You can’t lose more than 2lbs of fat per week - Really?
After the interview Mike did with Bill taking about how we got him phenomenal fat loss, we were sure people would be skeptical. Someone even called us out by posting a comment on the blog (which we encourage you all to do).
All I’ve ever heard in regards to losing weight is not to lose more than 3 pounds a week because over that, you’re losing muscle, not fat….
So how can you lose 17 pounds of pure fat in three weeks…, especially with someone who admits to having a “bad metabolism”?
Normally I like your materials, but this doesn’t sound right at all. Metabolisms don’t correct themselves that quickly from all I’ve ever read.
Anyone can lose weight at that level - even prevention.com’s pushing a junky “lose 7 pounds in the first week” type of diet, but I don’t buy losing that much weight in that short of time, the muscle mass is being preserved. That’s much too drastic of a drop, Mike.
…Maybe it’s different for a man, but I don’t think the ASCM guidelines for safe fat loss are different between men and women.
I will give you “individual results vary” as well as men have 20% more muscle than women, but I’d like to see a woman achieve these same results without muscle loss - then you’d have my undivided attention….
One of the issues I’ve always had is the “2lbs per week” comment.
If you go to Weight Watchers they’ll tell you 2lbs per week is a good goal.
If you talk to a good trainer - they’ll tell you 2lbs per week is a good goal.
But if I go to Weight Watchers AND a good trainer - why does it not add up to 4lbs? It cancels each other out.
I have a study from 1957 that shows fat loss on different macronutrient contents - 0.9lbs per day on high fat, and 0.6lbs per day on high protein. Slight gain at high carb. Same calories.
I want someone to explain to me the physiological limit to fat loss.
New Orleans person dieting on high carb - two meals per day - no exercise. Let’s say BMR is 2000 and is losing 1lb per week. (So metabolism is 14,000 per week)
At altitude - BMR can increase up to 28%. So a fat loss program at altitude would be more effective than a fat loss program in New Orleans.
A 0.5 degree centigrade (0.9F) increase in body temp increases BMR by 7%.
Get the afterburn effect (EPOC) into action (even just 1 degrees (1.8F) at altitude and we are looking at 2560 - plus a 14% increase ( = 358).
Now we’re at 2918 BMR — BEFORE we calculate any additional deficit from the exercise. So let’s say we exercise six days a week at 300 cals per session. 1800 cals per week or an average of 257 per day (divided by seven)
Switch the diet to a high protein (over high carb) and go to six meals a day. The TEF increases enough that we get another 5% of BMR.
So BMR is now 3064. Plus 257 from exercise = 3321 per day.
So we now have an additional 9246 calories being burned per week. And if that is 3500 cals per lb - that would increase the results by another 2.6lbs per week to a total of 3.6lbs per week.
But what if we decreased the calories? Increased the afterburn effect? Doubled the number of training sessions? Added supplements?
Where is the physiological limit?
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Huh? You lost me somewhere around “at altitude”; what has altitude got to do with me? Do I need to fly to lose 3lbs. per week? And, why would you expect a WW recommendation of 2lbs per week and a trainer’s recommendation of 2lbs per week to add up to 4lbs? Wouldn’t they be talking about the same 2lbs? Sorry, I’m new. English please.
Sorry if that was unclear…
So we can see - the EXACT same plan would work better at altitude. If there’s a physiological limit - why would that happen?
But if we tweak the program….
Someone in New Orleans can lose 1lb per week on a high carb diet eating two meals per day and doing no exercise (and no EPOC).
Someone in Colorado (or Everest:) ) can lose 3.6lbs per week on a low carb diet, eating frequently and performing high intensity exercise (with EPOC)
So where does the 2lb limit come from?
I think what most of us lay people have always heard is not that you can only lose 2-3 lbs a week, but that if you lose more than that you stop losing fat and start losing muscle. We’ve been trained to think not that there’s a physiological limit of 2-3 lbs per week, but there is a limit of 2-3 lbs of fat per week.
Hopefully that’s a myth and you all have busted it and are about to let us all in on how to do it too. Cause I just started back to the gym and I am not looking forward to 16 weeks of afterburn, that shit’s medieval.
I agree that old dogmas need to be examined to figure out just WHY they’re so (and so we can, as mentioned, fill that gap and get better results working around limiting factors).
Of course, biology is NOT math. Theoretically someone could eat zero calories and exercise 6 hours a day, and the math would dictate they could lose 15lb. a week or something, but at some point that person would just DIE. I don’t think we can just add everything up so neatly; there are other factors going on.
The great thing about Alwyn is that he ferrets out
[oops–hit a button halfway through!]
He ferrets out what processes need to be looked at and makes sure they’re in place (proper nutrients, muscle preservation, etc.). And work around old guidelines that still may hold true for MOST of the people who are doing programs set around the old way of doing things.
So while I object to viewing biology as simple math, I’m certainly not going to argue with real-world results.