I was recently asked about a current Biggest Loser TV episode, where a contestant lost 34 pounds in one week! Is this really possible?
A dietitian would calculate that someone would have to burn 119,000 more calories than they are eating to lose 34 pounds. To do this in one week, that would require burning 17,000 calories per day, or 708 calories per hour, if you stayed up for 24 hours and never went to bed the whole week. Oh yeah, and that’s just the burn rate above what you eat, so you would have to fast the whole week too.
To burn 708 calories per hour, you would have to run at a pace of about 7 mph, 24 hours per day, for 7 days straight. That would be 168 miles per day, or 1176 miles for the week (while fasting of course).
The guy that lost 34 pounds in one week weighed over 500 pounds, and even though he would certainly be burning more per mile than the average person, I think it’s safe to assume he wasn’t doing any running, or anything close to the equivalent exercise necessary to burn 119,000 calories in a week. I would guess that he wasn’t fasting either.
So how could this be possible? Well first of all, dietitians are wrong, and you can throw their formulas out the window. Research proved this decades ago, and millions of people who diet prove it over and over each year. The calorie-in, calorie-out theory is bunk, but people are still getting suckered into it because they don’t know any better.
So are these biggest loser contestants full of crap? Well actually, yes they are, and that’s precisely how they did it. The average person is carrying more than 7lbs. of dried impacted fecal matter in the colon as a result of eating processed foods, bad fats, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, alcohol, preservatives, and other crap we were never designed to eat. We really are what we eat!
Now if you have a weak stomach, stop reading, because the rest of this post gets pretty gross…
Morbidly obese individuals typically have a disproportionate amount of impacted fecal matter, because they typcally eat a disproportional amount of the foods that cause it. They also tend to wait too long to use the toilet because doing so is much more difficult and inconvenient. This severely exaggerates the condition, along with some other bad habits listed below.
This means if an average 200 pound American is carrying around 7 pounds of the stuff, a 500 pounder could be carrying around 80 pounds or more. Elvis wasn’t that big, but he reportedly had 60 pounds of impacted fecal matter turn up in his autopsy. His main staple was peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches. Things that make you go “hmmm…”
Food transit time through the digestive system is supposed to take 18 to 24 hours. The transit time of a person on a typical Western diet however, usually takes 50 hours or more. Your bowel should move 2-4 times a day, but bowel movements every 2 to 3 days are considered normal in America because of all the garbage we eat.
Foul-smelling stool and gas can be signs that something is hanging out in your intestines too long. The healthy color of your stool should be golden brown, with little to no offensive odor. During constipation, you may observe a darkening of the stool. This is caused by the longer transition time in your system, allowing residues to rot. This rotting festers harmful bacteria and causes poisons to build up.
If this cycle is allowed to go on long enough, the colon will distribute the poisons into your bloodstream and then to other organs of your body, which can result in toxemia. This condition causes a host of other problems, ranging from heart disease, to cancer, and more.
Americans have many daily habits that encourage constipation. As mentioned, consumption of processed and refined foods is one of the main causes. These foods do not provide quality energy to our cells or to the organs responsible for elimination of waste matter. Our busy schedules further complicate things by giving us the tendency to put off the call of nature. Proper hydration is probably the most important. Most Americans are clinically and chronically dehydrated. We should drink half our weight in ounces of water daily (for those weighing between 100 and 300 pounds).
The bottom line (sorry for the pun) is that the guy who lost 34 pounds in 7 days was on the toilet more than the treadmill that week. He was finally eating better, and his body was saying THANKS!
When allowed to do its thing through proper habits, the body will return to normal as fast as it can. It wants to! I had a friend who told me a story about losing 9 pounds in a shopping trip to Bellevue Square. After returning to healthy eating, his body decided to do its thing, and after 5 stops to the mall bathrooms within about 2 hours, dude was feeling much lighter on his feet, and was able to take his belt in two notches.
So are you full of crap? If you are eating a typical American diet, you probably are. You can easily fix it though, through eating right, answering the call of nature in a timely manner, and drinking enough water.
You don’t need a detox kit or flush plan, although they do yield fast weight loss results. The problem I have with those programs is that you lose muscle as well as crap, and very little fat. Even when detox kits do clean people out, those people typically just go back to their old habits and gain it all back, returning their intestines to their previous state.
I recommend healthy eating and just letting your body clean itself out over time the natural way. Whole organic foods with plenty of greens for fiber will get you back to healthy the right way. Brain training will rewire your neural networks so when you do get to your “after picture,” you will stay that way.
My book, “Cracking Your Calorie Code” explains the right way to eat, the best way to exercise, and how to rewire your brain. The X Gym DVD provides the right way to workout if you can’t go to an X Gym, and the Alki and Kirkland X Gyms provide the best way to train with a trainer. Those locations also offer access to me and the best trainers in the world. I know, because I work with them every day!