The Fat Guy Project: Cutting All the BS on Weight Loss
February 22, 2020
In this Journey of getting healthier, I believe it is my self appointed duty to help you weed out the BS from the actual scientific facts of weightloss, Here I’am calling out some of the most notorious BS the “weightloss community” has to offer and some explanaition on why we actually fall for these BS.
I think it would be best to start this article with Expectation Bias because it is what leads us to believe these false narratives. Expectation bias occurs when an individual's expectations about an outcome influence perceptions of one's own or others' behavior. In simpler words, you start to believe what some people are saying simply because you want it to be true.
Most of the things in this list are built upon capitalizing or feeding of expectation bias. I have surely been a victim of this more than once in my life, for example I used to believe in "slimming pills" and "belly fat exercises" much to my dismay.
With the rise of social media influencers, you've probably came across one of these so called "fitness models" at least once, don't get me wrong, some of them are legit but there are some of them that are complete BS.
Take for example, a certain influencer who claims to have lost a ton of weight in just one month, only to sell you some "sliming pills" or an exercise regimen. Or this one influencer who claims to have gone through their weightloss journey “the natural way” in the hopes of garnering more attention and selling you stuff. Listen, you can’t go from having a huge body comprised mostly of fat into a toned body in just a month, and you cannot go from a fat body to a leaner one without having some semblance of stretch marks or loose skin, unless you underwent surgery but that would have led to a lot of scaring. There's also this influencer who who continuously preaches "fitness advices" but majority of the things he says are actually detrimental to your health.
We glorify and look up to these "false fitness models" and immediately copy everything they do without thinking or researching if those things would work, and this is not to discredit their actual work, I for one knows how hard it is to accomplish a certain body type, (IM STRUGGLING STILL) BUT what you all have to realize is; Like many things in life you have to understand that everyone runs at different phases, to some it could be easier to get into shape, but to the rest of us, it could be a long way there. Moreover, what might work on others might not necessarily work with you.
So don’t just believe everything you see online, actually do your research.
Here’s another expectation bias I fell into a couple of times. The fantasy that is spot reducing is when people claim that you can lose fat at certain areas of your body.
Have you ever seen videos or photos claiming that you can “Lose Belly Fat with These Exercises” or “Eliminate Arm Fat with These Exercises” These are flat out lies, no educated, studied, or experts on the field of health and well being have ever concluded spot reducing to be true. You cannot lose weight only at a specific area of your body, you CAN build muscle at a specific area but not burn fat specifically.
If you want to lose that belly fat you have to do a full body exercise as getting rid of body fat is a holistic process you lose body fat on your entire body and not just in one specific area.
Yes, I said it, there’s no such thing as a pill or drink that can instantly slim you down, a pill or chemical that immediately attacks your body fats has yet to be invented. Granted there are pills or chemicals that can HELP, by help I mean to supplement your diet or exercise but not necessarily burn fat on its own.
It’s easy to fall victim to these pills, don’t be ashamed I did too. But this is a classic example of expectation bias. Not only is it costly, it’s also ineffective without the proper diet and exercise. NO LEGIT STUDY HAS YET TO CONCLUDE ANY SLIMMING PILL TO BE EFFECTIVE. There's even a disclaimer on most of these pill bottles that read "No proven therapeutic claims" that goes to show you that even the makers of this pills are unsure of it's capabilities.
Take for example this popular pill, which is used by the Kardashians in the past. Sure the Kardashians do have awesome bods, but let's take a look at Khloe Kardashian specifically, she used to be on the heavier side, even while she allegedly drank this pill. It was only until she trashed these pills and underwent her fitness journey in a natural way, was she able to have this bangging body that she now has. ALLEGEDLY
I went on this journey trying my absolute best to do this the natural way, no pills, and I'm doing just fine. Always remember that no amount of pills or even supplements for that matter can ever cover a bad diet or lifestyle. Some, not all, can help, KEYWORD: SUPPLEMENT your weightloss journey, but they cannot magically burn fat without exercise and diet.
Here’s something to take into consideration, not all “FITNESS GURUS/COACHES” are infact knowledgeable on the subject matter nor are they experts on the same, specially here in the Philippines where there are no clear way of filtering the experts from the non-experts, sometimes all you need is a great bod to become a trainer at gyms. That’s not to say that all gym trainers here in the Philippines are not learned individuals, as there are those who actually did study the subject or at least tried their best to do research.
There’s even this “FITNESS COACH” who (we’re not going to name because we’re avoiding lawsuits) suggested that a pregnant woman should refrain from eating carbohydrates because it is “BAD FOR YOU” and “WE DONT NEED IT” he even went on by saying “All the nutrients we need are in meats, eggs, etc” but darling all of those contain carbohydrates, also to further educate everyone against this false prophet, Carbohydrates are your body's main source of energy: They help fuel your brain, kidneys, heart muscles and central nervous system. For instance fiber is a carbohydrate that aids in digestion helps you feel full and keeps blood cholesterol levels in check
False fitness coach such as the aforementioned example are detrimental to the well meaning but fickle minded individuals who just don’t know how to fact check and rely on these people’s influence and social media following as enough credentials to actually be “knowledgeable of the fact"
Now you might be saying, but hey you do preach about health and fitness all the time, and yet you are not an expert on the field nor are you fit enough to actually do so. Here’s my justification, I preach about studies that I’ve read from credible sources as well as my personal experience and what works for me. Furthermore, my articles is more on LIFESTYLE than it is about the technicalities of fitness which should be left to the minds of the actual experts. I’m not here to tell you to do 50 squats a day or don’t eat gluten NO, I’m here to lay down facts with scientific backing and help you build a lifestyle around fitness.
This is not much of a BS, but more of a misconception, but I feel like this should be added here. Since it is the main cause of why a lot of us feel discouraged half way into our journey.
I used to be that guy who’s obsessed with the scales lowering in numbers, because that’s what society have led us to believe, the lower the weight, the healthier you are, but upon my research most experts would actually rebut this and claim that body weight are not exactly indicative of actual fat loss or health for that matter. why you might ask? it’s because there are a lot of factors that contribute to your weight, there’s muscle weight, water weight, and even the articles of clothing that you’re wearing contribute to that as well.
To explain further, your muscle weight can also develop with your weightloss exercises, and water weight varies from certain times of the day. If for example, you started at 90kgs, and you lost 2kg of body fat but then you gained 2kg of muscle, weighing scales, the regular ones, will simply show that your weight plateaued but in reality you did in fact lost body fat.
To determine whether you are truly losing fat, you need to use a smart scale or a body fat caliper. Smart scales are these expensive digital weighing scale that analyzes your body fat percentage, muscle mass, and water weight some smart scales can even go as far as to determine your body age and BMI. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT SMART SCALES ARE ACCURATE AS WELL. But it does help you in determining your progress, how? If let’s say using a smart scale you had a total of 20% body fat (when in reality you have only 18%) and after 2 weeks you weigh in at 18% body fat (when in reality you only have 16%) you will still be able to track progress, although not exact, but progress nonetheless. Now if you’re thrifty like I am, you can always visit your local Mercury Drug, they have it there for I believe is like 20php per use.
Body calipers on the other hand are this thongs like apparatus used to pinch your skin in order to gage the measurement of your body fat, it involves measurements in mm, and a table that tells you what your body fat percentage is based on age. NOW I am obligated to disclose that there are also some studies that claim this to be not as accurate as we had hoped but then again, like the smart scale, it does track progress.
Body Fat Caliper
OR just use a good old measuring tape, some fitness instructors actually highly suggest you to use tape measure to measure your body.
As you probably have gaged right now, it’s not necessarily about knowing exactly what your body fat percentage is but it’s about tracking progress, as many literature still can’t agree on what is the most accurate way to measure body fat, although majority of this studies claim it to be the DEXA SCAN which is expensive AF
Disclaimer: All of the points laid down in this article are backed by actual scientific studies that I’ve came across at one point in my weightloss journey, and my personal experience in the matter as well as discussions with actual experts, I do not nor will I ever claim to be an expert on the matter, I’m just here sharing what I know and have learned over the past 4 years.
YOU CAN FOLLOW ME AND CONTACT ME AT MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
Posts
0 comments