Men’s Total Fitness is proud to have sponsored Seth Petruzelli in tonight’s fight at Bellator 48 for a KO win over Rocco Rodriguez. Seth will now be known as the Ricco Retirer! Great job Seth!

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We had the pleasure of sitting down with Seth Petruzelli this week for an interview with him before his upcoming fight against Ricco Rodriguez at Bellator 48 at Mohegan Sun on August 20th. Seth shared with us some very good history on himself, his life, his training style, and some interesting questions/answers that we think you’ll love!  Thank you very much to Seth for sitting down with us and taking the time out of your busy training schedule before your fight to share this information!

MARC: How did you get the nickname “The Silverback”?

SETH: 3 reasons, the first is that the silverback is the king of the pack, the leader the alpha and that’s how I like to carry myself. The second is that when I grapple i go from person to person on my hands and knees and my stomach hangs down like a fat silverback gorilla. And lastly because the silverback has the smallest penis the body ratio in the animal kingdom!!

MARC: What make Seth “The Silverback” Petruzelli tick?

SETH: “He has laughed and he has cried, He has fought and he has died, He’s just the same as all the rest, He’s not the worst and he’s not the best.”

That tattoo is in Japanese on me. It reminds me not to settle for mediocrity, not to just fit in, and just be another person who goes through life not ever really doing anything. That pushes me to try and be the best at all that I do.

MARC: How many times a week do you train and what do you recommend to people looking to build their cardiovascular endurance?

SETH: Pre-fight, I train 2x a day about 2 hours each session – 6 days a week. Keep in mind, these are intense training sessions and not jogging in the park!! Anything that gets your heart rate up will help with endurance. Something I do that not all fighters do is swim…it’s easy on the joints and great for building endurance.

MARC: Knocking out Kimbo Slice did gain you popularity but did it make your career bigger or better?

SETH: It made it both….my pay went up and I got more well known. Of course, I want to be known as a great fighter and not just the guy who KO’d Kimbo.

MARC: How many fights and years do you see yourself competing professionally?

SETH: Not too much longer, I’ve been fighting since late 2000 and that’s a long time…I currently own the Jungle MMA and fitness in Orlando, Fl. and I see myself opening more in the future after fighting!

MARC: Who was your toughest opponent in all of your professional fights?

SETH: Well, since he is really the only one who has ever finished me with a TKO I guess Vemola…but Matt Hamill was very tough too!!

MARC: Was it upsetting to be cut by the UFC?

SETH: Of course, but in this point in my career, I’m doing this for the money – not the popularity. I’m getting paid very well by Bellator, and that’s all I can ask for. Of course I’d love it if I made it back to the UFC.  I just like to put on an entertaining fight, no matter where or who it’s for.

MARC: What other business ventures are you involved with besides The Jungle?

SETH: My brother and I are both into real estate. We both invest in houses, fix them up, then rent or sell them. It’s been going great, even though the market is crap. I’m also finishing my BS in Psychology. I have about 6 more classes to go. I’ve only been in college for 10 years now…haha!!

MARC: What are you doing differently in this fight against Ricco Rodriquez that you did or didn’t do in your last fight against David Mewborn and against Karlos Vemola in the UFC loss?

SETH: I always train the exact same way….hard as hell! If anything I over-trained for Vemola and I pulled it back a little bit when I fought Dave. But I feel better now than my last fight!

MARC: Who in your life has had the biggest impact on you and your professional career?

SETH: Well when I was a kid, my Sensei Benard Daugherty (Kobayashi sensei) did.  He was like another father figure to me. He showed me the path of karate and I fell in love with martial arts!!

MARC: Have you ever used PED’s and are there fighters that you know of in the UFC or any other professional MMA leagues using them? Are they banned in professional MMA?

SETH: I don’t know anyone who uses Premier Elephant Dick for training, and to my knowledge it’s not illegal but gross to use!! In all seriousness, I know a lot of fighters that fight or have fought in the UFC that used PED’s, and no I have never used them. I’m too much of a hypochondriac.

MARC: The day of the fight, what is going through your mind? And are you ever nervous?

SETH: I’m sooooo nervous. Not about getting hurt, but just not performing to my full abilities.

MARC: Are you worried about having to go up to heavy weight and is this going to affect your quickness at all?

SETH: I’ll be faster, I’m just worried about his weight on top of me. I’ve been working my escapes from bottom to help me with this.

MARC: How do you expect this fight to play out (ground or stand up) and what is going to be the outcome?

SETH: I see him trying to take me down a lot, and me tagging him in the face for trying!! I see a KO for me!!!

MARC: Ricco has won his last 11 fights; can you put an end to that streak and his career?

SETH: Instead of the Kimbo Killer, I’m gonna be known as the Ricco Retirer!!!

MARC: Do you have a certain pre fight meal the day of the fight? And routine?

SETH: Lots of pasta!! They don’t call me pasta belly for no reason!!

MARC: The picture of you kissing another guy has been circulated on the Internet and questions about your sexuality preference; can you set the record straight?

SETH: Yes, it’s all in fun!!! I’m not so uptight about that stuff. Who can you laugh at, if you can’t laugh at yourself? Don’t take things so seriously.

MARC: Very true, Seth.  Very true.  Thank you so much for spending time with us today, we appreciate it – especially this close to fight time when I know your training keeps you very busy. Good luck on the 20th!

SETH: Appreciate it! Thanks guys!

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• Seth Petruzelli Knocks Out Ricco Rodriguez

Please take a moment and watch my interview with Bill Davey, former Mr. America and current owner of the Omni gym in Fort Myers, Florida. Bill certainly went above and beyond for this interview which will tell you his story from his roots in bodybuilding and fitness, through his contest days and being crowned Mr. America, up until now when he is the owner of successful gym and fitness club The Omni in Fort Myers, Florida. The interview is 25 minutes in length and is split into 2 parts.

I simply can not thank Bill enough for the extraordinary amount of time he took out of his busy schedule to video this interview with us so that we could bring his story to our loyal readers. Comments are welcomed and encouraged!

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This might be one of those articles that really help your workouts stay fresh and interesting.  Most of you who have been training for more than a few year,s know that  changing your workout routine is as important as the routine itself.  For example, if you have been working out  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, take the weekends off and train the same body-parts each day,  you’ve probably hit a plateau. This means you’re not seeing any new results.  As crazy as this sounds, your muscles will eventually get used to the same exercises performed the same way for the same amount of reps. Repetitions should not be confused with repetitious.

Being a personal trainer means spending countless hours in the gym and constantly figuring out new ways to improve the workouts for my clients and keep them fresh and motivating. Having your finger on the pulse of the fitness industry is key to my clients seeing the results they pay their hard earned money to acheive.  For those of you who don’t use a personal trainer, here are some ” tricks of the trade” that might help freshen up your workouts and help get you back on track to seeing results.

The first big mistake I witness on a regular bases is training the same body-part on the same day week after week. If you find yourself working chest,tricep,s and shoulders every Monday, try starting the week by training your legs instead. If you’re like me and dread a leg workout, try adopting my philosophy of getting legs out of the way on Mondays, taking off on Tuesday, hitting back and biceps on Wednesday, skipping Thursday and ending the week on Friday with chest,tri’s, and shoulders.  I train abdominals after each workout and also do cardio for 30 minutes after abs.  Try this routine for a month or so then mix up the days you train and body-parts the following month.  I guarantee you’ll start to see better results.

Another way to mix things up at the gym is to try different excercises using different equipment. If you’ve always started your chest workout doing flat-bench presses, try an incline dumbbell fly to warm-up, and stretch those pectoral muscles. Instead of starting a back workout doing lat- pulldowns, don’t be afraid to get deadlifts out of the way first.  Deadlifts are one of the best exercises for strengthening your lower back and also building overall power.  I recently introduced lunges to one of my female clients who had never done them before. The next time I saw her she said she was sore for three days.  This is a perfect example of mixing up your workouts with different exercises done out of your normal sequence.

Tricking your muscles can also mean ditching the weights and going for a swim or a bike ride.  Too many of us get caught up working our different muscle groups and forget the most important muscle in our body, the heart.  I’ve been guilty of this myself.  After finding out that I had high blood pressure, I changed my thought process when it came to training.  Nowadays my workout routine is split 50-50 when it comes to lifting versus cardio.  This change has been very important in keeping my blood-pressure stable and also keeping my weight down.

Another great way to keep things interesting in the gym and keep your body guessing is by super-setting.  If you’re not familiar with this concept, here’s a good example; next time you’re working your chest by doing a bench-press, without resting in between sets, grab a set of dumbbells and perform a fly movement.  This super-set will activate those fast twitch muscles which don’t get enough attention by just performing slower repetitions. I also get my clients to work their abs in between each set no matter which body-part we’re working.  This is also an effective way to accomplish more of a workout in a shorter period of time.  No one says you have to be in the gym for hours.

Switching things up at the gym as far as your workouts go is vital to keeping your muscles guessing and avoiding tha same old boring training regiment.  Don’t be afraid to try different equipment or even try a spin-class to really ramp up your cardiovascular system.  I also recommend working out with a partner to create new and different methods of training.  My wife and I often train together and incoporate unique principals based on our past experiences at the gym.  You’d be surprised on how working out together at the gym makes for a better relationship at home ( and in the bedroom ).  So start mixing up your workouts and stay healthy!

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Here’s another reason to soak up more of the sunshine vitamin: Not having enough D may put you at greater risk for muscle injury, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) this past weekend. Researchers looked at New York Giants football players and found that those who suffered a muscle injury during the season had lower vitamin D levels at the start of pre-season than those who didn’t get hurt (19.9 ng/mL versus 24.7 ng/mL). A vitamin D level less than 20 ng/mL is considered deficient; levels between 21 and 30 ng/mL are still considered insufficient.

“People just think about bone health when talking about vitamin D, but it plays a myriad of roles,” says Scott Rodeo, MD, a co-author of the study. “It plays a role in bone growth, muscle function, and the immune system. There is the suggestion that low vitamin D levels could have a role to play in injury prevention, even for the average person.”

Problem is, most of us aren’t getting nearly the amount of vitamin D that we should. While vitamin D levels tend to rise during the summer and fall in the colder months due to changing sun exposure, 41% of men and 53% of women in the United States are vitamin D deficient. There aren’t many natural sources of vitamin D, although a few good sources include salmon, halibut, tuna, and fortified milks and cereals.

But protecting against muscle injury isn’t all that vitamin D may do. Here, four more compelling reasons to increase your levels of D.

Build Stronger Bones
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with low bone density and rickets (soft bones), and has been used in tandem with calcium to help stave off osteoporosis. In a 2011 study of adolescent twins, Australian researchers found that the sibling who took a calcium/vitamin D supplement had better bone density 6 months later than the one who received a placebo.

Help Lose Weight
University of Minnesota researchers found that dieters with higher levels of vitamin D dropped more pounds than those who had lower levels. People lost about half a pound more for every increase of 1 ng/mL.

Strengthen Your Immune System
Step aside, vitamin C. A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D (less than 10 ng/mL) were 36% more likely to catch a cold than those with levels greater than 30 ng/mL.

Improve Athletic Performance
A 2010 review published in Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise concluded that athletic performance rises as vitamin D levels rise, the effect peaking at about 50 ng/mL. Part of the reason: Vitamin D increases the both the size and number of fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Source: http://fitbie.msn.com/get-fit/prevent-muscle-injury-vitamin-d

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The best explanation of stress we’ve ever heard comes from Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., the author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

“If you are a normal mammal,” he says, “stress is the 3 minutes of screaming terror on the savanna after which either it’s over with or you’re over with.”

If you’re a human mammal, however, stress comes from something more insidious than a toothy predator: anxiety triggered by the passive-aggressive boss, the 30-year mortgage, and the job of caring for children as well as the ill parent who believes General MacArthur wants him to lead a division into Pyongyang Province.

No wildebeest would understand these fears, but the perceived threats spark the same physiological survival responses that crocodile attacks do. Here’s where modern stress bites your body and how to fight back.

Stress Spot: Your Brain

Chronic secretion of the stress hormone cortisol can trigger memory loss, depression, and three-bourbon lunches.

The Fix: Don’t be so damned conscientious at work. A Canadian study of 2,737 employees found that when people thought their poor job performance could seriously impact their coworkers, company, or environment, their job stress increased. Workers who didn’t see their jobs as careers were less likely to report stress. The lesson: Take a day off. The company won’t go under if you’re AWOL for 9 hours.

(Note: This does not apply to air-traffic controllers.)

Stress Spot: Your Hair

Researchers at the University of Western Ontario may have found a new way to measure chronic stress: Pluck a few hairs. They took follicle samples from more than 100 men, half of whom were hospitalized for heart attacks, and found that hair cortisol was higher in the heart patients. Since hair grows about 1 centimeter a month, researchers used 3-centimeter samples as a record of stress levels over the previous 3 months. Scientists say the findings bolster the theory that chronic stress contributes to heart attack just as acute stress does.

The Fix: Earn a promotion. With power comes control, suggests research from the Columbia University business school. Study participants were designated as either leaders or subordinates, with the leaders given duties that granted them a sense of power. Meanwhile, half the people in both groups were asked to steal $100 and lie about it. Subordinates who had to lie showed physical stress reactions and high cortisol levels. But lying bosses displayed no such markers of stress, suggesting that even in stressful situations (forced to lie), people feel little or no anxiety if they have power and control.

Dealing with job stress? Tips to help you manage stressful situations with your difficult manager.

Stress Spot: Your Nervous System

When you’re stressed, hormones flood your body, helping you focus your attention, sharpening your vision, and preparing your muscles to take action.

The Fix: Tap the power. For short periods, facing adversity can energize you to handle challenges. Recently, University at Buffalo researchers monitoring 2,398 people found that those who’d experienced some adversity scored higher on measures of mental health and life satisfaction than those who’d seen either high levels of adversity or none at all. “In moderation, whatever doesn’t kill us may indeed make us stronger,” says study author Mark Seery, Ph.D.

Stress Spot: Your Muscles

Neck and back tension caused by mental stress, plus long days spent hunched over a computer keyboard, can trigger pain.

The Fix: Try the corner stretch. Stand facing the corner of a room. Raise your elbows to shoulder height, and place your forearms, elbows, and palms against each wall. Lean in to flex your chest and back muscles. Hold for 15 seconds, breathing deeply. Do this every 2 hours or whenever you feel tight.

Exercise helps reduce stress levels. Build a stronger upper back and improve your overall posture with this shoulder workout.

Stress Spot: Your Gut

Increased stomach acid from stress can churn your gut and loosen your bowels. Stress can even alter the way your body processes fat, causing you to store more of it in your abdomen.

The Fix: Twist yourself into a pretzel and laugh, laugh, laugh. “Laughter yoga” practitioners swear that combining yogic breathing and stretching techniques with forced laughter helps them cope better with life’s stresses. Studies have already demonstrated the ability of yoga to ease stress and lower blood pressure. And laughing appears to do the same. For example: Two reports presented at the 2009 American College of Sports Medicine’s annual meeting showed that people who watched comedies had more-pliable blood vessels and improved bloodflow for up to 24 hours after the chuckling commenced.

Stress Spot: Your DNA

Not only can stress make you flatulent, but it can screw with your DNA too. A 24-7 bath of stress hormones can cause telomeres to shorten. Telomeres are genetic structures that protect the ends of chromosomes; if they shorten too much, cells can no longer multiply.

The Fix: Meditate. A recent Harvard study found that the physiological response from meditation, tai chi, and breathing exercises can counteract cellular damage from stress.

Source: http://health.msn.com/mens-health/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100272680

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This is a difficult topic to nail down for everyone. Some of us have schedules that only permit us to train at night, others in the morning. This article will discuss in general how often you should train and as far as what time of the day, that’s open to debate. There are pros and cons to both night training versus day.  I feel that whenever you can dedicate a few hours in the course of a day to train two body parts and at least 30 minutes of cardio, you’ll be moving in the right direction. Being in the fitness industry, I speak to many professionals about the frequency of their workouts and how much time they spend at the gym. Most of us agree that training three times a week, and spending 60 to 90 minutes per workout is sufficient. Now if you’re the type that goes to the gym and discusses world events with others, you’ll be there longer. But if you’re like me, I am in and out of the gym in an hour and a half. A typical workout for me is Mondays: chest, triceps, shoulders, 30 minutes of cardio, and 10 minute abs. Wednesdays: legs, 30 minutes cardio, and 10 minute abs. Fridays: back and biceps, 30 minutes cardio, and 10 minute abs. Tuesdays; I don’t do any lifting, but I will do 30 minutes of cardio and the same goes for Thursday. On Saturday and Sunday, I rest. Now rest is key when training regularly. Your muscles need time to recuperate, that’s why I feel training on consecutive days might be too much. You have to realize that when you are weight training, your muscles are actually being stressed and expanded(pumped up) and that’s why you get sore. The more sore you become, the better the workout! I say this assuming you know what you’re doing when you get to the gym. By no means should you take on a workout program without talking to a professional trainer or someone who has spent many years in the gym. Quality, not quantity is the key to getting the most from your workouts. As long as you are able to train all body parts, get in 2 to 3 hours of cardio per week, and eat clean. Getting in shape and staying in shape should not be a chore – it should be fun! Treat working out like a hobby and you’ll love the results!

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A workout plan consisting of regular aerobic and anaerobic exercises are crucial to your weight loss success. You cannot achieve significant weight loss without them. Any weight loss plan that claims you can lose weight with dieting alone is simply false. A combination of diet and exercise (both aerobic and anaerobic) is the key to significant and permanent weight loss and no workout plan is complete unless it includes both of these critical components.

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The Importance of Aerobic Exercises Throughout my discussion of aerobic exercises, I will use the terms aerobic and cardio interchangeably. They have the same meaning, which is, with oxygen. In other words, aerobic or cardio exercises require oxygen. Aerobic exercises will increase your aerobic enzymes. Aerobic enzymes help burn fat so you want alot of them!

Cardio exercises should be done at least 3-5 days per week for a minimum of 20 minutes each session. You are going to want a target heart rate in the weight loss zone for maximum weight loss. As you put your workout plan together, you will want to choose a primary aerobic exercise. This will be the exercise you will do the majority of the time but by no means should it prevent you from adding some diversity to your workout plan. This is why, in addition to a primary aerobic exercise, youll want to choose an alternative aerobic exercise.

The Importance of Anaerobic Exercises When you put your workout plan together, be sure to first focus on aerobic exercises as they will have the most dramatic impact on increasing your metabolism (meaning, youll burn more calories and lose more weight). However, dont dismiss the importance of anaerobic exercises (weight training) when creating your workout plan. After you have established a routine of aerobic exercises in your workout plan, youll want to introduce anaerobic exercises for maximum weight loss results. Anaerobic means without oxygen. Weight lifting is the best example of an anaerobic exercise and needs to be included in any successful workout plan. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass, strengthens joints and ligaments, maintains bone density and increases your metabolism. In the long run, weight lifting is a critical component of the Total Fitness Plan and is vital to any successful workout plan.

Chad Tackett‘s five-part series on Strength Training Principles and Guidelines provides the fundamental principles to develop a safe and effective strength training routine. It’s a must-read for anyone new to strength training!

The Importance of Warm Up, Stretching & Cool Down While not necessarily an important component to weight loss, proper warm up, stretching and cool down are important elements of any workout plan. They prevent injuries and allow the body to return to its normal state so be sure to include time in your workout plan for these critical activities. Basically, your workout plan is a blueprint for you to follow on the road to attaining your weight loss goals. Dont think of it as something that is set in stone but rather as something that will change as you progress towards your goals. If you remember to include all of the ideas listed above in your workout plan, then success will be your reward!

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Editor’s Note:  You might have heard of Lyle McDonald. He’s well known for being controversial, extremely intelligent and very honest. In this exclusive interview, Lyle will share with you the knowledge he’s built up after years of reviewing the latest scientific research on diet and exercise.

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In part I of this rare interview, controversial diet and exercise guru Lyle McDonald will share with you the knowledge he’s built up after years of long hours and late nights spent reviewing the latest scientific research on diet and exercise. Nothing in the interview has been removed or watered down. Instead, what you get is Lyle McDonald at his uncensored best, guiding you through the minefield of myths and confusion about weight loss and dieting.

Q. For those readers who don’t know much about you, please give them a bit of background information about who you are and what you do.

A. I got interested in this field back in high school, a former fat kid I had mandatory sports in school and as I started to get into shape, my obsessive compulsiveness took over. I got into cycling one summer and did a few triathlons, got involved in martial arts and eventually gymnastics (via cheerleading). This led me to UCLA to pursue a degree in kinesiology (exercise physiology) where I got even more embroiled in the research and science of human performance. Basically, I was a mediocre athlete who wanted to figure out how to get better. At that time, I was involved in cycling and got into inline skating. I started racing, did moderately well (despite being horridly overtrained in hindsight) until I burned myself out, and ‘retired’. I futilely tried my hand at some strength sports, although I had always been in the weight room, finding that it improved my skating performance. Around 1996, Dan Duchaine‘s seminal book “Bodyopus” came out, it quite literally changed my life. It got me interested in low-carbohydrate dieting and led to the publication of my first book. Several more followed after a rather long break. The second was an odd little drug booklet (although it dealt mostly with bodyweight regulation), then came the Ultimate Diet 2.0 which was an update on the original from over 20 years ago. Last year I released two books, the Rapid Fat Loss Handbook and a Guide to Flexible Dieting. Over the years, I’ve worked with folks ranging from total beginners to a couple of female powerlifters, prepped a few bodybuilders for natural shows and trained the occasional endurance athlete in the weight room. Right now I’m in Salt Lake City following my own athletic quest, training full time for ice speed skating (I came out of retirement a couple of years ago) with my coach Rex Albertson. Basically, I’m an obsessed physiology nerd who is fascinated with all aspects of human performance. This includes training, nutrition (I seem to be most well known for diet stuff but exercise physiology was actually my first passion), supplements and, to a much lesser degree, drugs. Fat loss and bodyweight regulation fascinates me because I still see the fat kid in the mirror, sports performance fascinates me because I’ve always been a middle of the road athlete looking for solutions. And the rest of it fascinates me because I’m just a great big obsessed nerd that way.

Q. One topic that almost always seems to cause debate and controversy is the issue of calories. Some claim that there is some kind of ‘metabolic advantage’ associated with low-carbohydrate diets?

A. Okay, this is going to be a very long-winded answer since there’s a lot to cover. I want to point out that more detailed discussions of most of this (everything except the more recent studies) are in my first book The Ketogenic Diet. The metabolic advantage of low-carbohydrate diets is an idea that has cropped up again and again since the late 60′s, first popularized by Dr. Atkins in his best selling book. The idea then was based on a series of very short (4-9) day studies looking at weight loss for high- and low-carbohydrate diets at either the same or different calorie levels. Many found that weight loss was higher in the low-carbohydrate condition. Some found that even at maintenance calories, weight was lost. Aha, a metabolic advantage. Here’s the basic problem: low-carbohydrate diets cause a significant amount of water weight loss through a variety of mechanisms (including the relationship of glycogen and water, a reduction in insulin which leads to greater fluid and electrolyte excretion via the kidneys, and a direct diuretic effect of ketones). I’m a fairly little guy and I can drop 5-7 pounds (about 2.5 kilograms) in about 2 days just from water loss. Bigger folks can drop more. Powerlifters often drop 10-15 pounds (nearly 7 kilograms) or more by cutting out carbohydrates the day before a meet. By the same token, I’ll gain that same 5-7 pounds back when I carbohydrate-load. It’s just a shift in water balance. And those shifts tend to predominate in the short-term. So when you’re just looking at weight loss, the water loss becomes a very significant issue as it often more than exceeds the reported difference between the two different diets. When the difference in total weight loss is only a few kilograms, and you have several kilograms of water being lost, that hardly makes a good case for a metabolic advantage. The idea has been recently re-advanced in a couple of papers with two different mechanisms being thrown out. As well, a lot of people have been using the results of a series of recent studies that found greater weight and/or fat loss for low- versus high-carbohydrate diets as evidence for this. I’ll address those as well. The first is the easiest to deal with so I’ll get that out of the way, it rests on the thermic effect of protein. As your readers probably know, processing of dietary protein burns more calories than processing of carbohydrate or fat. So diets that vary in protein quite often find differences in fat loss (and muscle mass retention). But here’s the thing, now we’re not talking about carbohydrates are we? No, we’re talking about protein, comparing high and low protein intakes. In addition to the thermic effect, studies also show that protein is the most filling nutrient; in one study, folks on a higher protein intake spontaneously ate significantly less and lost fat. Because they ate less. I’m going to come back to this point. Now, if you’re looking at ad libitum food intake, which means that people eat as much as they want, typically you do see higher protein intakes on low-carbohydrate versus high-carbohydrate diets. Which is great and all. But it’s still not a carbohydrate issue directly. And, of course, when I set up a fat loss diet for someone, after setting calories, the first thing I do is set protein at adequate amounts: 1-1.5 grams per pound of lean body mass. Basically, I consider this protein thing a. a non-sequitur b. irrelevant to the issue of carbohydrate intake. You can eat 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass on a carbohydrate-based diet just as easily as on a low-carbohydrate diet. Quite in fact, you should. Fine, if you want to argue that high-protein is better than low-protein, I’m with you. One researcher (Westerterp-Plantenga) has argued that the higher protein intake, rather than the low-carbohydrate intake itself, is the cause of the differences in the first place. But don’t pretend that it has anything to do with low- versus high-carbohydrate. Frankly, that I should have to make such a mickey mouse point to a couple of PhD’s (or their lapdog, Anssi Manninen) is beyond me. But apparently, they can’t understand that differences in protein intake have zero to do with differences in carbohydrate intake per se. The next theoretical explanation for a metabolic advantage has to do with gluconeogenesis. This is just an unwieldy word for the production of new glucose from other stuff. The other stuff in this situation is amino acids, glycerol (the fatty acid backbone) and lactate. And it’s true that a. this process requires energy b. this process is up regulated on a ketogenic (very low-carbohydrate diet) Unfortunately, the theorists advancing this idea didn’t really quantify the effect that well in their paper (as I recall) in terms of how many extra calories per day it should amount to. As well, it has to be weighed against the loss of thermic effect for replacing carbohydrate with fat (the effect is mild but contributes). One study I recall found that the higher-carbohydrate diet (compared to higher fat but not ketogenic) had about a 100 calories per day advantage (due to the differences in the thermic effect of carbohydrate versus fat) and you lose this when you stop eating all carbohydrates, any effect of gluconeogenesis has to be weighed against that. Perhaps more importantly, one of the primary adaptations to ketosis (a state where blood ketone levels go above a certain concentration) is to decrease gluconeogenesis. That is, over the first 2-3 weeks of being in ketosis, the body switches to using ketones for fuel instead of glucose, which decreases the need for gluconeogenesis. A metabolic advantage that becomes almost insignificant after 2-3 weeks seems hardly worth pinning the success of a diet on. On this note, I would like to mention that, empirically (and realize that I’ve been getting feedback on ketogenic diets for nearly a decade now, man that makes me feel old), folks do seem to report somewhat more fat loss in the first 2 weeks on a ketogenic diet than you’d expect based on the deficit. Of course, it could just be the extra water loss throwing off the calipers too. In any event, after those 2 weeks, the effect is gone. Again, for the typical person, the average overweight individual who may be dieting for weeks or months (or longer) to achieve their goals, an effect that disappears after a couple of weeks seems hardly worth pinning the success of the diet on. And now we come to the final data point, the recent studies suggesting greater weight and/or fat loss. There have been at least a half dozen (perhaps more, I lose count) over the past several years, usually finding slightly greater weight loss (the average difference is usually on a few kilograms) and some have noted greater fat loss (using DEXA or other accurate methods to measure body fat). Now, I mentioned that the difference in weight loss could probably be attributed to water loss anyhow. But what about the fat loss? Well, in the first place, many of them reported protein intake being higher in the low-carbohydrate group. See my comments above. We’re not just talking about the carbohydrate content of the diet here when 4 different nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, fat and fiber) may all be changing. Drawing conclusions about only the carbohydrate content of the diet and ignoring the rest seems a bit myopic to me. Beyond that, here’s the bigger issue: without exception, all of the studies done have relied on self-reporting of food intake. And this is not a trivial issue. We’ve known for many years now that people on a mixed diet tend to underestimate their food intake by up to 50%. That is, someone eating a carbohydrate-based diet who says they are eating 1500 (6300 kilojoules) calories may really be eating 3000 calories (12,600 kilojoules). But what about on low-carbohydrate diets? Well, nobody has really looked to see whether people under- or over-report their food intake but we have other data. Studies done decades ago often reported spontaneous food intakes of 1600-1800 calories on low-carbohydrate diets. A recent study in diabetics found a 1000 calorie per day reduction in food intake with the shift to a low-carbohydrate diet. Basically, people on high carbohydrate diets tend to underreport their food intake (they are eating more than they say) while people on low-carbohydrate diets tend to spontaneously eat less (for a number of reasons). So when you have the low-carbohydrate group saying they ate 1600 calories and the mixed diet group saying they ate 1500 calories, yet the low-carbohydrate group lost more weight/fat, you tend to question it. The carbohydrate-based group could be eating 3000 calories, based on previous studies of underreporting. Quite in fact, a recent study, by Brehm (who had done an early metabolic advantage study) directly measured a couple aspects of metabolic rate for high and low-carbohydrate diets. Finding no difference in anything (if anything, the high-carbohydrate group was slightly superior, as the thermic effect of food in response to a meal was higher). The researchers concluded that the difference in weight/fat loss is probably due to under-reporting of food intake in the carbohydrate-based group. Along with this, there are several key studies (which the metabolic advantage people like to ignore) where calories were rigidly controlled. In one, a group of patients in a hospital was placed on a variety of experimental diets for 2 weeks. Protein was kept static and carbohydrate was varied from 0 to 70% of total calories, while fat varied in the opposite direction. Activity was controlled since they were bedridden. Calories were controlled with liquid diets. They found no difference in the number of calories needed to maintain bodyweight. And this is really my big issue with the whole idea: if low-carbohydrate diets generate a metabolic advantage, it should be measurable with current technology. If it’s not measurable, it either doesn’t exist is far too small to worry about. And all of the theoretical calculations for what should occur don’t change that. Especially when we have much more likely mechanisms for the effect. The more likely explanation in my mind is that any ‘metabolic advantage’ inherent to low-carbohydrate diets come from the fact that they tend to blunt hunger (and this is especially true in people who are overweight and hyperinsulinemic, people with insulin resistance) and make people eat less. And even that isn’t guaranteed, people who don’t have their hunger blunted, or who fall into the “I can eat whatever I want as long as it’s low carb” camp and end up overeating calories don’t lose weight or fat at all. The bottom line in my mind: even if low-carbohydrate diets turn out to have a small metabolic advantage (I remain open to the idea but skeptical based on the data to date), it still comes down to caloric intake.

Q. Some claim that that your body will go into ‘starvation mode’ if you eat too few calories, preventing you from losing weight and that trying to lose weight by eating fewer calories doesn’t work. What do you think?

A. Well there is no doubt that the body slows metabolic rate when you reduce calories or lose weight/fat. There are at least two mechanisms for this. One is simply the loss in body mass. A smaller body burns fewer calories at rest and during activity. There’s not much you can do about that except maybe wear a weighted vest to offset the weight loss, this would help you burn more calories during activity. However, there’s an additional effect sometimes referred to as the adaptive component of metabolic rate. Roughly, that means that your metabolic rate has dropped more than predicted by the change in weight. So if the change in body mass predicts a drop in metabolic rate of 100 calories and the measured drop is 150 calories, the extra 50 is the adaptive component. The mechanisms behind the drop are complex involving changes in leptin, thyroid, insulin and nervous system output (this system is discussed to some degree in all of my books except my first one). In general, it’s true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits (and this is true whether the effect is from eating less or exercising more); as well, people vary in how hard or fast their bodies shut down. Women’s bodies tend to shut down harder and faster. But here’s the thing: in no study I’ve ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is, say that cutting your calories by 50% per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit. In one of the all-time classic studies (the Minnesota semi-starvation study), men were put on 50% of their maintenance calories for 6 months. It measured the largest reduction in metabolic rate I’ve ever seen, something like 40% below baseline. Yet at no point did the men stop losing fat until they hit 5% body fat at the end of the study. Other studies, where people are put on strictly controlled diets have never, to my knowledge, failed to acknowledge weight or fat loss. This goes back to the under-reporting intake issue mentioned above. I suspect that the people who say, “I’m eating 800 calories per day and not losing weight; it must be a starvation response” are actually eating far more than that and misreporting or underestimating it. Because no controlled study that I’m aware of has ever found such an occurrence. So I think the starvation response (a drop in metabolic rate) is certainly real but somewhat overblown. At the same time, I have often seen things like re-feeds or even taking a week off a diet do some interesting things when people are stalled. One big problem is that, quite often, weekly weight or fat loss is simply obscured by the error margin in our measurements. Losing between 0.5 and 1 pound of fat per week won’t show up on the scale or calipers unless someone is very lean, and changes in water weight, etc. can easily obscure that. Women are far more sensitive to this. Their weight can swing drastically across a month’s span depending on their menstrual cycle. Thing is this, at the end of the day, to lose weight or fat, you have to create a caloric deficit, there’s no magical way to make it happen without affecting energy balance. You either have to reduce food intake, increase activity, or a combination of both. Since my Rapid Fat Loss Handbook actually uses an extremely large deficit, I discuss the issue of metabolic slowdown (and what to do about it) fairly extensively.

Read Part II of this Exclusive Interview

Read other articles by Christian Finn

About the Author

Christian Finn is a Certified Personal Trainer and holds a masters degree with distinction in exercise science. He’s lectured at a number of universities and private training organizations around the United Kingdom on fitness training, weight loss and the effective use of nutritional supplements. He writes extensively on the subject and his articles have been published in numerous magazines, leading industry journals and websites worldwide, including Men’s Health, Men’s Health Muscle, Fit Pro (April/May 2001), CAM magazine (February 2003), Image (January 1997), Zest (March 2004), and Body Life magazine (March/April 1997). He was also featured in the July 2004 issue of Muscle & Fitness (UK edition). His website, TheFactsAboutFitness.com, is dedicated to providing its members up-to-date, unbiased information and research on the world of fitness.

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