Walking the Fat Away: An Empirical Self-Study.

Well, it's December 1st. I have just shaved my head. I WAS going to keep a mohawk for a day or two, but it looked ridiculous so I chopped it all off. I will be editing a video in as soon as I get home to my camera, because I will be taking all videos and pictures in a specific spot in my garage. I like videos a little better because I can turn around, and there's no "secret posing" bullshit going on. You can't fake your body shape in a video as well as you can in a picture. I have shaved my head so that we all can see there are no time lapse tricks being used, or data from outside the study period.

The purpose of this thread is to show the results, or lack of results, obtained by exclusively using uphill walking on a treadmill to drop body fat. This will be a 90 day thread, ending February 28th. Obviously it will be available for discussion indefinitely. I will be posting video updates at least once a week to show progress in a visible form, and I will update my walking data(how long, what speed, what incline) as close to daily as my schedule permits.

The idea behind walking uphill to burn fat is to maximize fat metabolism DURING the walking. Why should this work? When one is walking straight, it is essentially a controlled fall. Muscular output is minimal. When walking uphill, all the body's postural muscles must work harder to maintain balance. Because much of the work is spread throughout the entire body, there is no one muscle that is working so hard that it cannot support its energy consumption needs with body fat. This allows the body to burn a larger percentage of fat as energy DURING the exercise compared to other forms of fat loss. The second advantage is that walking is a very low intensity activity, even when walking up a 15 degree incline at 2 miles per hour. This minimizes structural damage in the muscles, and due to the larger amount of fat being burned, minimizes glycogen depletion. These two factors make walking an activity that has minimal impact on recovery ability, and as such it can be used to drop fat without compromising athletic performance during the fat loss cycle. That is the idea here. My workouts and diet will not change, and I expect to continue to see progress in my lifts during this phase of training.

My hypothesis is that I will drop body fat as I continue to gain muscle and strength. I will be using a cheap fat loss supplement, consisting of caffeine and EGCG, and I'm pretty sure that's it. I will be showing the label and the nutritional information in the first video so we are all aware of what I am using. The caffeine's fat liberating effects should boost fat metabolism by about 30% during the walking, and the EGCG should help overall fat metabolism. Human studies have shown that subjects consuming 280-something mg of EGCG a day for two months or so seems ti induce a loss of 4-8 lbs of almost pure bodyfat, and that is with no change in diet or activity. There are studies in rats, using enormous dosages compared to what I will be taking, that show the EGCG can lower testosterone and whatnot, and then there are others that show EGEC RAISES the same hormones. THese are all based off of injections, which have almost no correlation to oral consumption, as oral consumption sends nutrients through pathways that are skipped by injection altogether, causing a number of possible interactions that make these studies almost useless in determining the effects of oral green tea supplementation in humans. It appears that the Doggcrapp trainees, some of the biggest and strongest in bodybuilding, are big users of green tee supplements, and as they are only concerned with gains in muscle mass through increased strength, it is doubtful they would use so much green tea supplementation if it interfered with their gains. So, overall I am not too worried about it, but I will make notes of any effects I notice in the strength department.

This thread will serve as the first piece of empirical data known to me or, as it seems, anyone else in the scientific community, regarding the use of uphill walking as a fat loss technique. One way or the other, this thread will be informative, unbiased, and potentially of great interest to many athletes.

Good luck! What's the starting BF estimate?

I will continue drinking coffee (caffeine) and standing still to lose weight. :twisted:

Estimated BF of 15%. Here is the video.

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This is very interesting to me . . . I am looking forward to the journey and final results. I know all I did when I cut body fat was heavily modify my diet and upped my strength training. I didnt do any specific cardio work. I dont see why walking shouldnt work, you are basically just adding in activity without changing anything else, so you are burning a little more calories than you used to.

This sounds good to me.

Exactly, and the important thing with the walking is that a higher percentage of those calories is from body fat, directly. I'm off to do a walk.

Yesterday I walked for 50 minutes, and I will probably do the same today. 50 or 60 minutes. 2.0 miles per hour, 15% incline. It works out to around 675 calories per hour at my current weight.

Friend,

To make your study more "empirical," you might also include a before and after 7-point BF/Bio-sig measurement by a knowledgeable, accredited practitioner.

You might also include a "control" list of before/during/after diet. Total daily caloric intake is useless, it should be broken down into macronutrient percentages.

You've also thrown a confusing variable into the mix by taking a weight-loss supplement, which will leave you with the question, "Well, I dropped BF. And it was either the 50-minutes of walking or the crystal methamphetamine that did it."

You also need to state how you're going to measure that it's fat and not water or LBM.

Finally, you need to ask yourself, along the broad spectrum of BF-loss protocols, with starvation or caloric-restricted diets on one end, is the one you're pursuing worthwhile? I could state a hypothesis like, "If I eat nothing but particle board and wood glue (for the flavor) for six weeks, a decrease in BF will be observed." Is this really worth my limited training and even more limited recovery time?

Meaning, I'd suggest that if you tweaked your diet and maintained your current training level, you'll drop BF without wasting 50 minutes a day.

I've got to second NiftyVT up there, in that I experienced a measurable change in BF (12 to 7 according to Bio-Sig) by maintaining my Gymnastic Strength Training™ and tweaking the composition and quality of macronutrients. No calorie-counting/manorexia involved, and certainly no "cardio."

best of luck,

jason

As soon as it is practical for me to, I will be doing the 7-point bf measurements at Georgia State University, in the Physiology lab, by my friend who has just been trained in school to perform this to ACSM standards. It will be done well.

As far as explaining the LBM versus other stuff, I will be using the before and after measurements. BY doing so it will be fairly easy to show whether the loss is LBM or not. Additionally, if my weighted lifts do not go up, I am probably not maintaining LBM.

The supplement is caffeine and green tea. The effects of each are fairly well known. They will accelerate any fat loss that I have, but won't do a damn thing on their own. Two pounds in a month is all that can be expected from the green tea, and that's on the high side. Anyone who thinks that caffeine created the weight loss by itself is welcome to shoot themselves in the head and rid the gene pool of their utter lack of intelligence.

And, honestly, I didn't like how it made me feel. I never use caffeine, so I am very sensitive to it. I am probably going to not use that supplement. It's only a 10 dollar loss and I don't like feeling funky. And you're right, with the caffeine's diuretic effect it would be more difficult to say it's not just water weight. I also appreciate the point you made about the caffeine and green tea confounding the results. Thank you

As for spending precious recovery ability, I would love for anyone to show me an exercise that burns the same number of calories in the same or lesser period of time, that requires less recovery. Beyond a small amount of glycogen depletion that is unavoidable when performing work, the uphill walking has almost no negative impact on my system. I have no soreness, no weakness, and no tiredness. Please, tell me how I can burn 700 calories in an hour or less without causing more glycogen depletion or muscle breakdown than the walking. In fact, the walking serves as something of active recovery, and if anything will actually help my recovery.

My "control list" of my diet is as follows: I'm getting 30-40% of my calories from fat, 20-25% from protein, and the rest is carbs, which could range from 50% down to 35%. depending on what I eat each day. Nearly all meat is chicken, but there is a steak once or twice a month. Carbs are no more than 30% grains, which consists of whole wheat pasta when I do eat it. The rest are sweet potatoes, fruits, and vegetables. Fats are from milk, meat, and olive oil.

My diet is fairly good, though if you have improvements for me I am listening. My calorie count is in line with what my body burns. I find that if I eat less than this, my body does not recover properly, and I am phasing the pasta out for the most part, though I do find that immediately after workouts they help more than the sweet potatoes with glycogen replenishment, but that may be due to the fact that the same amount of pasta has more carbs. I will be more careful in measuring my sweet potatoes and see if they afford me decent recovery, I believe I have not consumed enough per meal with them.

I have allowed myself to gain more bodyfat than I am used to carrying over the last year, but I have remained stable for the past two months. My girlfriend likes me like this better, so I obliged. Doesn't matter much to me, I'm still in good shape. Now I am simply using the walking to show how it helps with recomposition.

And, by far least importantly, my walking gives me time to watch TV! I catch up on the news. I'd rather do that in the gym walking than at home farting on the couch

Caffeine won't tweak your result, just because it's diuretic. You can just stop using it weak before 28th of February if you want to be perfect shure.

A weight-loss supplement will tweak his result.

Your macronutrient numbers are too broad. Please define them within +/-5%.

The other big issue is that you lack a control.

If you're interested in observing a 700 calorie loss per hour without depleting glycogen stores, or whatever, that needs to be your hypothesis. You will have to also measure before and after your glycogen stores. As I mentioned, though, without a control, results will be meaningless --- how do I know I don't burn 700 calories an hour without depleting glycogen stores just commuting to work in Tokyo?

How about more interesting experiment? How about a 5-week grain- and gluten-free Paleolithic-based diet? Given your performance numbers, I would be interested in those results.

I will do that as soon as this one is done. I am actually switching off of that stuff now, though for the last few weeks I have only eaten pasta 3 times. It's been all veggies, sweet potatoes, and meat. And milk MMmmm, milk.

Jason, you are trying to tweak my experiment further towards your bias of Paleo diet being the preferred solution to weight loss. I am not claiming that it doesn't work, because I have no personal experience, but I am saying that you are less interested in the results of what I am doing and more interested in seeing me do it a different way. Nothing wrong with that

As for the macronutrients, to clarify: On weight training workout days I am 30-35, 45-50, 20-25%, with that being fat/carbs/protein.

On non-workout days I am 35-40, 35-40, 20-25, fat/carbs/protein in that order. Non workout days are days when I walk and do a little bit of planche work, focusing on straight arm strength more than the planche itself.

I can, as a matter of fact, serve as something of my own control. I worked 3-4 days a week as a handyman, 5-9 hours a day for about 8 months straight, until my boss started his vacations and I started getting closer to exams. Now I only work 1-2 days a week and spend my time on the exams. Painting, light construction, light remodeling are all low intensity work, and my diet has been the same throughout, though I was eating more pasta then. The macronutrient numbers have been the same for at least the last 4 months of that. I don't change my diet up too much. That's not perfect, but my bodyfat has stayed the same despite varying levels of activity, and went up a little the past 2 months because I've been eating a little more. I've since gotten back into the calorie range I belong in, and I feel better. Anyhow, that's not a perfect scientific control, but it's not bad at all. You have to realize that I am well aware I cannot create laboratory conditions, and secondly you have to realize that what works in the real world is most important. If, by changing nothing in my life except adding in the walking, I not only maintain or gain my lean mass but also drop body fat, then the uphill walking works. If my lifts continue to go up, and I continue to feel charged up, then I am not being fatigued. I do not know how to measure my levels of glycogen depletion other than gauging by my performance. If I run out of steam, my levels are depleted. If you know of a way for me to do it better than that, please share.

As for the results being meaningless, that's absolutely untrue. That is a heavily biased opinion based entirely on reliance upon modern science. What I am doing is still scientific, because I am using only measurable results, not opinions. It is not up to laboratory standards, but it is still going to produce relevant results.

Secondly, your Tokyo example is not only comical but a surprisingly irrelevant and useless comparison from someone so heavily reliant on modern science. Modern science has gifted us with these magical tables for caloric expenditure. These are rare and difficult to locate, so I will give instructions. If you flip a penny twice, eat a banana, throw the peel over your left shoulder, and open any reputable dietary calculations book or table, you will find(with the help of a magic Djinn named Mustafa) that sitting on your butt in a train or car burns x amount of calories, walking on flat ground or any particular incline burns "g" amount of calories, and riding your bike at a certain speed requires approximately "k" amount of calories per unit of time (adjusted for incline, personal physical characteristics, and other variables.)

Of course with the bike you'd have to use the gear ratios to work out the actual amount of force being exerted by the legs, and then you'd have to take into account that the legs are doing far more work than any part of the body besides the neck. You'd have to determine how much time was spent coasting, how much was going down hill, how long you had to stop at various traffic lights, etc.

You can determine the amount of energy being burned by the various muscles according to how much force the have to generate in a given activity. The walking is fairly well spread out, and is low force, requiring less in the way of energy bursts than any other activity besides perhaps an elliptical trainer, which in turn takes a considerable load off of the muscles responsible for maintaining balance since you're attached at the hands and feet to the trainer. It would be better without the handles, quite possibly comparable at the right speed and resistance level to the walking. This would be far less safe than using your hands or walking uphill, and as such may not be suitable for very many people.

Of all the options available, there may well be some other activities that can produce results similar to uphill walking under specific conditions, but seeing as most people don't have the option of commuting to work by bicycle or foot in Tokyo, and the massive variability in caloric expenditure depending on one's local terrain and individual effort, it actually is much more intelligent to say that most other activities are not going to be able to produce the same reliable expenditure with the same reliable low impact on recovery ability day after day. Most people are simply unable to motivate themselves to work fast enough to get their body to burn significant energy when commuting or working, and at times that would be detrimental to the rest of the work day. Additionally, external and uncontrollable circumstances such as traffic lights, unavoidable delays at work, traffic make most other activities completely unreliable as a regular means of consistent fat loss, in addition to the motivational variability I have mentioned. With the walking on the treadmill, your incline is set and constant. Your speed is set and constant. You either walk and stay on the treadmill, or you don't. There is no variability, no traffic, and there are only two levels of motivation: do it or don't. These factors make the inclined treadmill walks far more reliable than any other option I am aware of within the category of activities that have minimal impact on recovery. Thank you for the entertainment!

Gregor: You're right, the caffeine won't change whether this works or not, but it will change how much fat I burn. I personally would like to know what the results will be with just walking.You can easily assume that when adding in caffeine 3 minutes prior to the walking that you will burn ~20-30% more fat.

You're right that I am biased towards a more ancestral diet, for a host of reasons. That's why it would be more interesting to me to see someone with your strength levels document results of switching to one, rather than replicate yet another cardio-burns-calories experiment.

Unfortunately, without an effective control, your results will be meaningless because there will be too many variables to assert the causality of what you seek to measure. An association is the best you'll be able to manage.

I do appreciate that you're doing this as a fun and measured way of dropping BF, and not really in a way employing scientific method. Ultimately I hope you get the results you seek, and I hope these results help you meet your other training goals.

best,

jason

Obviously this is not a scientific lab perfect study or report, either way it's still interesting to see what slizz experiences this way, I may actually start doing it myself a bit just to drop 2-3 %

I am for sure interested. When it comes time for me to cut the fat I gained after I get to 185 (so 190-195 depending how lean I stay) I will defiantly incorporate some walking in my routine alongside my diet changes if the walking actually helps as much as it should. 8)

jasonmstein said:

You're right that I am biased towards a more ancestral diet, for a host of reasons. That's why it would be more interesting to me to see someone with your strength levels document results of switching to one, rather than replicate yet another cardio-burns-calories experiment.

Unfortunately, without an effective control, your results will be meaningless because there will be too many variables to assert the causality of what you seek to measure. An association is the best you'll be able to manage.

I do appreciate that you're doing this as a fun and measured way of dropping BF, and not really in a way employing scientific method. Ultimately I hope you get the results you seek, and I hope these results help you meet your other training goals.

best,

jason

Thanks, and sorry if I sounded a little like a jerk And like I said, I will absolutely do what you suggest after I finish this 90 day experiment I think it will be interesting, for sure, and I will not doubt that it may well work for me.

I am not going for burning calories so much as specifically targeting body fat. That's the key here. I'm not counting on my weight actually changing, I am attempting to adjust body composition with little to no change in body weight.

I wouldn't say that I am not employing the scientific method. The scientific method is as follows:

1. Ask a question.

2. Develop a hypothesis.

3. Test the hypothesis with an experiment

4. Evaluate the results.

5. Repeat the experiment for verification if the hypothesis is fully supported, and if it is only partially supported or unsupported then to reformulate the hypothesis and try again.

I am following all of those steps, making my experiment scientific. I am not claiming to have no confounding variables. Furthermore, my experiment is empirical, because I am only recording observable phenomenon. It's definitely not perfect, in that I cannot prove the exact processes inside my body and what's going on exactly, but I CAN give a good idea about how much body fat I lose and how much lean mass I gain or lose, in addition to week by week videos with the exact same camera, camera position, my personal position, and identical lighting. By using videos I avoid people saying I am sucking anything in or using any kind of trick photography.

In fact, my experiment is pretty much just as valid as any other study ever done on the subject. The only way to have more control is to have people live in the lab and eat only what they are fed. Even in other studies, the subjects are not restricted to a specific diet. The researchers can't control what they eat. I am sure that there are some studies that have been done with these stricter controls, but that doesn't invalidate the other research. In this area, your mind is closed, and that is a shame.

I think I was going to say something else here, but I forgot. I'm watching New Moon, and it's a little silly. By the way, 2012 is by far the worst, and thankfully also the most hilarious hilarious movie I have seen in a long time. Truly, completely hilari-bad.

slizzardman said:

I think I was going to say something else here, but I forgot. I'm watching New Moon, and it's a little silly. By the way, 2012 is by far the worst, and thankfully also the most hilarious hilarious movie I have seen in a long time. Truly, completely hilari-bad.

Go see Ninja Assassin. . .it was super amazing, really it was mindless violence . . . just what I like in a movie. I dont want a slice of real life I want lots of ninjas sliced and diced!

New Moon was ok . . . that guy who plays the werewolf got JACKED for the movie, if I recall correctly it took him a little less than a year to gain 30 pounds of muscle, and he is only 17!

He's got the right hormonal balance at that age to do it easily I mean, hard work of course, but anyone who thinks it can't be done without 'roids needs to learn more about proper training. And yea, he definitely got big. Kudos to him! I hope he keeps getting bigger each movie, like in the books. That would kick ASS. That would add a certain amount of realism, you know?

If I recall the interview correctly I think thats his exact plan, to add 10 or so pounds per movie here on out! By the end he really will be a monster! He said his job depended on him getting bigger because heard rumors that they were looking for another actor to take his part, maybe that was just motivation or maybe they really were looking for a replacement, they certainly dont need one now!

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Update #2! Sorry it took so long, but my 100's on my finals were totally worth the delay and lack of walking. You can see here that despite only two sessions of walking I have had some loss of bodyfat. It's very slight, but you can see it. The results from here on out should be much better because I am going to be walking every other day or so. 4 times a week is the plan. I have also gained anywhere from 2-4 pounds of weight, which is clearly going to be muscle since I am leaner than I was. The reason for the discrepancy is that I didn't zero the scale before weighing last time, or the first weighing this time. I was 232, up from 228. I zeroed the scale(it's a mechanical scale) and weighted again, getting 230 even. So, not too shabby From here on out I will be zeroing the scale before weigh-in.