The Pyramid of Fat Loss

When I uploaded the first “after” pictures of me (and my fat loss) on MySpace, people started asking allot of advice. A normal question to ask would be: “what did you eat or didn’t eat?” or “How did you stay motivated?” or “What weighttrainig is best for fat loss?” I got hundred of questions and those questions where not in it. The most popular questions are “what supplements did you use?”, “Did you use steroids?”, and “What is your secret”? and “What diet did you use?”

Now as a student nutritionist I find this disturbing. These questions are the result of marketing. People see all these commercials about fancy new toys to work the abs (and lose fat), or “the super new secret formula pill” or they hear about the monster success of one fancy diet. Because of that, people forget that all these things are not the only method to lose weight. (If those methods are at all effective). Also the questions about steroids are disturbing. People no longer believe in natural results. The commercials say: “fat loss is easy” the people believe “fat loss is easy”, but one look in the mirror should tell them it isn’t.

I need to mention two things first before I continue. I’m using the term fat loss, not weight loss. Go to the sauna, don’t drink or eat for two days and you will lose over 10 lbs with ease. Cut of a limb, that should work just fine to lose weight. Take a huge sh*t and you will lose weight. But weight loss is not important! Fat loss is! Second, I need to mention that fat loss is easy and hard. I mean, the science of fat loss is easy; the process itself can be hard. Now that this is out of the way, let’s get to the “fat loss pyramid” (this is NOT the nutrition pyramid)

The fat loss pyramid is a term I just invented to tell you about the share of each component in fat loss. Let start with the bottom. The base of the pyramid. Can you guess what it is? If you say exercise, then you are wrong. If you say nutrition then you are still wrong. If you think supplements/steroids/diet then you NEED to read on because you are dead wrong. The basis of the pyramid is what is between your head. Your mind!

The decision to lose weight starts in your mind. The motivation to work out is in the mind. The voice that says, stay home, don’t work out, and the limiting believes about yourself are all in your mind. I believe you can divide the “mind part” into 3 parts. Motivation, Knowledge and Peak performance. That last one is not really part of the basis of the pyramid but I will explain this later.

Motivation is the name of the game! Without motivation there is no decision to lose weight. Without motivation you have nothing. Now since this article is about each aspect of fat loss, I’m not going deeper into motivation (or any other part, other articles will follow in which I will concentrate on each item).

Second is knowledge. If you buy a microwave you can experiment with it and after some time (and lots of frustration over bad meals) you will get it right (if you haven’t given up yet). You can ask your partner or anybody to warm up a meal for you and then you will need that person every time. Or you can read the manual for 5 minutes and you know how the microwave works. This metaphor works for fat loss to. You can experiment and after some time you will know what works for you (if you haven’t given up yet), you can go to a nutritionist and pay allot of money or you can educate yourself about fat loss and then you can rely on yourself, always and without any cost (Maybe I shouldn’t say this as a future nutritionist). I need to mention that even when you educate yourself, you will still need to experiment, but far more effective. (An article about how to educate you on fat loss will follow).

The third thing is Peak performance. This includes visualization, meditation, NLP, self-hypnose and other mental training to get a peak performance. This is a thing of the mind, but not really necessary for the base of the pyramid.

And now, the second layer of the pyramid: nutrition. Not exercise? No not exercise! Fat loss is all about the calorie balance. Eat more then you burn and you will gain weight (with training this can be muscle weight) eat less and you will lose weight. You are what you eat is absolutely true! If you don’t give your body the right nutrition, it will not recover right from exercise. If you eat too much, you will become fatter. If you starve yourself then you will lose muscle. Nutrition determines if you lose weight or not (calorie balance), it determines how fast you recover from a workout (if you recover at all), it determines how much energy you have to work out, it determines your hormone balance (hormones have great influence on emotions and energy levels!!), it determines your blood sugar level (a good blood sugar level will give you more energy and less cravings), it determines your general health,…. I can go on and on. (Like I said before, details will follow in other articles)

And now the part that everyone can guess: exercise. We have two parts, weight training and cardio. Weight training increases your metabolism, burns calories, increases testosterone and gives a “don’t use muscle as energy”-signal to your body. Cardio will increase your metabolism, burn calories and push oxygen in your system to improve fat loss.

Finally we get to the layer of supplements (which is optional). There are three major groups of supplements (this is my believe). Meal replacing supplements, direct performance enhancing supplements and general health supplements. Most important examples of meal replacing supplements are protein powder and carbohydrates. By general health supplements I mean multivitamins, fatty acids, glucosamine (for the joints), ZMA,… and then we have the performance enhancing supplements. The most important is Creatine. Creatine is also found in meat but we don’t use it as meal replacement but to get some extra reps out in the gym. Now there are many more supplements but that is for another article.

What about the other things? What about fat loss supplements, hormone boosters, NO boosters, teleshop equipment? Steroids? Well there products are not necessary. Most of them don’t help at all. NO boosters might give you a better pump but this doesn’t improve fat loss or builds muscle. Not one hormone booster is proven to work. Fat loss supplements might work a bit. Most of them contain caffeine. This gives you energy to work out and it gives a small increase in your metabolism. But is also dehydrates you, increases you blood pressure (many obese people have high blood pressure so some extra caffeine isn’t really healthy) and it can become an addiction. Have you heard other claims about supplements? Well, did you know that most fitness, bodybuilding, sports, fat loss,… magazines where founded by supplement company owners. And if they claim that a study on a certain supplement has a certain result, how many readers will look if this study is real? Get the picture?

So this how fat loss is most effective. Motivate yourself, educate yourself, use this to eat healthy and train effectively and if you have the money for it you can add some supplements. Articles on how to motivate yourself, how to peak perform, how to educate yourself, are in the making.

I hope you enjoyed this article. I’m planning on writing many more. Hope to see you again, and excuse me for some mistakes in the English language, it isn’t my native language.

Alexander Deprez, Student Nutritionist