If you want to lose fat, you have to get uncomfortable.
Not the kind of message you’ll get from your celebrity fitness DVD or see on the label of your favorite fat burning supplement and for good reason: discomfort doesn’t sell supplements or DVDs. But the hard truth is you’ll get nowhere until you accept discomfort.
“You must become uncomfortable. Feeling good does not create change. Feeling uncomfortable creates change.”
Larry Winget
Diet and fitness books tell you what you want to hear; to look for ways of making exercise easier – to potter about in your garden until you work up a “light sweat”, to roll around on an over-inflated beach ball and to eat every two hours so you don’t get hungry.
Don’t want to sweat or get hungry? Poor baby!
You need to get hungry and you have to get uncomfortable. How else will you find out what true hunger feels like and how else will you send your body a strong enough signal for change when you workout?
If you want to believe that effective exercise involves a leisurely jog along a golden beach while you grin like a Cheshire cat on heat, and if you want to believe that you can buy a slimmer body over the counter of your local health food store, then be my guest. Just don’t expect to lose fat.
Discomfort is where progress starts and fatness ends.
When things start getting uncomfortable, you know you are on the right track.
I had to get really uncomfortable before I decided it was time to do something about my weight. The discomfort was very real, very personal, and very scary. Instead of running away from it, I faced it head on. I discovered it wasn’t so bad after all. For 46 years I tried to bury my discomfort with food. I fed it until it became a 320lb behemoth that I could no longer ignore.
“There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
John F. Kennedy
The good news is that once you accept discomfort, it gets easier. The more willing you are to accept discomfort, the easier losing fat becomes.
Diet books and magazines want you for a repeat customer. It’s in their interests to keep you fat. That’s why they set their word processors to find words like “uncomfortable”, “hard”, and “work” and replace them with words like “enjoy”, “easy”, and “relax” - words that give you a warm glow inside but do f**k-all for losing fat.
Did that make you feel uncomfortable? Good! We’re on the right track.
“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run…”
That’s about the best reason I’ve ever heard for running: no particular reason. You’ve got to love the simplicity of Gump’s thinking. He wasn’t running to lose weight, or for his health. If he were, his momma – who was wise beyond her years - would probably have put him right. Running is bad for your health and crap for weight loss.
“…so I ran to the end of the road.”
It seems that just thinking about losing weight flips a switch in peoples’ heads that gives them the overwhelming urge to run. Otherwise intelligent people start stumbling around the streets in shell suits and tight T-shirts, but all they get for their trouble is injuries and a potbelly.
“And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town.”
The Oxford Dictionary defines health as “the state of being free from illness or injury”. Does that sound like any runner you know? Does it? Really?
If you run, eventually you will get injured. Tapping a keyboard can give you repetitive strain injury, imagine how much damage you can do to your bones and joints by repeatedly striking a pavement with several times your bodyweight.
And please don’t be fooled into thinking that running shoes will save you. Running shoes are like the filter on a cigarette: they only reduce some of bad things – in this case impact forces - but not all of them. The big difference here is that cigarettes have a government warning on them. Maybe it’s time the government put a warning on running shoes?
Warning: running can seriously damage your health.
Or, maybe:
Warning: running shoes won’t stop injury but at least you’ll be trendy.
“And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County.”
When the little running switch in your head flips on, wellbeing is relegated to the dark recesses of your brain and “endorphin rush” and “enjoyable scenery” suddenly become your life’s purpose.
People tell me running helps take their mind off of their worries. Now, I fully understand the need to get away from the daily grind, but you can do this without guilt, injury, persistent colds, chest infections, comedy shorts, or expensive running shoes.
While we’re on the subject, there’s something I simply must get off my chest. Many fat people say they are too intimidated to use a gym - which I can understand to some degree. However, they don’t seem to mind mincing around the street in tight shorts and a headband looking like an extra from Shallow Hal. Now what’s THAT all about?
“And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going.”
And don’t tell me running is a fantastic calorie-burner because it ain’t.
The average marathon runner burns about 2800 calories. Now, 2800 might sound like a big number (and it is a big number if you place a “£” in front of it - well, it is to me), but when you consider a pound of fat packs a whopping 3500 calories things become a little clearer. It turns out that our marathon runner slogged away for 26 miles on the energy in a paltry 13 ounces of fat. That’s 13 ounces, NOT 13 pounds.
What’s more, our runner would use 300 calories if he just sat and watched the marathon on TV instead of running it. So those 2800 calories are really 2500 and that paltry 13 ounces of fat just dropped to 11 ½ ounces.
“I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going.”
You were designed to use energy efficiently; that’s how the human race survived. It’s also why you can run for half an hour on the calories in a jam donut. The same jam donut can keep your brain alive for 50 hours. Though, judging from the level of thought that many people seem capable of, I suspect that number is on the low side. I digress.
“When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”
If you still consider running a viable exercise, let me ask you this: Do you feel compelled to run after eating a “treat” to “burn it off”? I have two words for you: guilt absolution.
That’s the name for what you are doing when you try to absolve your feelings of guilt by running after eating a “forbidden” or “naughty” food.
Does this sound healthy to you?
Running will not make up for dietary indiscretions. What it will do, however, is reinforce indiscriminate eating.
Many runners I know binge eat. Despite what they believe, there aren’t enough hours in the day to run off the amount calories in the chocolate, pizza, and beer they binge on. How do I know? Because they’re fat.
Feeling guilty after eating, and compulsive exercise are unhealthy.
“I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours…
…I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now.”
That’s what I love about the producers of Forrest Gump: they keep it real. After running all that time, Forrest didn’t lose an ounce of fat. What’s that? He wasn’t injured, either? Don’t count on it. I’m waiting for the sequel where Forrest has double hip replacement surgery and tendonitis in his knees.
“If Arthur Jones were alive today, he’d walk into the nearest commercial gym and open fire with a machine gun!”
Best-selling fitness author, Ellington Darden, is angry that Arthur Jones’ legacy is in danger of being forgotten.
From the early 70’s, Darden worked closely with Jones, who was the genius behind the Nautilus exercise machines that revolutionized the fitness industry.
The Present State of The Fitness Industry
“The fitness industry is in a mess”, says Darden, glaring at me across his desk. “Much of what Arthur Jones stood for is in danger of being lost.”
I was on holiday in Orlando and earlier that day Dr Darden invited me to his house for a chat. A few hours later, we were sitting in the study of his beautiful Florida home.
One half of the room is a fully equipped Nautilus gym with framed book covers and magazine articles hanging on the walls. The other half of the room is an executive office that looks out onto a private lake. Bookcases crammed with fitness books spanning several decades line the office walls.
“Toward the end of his life, Arthur was worried that he wouldn’t be remembered”, says Darden. It’s a legitimate concern. By 1984, Nautilus had become a household name and could be found in more than 3000 gyms; today most gym-goers are not familiar with the brand, yet alone the exercise principles that Jones and Darden promoted along with the Nautilus machines.
Jones' Work Lives On
However, Arthur Jones’ work lives on through Darden’s books - books that changed the way I thought about exercise and diet. He was the first author I read who promoted the idea of building muscle to lose fat - a method I employed to lose 140lb.
We spent a fascinating couple of hours discussing Arthur Jones, exercise, diet, and the state of the publishing industry before Ellington kindly gave me a signed copy of his latest book "The New Bodybuilding for Old-School Results".
“I’m old-school”, he says, “I believe in hard work and discipline because that’s what’s required for best possible results” – a message that’s reinforced throughout the book.
“It’s the best book I’ve ever written”, says Darden. That’s saying something, considering he’s published 49 books and sold over five million.
It’s clear that "The New Bodybuilding for Old-School Results" is a labour of love for Ellington. It’s the distillation of 45 years of hands-on experience in the iron game. It’s one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of high intensity exercise. For anyone who wants a comprehensive look at the history, characters, and principles of effective exercise and how to apply them to their training, it’s second to none.
Long, Lean Muscles
Shortly before I left, Ellington introduced me to his lovely wife, Jeanenne. Jeanenne, as Ellington points out, has fantastic genetics for strength training. She was an athlete in college and took to brief, high intensity workouts like a duck to water – and it shows. She has long, lean muscles most women would die for - disproving the common misconception that lifting anything heavier than light dumbbells will make women muscle-bound.
Jeanenne very kindly took a couple of snaps of Ellington and me standing in his gym and I departed for Orlando.
Driving back, I couldn’t help wondering if Arthur Jones’ contribution to the world of fitness would be lost forever. I sincerely hope not.
You got fat by eating too much. Ask anyone – fat people, thin people, and anyone in between - they all know you get fat by eating more food than you need. If you are honest with yourself, so do you.
No one is forcing you to eat food that makes you fat. You choose to eat it. And never mind that your brother, sister, or best friend can eat as much crap as they like and look like a cover model. You can’t. Wishing you could pig out on chocolate and beer and still look like Brad Pitt won’t make it so – not even if you are Brad Pitt.
Let me ask you this: even if you are “big-boned”, have some “glandular problem”, or you believe there’s some celestial being crushing your will to resist every time you see a donut, what are you going to do about it?
You see, even if these things were true, nobody else can help you with them. It’s up to you.
My Very Own “Glandular Problem”
I have diabetes. I inject insulin daily. Insulin makes you hungry. This makes losing fat “more challenging” as my doctor eloquently put it.
If I misjudge the dose and take too much insulin I have to eat more food or I will end up in hospital or worse.
As I lost fat, my body needed less insulin. This meant adjusting my injections. But sometimes I took too much insulin and had to eat more food. It would have been easy to give up in the face of this, but I accepted that I might not lose any fat some weeks and carried on.
I didn’t choose to have diabetes, but I did choose not to let it stop me losing fat. It was my choice.
It’s Up To You
Taking responsibility is the first step towards losing fat. You have to take responsibility for what you are putting into your mouth, and you have to take responsibility for exercising.
Don’t let anyone tell you different.
The world is full of people who will take your money for telling you that it’s not your fault, that all you need is their special diet or supplement or workout. None of it works; the work has to come from you. That work starts by making a decision to change.
Decide now to be thin and follow through with action. If you don’t, that’s your choice.
In a previous post, I listed the core workout I used to lose 140lb:
Leg Press
Chest Press
Pulldown
Shoulder Press
Biceps Curl
Abdominal Crunch
With just one set of six exercises, this workout takes a fraction of the time most guys spend in the gym. But make no mistake about it, this is no easy ride.
Here are some guidelines on how to go about it:
For the first 4 workouts (weeks 1 & 2), concentrate on learning good form: proper body alignment, controlling the speed of your reps, comfortable stretch, correct hand/foot placement, and correct resistance on each machine.
Familiarize yourself with the machine settings.
Use a slow rep speed with the emphasis on completing a full range of motion.
To stimulate growth, you need to overload your muscles along the full range of each exercise. This can only be achieved by moving the resistance slowly to minimize momentum.
Use a weight that allows you to perform 5 perfect reps with the last rep being fairly challenging.
Don't be too concerned with trying to rush between machines at this point.
On exercises marked in red hold for a 2-second pause in the top (contracted) position.
On exercises marked in black avoid locking out. Reverse the movement when you get to one inch before lockout.
From week 3 onwards, use enough weight so that you reach muscular failure between 3 and 5 reps.
Failure means that you cannot get another rep without compromising your form. Each successive rep will fatigue the muscles until – between rep 3 and 5 – it becomes impossible to get another rep. Despite your best efforts, all upward movement will cease. At this point, push as hard as you can for 2 seconds. Then lower the weight slowly and the set is done.
When you can get 5 reps in any exercise, increase the weight by 5lb the next workout. This may reduce your reps to 3, or you might even get 5 reps - but don't stop just because you get to 5. Keep going until you fail.
Take approximately 6 seconds on both the lifting and the lowering of each exercise.
Take a full second for the first inch of upward movement. This will ensure that you don't blast out of the stretched position and hurt yourself. It will also make the rest of the rep easier to control.
The only thing that matters in the whole wide world is the rep you are on.
Every sloppy rep and every abandoned set is an opportunity missed.
Here’s a couple of videos of Matt Bentley performing reps in the recommended style:
Try to move quickly from one machine to the next. As you get fitter, you will be able to reduce the time between each machine. Do not, however, start the next exercise until your breathing has almost returned to normal.
Keep a record of every workout. Record the number of reps after each exercise.
Write the weight against each exercise before your next workout.
Train twice a week and space the workouts at least two days apart. For example, Monday and Friday, or Tuesday and Saturday.
Do not perform any other exercise between workouts. No aerobics, no weights, no running, no calisthenics - just your normal daily activities. You will not get the best out of this program if you exercise more than recommended.
Take no notice of what you see other people doing in any gym - most people are there for social reasons!
The Finer Points
The most important thing about exercise is QUALITY not quantity. Quality reps, quality exercises, quality time in the gym.
Each rep will take you closer to your goal, but to get there you will have to fight. This is where you will find out just how badly you want to change or not.
As lactic acid builds up, a few things are going to happen.
Your mind will be screaming for you to stop. This is normal. Suck it up and carry on.
The impulse to shift around in the seat and speed up the reps will grow stronger - don’t! Suck it up and carry on.
You will want to hold your breath – don’t! Breath freely. Pant and get plenty of oxygen.
Your mind is going to want to drift off somewhere pleasant (which, at this point in the set, will be anywhere but the gym). Steel yourself and concentrate hard.
This style of training takes discipline, concentration, and effort. The good news is, if you give it your all you will be rewarded with the best possible results.
“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never…. In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions or honour and good sense!”
When it comes to exercise, we have been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, "Which exercise burns the most calories?" we should be asking, "Which exercise increases calorie-burning power?"
"The reason 95 percent of today’s diets fail to keep your weight off", say Vash, Zak, and Carlin, in their book ‘The Fat to Muscle Diet’, "is that they cause you to lose muscle tissue along with your fat. These muscle losses are critical. They slow down your metabolism and reduce your calorie-burning power."
The solution to this problem is to prevent muscle loss so your metabolism doesn’t have a chance to slow down. Strength training is the only exercise that can do this.
Strength Training Increases Metabolism
Strength training not only prevents muscle loss, it can also promote muscle gain. When you gain muscle, you increase your calorie-burning power.
What about combining strength training with aerobics to increase the calorie-burning benefits? Unfortunately, this causes overtraining and leads to muscle loss.
A more effective way of building muscle and cardiovascular fitness is high-intensity strength training with short rest periods between sets.
My Fat Loss Workout
Here’s the high-intensity strength training workout I used to shed over 140lb of fat:
Leg Press
Chest Press
Pulldown
Shoulder Press
Biceps Curl
Abdominal Crunch
On Mondays and Fridays, I performed one set of 3 to 5 slow repetitions on each exercise. Anytime I got 5 repetitions on an exercise, I increased the resistance.
At first, this workout took 30-minutes to complete. I can now complete the same workout in 15-minutes using more resistance on each exercise.
This workout, along with a reduction in food, led to consistent weekly fat losses. My weight didn’t plateau, and I didn’t need to reduce my food further. I was able to do this because I increased my calorie-burning power by getting stronger.
My Weekly Weight Loss
An Elegant Solution
If you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong solution. To be able to ask the right question, you need to understand the problem. The problem is not a lack of aerobics; the problem is diet-induced muscle loss. The solution is strength training.
My friend asked a doctor who was running on a treadmill why he never saw him in the weight room. The doctor said it was because he wanted to lose weight.
“Weight” being the operative word because when my friend told him that dieting and running would cause him to lose muscle, the doctor said he didn’t care as long as the weight came off.
This is a sentiment shared by many dieters. They don’t care what their weight loss is comprised of – fat, muscle, bone, brain tissue – as long as the number on the scale goes down.
Muscle Loss Slows Down Your Metabolism
Muscle losses slow down your metabolism and reduce your calorie-burning power. This makes fat gain much easier. As the number on the scale falls, the chance of you regaining the weight increases.
The only way to prevent these muscle losses is strength training.
The number on the scale tells you nothing about muscle mass, or how you look, and it won’t tell you when your tendency to get fat is increasing.
