Outsmarting The Body Fat Set Point

Training Bodybuilding
1

Hey, guys! I finally got the Issue 7 of “Testosterone” in the mail! (Great stuff, as usual!).


I immediately went to page 96, “Appetite For Construction” and the question “Outsmart Your Body Fat Set Point” posed to J.B. This held particular interest for me, because my physiology is a “fat storing wasteland” in that I always have to watch my diet with the exactness of an Engineer and if I engage in NON- controlled refeeds, I can literally wipe out weeks of hard work.


Well…in order to change that tendency, this (in summary) is what J.B. suggest:


1)Increase caloric intake SLOWLY (by about 175 kcal/week), while at the same time increasing exercise expenditure.


2)Once your caloric intake has increased to a “true” or “calculated” (or, might I suggest “Massive Eating”) level AND the exercise is keeping the weight stable, one can slowly decrease the exercise expenditure, which allows the body to both adapt to this caloric level while establishing a new maintenace level.


VERY intriguing stuff, especially for the “fat hardgainer” that I am…so…let’s discuss this topic in order to get some varying thoughts on J.B.s approach.

2

If I were to do this now I think I would also add in something like 4-Ad-EC for a 6-8 week cycle to ensure that gains are mostly lean. I guess there are several approaches one could take to bring metabolism back up. I’ve tried this one before and it did not work very well for me. It seemed my body still tried to hold on to every single calorie I added over a long period of time. I do agree with the exercise recommendations though. What seemed to work better and faster for me as far as diet is concerned was a caloric and carbohydrate cycling type diet with 2 high cal/high carb days (maintenance + 20%) followed by a 2 low cal/low carb days and then 3 maint. cal/carb days with a gradual weekly increase on the low cal and maint cal days with the high cal days staying the same. This approach seemed to trick my body into boosting metabolic rate

3

Cool stuff, Kelly!


It SEEMS like there is a common thread; that is the need for some of us to have controlled re-feeds. In other words, no 2-3 days of IHOP, KFC and Krispy Creme! Is that the same with you?


Like I said…if not controlled, I can wipe out weeks of work in a couple of settings…

4

Interesting stuff. I am in the process of figuring this mess out. I’ve got a lot to say but I’ll get to it later. Just wanted to make sure I jump into this thread right away because I’m facing this issue right now.

5

Yeah Mufasa for me it’s a very controlled refeed consisting of a day of pretty much good high carb bodybuilding foods with maybe something like a bowl of kiddie cereal thrown in postworkout for good measure . Actually I don’t have any cravings to gorge myself on a big buffet or unlimited amounts of junk food…I haven’t done that in so long I don’t know how my body would react but I know it responds very well to the “controlled” refeed. I get an immediate boost in metabolic rate, energy, and usually even get leaner in the following days provided I eat sensibly.

6

It’s good to hear that others have had positive experience with planned overfeeding; this has always been the case for me; especially when taking calories very low with Mag-10 dieting. I have actually been working on an article called “The Cheater’s Diet,” for the past few weeks which will go over all the physiological benefits of controlled CHO overfeeding while dieting…should be interesting.

7

Recently, I’ve finally got my body fat under 10% for the first time. I was doing Renegade training and playing a lot of basketball, but my diet was less than ideal, which is unfortunate because if my diet was dialed in, I would have ripped a lot more fat off.

Anyway, I was getting motivated to put some more mass on, so I switched to 2 week MAG-10 bulking phase. This would have been a fine option if my diet was dialed in, but it just got worse. I got plenty of good food in, but I assumed that the MAG-10 would allow for a lot of unclean cals. WRONG!!!!

My first MAG-10 cycle, I added 12 lbs of LBM and dropped 1 lb of fat. My diet was dialed in. This time, I added about 5-6 lbs of LBM and 3-4 lbs of fat. Part of this was that my diet was not dialed in, my total work output dropped (less cardio type stuff and anaerobic circuits, which Renegade traininig is loaded with) and finally, I had not established my body fat set-point.

To maintain a bf% of less than 10%, my body needed a lot of exercise and a certain amount of cals. I cut a lot of exercise and I did not know how many cals I really needed, because I was not logging my calories.

Anyway, my weight plateaued during the second week and I cut my MAG-10 cycle short by 3 days to save the doses (that's a week at half a dose a day left - could come in handy near the end of a cutting cycle). I'm currently getting back into Renegade training and eating close to maintenance. My goals for the next 6 weeks or so (before my wife and I go to Maui :-) is to shed a few more fat lbs and get back into the swing of things (food, training log, planning meals, etc.).

I clearly believe that if I am going to new boundries in terms of body fat percentage, I'm going to need to reset my body for a while rather than jumping into a bulking stage. I've learned that my "free days" now have much more potential damaging effects than when I sported a body fat percentage in the teens.

Overall, interesting stuff. I'm really looking forward to reading JB's article if I ever get my copy. When is T-mag going to arrive on the West Coast???

8

Any more opinions on this topic?

9

I think a quote from many of my clients is appropriate for this one, and I quote, “I can’t seem to lose any weight even though I hardly eat anything.” I’m sure JB has heard this similar statement at some point. However, with many people this is not exactly the case. It usually goes more like this. Well, Saturday I ate half a pizza and drank a six-pack of beer(not before or after a workout)so Sunday I did really good, I only had a bowl of cereal the whole day and etc., etc. From my own observations this is a good description of the uneducated or maybe just lazy individual. My point, these wide caloric gaps in day to day living are not only metabolically, but hormonally confusing to the body and fat storage is sure to be enhanced. The answer, enough discipline to keep a food log, do the math and establish a true consistent baseline diet. Mr. Berardi is most definitely correct, calories are anabolic and the more that can be sustained the better.

10

I had a question about this in the insulin sensitivity thread, I thought that maybe people with poor IS could reset/shock it by upping their energy expenditure before and after bulking.

11

The bodyfat setpoint is a pretty complicated topic. From what material I’ve seen, it seems as if the bodyfat setpoint as it relates to the brain (levels of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin) can’t really be lowered although it can be raised. That isn’t to say that one can’t adapt to a higher calorie intake at a lower bodyfat %, but without outside interference levels of these neurotransmitters, even with long-term weight stabilization at a lower bf% will still appear the same as they appear in underfed/dieted individuals…even in people who have maintained their weight loss for as long as 2 years. What this means is it will likely always be more difficult to maintain a lower BF% as the body will want to revert back to what it feels is a normal homeostatic state.

12

I have read similar information as what you have presented here. I have also see a study referenced (Dont know the name) in which set-point was not reset lower even after 5 years.

13

Mufasa,

Several times you have alluded to having tendency to maintain fat, what’s your bodyfat?

Lyle McDonald (don’t quote me) has said that most people’s setpoint’s are between 10-12%. Even though I think Berardi is very intelligent and cutting edge when it comes to bulking, I think there are much better techniques to trick your body below your setpoint for short periods of time (competitions, vacations, summer) such as leptin refeed days (or meals) every 3-7 days depending how close to setpoint an individual is and how fast fat is coming off.

Like Kelly said this is very complicated and mostly conjecture at this point, pretty much I am just assimilating information from MFW and a leptin series I read on now titled “mind and muscles” e-mag.

14

You bring up some good points there with the issue of leptin. One reason I think periodic refeeds rather than gradual increases have worked better for me is because with the gradual caloric increases leptin levels are still going to be down until you hit what should be maintenance calories so until then the body is likely going to hang on to whatever increase in calories it gets over an extended period of time (at least this has been true in my case). But if you hit it hard and short with an above maintenance intake this gets leptin levels up but doesn’t keep calories high for long enough to lay down much fat, so in essence you’ve temporarily tricked the body and brain into thinking things are somewhat normal so it will be more apt to act normal during the days after the refeed instead of hanging on to every ounce.

15

This body fat set point issue isn’t too new IMHO. I think Dr. Colgan was experimenting with it ages ago in his Optimum Sports Nutrition book. From his tests he WAS able to lower the body’s fatpoint, but his methods never really worked for me. This new article by the Nutrition God, JMB, already looks hopefull in terms of sound nutritional/exercise theory. Hopefully with more studies/work on it, it’ll be clearer as to what methods generally work and what don’t…

16

I found the trick. Get dumped by a girl/boy friend. I go to the gym with more vision, fdget more (which I read is a common habit of thinner people, they fidget more) Second trick. Plan to go to a club where the two of you hung out, but schedule it for two weeks or 2 1/2 at the most. Gives you something to look forward to.