My new bff: Chalene Johnson

Isn't she just so stinkin' cute?

She doesn't know she's my new bff, though, seeing as how she's a famous fitness guru and celebrity. And of course, the creator and star of Turbo Jam (and ChaLEAN Extreme, Turbo Kick, Turbo Fire, etc). But in my mind, we're buds and she loves to give me advice on fitness and losing weight. I'm a follower of her blog, which is full of recipes and fitness advice, things of that nature.

I just recently came across a blog post she did about why its so hard for us "long-term dieters" (as in, life-long dieters) to lose weight, and more specifically, to lose fat. If you're interested you should read the post in its entirety, but here are a few highlights to give you the gist of it:

"Millions of people, and especially women suffer from the consequences of years of trying to restrict calories.

Perhaps the most common complaint I hear from women is “I’m cutting my calories, but I can’t live like this and I’m not losing weight like I used to!”

For years people have been told it’s simple a numbers game. Burn more than you consume and you’ll lose weight. We also often hear this magic number of “1200″ calories. But these two notions, though fairly accurate, only tell part of the picture and this picture is drastically different if you are a life time dieter!

Though true, what’s flawed in these simple statements (which I too have used to oversimplify a complex machine) is that the body can and does quickly adapt to a diet of excessive deprivation (well below your caloric requirements) and will slow your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). In essence, when you dip below your BMR in calories consumed for an extended period of time, you trigger your body to activate “starvation mode”. The body, being a well equipped machine finds a way of burning fewer calories than are available.

Ironically, in our youth, when we have a considerable amount of muscle, our bodies are new and unfamiliar with the rapid weight loss game. Weight loss and weight maintenance are easy! The cycle begins when people try to “diet” their weight off, as opposed to proper nutrition and changing their body composition (i.e. add exercise and muscle). One of the most frustrated groups of individuals are those over 30, 40 and 50 who see that year after year weight loss becomes more difficult. It’s not the age…its the body composition that makes dieting difficult.

So even though at face value it should seem that if you are consuming less than you are burning, you should be losing weight, the bottom line is this…. If you're not providing enough fuel to your body to nearly support your BMR, your BMR will slow accordingly.

So… how do we increase our BMR???

Listen up long term dieters… YOU MUST EAT ENOUGH CALORIES TO SUPPORT YOUR BMR! And it’s time to get over it… YOU HAVE TO EXERCISE IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHANGE YOUR BODY COMPOSITION. Its the only hope you have.

Get over it people! You are going to have to lift weights! Just 3x a week! And guess what… You’re going to feel better! A lot better!

Is it possible to reverse what you thought was a metabolism slowing due to your age? YES!!

When working to increase your metabolism (which is ultimately the goal if you want to eat more and come in a smaller package) remember that muscle is an active tissue. It’s requirements are far greater than fat. Fat is this mushy, lumpy, yellowy stuff that requires very little to sustain itself, but takes up a lot of space. Lean muscle tissue on the other hand requires are great deal of calories to sustain. It’s firm! It’s tight! It’s red with blood and healthy tissue that makes life easier and fat burning a breeze! Muscle burns fat!

To do this means taking the time to “get it right” and as unpopular as it may be, to know the amount of calories you’re consuming per day, at least in this “getting it right” stage."

Chalene uses a woman, 'Cherrie', as an example. "She hadn’t exercised in over 20 years and told me she had be starving herself and making terrible food choices for years, resulting in more and more weight gain. For her stature she was at least 60 pounds overweight. A part of me doubted her when she told me she was “barely eating a thing.” I thought..”Yeah right!” That is until I saw the data from her BMR testing. Her BMR was 700 calories a day! What?? No wonder she was putting on weight no matter what she did."

Cherrie started Chalene's program called ChaLEAN Extreme. "On day 1, Cherrie was burning only 700 calories a day, starvation by most standards. Her body fat was over 35%! She admittedly hated exercise and explained that most days she tried to avoid eating anything until dinner. She explained she had a habit of picking and snacking to get her through, but always felt hungry and deprived. At dinner she would often over-eat, but still tried to restrict her calories. She said she woke up every day feeling exhausted, run down, defeated and depressed. She looked 10 years older than her true age. Despite her attempts to cut calories, her body had learned to accommodate by burning fewer and fewer, making weight gain a certain probability.

What happened after 90 days of eating every 2.5 hours and lifting 3x a week? What happened after we started giving her body the fuel it needed and changing her composition? Well, at first, Cherrie hated it. I would say she hated me for the first two weeks. She even gained a few pounds those first few weeks, but she trusted me and stuck with it! After the 2nd week it was obvious she was losing weight. But weight loss alone wasn’t my goal for her. I wanted to change her BMR! At the end of 3 months we went back to the doctor and tested her again. She had lost over 40 pounds and not one ounce of that was muscle. In fact, in the process of losing fat, she actually gained muscle! We reduced her body fat by over 50%! Huge! We increased her BMR to nearly 1400! That’s amazing! Even the doctors were astonished. Most rewarding for me was the day she reported she was now off her blood pressure medication, the depression had lifted and her boys had their old mom back!"

So now I have a good idea why I haven't been losing weight at the rate I was expecting. In addition to the Turbo Jam cardio I've been doing, I need to increase my weight-lifting workouts, Turbo Sculpt, to 3x a week; as well as eating "mini-meals" every 2.5 hours. We all know what a mini-meal is, right? Something as simple as 1/2 cup of cottage cheese with a piece of fruit, you get the idea. So that's the new plan for my WLJ. We'll see what results I get.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I've decided to change my results weigh-in... instead of recording measurements every 30 days, I'm going to do it every 30 workouts. THEN we'll see some serious changes, I'm sure of it. (I haven't been able to bring myself to do the measurements for this month's weigh-in because for every pound little Lena lost during her illness, I gained.)

Wish me luck!