Dieting options and Respiratory Exchange Ratio

Posted On December 30, 2016

When I started to think about using which diet I was to use to win my bet against Will, here were my choices:

Veggie and Protein (Kate calls this the “Joyless Diet”)
AM starchy/PM fibrous carbs
Ketogenic diet
Intermittent Fasting

In my attempt to get super lean, a common denominator in most diets is that you must cut calories. You either eat less or find food that is much harder to digest therefore yield less. My MMA coach once told me that his boxing coach would put him on regimen of broccoli and freshwater fish (like Tilapia) when he was trying to make weight for his boxing match. His claim was that broccoli contained less calories than what it took for him to digest them. The boxing coach was talking about creating negative energy balance.

Diets: Pros and Cons

The pros of the first two diets are that I could eat all day every 2-3 hours of meals consisting of fruit and veggie, and lean protein. Most people call this a healthy diet. This way of eating would give me plenty of energy throughout the day and in my workouts. The con is that when you try to limit certain food items like “junk” food and if you like them a lot, it inevitably leads to food cravings—mine is a good cheese danish. For me, the craving would come like a thief in the night—around 10 pm and I would succumb to them. By eating frequently, I would get hungry more often and the more hungry I got, I would inevitably cheat in one of those late meals. And once I cheated, it would give me permission to cheat again and so forth—the terms downward spiral comes to mind. This cheating really puts a damper on my fat loss endeavors. So in order to stick to this type of diet plan, I would say it takes willpower and we only have so much willpower on tap. Speaking of willpower, here is a fascinating article in the NYT about the limited supply of willpower, or Decision Fatigue. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=0

I think the latter two diets are more doable for our leaning out effort because we don’t have to count calories. Instead, we can just focus on the meal timing of carbs, protein, and fat. The Ketogenic Diet works well but there is a lot of physical/mental suffering and food reward issues; and it is terrible for your piping (i.e. your colon).

Intermittent fasting, on the other hand, has all the benefits of the Keto Diet without depriving yourself of yummy carbs for an extended time frame. IF also increases lipolysis without having to resort to harsh weekly grind of depletion and re-composition— which is generally no carbs for five days and overfeeding of simple carbs on the Saturdays and Sundays.

Respiratory Exchange Ratio (or Respiratory Quotient)

The question then is how do we get the fat burn we desire without using the Keto Diet? My friend, meet my buddy, the Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) which will give us some insights into energy use. RER can be simply defined by the amount of oxygen used to derive the energy we need. In a highly intense anaerobic activity/exercise, like met-cons, we are going to use sugar as our main energy. However, if we reduce the intensity of our activity/exercise, we can increase the percentage of fat used to fuel our bodies. RER is calculated by dividing carbon dioxide exhaled over how much oxygen is consumed. RER is important because it tells us the percentage of carb/fat metabolized to fulfill our energy need.

For example, if I had Ginger Boy run all-out till exhaustion, his R value would equal to 1.00, which means that he will derive all his energy from burning carbohydrates. If I had him conduct a moderately intense exercise session (R value= 0.85) or have him coloring his anatomy coloring book (R value=0.75), his body will shift to burning more fat for energy—which is what we want and what is accomplished during our fasting state. The trick then is, by fasting, we decrease the overall daily intake of calories and increase the daily fat burn rate. Furthermore by increasing insulin sensitivity, the fasting sets up our system to shuttle most of the carbs into our depleted muscles during the post-workout carb-up. That is why, IF is a great jump-start for any serious effort to get leaner. Without losing appreciable lean body mass, the body learns to get efficient at burning fat for energy.

A client of mine asked me, “Dave, what will you do after June 21 when the bet is over?”

My plan is as follows: 1) Go enjoy sushi on Gingeroni’s dime; 2) Go say hi to Mickey Mouse to celebrate my victory; 3) Go back to eating healthy again; I am sure Kate reading this will make her a very happy wife.