Why is it so hard to lose weight?

Losing fat can be very difficult in our modern food environment.  If we’re honest about it there’s really only one elephant in the room:

There’s too much processed junk around within easy reach.

Why is it so hard to lose weight though, what is going on when we exercise with great enthusiasm and restrict our eating and then as soon as we have a slip up or go on holiday, or go to an event, all of the hard work is undone.

For me it’s very simple.  We’re eating autumnally every single day in every single meal AND snack.

Think about it.

Toast or cereal with breakfast:  derived from wheat or other crops, which only harvest after the summer.

Pasta, wraps, sandwiches with fatty fillings for lunch:  a prime example of an autumnal combo.

Potatoes, rice, spaghetti, pasta, root veg for dinner: all full of starch which is turned into glucose by your body.  Autumnal.

And these are derived from whole foods and may not even be processed.  Now look at junk.

  • Crisps/Chips:  Potatoes and fat
  • Chocolate: Sugar and fat
  • Biscuits: Flour, sugar and fat.
  • Pizza: Flour and fat.
  • Doughnuts, Pastries and Cakes: flour, sugar and fat.
  • Syrupy coffees:  Fat and sugar.

See the pattern?

The only time in nature that combo appears is autumn time and it is impossible for a squirrel to lose weight during this time. It sets them of on a gorge frenzy.  I become like the squirrel when I begin eating junk food, once I start it’s very difficult to stop. I believe this is because it sets off our autumnal instincts as many of us evolved in the same seasonal eco-systems.

Recently, a study has shown that humans value fat and carbs together more than either alone.  E.g. you wouldn’t eat spoons of sugar or a stick of butter alone, but combine them and you’d eat plenty of toffee.  Same with popcorn, bland on it’s own, but add butter and it’s fantastic at the movies. It’s very obvious, we know it to be true, the science verifies it. The fundamental WHY?

Autumnal combos make us eat more because our bodies think winter is coming!

The thing is, even if we exercise it’s very difficult to work off excess fat if eating these combos, even if we reduce them.  In fact it is torturous and our body reacts to long term calorie restriction by slowing metabolism and as soon as we let our guard down, we gorge again putting the weight back on, and maybe a bit of interest too.

So here’s the key.  Try eating anti-autumnally when attempting to lose weight.  Don’t worry about controlling calories, worry more about controlling appetite by avoiding the foods that set us off.

Try eating a pattern like this instead:

  • Healthy fats and protein breakfast like an egg omelette or avocado and walnuts, or some smoked salmon and rocket.
  • Protein and low gi veg / salad for lunch (opt for leaner cut of meat of fish)
  • Carbs in evening meal but low fat protein source and sauces (use carbs particularly around your exercise, which all of us should be doing daily).

I find when eating this way, I am rarely hungry, and if I feel like snacking, I snack on things like 0% fat greek yoghurt and berries and maybe have a protein smoothie with a banana to support my exercise.  It means macros are controlled through separation too, and there’s plenty of nutrients in the fats, fibrous low gi veg, and protein sources too.

Simple really and all I’m doing is avoiding the carbs+fat formula that is so common in the western diet.  It’s OK to enjoy that combo occasionally, but if fat loss is the goal, then this might help you like it helped me and many successful readers of Don’t Eat for Winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protein Oat Cakes/Pancakes/Cookies Recipe

As a pre-training snack, or just a snack in general as an alternative to store bought protein bars, these protein+oat cakes/pancakes/biscuits are a delicious way of getting protein and carbs in before activity.

These are so simple to make and there’s lots of options so you never get bored.  Be creative.

The basic recipe is 40g oats, 30g whey protein powder (go for low fat natural vanilla flavour, or other flavour of your choice), and 100ml water.  Just stir it all up in a container until it’s well mixed (simply use a fork).  You can use the microwavable instant oats, as they soften quickly and the little red scoop is about 20g so it’s easy to measure out 40g.  You could use ordinary oats just leave them in the mixture a little longer to soften.

Be creative, add a few blackberries, or some thinly sliced apple (leave the skin on) and cinnamon for example… Chocolate is also great, use your favourite protein flavours. You can eat them plain but berries just give an extra nutritional punch.

Method:

Heat up an oven to about 180 and once hot, put the proatein mixture into a cake tin.  Use a good non stick cake tin, about 8 inches diameter, the mixture should be soft enough to fill out to the edge by itself, but not watery.

Wait 15-25 mins (depending on the texture you want, 15 is more like cake, 25 is closer to a cookie) for a lovely tasty home made snack, that tastes like an absolute treat.  Why not cut up into protein bars and give to the kids in their lunch box.  My son loves them!!!  These are vegetarian friendly too (I’m not sure what they would be like with vegan protein powders but let us know if you try) and a good way of getting in extra protein.

To stick with the Don’t Eat for Winter anti-autumnal plan remember to not eat fats in or around eating these and don’t use fat sources in your recipe like nuts, seeds or spread butter on them.  You could add fat as an occasional treat of course or before a long hike, and it would be nutritious and healthy but if you are trying to manage weight, then keep it well away from fats.  Remember with DEFoW – The anti-autumnal diet you avoid simultaneous carbs+fat (the signature of autumn itself and most junk foods). However I do advise getting healthy fats in each day at breakfast, eat leaner protein and low gi salad/veg for lunch and begin eating carbs later in the day, to fuel activity (you can flip it around if you train in mornings).  That’s essentially my secret and has me in control of my body fat for 3 years now and has helped lots of other readers do the same.

Enjoy and please feel free to post your creations on the facebook thread.

 

My Secret to Rock Hard Abs at 42 (after suffering for obesity for 10+ years)

Many of you don’t know me from Adam, but I am the real deal. My name is Cian Foley, I’m 42, and I constantly cause people cognitive issues, because they have to double take when I tell them my age and show them how I used to look compared to now.

I am not a health freak (which is an uncool shaming term). I like good food and partying hard. I sit at an office desk all day coding for a company in tramore called NearForm. I’m a nerd at heart. I love 80s action movies and retro video games, but my passion these days is not for TV or wasting my time on video games. These days I am passionate about getting the word out there about how I beat the horrible, preventable, affliction that held me back for years. Obesity.

I keep reading statistics about the crisis getting worse and worse globally with adults my age and kids suffering terribly… people dying directly from obesity waiting for bariatric surgery. I see experts arguing and people confused by mixed messages. I see snake oil sales of junk foods, preying on people’s weakness, and heavily marketed crash diet antidotes taking advantage of the inevitable results. I also the valiant but futile attempts many people are making, working hard but getting limited results from their efforts. This all stems from a basic misunderstanding of diet that has trickled down from scandalous science.

In my opinion, which I can back-up with data, scientific reports and first hand accounts, the answer to the obesity crisis is beyond simple, and the results to date have been incredible.

The problem is simple: we are eating autumnally in every single meal and snack, which means we are constantly priming our bodies for a winter that never comes.

Appetites out of control because natural fat storage processes and gorge instincts are being triggered all day every day. A squirrel cannot out-run the short autumn it experiences so we can never out-train the infinite autumn that is the western diet. Squirrels have the luxury of experiencing winter and so emerge in spring in great shape, we never experience winter anymore and so we pile weight on year after year until obesity sets in.

The solution is even simpler: stop eating an autumnal diet all the time.

In my book ‘Don’t Eat for Winter – The Anti-Autumnal Diet’, I tease out how simultaneous carbs+fat are the problem and a recent study backs this up (without providing the fundamental why). Carbs+fat are the signature of autumn as carbs do not exist in abundance until summer is out. Photosynthesis is required to create them i.e. long sunny summer days. Combined with staple fats and fats in nuts etc., autumn has this signature, which incidentally matches the signature of human breast milk. In fact, the motif of autumn itself, the acorn, has the exact same macro-nutrient ratio as human milk and it is no co-incidence that a plethora of junk foods match this signature. I believe this is because they appeal to our autumnal instincts, which can be explained with fancy terminology describing the hormonal and chemical processes that they trigger but the core reason is that simple.

When I cut out this formula, I shed all my weight and revealed abs in my 40s, but it hasn’t stopped with me. 4 readers have recently reported colossal combined loss of over 350lbs without ever meeting me, and there have been so many other reports of weight losses from the original batch of books launched I’ve lost count of the total weight loss.

These individuals are heroes in their own stories with an external problem they had to face but did not have the tools to deal with them. Don’t Eat for Winter helped them become the heroes they were meant to be. A man who was obese from 16, now 24 years later, entering his 40s 70lbs down, changed. A father who was 19.5 stone or more, now down to 14 stone, healthier with a thrilled wife, A father and daughter team down 10 stone between them and many other amazing stories of people who have beaten the external monster they faced everyday: the western diet and the gauntlet of junk we must endure daily, everywhere from supermarkets, to petrol stations, to fast food eateries, to airplane cuisine.

Here are the three most important tenets I live by and covered in Don’t Eat for Winter:

  1. Avoid simultaneous carbs+fat where possible
  2. Exercise daily (in nature if possible)
  3. Eat a whole food, nutritious diet containing healthy fats, adequate protein and precise carbs for your energy needs.

The secret to my rock hard six pack are as above combined with 5 minutes of ab exercises daily post exercise:

  1. 1. Lower ab exercises like leg raises, plank, or ab rollouts if more advanced, most people focus on upper abs, but the lower are almost always neglected.
  2. A twist exercise for obliques such as russian twist with a band held between both hands, I don’t load with weight to avoid injury.
  3. An upper ab exercise sit ups sliding hands up knees
  4. Maintaining tight core while walking and sitting, improving posture and keeping the area toned
  5. Discipline with diet through avoiding the autumnal combo of carbs+fat and separating as far from each other as possible in my daily diet.
  6. Consistency & work, you get nothing for nothing, our bodies are designed to respond to work via adaptation… in this case the adaptation to core work is a developing six pack that is revealed through sensible nutrition.

Cian Foley, BSc, Pg. Dip, QQI Sports Nutrition Level 6, is a former world and european kettlebell champion and currently NBFI Men’s Physique Bronze medalist. Formerly 18.5 stone, Cian is now a <12 stone lean exercise enthusiast.

DEFoW Dos and DEFoW Don’ts – Examples of Eating an Anti-Autumnal Diet

So most readers of this blog are aware of the squirrel formula I present in Don’t Eat for Winter, if not read about it here.

Eating foods with this formula, or foods with this combination is, I believe, a sure fire way to put on weight because you prime your appetite and set your body up for fat storage for many reasons.  Lots of hormones and chemicals are released by your body in response to eating foods and nothing invokes more processes than carbs+fat.  Let’s call them autumnal survival fat-storage instincts.

Eating for Spring, Summer and Autumn means not Eating for Winter so the simplest way to think about diet is to think about the foods available in each season.

DEFoW Do: Low GI fruit, berries and vegetables are stuff you should be eating  over the course of every day.  Of your seven a day chose 2:5 ratio of fruit to veg i.e. 2 pieces of fruit for every 5 pieces of veg.  You can eat low gi veg with absolutely everything.

DEFoW Don’t: Don’t eat too many portions of sweet fruit, fruit juices and stuff with sugar in general.  It’s too easy to over-consume sugar these days in both natural and artificial form.  If eating sugary stuff, eat it to fuel activity and avoid eating fat in or around the same time to avoid invoking autumnal gorge instincts.

DEFoW Do: Get in healthy fats once a day, fats with omega 3s, mono-unsaturated fats, vitamin d3 etc.  Think fish like salmon, walnuts, avocado, olives (or a really good olive oil), eggs.  Get in vitamins A,D,E&K at this time, the fat soluble vitamins.

DEFoW Don’t: Avoid eating carbs when eating fats, even healthy fats. E.g. avoid fruit juices and toast with a fat based breakfast. For example if I had eggs and bacon there is no way I would have toast or apple juice with it.

DEFoW Do:  Choose an appropriate protein source with each meal.  E.g. at breakfast time if eating healthy fats, a fatty protein source is OK at this time, e.g. bacon, a lamb chop, salmon and so on.  At lunch time with low GI veg you probably want to start tapering out fat and maybe eat something like chicken, tuna, cod, turkey or lean cut of meat, and in the evenings then the leanest possible source.

DEFoW Don’t: Avoid processed proteins including meats as they have lots of additives you don’t want to be eating as staples.  Have things like protein bars as an occasional treat and not a staple protein source. Don’t rely on whey protein supplements, have maybe one or two scoops a day if you lift weights or train hard, and go for ones with natural ingredients (pure whey even better and add your own natural sweeteners).  Don’t eat fatty protein sources all day every day (e.g. bacon, fatty fish, pork, lamb), keep to once a day and not with sugary or starchy carbs.

DEFoW Do: Eat an appropriate amount of carbohydrates for your lifestyle and opt for carb sources with fibre e.g. oats and wholegrains if you don’t have allergies to grains; vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes with skins are decent sources of vitamins too, bananas and apples provide lots of energy and nutrients too. Avoid refined carbs like sugary drinks in particular.

DEFoW Don’t:  If sedentary in particular ensure you look at carbohydrates holistically over the day and use primarily for activity.  Your body can only process so much sugar/starch and if it has to deal with a surplus you put your body under undue pressure and it tends to want to store excess energy.  Limit carbohydrate intake to around activity for optimal usage.  You only need about 400 calories from carbohydrates for brain and nervous  system and a little more for the body, which runs very efficiently off fat at rest.  Only when you work physically do you need to supplement diet with more carbs.

DEFoW Do:  Split your day up so that at different times fat is a focus, fibre is a focus and carbs are a focus, with an appropriate protein source to go with each.

DEFoW Don’t: Don’t Eat Autumnally in every meal and snack i.e. high fat high carb and low protein, especially avoiding junk foods with this signature.  Whatever about the natural foods nature produces in autumn, the Frankenstein foods of today multiply the effects they have on our taste buds and fat storage abilities.

 

 

Top 5 best diets for losing weight and burning fat?

I saw an article online on Mens Journal describing the following 5 diets as the best ways to lose weight and burn fat:

  1. Low-calorie diet.
  2. Low-fat diet.
  3. Low-carb diet.
  4. Ketogenic diet.
  5. High-protein diet.

Before I delve into an interesting observation on the 5 diet types I want to say that I disagree with the term weight loss, as fat loss should be the focus (if overweight), while gaining or maintaining lean muscle mass, bone density and of course hydration levels.

I also have issues with the world diet unless used the context of a healthy diet.  Crash diets and long-term calorie restriction or nutrient deficient diets should be avoided where possible.  A better approach is a sustainable long-term lifestyle change with whole foods that are seasonal and local where possible.

What struck me from the list above is the fact that each diet is inherently but unintentionally anti-autumnal.

An autumnal diet is a diet high in both carbs and fat and relatively low in protein. Don’t Eat for Winter presents the ultimate autumnal formula as approximately 50% fat, 40% carb and <10% protein (from a calorie point of view).  Avoiding this is key to an anti-autumnal diet.

Let’s take them one by one:

  • Low-calorie diet: restricting calories is a way of creating an energy deficit, possibly simulating a time where food is less available in nature e.g. winter/spring, by doing this you automatically eat less carbs+fat, which means it is less like an autumnal diet.
  • Low-fat diet: a healthy low fat diet means high carb, fibre and protein with low (but not no fat).  If fat is too low, particularly healthy fats, perhaps long term this is unhealthy as there may be too few healthy fats in the diet. Going low fat means avoiding carbs+fats together by default and so autumnal combos like granny’s famous pecan pie are off the table.
  • Low-carb diet:   These diets avoid the autumnal signature of carbs+fat for the same reason as the low fat, high carb diet. Low carb diets are typically higher in fats and proteins too.
  • Ketogenic diet:  The ketogenic diet is very low carb and controlled protein with high amounts of fat.  A person would shift into ketogenic mode in the absence of carbohydrates as the body generates ketones to fuel anaerobic processes.  This diet is anti-autumnal as it avoids the combo of carbs+fats too.
  • High-protein diet:  Protein requires a lot of energy to digest, but a high protein diet also means less carbs+fat together in the same sitting as high protein is means less of the other two.

One thing all of the above have in common is a potential lack of balance as a single macro nutrient is the focus of each.

Don’t Eat for Winter, the anti-autumnal diet, is all of the above but at different times, providing total dietary balance and yet still avoiding the high carbs+fat autumnal squirrel formula.  The format is as follows:

  • Low Carb High Fat: Eat a healthy fat based breakfast with protein and healthy low gi veg if desired e.g. an omelette, salmon, avocado and some nuts etc.  Avoids carbs+fat.
  • High Protein/fibre: Eat a lower fat protein source (meat, fish, poultry) at lunch time and include fibrous veg (watch the sauces) and/or/berries. Avoids carbs+fats and creates a buffer between breakfast fats and dinner carbs.
  • High Carb Low Fat: Eat carbs (some starches and potentially fruits) in the evening with low gi veg and a healthy low fat cut of meat/fish/poultry, use lower fat sauces too. Avoids carbs+fats, aids recovery, reloads glycogen and some research suggests that it aids sleep too.

This means each macro is a focal point of each meal, with constant protein and fibrous fruit and veg.

Special focus around training is required to get the required amount of carbs for energy purposes and increased protein for muscle recovery too, carbs and protein before and after can help fuel exercise, reload glycogen and accelerate repair.

Finally, sometimes it’s good to enjoy a treat, this is the time to get the autumnal formula in but make it once or twice a week instead of every single meal and snack like the current western diet if fat loss is your goal.  Make treats good ones, be it a delicious dinner out or a home made dessert, savour it, enjoy it and get back on track.  Be aware of your feelings afterwards too, are you surprisingly hungry afterwards.  At least being aware of it gives some sense of domination over what you are, a seasonal creature designed to gorge on particular foods to survive winter.

4 Amazing DEFoW Weight Loss Transformation Stories: a total of 350lbs fat lost

6 years ago, I was trapped in a body that I knew I did not belong in. I had to do something about it, but didn’t know what to do.  I was confused by all of the mixed messages from experts, many of whom based their advice on a foundation of sand (the sugar scandal comes to mind). I grew up thinking I had to starve myself to lose weight and/or go on a low fat diet. As a result, I always associated dieting with negative feelings and ultimately, FAILURE. I tried lots of diets and had some success but ALWAYS piled the weight back  on, normally with interest, which was incredibly frustrating.  What’s worse is that lots of low fat foods are high in sugar and starch and I was probably exceeding my need for glucose every day, even when dieting.

They say “necessity is the mother of invention” and I needed change but I was baffled with all the conflicting messages out there. The most success I had on any diet was a paleolithic style diet, but I still got stuck at a point. I had a Eureka moment one day and realised that carbs spike in nature in late summer and autumn yet we eat them all day every day in the western diet, and I thought, “this has to have something to do with the obesity crisis we’re in”.  I started eating an anti-autumnal diet that I created myself, and the weight I was carrying literally melted off after years of holding onto it even while competing internationally for Ireland with kettlebells, and, training like a demon.

It was then that I put on my research hat and went down a rabbit hole for a year and came back up with the Don’t Eat for Winter (DEFoW) Concept – The Anti-Autumnal Diet, still a whole food natural diet, but with an understanding of the dynamism of nature. It is unlike other diets as it is consciously avoids foods with the autumnal signature.   It’s not torture it’s actually pleasurable.  It’s about avoiding the autumnal signature of carbs+fat, which I term ‘The Squirrel Formula.’  This food signature is unique to autumn and I believe puts animals, including humans, into a state where we crave and binge on foods. With DEFoW you avoid that by eating a spring like breakfast, a summer like lunch and a modified autumn for dinner to suit your lifestyle and activity levels.

Simple.

Little did I realise that my little acorn of an idea, which had such an impact on me, would have such an impact on so many others this quickly.  I’ve had a multitude of messages from readers about their weight loss transformations over social media, and it’s difficult to keep track of them all, but I would estimate total weight losses have exceeded well over 1000lbs thus far.

Recently, I’ve received some amazing messages.  I knew it would take some time for bigger weight-loss stories to come through, after all it took me about seven years to complete my transformation, but I promised in my book that it would be a lot faster for people with the knowledge I picked up along my journey.  I didn’t realise just how fast it would happen for those who took it in earnest.

Here are 4 amazing messages I received recently in reverse chronological order.

This first one made me quite emotional last night from a delighted spouse:

“Hi Cian, my husband is one of your shy followers. He tried many times to lose weight. He  tried many diets working out etc. Nothing worked not until he took note on your book. He ordered it straight away when I say we have been together eleven years I have never ever seen him read a book before it’s amazing he read it back to back and could not stop talking about it. It has been one of the easiest and most sensible things he has done in his life. At his heaviest we recorded 19 and a half stone but I do believe the scale went above this. After your book and following your diet he is now a healthy and amazing man at 14 stone. I am so proud we have 5 children and he is so much more active with them both mentally and physically. He amazes me that in all these years your diet is so easy and healthy to follow before he was pre diabetic and had terrible heart troubles all of wish have disappeared. He followes your page everyday but would never write to you. He is sitting beside me right now and I could burst with pride at how well he looks and I would genuinely like to just thank you from the bottom of our hearts”

A 5.5 stone loss, 35kg/77lbs+ and more importantly a happier family!

I received the following message on Friday last,

“I started with the concept of DEFoW from commencing with your challenge back in January, when I was 119kg / 43% body fat, this morning the same smart scales tells me I’m 88kg and 25% body fat! I feel great 👍 and full of energy, I’m 40 next year and have been more or less above 100kg with an obese BMI since I was probably 16.

Your story has provided me with plenty of positive inspiration, especially as can remember seen you around town when you were probably at you heaviest, now your a kettle bell champion and taking part in men’s physique completions. Now for the final push finish the book, go strict on the Defow plan and come out the other side of Christmas lean and with a BMI inside the healthy scale!

PS why can’t they teach this basic nutrition in School? A minor investment in education will eventually translate to major savings in the health service!”

A total loss of 31kg or 68lbs but more importantly, the person has escaped the obesity that they were trapped by for 20+ years.  

I received this message from a proud daddy…

“I’m down about 4 stone… my daughter by the way has an even bigger thank you… she’s just too shy….nearly 6 stone gone buddy 😊😊😊😊😊

I’m so proud”

A combined 10 stone loss, 35kg/140lbs+ from a father daughter team driving each other on every day.

Finally, a message via twitter…

“Nov. 8, 2017. 245 lbs. 40 waist -> July 4, 2018. 171 lbs. 30 waist.
not an exaggeration that you guys have saved my life. A1C down from pre-diabetes into the 3s. BP, triglycerides, cholesterol vastly improved. Seven months really. Started in late Nov. The pounds literally melted away. I do exactly what you do for cardio-hiking, or uphill walking on treadmill as proxy when can’t get out. Weight work 2-3x a week as well, just a full body circuit 2 sets each exercise to failure. Eminently sustainable, as is the diet.”

This is a 71lb or 32kg loss (and they’ve reported more since), with improved health, which is fantastic!

In total, the overall weight loss from these 4 stories is a staggering 161kg or 350lbs!!!

I never met or do not know any of the people in these stories personally. All of them wished to remain anonymous and I totally respect that.  Should a journalist wish for me to verify these stories, I can show them the messages in person, once the anonymity of the individuals is maintained. Losing weight is a very personal issue and before and after pictures can be very embarrassing and I do not wish to breach anyone’s trust.  I’m thrilled that they would trust me enough after reading my work, to first of all try the concept, see great success and then have the graciousness to me on their success stories and attribute their results to The DEFoW Diet.  It means so much to me that lives are being changed by the concept.

You don’t have to buy a copy of Don’t Eat for Winter to try out the anti-autumnal diet. There’s plenty of information on the site and I post most days to twitter, facebook and instagram (links in header).  Please do follow me if you wish to get daily motivational tips, or to get in touch.

I do encourage people to read the book before asking specific questions, and also to help support my continued efforts to spread and support the concept.  I try and answer every request that comes in but it is difficult to do so in a timely fashion with other commitments in my life.

Best wishes,

Cian

From Obese IT Specialist to Men’s Physique Medalist

A computer programmer from Waterford City was a medalist at the Natural Bodybuilding Federation of Ireland (NBFI) national championships in the Everyman Theatre, Cork last Saturday the 1st of September.  Cian Foley, 42, competed in the Men’s physique (short) category against 8 other competitors.

Cian Foley Side Pose: Photo by Kest

What is extraordinary about Cian’s story is that he was once morbidly obese, weighing 256lbs in 2012. Since then, he has not only managed to get his body into good shape, but into competitive contest condition weighing in at 163lbs (93lbs lighter).

A DEXA scan at Waterford Health Park last Friday revealed just 10% bodyfat:

“My good friend Dr. Mark Rowe took me through DEXA scan results. I wanted to make sure my bodyfat levels were at safe levels, and Mark was delighted with my results revealing I was in the 1st percentile for men my age, which I’m very pleased with”, said Cian.

Cian is no stranger to strength & fitness sport having competed internationally for Ireland in Kettlebell GS over the past number of years and has won 2 European (Hamburg 2015, Poland 2016), a pan-American title at the Arnolds in Columbus Ohio (2014), and a World Championships in Dublin in 2015 in the 2x24kg men’s long-cycle category.  Since then he’s shifted into physique training, a no less demanding sport.

“I really enjoyed lifting kettlebells, it made me very goal focussed and sent me down the path to controlling my weight in order to be competitive, and eventually investigating exercise/sports nutrition and nutrition in general.  I shifted to men’s physique recently because I felt I had potential with it and is in line with my goals to inspire others who suffer with being overweight/obese.  It’s just as demanding as kettlebell sport, and it really is a sport though it may appear a little more glamourous.”

Cian is  author of Don’t Eat for Winter, which he suggests unlocks nature’s little secret to losing weight.  The hypothesis is that autumnal foods are eaten in every single meal and snack in the western diet, and so human beings prone to putting on weight can never become their summer selves, as they are eternally preparing for a winter that never comes.

“I believe Don’t Eat for Winter – DEFoW, was the key to my weight loss success having me walking around for the past 30 months at a weight that was just 6 weeks away from Men’s Physique competition readiness. It is the first ‘Anti-Autumnal Diet’ with the key premise being avoiding carb+fat combos, which is the signature of autumn itself and have proven to cause gorging.  Exercise alone will not shed weight, squirrels become hyperactive in autumn but still become obese to survive the winter.  It’s the same for us, except our autumn never ends.”

“In order to get into men’s physique shape I spoke to Frank Haley toying with the idea of competing in the NBFI championships.  I was drawn to it because of it’s ethos with regards to testing for PEDs. Frank was an old school band mate, and successful bodybuilder so he graciously agreed to speak with me to discuss diet and training.  He suggested I should enter the men’s physique category and then he trained with me for a week (with an injury) and told me what I would need to eat in order to put on the muscle required to be competitive while also losing fat. It is always good to draw on the practical knowledge of someone who got to a high level in a sport.  It has been a very tough but rewarding 6 weeks and everyone is amazed with how far I’ve come in that time (including Frank, who was as excited as I was).”

Cian is a guest panelist at the Harvest Festival – Glanbia Sports Nutrition Event – alongside former Waterford Hurler Manager Derek McGrath and others next Friday 7th at 5.30pm in the Book Centre.

Harvest Festival Link: http://www.waterfordharvestfestival.ie/index.php/events/details/glanbia_sports_nutrition_talk

photos by Kest Photographer

The Anti-Autumnal Diet – Don’t Eat for Winter

Many diets out there are inadvertently anti-autumnal through the fact that they exclude the simultaneous combination of carbs+fat.  For example low carb diets are typically high fat, and low fat diets are typically high carb, both of which minimise the high carb+high fat combo.  One of the latest diets, ‘the carnivore diet’, is also anti-autumnal as it is basically just meat, which is high protein with low to high amounts of fat with zero carbohydrates, again no carbs+fat.

I believe these diets work because they avoid the food combinations available in autumn time and thus control satiety and fat storage.  Carbs and fats are our primary energy fuels, and so if you up both these levers our brains and bodies go crazy for it (for many scientific reasons, which boil down to instinct) resulting in energy balance in constant surplus.

Let me explain…

The signature of autumn is high carb and high fat simultaneously. Think fruits, grains and nuts and when they harvest (e.g. trail mix). These ingredients make up things like Granny’s apple tart or pecan pie, everything good from the harvest mixed together to create delectable meals and treats. Acorns themselves, the most iconic autumnal symbol (which is used in the DEFoW logo), is a tool used to fatten up iberian pork, and what squirrels, bears, and many other creatures in various eco-systems, use to fatten themselves up for Winter.

The signature of this food is approximately 50% fat, 40% carb and 10% protein (which I term ‘the squirrel formula in Don’t Eat for Winter) and I propose is precisely designed by nature to fatten up all sorts of creatures, including humans, for winter (humans in many cultures such as the celts and native americans, used to collect and eat them to aid winter survival also).

Interestingly, an acorn’s macro-nutrient signature also exactly matches human breast milk, another food designed by nature to fatten up humans to survive the most vulnerable stage of their lives (coincidence?).

I believe nature becomes akin to a nurturing mother in autumn to protect all through the provision of highly available carbs and fats.

It is no coincidence that most junk food (e.g. donuts, chocolates, syrup coffees, crisps, pastries) and even meals (e.g. mayo and cheese sandwiches, cheesy bolognese, fatty bacon and spuds) in thewestern diet approach this signature because it tastes so good, and overly processed foods send us into an autumnal frenzy, which I believe contributes significantly to the obesity crisis the world faces.

Here is a radar chart comparing some junk foods with acorns, note the similarity in terms of macronutrients in both the data and the visualisation.

Why?

Carbs+fats prime our ancient winter survival instincts, encouraging us to fatten us up a little, in order to protect us from the cold and famine of winter and so avoiding this formula simulates other seasons.

Marty Kendall of Optimising Nutrition wrote a fantastic article on DEFoW that interrogates the USDA food composition database for foods with the squirrel formula signature and the list of foods there shows just how powerful this formula is.  This came about after I contacted Marty with the chart above, after I read another article on his site, showing how carbs+fat provide the least amount of satiety using a half million days of myfitnesspal data.

Here is that startling excerpt from that table in his article expanding on my radar chart…

The modern diet has this combo available all day every day in meals too for example breakfast (buttery toast and sugary cereals with milk), lunches (meat and salad sandwiches with mayo and cheese, saucy wraps etc), dinners (cheesy pasta meals, fries, burgers, pizzas, even buttery potatoes and creamy sauces with rice) and snacks and desserts too (biscuits, donuts, chocolate, crisps, ice-cream, cake etc).  We don’t stand a chance living in an environment where it is autumn all of the time (even our coffees have become syrupy desserts).

Don’t Eat for Winter is the first diet to point out that this formula is autumnal, and so I am claiming this as the starting point of the anti-autumnal diet™, which is a game changer in understanding why there is a global obesity struggle and to a lesser extent a global battle with bodyfat.

DEFoW aims to arm people up with knowledge in order to escape the infinite autumn that is the Western diet (and other global diets).  There’s lots of articles on this site with the reasoning behind what’s been outlined. Every day, more and more science and data points to the fact that it is carbs+fats together that are the cause of out of control appetites, and resulting fat storage.

The plethora of chemicals and hormones released in our brains and bodies are astounding (dopamine from sugar, endocannibanoid activation from fat, ghrelin rebound from carbs, depressed leptin from fructose and frequent insulin production in response to glucose etc), which used to serve a seasonal survival function but today, they are abused by commercial entities who would rather make a profit than see us take on our healthiest form.  It gets even worse when you consider the fact that our food environment today is an ‘autumn on steroids’, where processed fats and sugars, with no nutritional value, are injected into Frankenstein foods to make them irresistible to our inner squirrels.

The theory goes even deeper when you consider the factors required to create insulation on the human body in the form of brown adipose tissue (or brown fat), a different type of fat that has incredible properties including heat generation and insulation.  It was only recently discovered that brown fat can be activated in adult humans and much research is ongoing to determine if it can be used to tackle obesity.  Three things activate brown fat including cold, high insulin and leptin levels, and compounds in foods such as ursolic acid in apple skin.  Three independent studies have outlined this and these conditions only occur in nature around autumn time too!  All the pieces fit!  (Check out the advanced DEFoW hypothesis regarding BAT fat here here)

All non-autumnal diets work especially well in the short-term because they are seasonal snapshots that avoid autumn, however, the long term effects of living in a single season other than autumn is unknown. Time will tell. We know the results of living in autumn, given the current state of affairs with 2/3 of adults either obese or overweight practically worldwide and related illnesses out of control, so it obvious that anything that helps this situation is good.

DEFoW, is different in that it encourages the consumption of both carbs and fats based on the standard dietary reference intake, but advises eating carbs and fats at the opposite ends of the day. This yields balance between our current environment and nature, balanced nutrition and avoids provoking our ancient autumnal instincts. It works within the current guidelines to encourage complete nutrition including healthy fats, protein, carbs, fibre and micronutrients.  The aim is balance working within the standard dietary guidelines.

On DEFoW everyone is encouraged to exercise, particularly around the time of eating carb meals and get in healthy fats at another time of the day.  Just like nature it encourages balance through a novel approach of eating seasonally on a daily basis e.g. a spring time macro breakfast (zero carb e.g. eggs), a fibre rich summer lunch which is lower in fat (lots of low gi veg and lower fat fish, poultry or meat), and a modified autumn low fat dinner with carbohydrates.  Of course it’s OK to have carbs+fats now and again and indulge, but the awareness of what happens when you do is key.  All of the reasoning behind this is explained in the pages of Don’t Eat for Winter and expanded upon in this website.

Become an infinite autumn escapee (like these heroes who lost 350lbs between them) and spring into your summer body with the first anti-autumnal diet – DEFoW

Don’t Eat for Winter!

Check out the 5 star amazon reviews here.

 

Why has nobody noticed this about The Food Pyramid?

The food pyramid below (visit here to access original pdf files) changed in 2016 and now has fruits and veg at the bottom, which is great.

I don’t want to be overly critical of it but do you notice anything strange about the bottom 2 rungs?

It recommends 5-7 servings a day of the bottom rung, and 3-5 of the second (up to 7 for boys and men up to 50).

Analyse the foods in that second rung: bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes and rice. Potatoes harvest between summer and autumn, and are non-indigenous, grains similarly require a good summer and pasta and bread are derived from it. Rice is non-indigenous too.

On the bottom rung we have some great foods, but I worry about orange juice and bananas as both are non-indigenous and high in sugar/starch.  I’m less worried about apples, yet they are autumnal too.  Berries are summer fruits typically.

What have all of these foods got in common? 

They don’t exist in nature all year round!  Typically sugary and starchy foods require lots of sunlight to produce, it’s a process called photosynthesis, which we all learn about in school.

“Green plants absorb light energy using chlorophyll in their leaves. They use it to react carbon dioxide with water to make a sugar called glucose. The glucose is used in respiration, or converted into starch and stored(my emphasis) Oxygen is produced as a by-product. This process is called photosynthesis.” – BBC GCSE Bitesize

Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms’ activities (energy transformation). This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars (my emphasis), which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water.” – Wikipedia

Basically, foods rich in sugar and starch come into existence in nature in summer and  become abundant in autumn.  This is a direct result of the sunlight the plants are exposed to.

In autumn, creatures like squirrels put on weight as a result of this in a knock on chain reaction, preparing them for winter.  Their diet changes and they become hyper-active, yet bulk up quickly for winter. They lose it when resting over the winter, happily living off their body-fat.

I believe human beings have a similar abilities, as it was recently discovered that we can develop brown adipose tissue (BAT) to protect us from the cold of winter. It’s main source of fuel is white adipose tissue (WAT), the jiggly stuff we don’t like to have too much of, which must develop first.  Therefore, I believe it is the additional variable of abundant carbohydrates, in conjunction with fat in the diet, that triggers autumnal instincts within human beings.  Our base instincts to survive winter are invoked, and we are guiled into overeating such foods as they are hyper-palatable for one main reason: survival! This has been shown to be true in recent studies of cafeteria diets, and can affect us in similar ways to drugs.   Squirrels obviously go nuts (pardon the pun), some of which are very high in carbs and fat (e.g. acorns or oak nuts), at this time of year because of similar chemical triggers within them, it stands to reason we would be affected based on our evolutionary heritage too having shared similar eco-systems and foods.

Basic logic would suggest to me that we shouldn’t be eating up to 14 servings of foods that only exist in nature in summer/autumn every day of the year and I’m surprised so few people are aware of this.  I propose the food pyramid become more dynamic and take into consideration our evolutionary heritage and our sensitivity to seasonal triggers.

If we exposed squirrels to an infinite harvest, the same way we are exposed, I wonder how obese and sick they would  become. We know squirrels and bears become pre-diabetic in autumn and reverse it in spring. I suspect if their autumn became infinite like ours we might find a large portion of their population would become unnaturally obese/overweight and suffer from related conditions like diabetes etc.  Look at our world, with so much obesity, and with diabetes continuing to rise, and all sorts of other related health concerns, is it any wonder that this is happening when we are living in a constant autumnal state?

If us living in an eternal harvest  isn’t bad enough, it is compounded by the fact that we have all sorts of processed derivatives which are energy dense and nutrient light.   I term this the infinite autumn, on steroids.

Let’s address this and consider the seasons more in our daily diets.  My own approach, known as The DEFoW Diet, is to eat seasonally on a daily basis i.e. a spring meal, a summer meal and an autumn meal (modified slightly). I also have occasional treats and I think the food pyramid is correct about limiting junk foods to 1-2 times a week (maximum).

This seasonal approach has helped me lose 90lbs and maintain my weight in the ideal range for years.  I am in full control of my weight in my 40s having struggled all my life because I now understand what was going on.  I was eating for winter all of the time.

 

 

 

ACORN – Autumnal Causing Obesity Rapidly in Nature

The humble acorn is a major part of Don’t Eat for Winter’s messaging.

Why?

Well besides being the food of squirrels and bears in autumn, and the food that fattens up iberian pigs to make them succulent and tasty, it also symbolises autumn itself. More than that, it actually has the exact signature of the foods I ask people to consider avoiding as part of an anti-autumnal eating pattern…

That means avoiding a high proportion of simultaneous carbs + fat, with low proportion of protein…

50%fat 40% carbs and < 10%protein is The DEFoW Squirrel Formula

Many junk foods follow this signature in an uncanny way!!!

Acorns used to make up a big part of the diets of old cultures in autumn and winter, e.g. native Americans, Irish Celts and many others. In Ireland, for example, the country was once almost 100% forested and a huge portion of those trees were fabulous oak trees, which would have supplied a huge amount of food to critters and humans alike (before modern farming) and most importantly, could be stored away over the winter…

From Wikipedia:

“In years that oaks produced many acorns, Native Americans sometimes collected enough acorns to store for two years as insurance against poor acorn production years.”

“…The stored acorns could then be used when needed, PARTICULARLY DURING THE WINTER (my emphasis) when other resources were scarce.”

If we adapted to surviving winter we would have had to put on weight for 2 reasons: energy backup and thermal insulation, so I believe the acorn served that purpose and it’s no coincidence that gorge inducing junk foods follow almost the exact same formula.  It wasn’t limited to acorns though, the combination of fats and carbs from grains, fruits, nuts and the staple fats in the diet from animal meats, fish etc., would combine to approximate this formula in autumn and would not have been possible at any other time of the year as there is no starch in march (trees are bare, fields are barren).

So if you’re looking at foods to eat, think about the squirrel formula i.e. that of acorns, and remember that it’s in terms of calorie percentages…

For example, if you see approx 11g fat (100cals), 20g carb (80cals) and very low protein e.g. 5g (20cals), or any multiple or fraction close to that, you know it is approximating the autumnal gorge formula.

A: Autumnal
C: Causing
O: Obesity
R: Rapidly
N: in Nature

see what I did there 😉