Week 2 Measurements
Compared with previous measurement there was 0.9lb (160.9->160.0) loss in total weight and 1% (16.7->15.7) reduction in body fat percentage. Which means I've lost about 1.75lb of fat mass. Waist has gone down from 31 inch to 30 inch, which is 1 inch decrease.
So far from first measurement I've lost total 2.5lb (162.5->160.0), body fat came down 2.5% (18.2->15.7), which it also means that I've lost 4.45lb of fat mass. Waist has gone 2 inches.
Low Fat Diet Benefit
I have not changed anything on nutrition compared to week 1. Staying steady with low fat. I kept my protein intake to about 160g per day as I did on the first week. Something that I’ve noticed with low fat diet is ease to control the digestive health. This may be due to choice of carbohydrate being higher in dietary fiber and oligosaccharide. Dietary fiber helps bind with toxin in our body and help flushes it out of our body. Oligosaccharides are found in onion, garlic, cabbage broccoli, blueberries, bananas and help nourish the gut bacteria. So, if you are on low fat diet or having digestive issues look up food sources that has oligosaccharides and add to your diet.
One suggestion I will make with consuming food source that are high in oligosaccharides is to consume with protein. For example, in the morning, as I mentioned in previous article, I take protein shake with about 60g of protein after my workout. With protein shake I eat 1 banana since my primary energy source is through carbohydrate. In a place of banana, you can do blueberries, watermelon, oatmeal and so on. I choose banana because they are inexpensive.
Importance of Digestive Health in Fat Loss
Digestive health is critical part in fat loss. With poor nutrition, frequent alcohol consumption and dehydration, the body may slow down your digestive process for being overworked.
When you eat food, it takes about 72 hours to digest and exit the unnecessary materials. If the food consumption is highly processed food, high sugar, alcohol and so on, digestive system may not be able to keep up. This is also goes to frequent eating habit. When the digestive systems slow down, there is higher chance of partially digested food being fermented in your body. This can lead to stress to your body and may cause the accumulation of visceral or inflammatory fat.
If you have digestive issues or high visceral fat, you may want to start with low-fat diet rather than low-carb diet. Reason is there seemed to be more digestive friendly food sources in low-fat diet than low-carb diet. You can consume higher number of vegetables in low-carb diet, but your gut may have tough time dealing with higher fat intake.
If you have high visceral fat, I suggest starting off with low-fat diet to improve your gut health and get all the not properly digested food that are stuck in the body out. This may also mean that you need to drink more water.
Keeping the Hunger Signal
Often time people complain about hunger signal is causing them to eat more frequently. However, being hungry for 1-2 hours will not kill you. In fact, when you keep the hunger signal going for 1-3 hours, you are giving pancreas and digestive system a break. Remember the gut health we’ve just discussed? Resting it is part of improving gut health.
For me, I’m keeping my meal 3 times per day with no snacking in between. If I get hungry, I drink water or move around but not eating.
Effect of Eliminating Alcohol
Eliminating alcohol has been tremendous affect on my recovery from workout to workout. Seems like drinking any alcoholic beverage may have negative impact towards sleep quality whether it is a beer, hard liquor, or red wine.
This does not mean that I will quit drinking forever yet need to consider frequency of drinking per week.
Some effect that I have been experiencing is joint and ligament pain has subsided, even when I’m still playing soccer and lifting at same intensity as prior to diet 4 times per week. In fact, because the pain is reduced, I have increased the sprint and agility drill from 2 to 3 times per week.
Summary
This is the last week of low-fat diet and will be transitioning into low-carb diet in week 3. I found low-fat diet is useful for those who are needing to manage digestive issues that is causing bloating and constipation. Felt like it was easier to get water soluble fiber from fruits and vegetables. Only challenge for me was variation of protein sources were limited. Moving on to low-carb diet, this problem should be solved. However, may need to mindful of consuming more vegetables to maintain the fiber intake.
Kota Shimada
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