Ben Greenfield says: “Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity.
Only as a last resort, if the body has no other option, it may also burn a bit of body fat. When you are starving your metabolism wants more stored energy and body fat is the greatest source of stored energy – so it holds onto it.
Your tissues burn a lot of calories so when your metabolism thinks you’re starving it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Studies show that up to 70% of the weight lost while eating less comes from burning muscle – not body fat.”
Tim Rice says: “The old disproven “calories in vs. calories out” model of weight loss simply doesn’t work and does not account for the differing hormonal effects of varying macronutrients.
It is much more likely that an overweight person has eaten too much of the wrong kinds of foods and unfortunately, due to misguided nutritional advice given out by most healthcare providers, they don’t even know what the wrong kinds of foods are.”
Prof. Noakes says: “Persons with insulin resistance have a reduced capacity to burn carbohydrates as fuel both during exercise and when at rest. Humans differ in the ease with which they will gain weight when exposed to a high-carbohydrate diet.”
Tim Rice says: “Obesity is a slow, degenerative, metabolic process of gradually increasing degrees of insulin resistance. No one just wakes up one day to discover that they are obese.
The simplistic “eat less, move more = weight loss” was conceived under the notion that all calories behave the same in our bodies.”
As a personal trainer, I have a responsibility to my clients to provide them with the best advice based on up-to-date science.
I recently watched a video interview by some young personal trainers on #wastebook, and the advice they provided about health and nutrition prompted me to write this article. This is a small section of the full article. If you want to learn more and read the full article, simply click here.
As far as I’m concerned, the advice some trainers are providing and the intense training they are putting their clients through, as though everyone is the same, is based on old principles and old science.
The problem is that almost anyone can become a personal trainer these days. With government funding supporting these courses and the number of gyms supporting these personal trainers, I think it’s getting worse.
In my opinion, there is not enough content covering nutrition on the accredited personal trainers' courses in Australia – certainly not enough to provide the proper advice to someone who has had weight problems for years. Because of this, the advice provided can actually do more damage than good.
This includes injuries through high-intensity workouts that often lack appropriate techniques and elevated cortisol (stress hormone) levels, day after day, session after session, which often leads to adrenal fatigue, weight gain, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, and binge eating.
As a fully qualified personal trainer, group fitness instructor, advanced level 1 Les Mills RPM instructor, spin coach, USA and Australian triathlon coach, and currently ranked number one in my 50-54 age group in the AWA Ironman 70.3 rankings, I do know a little about exercise and nutrition (about me).
However, I don’t pretend to know it all, and I turn to the real experts in their fields for guidance.
With help from these experts, I’m going to correct some nutritional advice provided by some young personal trainers. After four years of restructuring my approach to nutrition and reading an extensive list of books, I have decided to collate much of what I have learned in order to save you four years of your own research.
If after reading this article, you do decide to fundamentally challenge your beliefs on training and nutrition (thanks, Prof. Noakes), you should book some time to talk to me.
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
