Cliff notes

The bodies energy system
-Metabolism, Ketosis and the "Crisis Mode"
-The "Starvation Mode"
-Fat people aren't necessarily gaining weight
-The nutrient deficient obese
-Why do so many of us naturally over eat?

Fasts and Diets
-The difference between a diet and a fast
-Origins of the "Fast" and the disfigured face
-Vitamins, minerals, essential amino/fatty acids
-Why do diets fail?
-Counting calories is a lot of work

Knowing your weight
-What do you weigh this second
-What is your body fat %
-Most scales are not accurate but consistency is what's needed
-Pizza and periods
-Mean, the tool for knowing your weight

Weight reduction
Moderate fasting
Pig-out fasting
Breakfast, clearing out the gut
Don't go bonk on your liver
Vitamin pill after your polysaccharides
Dextrose pill, a fasters amphetamine
Caffeine rocks but don't forget the water
The hardest part happens while unconscious
Breaking fast, don't go loco
The days off, 50 over, over 50 under

Exercise
Building muscle makes your fat look fatter
Exercising isn't easier than fasting
Atrophied muscles don't do shizha
The minimum is plenty
A little aerobic, a little resistance, or a lot

Weight maintenance
French women don't gain weight, but we're
    not all French women
Diligent data recording
Don't forget to move
Have your 3 pieces of cake and eat it too
Antifood is unhealthy as a staple
Cliff notes

Please pardon the dust:
Work in progress

The bodies energy system

Metabolism, Ketosis and the "Crisis Mode"

Metabolism is the chemical process of creating and maintaining the cells that constitute our body. The two opposite phases of metabolism are anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism is the building of fat, mussel or any of the vast types of cells that make up a human. When the cell or organ is in the anabolism phase it is building up it's structure or maintaining that structure using simpler molecules or chemical energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate. In the catabolism phase the body consumes itself for energy. The type of catabolism that concerns the person interested in losing weight is lipolysis for this is when that ugly fat is broken into usable fatty acids. When the body releases fatty acids from the adipose tissue ketosis ensues. Ketosis is the process when the liver produces ketone bodies which enables the fatty acids to be broken down into usable energy. Ketosis should not be confused with ketoacidosis which is a harmful state of reduced blood PH, that occurs when people water fast for more than three days. Ketosis is a natural and essential temporary state for human beings especially when they want to lose body fat. Ketoacidosis is sometimes associated with the "starvation mode", but for my proposes Ketoacidosis should be considered "crisis mode"

The "starvation mode."

There is a terrible way to slow down ones metabolism. The less calories one consumes the slower the metabolism becomes, commonly known as "starvation mode." This developed through evolution as a protection against starvation because when less food was available the body naturally slows down critical functions to preserve itself. Most dieters therefore have slowed their metabolism down by "slightly" starving themself on a day to day basis. The most obvious proof of this is the fact that the first week of a reduced calorie diet is the most productive. To demonstrate why this is so, consider the following theoretical scenario. A person who's metabolism is "maxed out" because they burn 2500 calories a day and consumes 2500 calories a day will maintain their body weight. If they want to loss weight they have to create a net loss of calories so the body is forced to turn the fat in their body into useable energy. Without any change in activity they may reduce their caloric intake by 500 calories a day which equates to a net lose of 3500 calories a week. That would mean they lost a pound of fat that week. The problem is by the end of the week the body has registered that it has been continuously consuming it's fat for energy. Because the body doesn't have a mind of it's own it doesn't know that the mind plans to resume a normal diet when it's goal is met. The body begins to slow down normal functions to conserve energy thereby changing the amount of calories consumed a day from 2500 to 2300. That is turn changes the net loss of 3500 to 2100 changing the loss of 1 pound to about 2/3. This extends the amount of time an individual is eating less than they would like to and senselessly puts continuous and extended stress on the body.

Fat people aren't necessarily gaining weight.

If you're reading this you are most likely like so many of us in the modern world. One day we woke up, stood naked before a mirror and were baffled at how much we hated our body. How did this happen? At what point did that cookie turn into umpteen pounds of grotesque flab? We blame it on the holidays and unnecessarily associate good family times with becoming a blob monster. The truth is that weight fluctuations are a perfectly normal occurrence. Fat is an organ that is essential for anyone who isn't being feed by drip tube. No one on earth takes the exact same number of steps every day and eats the exact same food at the exact same time. Some days we take an extra step and other days we eat an extra calorie. If fat didn't exist the day we took the extra step our body would cannibalize organs that were never intended for energy. Obviously overweight individuals had many days where they took one few to many steps and packed in an extra calorie. Most weight gain is a gradual process of minute additions of fat until that dreaded day in front of the mirror comes and we decide that it's time for months of moderate starvation.

But if when we stand in front of the mirror, we think of how many times we have tried to loose weight and the dreaded months of rice cakes and skim milk, we may just chose to put on some baggy cloths and lie to ourselves. The truth is that we are no longer gaining weight, we are maintaining extra weight. If we were to continue to gain weight we would eventually explode like the man in the Monty Python restaurant. The important question to ask yourself is why you have chosen to maintain an unhealthy weight when you could be just as active and eating the same amount (even more, if you've forced you metabolism to slow) at a healthy weight. Cookies do not cause a person to gain weight, a continued surpluses of calories do.

The nutritionally deficient obese.

Most people that are over weight have the desire to loose that weight. Even the moderately heavy person easily carries around a cinder block worth of weight around with them everywhere they go. Like anorexia, obesity is uncomfortable, increases health risks, decreases performance and has extreme negative philological effects. What's shocking is that many obese people starve themselves a majority of the time. If a person is eating half of there energy needs 90% of the time and gorging the other 10, the body will slow vital functions down preparing for the famine. The gorge day's give the body more opportunity to receive the essential nutrients but if it's only 10% of the time it makes little difference because the body needs access a majority of the time. Most people that eat a significant amount of food regardless of what that food is as long as the variety is vast enough, have no need for the vitamin pill. The vitamins and minerals found throughout the spectrum of food is a much better way of body receiving them because they are then spread out throughout the entire digestion process, instead of one lump "continued release" sum.

Why do so many of us naturally over eat?

The last mutation in the human species happened some 150 thousand years ago. Since that time we have not physically changed. Advances in recording data, logic, technology, science, language, philosophy and art were not a product of evolution, rather they were a product of blood, sweat and midnight oil. The Neolithic revolution occurred roughly 15 thousand years ago, which provided the human species with the ability to be more independent from it's environment. It's a brand new skill in our history which developed through trial and error and gave us the ability to produce our own food, preserve and store it. The ability to have more food than we know what to do with is a microsecond in the long journey from our divergence from the other apes. For most of homo sapiens existence we have been hunter gathers. Without the knowledge of cooking or preserving food we must have run into massive problems in the landscape.

When we made the kill or picked the berries, the food started to decompose immediately. At that time we didn't have the vast knowledge of food preservation that we have today. The easiest way to keep the food from turning into a pile of rotten garbage was to gorge. For every 3500 calories extra we take in, we turn that into a pound of fat. Through a myriad of chemical processes our bodies convert excess food into living fat of our bodies. Fat is very useful as an energy storage facility. If we had to rely on carbohydrates instead of fat as an energy store, we would have to carry 6 times the amount of weight on our bodies. When we gain weight it's our natural way of carrying a deep freezer full of meals. If we were unsuccessful on the kill or the berries bore no fruit our bodies were more than happy to consume itself. Nearly all animals in the wild gorge themselves when the opportunity presents itself. Unfortunately for us, this evolutionary instinct is no longer needed because nearly all of us in the developed world never know the experience of a food source interruption. The reason most of us have a high calorie sweat tooth is because those items offered the most reward in the hunting gathering situation. The payoff for a pound of fatty meat massively outweighed the equivalent in celery. Our ancestors most likely ate whatever and as much as they could, to build up a reserve and those people had a huge survival advantage to the skinny Minnie during the random pressures of famine.

Fasts and Diets

The difference between a diet and a fast

Everyone is on a diet. A diet is simply the usual food and beverages a person consumes. If your lucky enough, you ether go out to 5 star restaurants every day and never eat the same the same 12 course meal twice. Or you eat the same thing every day which consists of a perfectly balanced food group specifically designed by a legion of doctors for your specific needs. Ether way, both legitimately can be called diets. A diet of Twinkies and ho-ho's is a diet, albeit a poor one. I don't think there actually is a perfect diet for the human race. Some families have been eating nothin' but muktuk and the more recent PETA people have indulged in light tofu dogs. In my unprofessional opinion, as long as an individual consumes all the essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids from real food sources, not pills, they should be able to maintain perfect health. I imagine it's a good idea to get an even spread of protein, fat and carbohydrates but the elusive "perfect ratio" doesn't seem to exist.

Fasts are usually misunderstood as being a period of time a person takes in nothing but water. A fast is simply a conscious reduction, restriction or elimination of a food or beverage from the diet. An unusual perspective is that nearly all people are on a fast of some sort. I do not eat cow brains. Cow brains are apparently delicious and have a tantalizing mouth play. I'm fasting from cow brains because of silly naturalstitious reasons, I don't want to eat what another animal used to think. I have no problem eating what they used to move or filter their blood with but I can't bare to think of eating a thinking thing. Most people that are "dieting" are actually performing a reduced calorie fast. If your metabolism and energy expenditure = X and you eat less than X you are fasting. Their is a law of physics, you can't get something from nothing, that causes fasts to work for weight loss. If your body is burning X and you don't put all of X in you belly, your body is going to get the deficit by eating itself. This is a good thing if you want to lose weight but a nightmare for those that are starving to death.

Origins of the fast and the disfigured face.

When someone says the word fast one of two scenarios usually come to mind, political statements or religious ritual. In the Bahá'í faith fasting is used to focused and enliven that which dwells within the sub inner inner body. Some Buddhist fast during parts of the day but the majority of Buddhists think that fasting is a way to get attention, and since the Buddhist strive to be as transparent as possible they feel that simply dressing in Orange suffices. Jews fast according to Old testament and Rabbinic law for atonement from sin and commemorative mourning and gratitude. The Christians who rebelled against their Jewish roots, concluded that the Jews were fasting from food but still enjoying the day which apparently is bad. (Isaiah 58:3-4) Jesus declared that magic and fasting were useful in casting out demons. (Matthew 17:17-21) The Pharisees who regularly fasted wondered why the disciples did not fast and asked Jesus. He answered, "Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old wineskins; else the new wine will burst the skins, and be spilled, and the wineskins shall perish. But new wine must be put into new wineskins; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." Some Hindus fast on Thursdays. After they break their fast, they worship the banana tree, where yellow cloths and cook with clarified yellow cow ghee. Ramadan is probably the most famous of all fasts. During the 9th month of the Islamic calendar, Muslims fast during daylight hours. They do this as a submission to their belief in god and a sacrifice that "helps" those who can not help but go without.

I imagine at some point in the past when our God fearing ancestors ran out of things to sacrifice to the Gods, to insure good fortune, rain and plenty of food, they made negative offerings. There had to have been a time when the asset of children outweighed the "benefit" of murdering them. I can even imagine that the superstitious mind might have thought that running out of food and having to endure a hardship was a message from the Gods and so in times of prosperity, when there was no worry of death from starvation, a total fast would have been good magic to practice. If a god saw that a believer was willing to with abstain from food, water and sex when food, water and babes/studs were plentiful, that would have been a tremendous offering of nothing.

In the arena of political statements, fasting is nothing more than a slow suicide threat. Unfortunately, those that find that their fasting doesn't have a changing effect on the situation, will suffer from brain deficiencies toward the end of their fast, as the mind is forced to run off of solvents instead of glucose. This produces the curious effect of the protester being less able to think about that which one protests.

Vitamins, minerals, essential amino/fatty acids

The body is a master alchemist capable of making nearly all of the chemicals it needs for healthy functioning. There are a few molecules it can't conjure and a few elements it needs in trace amounts. With all the promotion and supplementation of these substances in our diets it's hard to imagine that any of our ancestors were healthy. Ironically even though our ancestors had shorter life expectancies they were much more healthy than the average Joe of present time. That's because of something they were missing from their diet, namely the uncountable cocktail of synthetic chemicals that find their way into our body. It's best to wash your hands before you eat that sugar free cookie. How did the people of the past stay healthy without the megavitamin pill? All they had to do was eat a substantial quantity and enough of a variety of food. The body is quite capable of storing the elements it needs in trace quantities and as long as the majority of food are things that contain DNA, one is bound to run into all the essentials.

Most of the problems associated with deficiencies involving vitamins, minerals and essential acids are from an involuntary lack of access due to economic or social problems. This is usually accompanied by the lack of basic elements such as clean H20, protein, fat and carbohydrate. What's ironic is that the other common problem found with vitamins, minerals and essential acids is an over use of them from dietary supplements. With nearly all of our food supplemented, I wonder if there is a vitamin pill that is consciously made without the inclusion of the over fortified compounds. Another problem associated with the essentials comes from fad diets that over value certain compounds which causes the body problems assimilated other elements. Just because some Vitamin C is good does not mean 3 pounds a day is. There are times of illness or life phases when a vitamin, mineral or essential acid are needed more. During these times the compounds take on the role of a medicine not a nutrient.

Why do diets fail?

It's obvious that not all weight loss diets fail. Weight Watchers is probably the most famous diet and is probably the most healthy. I've watched as several members of my family go to the 12 step meetings and learn how to not enjoy their natural enjoyment of overindulgence. The whole process becomes a huge part of the lives of the adherents as they pay more attention to points than the mindless enjoyment of mouth play. Most reduced calorie diets have finally adapted to including the treats nearly all of us love. The candy bar and burger can be eaten, counted, and effects the rest of the days plan. Weight Watchers considers itself healthy because it is based off of the USDA food pyramid. But there is no hiding the fact that over the years the pyramid has continuously morphed from a right regular base to the oblique irregular shape it is today. Granted it's only irregular if you look at the starches as a base side with the oils and sweets painfully contorting the volume into something that looks more like a lumpy swoosh than an Egyptian monument. I am in no way claiming that a strict diet of dominoes sugar and lard would be a good one but I do question the belief that most of our calories should come grain. I don't think there is a "perfect" diet. They're certainly are bad food choices, namely the liquid drug formerly known as Coke. Cola actually has to have carbonation, not because the bubbles are fun but because carbonation thins out the liquid so more sugar can be packed into the beverage. My weight watching family has gone overboard on aspartame, acesulfame potassium and phosphoric acid because they believe that sugar is bad for them. A little coke isn't bad for you, but then again a little heroin isn't ether.

The opposite, but just as difficult, diets to maintain are the fabulous fads. Cabbage soup gas explosion, Grape fruit, Russian air force, Amputation and who could forget the heart attack inducing Atkins diet. These diets severely deplete, over an extended period of time, the amount of calories or totally eliminates certain natural things. Both of these approaches decreases the spectrum of food sources creating opportunities for deficiencies. It's easy to understand why fad diets fail for the body will protest the mind demanding a carb or a chunk of amino acidic meat. But why would a "full spectrum" diet fail? Most failed dieters will blame that their will just wasn't strong enough, "It all started with that second piece of chocolate cake at thanks giving." We eat that five thousand calorie meal and what seems like an instantaneous transformation we have a half pound of chunk added to our belt. We live with that chunk and another chocolate cake occasion occurs and we live with a chunk squared. Christmas comes around and that chunk has damn near cube itself and the little voice in the back of our mind condemns our failure. We avoid the scale and mirrors. We live with this self hate and feel guilty when we eat anything that tastes good. Eventually we come to the conclusion that we need to diet, yet again, and prepare ourselves for months of difficult restraint. Or worse we say that the task is just too much, that dieting for the Em-hundredth time is a futile endeavor and it's easier to change our mind to love being fat than it is mind to eliminate the dangerous excessive fat on our body.

Counting calories is a lot of work

Keeping track of daily calorie intake is a part time job. Unless you're eating Nutra-system morning, lunch and dinner the act of adding up all the calories from a home cooked mean is a feat. How much milk was in that sauce I made for three? How many nuts got into that chicken dish? Even when eating out it's rare that the calories for the food is easily accessible. People will look at you weird when you order the fries and a calorie list. With internet access or a calorie book one may become a good judge at guessing calories but even an educated guess is still a guess. Perhaps some day we'll all have triquarters able to scan our food and give a read out. Then maintaining a diet will be a piece of cake. Until then educate your guesses and be honest to yourself.

Knowing your weight

What do you weigh this second?

Watching people around the water cooler lining up to weigh themselves on the offices new digital scale with readings out to the tenths of a pound is a fascinating ordeal. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they weight themselves. Will the person take off their shoes, excuse themselves to the bathroom first or will they contest the readout claiming the scale inferior? Most weight loss professionals believe that it isn't a good idea to check one's weight every day. The idea behind this is that the only thing that it will register are fluctuations in water weight and that knowledge will sabotage the dieter. The same problem presents itself when an individual weighs themselves once a week or once a month. It's quite easy for the body to fluctuate several pounds in water weight so if a person is torturing themselves with a diet all month long and steps on the scale with a retention of a few pounds of water they might have actually lost a pound of fat that month but register no change on the scale. That's far more discouraging than weighing yourself every day and see fluctuations.

So what is the perfect second to step on the scale? The answer is quite simple, there is none. Every day of our lives are unique, even if we try to do the exact same thing, there will be a few more or less breaths releasing or conserving precious water vapor, a gram or two variation of salt effecting water retention, among many other factors which constantly vary the mass of our body and the attraction to the core of earth. After a good hair cut a person can loose a half a pound. The bald person who removed their shoes will rise up and protest the person who cuts their hair before they step on the scale and declare it an unfair loss. There is no unfair loss. The reading from the scale is of fat, but also bone, muscle, organ, water, fesses and hair. The key to knowing what one weighs this second is know that is just that, a weight of the second which means very little when it's taken into a context of maintaining a life long weight. The only thing that a person should keep in their mind when they step on the scale is that there is a limit to the amount of water the body can retain. Therefore when a person steps on the scale they should know that they are aiming for a readout with a certain tolerance. The complexity is that everyone's tolerance is different. A 4'8" boy's readout may only vary due to water retention by a pound, while a 6'4" menstruating large frame woman's water weight may easily vary by several pounds.

What is your body fat %

The reason there is no standard body weight and fat% for individuals based on height, sex and age is because we all have unique compositions. We have unique muscle distribution, skeletal structure; our organs vary in size from person to person. Even with the most advanced techniques of measuring body fat such as X-ray Absorptiometry or Hydrostatic weighing, there is a 2-3% margin of error. With Bioelectrical Impedance, the type used on personal scales, the margin of error is enormous. They are inaccurate in giving a reading that reflects your true body fat percentage but they are extremely accurate in monitoring body fat. In other words, the numbers are unreliable but if used properly provide a very accurate reading to judge fat loss or gain.

To determine one's actual current overweight body fat percentage, one must first discover the unhealthy inverse to the obese state, 0% body fat. It is possible to have 0% body fat, but unless one has the desire to experience what gay Hippies went through during the holocaust, I don't suggest doing so. For men 3% body fat is the absolute minimum and for women (non-body building) it's 10%.

First refer to the ideal body frame/height weight chart. Height is easy to determine but there is some subjectivity in determining frame size. The key factor to frame size is the girth and proportions of one's bones and the resulting organs they encase. A standard to deriving this is by measuring the circumference of the wrist. If you can use your imagination and strip your body of everything but the skeleton and compare it to an imaginary completely average (medium) framed human, you should be able to wing it in determining your frame size.

Once you have determined which slot you fit in on the chart, one must determine an actual weight within the range of healthy weights. The variable in this determination is muscle volume. There are two types of big booties, one is the plump meaty gluteus maximus, the other is the ripply goobily gop of giggle bottom, which will turn into no-bottom if pilates are not used in conjunction with weight loss. I'm an avid cyclist. Even though my upper body muscle mass is relatively average my, butt, thighs and calfs are pumped. Compared to the average Med/Small frame male, I reside in the upper range of ideal weight because of the amount of muscle I have built and maintained. Muscle is dense and weighty.

After you have used all your objective guessing power to determine your ideal weight, find the number of pounds of fat that's on your imaginary perfect person. Subtracting the weight of the fat from the ideal total body weight will reveal the 0% body/fat base weight used to determine your current unhealthy body fat%.

Healthy body fat percentages:

Female
17% Athletes
23% Average fitness

Males
9.5% Athletes
15.5% Average fitness

Example:

My ideal weight on the frame/height chart is 157#. My ideal state is athletic. 9.5% of 157#  is 15#.   157#  -  15#  of fat  =  142#. That is my 0% body/fat weight and the point I would look like a POW on Meth. To determine my present body fat percentage, the goal of all this confusion, I take my current weight (177#) subtract my 0% body/fat weight and discover how much blubber I've got packed away. 177#  - 142#  = 35# of fat. 35# of my current weight (177#) reveals my actual body fat percentage, 20%.