out of their program. For example, a competitive bodybuilder during the final stages of his contest diet may want to drop the drink during this time.
Remember, during weight training the focus should be on the muscle since fat burning during weight training is almost inconsequential. So work on the muscle when you train with weights and focus on losing the fat during the other 22 to 23 hours of the day!