A Life of Fitness

I've been meaning to write about living a life of fitness after a recent lunch with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey where we discussed what it meant to tackle health care through a whole approach to fit living (you might have seen the national outcry over his WSJ editorial, which published a few weeks after our lunch).  And I was further pushed when  I got out of the gym this morning thinking about what Shawn Philips said about how hard it is to lose a pound of fat.  It is tough, but only if viewed through the lens of "I need to lose it today."  Expectations can be angels or demons so proceed with caution. It is far better, as he points out, to view diet, exercise and nutrition goals as a lifelong, long-term pursuit.  Goal number one is always sustainability: what can I do this week that I can still be doing 52 weeks from now?  Whatever that is, find it and work it.  There's no nutrition or wellness goal on the planet that you can't meet in a year if you take tiny weekly steps toward it.

So I list below a synopsis of what I think is a really sensible fitness plan.

Rule 1: Know your caloric markers: resting metabolic rate and total metabolic rate (which accounts for your average level of activity).  Better yet, also know your body fat, your blood pressure, your lean body mass, your body water composition and your cholesterol.

Rule 2: Burn fat, not muscle.  A pound of bodyfat is 3,500 calories.  The average body can be in a 500 calorie/day deficit without burning muscle, assuming you are lifting weights every 48 hours and keeping your blood amino acid level constantly saturated.  Which means you should eat protein with every meal, 5-6 meals a day. So if you move your body into a caloric deficit of 500 calories daily you can burn 3,500 calories during the week. One pound of body fat loss per week will get you to cover model status by next Summer, I don't care how overweight you are.  But the point is to avoid yo-yo dieting we aim to burn fat, not muscle, which sets your RMR (your muscle mass is like your constantly-idling engine).

Rule 3: Resistance exercise 3x/week.  Lift weights.  I'll repeat: Your muscle mass sets your resting metabolic rate.  If you don't want to yo-yo diet, you have to lift weights to keep your RMR up while you are in a caloric deficit.  There's no substitute for muscle.  Ladies, you won't get bulky.  You don't have the testosterone to get bulky.  Lift weights, lift heavy.  There's no such thing as toning in the gym, it's a myth.

Rule 4: Eat 5-6x/day, small meals.  Take your targeted daily caloric intake and divide by 5 or 6 and that's the average meal size.  After a few months of doing this you'll probably be able to estimate fairly accurately how many calories a meal has.  I eat 6x/day and am a steady Full Strength client.  Shawn's product is the best on the market (in my opinion) and I use it 2x/day, every day except Sunday.

Rule 5: Eat lean protein and complex carbs.  Cut out the simple carbs in the diet, all the whites: sugar, white bread, juices, white pasta etc.  If you focus on lean protein like chicken, egg whites, fish, pork, and top sirloin, and carbs from whole grains and vegetables, and attempt to cut out most of the fat in your diet you'll still end up at about 20% fat intake, which is a great place to be for most. You can also supplement with essential fatty acids, fish oil, olive oil and flaxseed oil etc.

Rule 6: Drink a gallon of water a day.  I don't, but I do get close.  You can cut 2% of your body fat by doing nothing but this one.  You'll also find you are less hungry (dehydration is mistaken as hunger) and have more energy and focus.

Rule 7: Get your heart rate up.  If you're doing all the other 6 rules than this one is going to help you burn more fat and keep your cardiovascular health in shape, so just do something you love.  Biking, running, fast walking, sports, skiing, whatever.  This is the one that people either do and then screw up the rest of the rules or they don't do this one because they hate it.  I get it.  Find something you like to do.  I used to love sprinting around the bases, but I don't really like running every morning on the treadmill (intervals, technically).  So I used something else I like to do in the morning as my routine pillar: 5 days/week I interval train on my treadmill while reading the Wall Street Journal on my Kindle.  I absorb so much of what's going on around the world that I often forget I'm running.

Finally, remember that 70% of the fitness life is made or broken in the kitchen.  Exercise is awesome but if you are not eating right than you're not living fit.  It's that simple.

Much love,

Robb