The Adler Blog

Well, it has been a bit quiet here, but I have been away celebrating
with my other half (of 16 years!) in Venice, Italy.
Enjoying amazing food, actual REST, mental rest, and yes, even several
high fat desserts!

Breaks are important.
Refueling- refreshing- resetting.
Everyone MUST take them occassionally.
Maik will have more to say and explain on this, the how and why, a bit
later.

For now- you see these baseline post vacation shots- and what I am
thinking!
So it’s time to get back into te groove of Shape Up!

Thanks and until next time. . .

Scott and Maik

This is a pretty hotly contested topic amongst dieters so I thought we should address it. There are a plethora of diet shakes flooding the market: Slim fast, Oprah’s new shake, Atkins shakes and the list goes on. Most of them contain some protein (often the cheap kind) a mix of vitamins and sugars, coloring agents, etc.
So do they work for weight loss? Not so well, I am afraid.
While protein shakes are a great asset for every athlete in order to make sure there is enough protein in his diet, they don’t work too well for weight loss purposes.
The reason is not only that the nutritional quality of most of these products is poor, but also that shakes do not satisfy your appetite for a long time. The vitamin mixes are unbalanced and they contain no fiber, which is the substance that will keep you satisfied and full during your diet.
Compared to foods like brown rice or chicken they take up very little stomach volume and are digested much quicker, meaning the athlete will suffer more hunger pangs.
The average American consumes about one third of his calories in liquid form, which is one of the reasons why the nation is facing an obesity epidemic (hello fruit smoothie!) Liquid calories are much easier to consume than whole foods, making it harder to keep track of your actual intake.
If you rely on shakes, you will simply never learn how to prepare foods in order to lose weight. A liquid crash diet will create weight loss, but it will be mostly muscle that is lost since your metabolism shuts down within days. As soon as the dieter goes on a more sustainable lifestyle, every calorie consumed will be stored as fat because his body assumes that a horrible famine has just passed and it wants to be prepared for the next one. This sets up the dreaded yo-yo effect and it is the single reason why 90+% of all dieters gain the weight back and then some. They simply destroyed their metabolisms with crash diets.
Also, whole foods require more digestive work than liquids do, so they use up energy and keep the metabolism elevated. Studies have shown that test subjects consume twelve to twenty percent more calories when they consumed a liquid food as opposed to eating a solid meal. Their hunger responses were also worse, even the day after the liquid meal.
Whole foods also provide a wide array of phytonutrients which simply can’t be duplicated as of yet. These nutrients will help to ensure optimal health and maximum fat loss. If you are very time-constricted and you simply have to use a shake, try to find some high-end whey protein and add some fats in the form of nuts or oil to it, which will increase satiety and slow down digestion. If you are on a very strict weight loss diet, just have some steamed vegetables with it—albeit not very tasty, the fiber will keep you full without adding any considerable calories.

Ok, now that everybody is reading the blog, on to today’s subject: the cheat meal. What is it, what does it do, should it be done?

A cheat meal is, by definition, a meal where the dieter steps away from his meal plan (in a controlled manner). This can be a helpful addition to any diet for several reasons. The first one is psychological; most people simply don’t look forward to eating the same foods for 16-20 weeks in a row. Bodybuilders and physique athletes have unbelievable will power, and even for them it is hard to follow through. Now, posing on a stage with 3% body fat is not the average person’s goal so, we need to find another motivational factor. A cheat meal once or twice a week, depending on how lean the person is, can help tremendously to break the monotony. It is also helpful to plan the cheat meal on the day of a Christmas party, wedding, or just a dinner out.

Most people stay so fixated on their diet and do everything so perfectly, that if they slip only once, they tend to give up altogether. A cheat meal makes it easier to get back on the wagon.

This is the mind aspect, but what about the body? Doesn’t a cheat meal destroy all my efforts? Well, it can but it can also be very helpful if used properly. Now, let me be very clear here. A single meal can absolutely set you back in your dieting efforts. The average American eats 3500 calories on Thanksgiving; that is one pound of fat.

But a properly planned cheat meal can actually make you leaner. How? Glad you asked. Once you start dieting, your body uses fats for energy and you keep getting leaner, right? Not quite. As you go along, your body realizes that you are in a (self-inflicted) famine and it starts to protect you.

Unfortunately, we haven’t evolved much from the Stone Age where every calorie mattered for survival. Your body will down-regulate your metabolism, lower your growth and thyroid hormone levels and start burning muscle mass. All this will set you up for an ungodly diet rebound (yo-yo effect).

So the way out is the cheat meal, which ideally is a high-carb, low fat dish such as whole wheat pasta with chicken or sushi to up-regulate your metabolism and put you in a better mood.

How often should you have a cheat meal? Women over 30% and men over 20 % body fat, once every 10 days. Numbers below that, once every seven days. If you are under 10% (male) or 18% (female) body fat, you can have a cheat meal every 5 days.

The leaner you are, the more often you get to cheat. Another reason to get lean!

Till next time,

Scott and Maik