How to Lose Fat Naturally with No Exercise – Day 1

Written by Paul Piotrowski - Monday, September 21st, 2009

When I Was Young

When I was 19 years old, I used to weigh 155lbs on a 5 foot 10 inch frame. I was one of those skinny guys that could eat anything and not gain a pound.

Chocolate bars, 7/11 Slurpees, Big Macs, and all the pop in the world wouldn’t cause me to gain a pound.

Of course, back then I played 30 hours of basketball every week and I had an incredible metabolism that burned through anything I ate.

Then I Turned 25

By the time I turned 25, everything had changed. My active high school days filled with sports and activities turned into stressful workdays sitting behind a desk and computer.

My metabolism slowed down to a crawl, but my eating habits from the high school days hadn’t changed much, so I started to gain weight.

Fast forward to 2009 and I’m now 32 years old, 210lbs, with about 25-35lbs of excess body fat on my 5 foot 10 inch frame.

I’ve Tried Everything

The crazy thing is that I’m not 30lbs overweight because I haven’t tried dieting or exercising. In fact, for the past 7 years I’ve tried numerous different exercise programs and a dozen different diets.

Every single diet and exercise program I ever tried sounded great in theory, but failed to measure up in real life.

The final straw for me was when I did the P90X program back in February of this year.

I was on the program for 58 days and I was disappointed with the results I got in that time.

The exercise program of P90X is great in the way it integrated Cardio and Strength training all in one, but the diet/weight loss aspect of the program sucks in my opinion.

I ran a survey a couple of weeks ago to find out what experience others have had with the P90X program as far as fat loss is concerned and the survey confirmed my suspicions.

P90X sucks for fat loss. Meaning, the diet that the program comes with isn’t that great. Most people didn’t like it, and most people that I surveyed lost less than 5lbs of fat on the program.

The biggest challenge I had with the program, as with many other strength training programs is that when I work out, my muscles grow underneath the layer of fat I have on my body and they just push the fat out even further making me look and feel fatter than before I started.

Also, I used to be skinny so I know how much easier it is to exercise without having this extra 30lbs of fat to carry around.

Take any skinny person and give them three 10lb sacks of potatoes to hold in their arms and then we’ll see just how good they are at exercising.

My New Path

On April 7th, 2009 I put P90X on hold.

I decided that after 7 years of dieting and trying all kinds of exercise programs, supplements, machines, fitness memberships and anything else you could think of, I had enough.

I was fed up with all the so called “gurus” and “experts” out there with their fancy PhD’s and fancy diets.

There’s no way that losing the excess fat off your body should be such a difficult process.

In the last 7 years, I’ve done more research, personal testing and read more books on diet and nutrition than most doctors in North America and even took a two year Advanced Nutrition Diploma program.

If after all that I can’t even lose 30lbs of fat, what hope is there for those that aren’t as determined as I am or have way more weight to lose?

There has to be a better way.

For the past five months I’ve been researching and putting together my own fat loss system, based on everything I’ve learned in the last 7 years and all the personal experimentation I’ve done with different diets and exercise programs.

During my research, I stumbled onto something incredible. A way to lose fat naturally with no exercise and without starving yourself on some super low calorie starvation diet.

I’m not saying that exercise is bad, or that it isn’t good for our health, but what I’m saying is that it is not necessary for natural fat loss.

To test this incredible discovery, I’m going to be testing this system on myself first, and just to make sure any results I get come from my system and not from a sudden increase in exercise I’m going to attempt to lose the excess fat I’ve been trying to shed for over 7 years without exercise.

Once I’m convinced the system works regardless whether or not you exercise or not, I might add in an exercise program or at least a strength training program to build muscle once I’ve lost the fat I want to lose.

Today midnight marks Day 1 of my new program. I’ll keep you guys updated with my progress.

BodyPic Front View 092109 BodyPic Side View 092109

I weighed myself as well.

I’m currently 210.0lbs and 26.0% Body Fat. I haven’t done my measurements yet, but I’ll probably do that later on today.

My ultimate goal is to bring my body fat percentage down to around 12.5%, which by my calculations means I’ve got to lose about 35lbs of fat.

Wish me luck!

Day 1

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Comments:

phormality says:

September 21, 2009 at 3:21 am

Losing weight with exercise or not isn’t rocket science. Eat fewer calories then you burn. It doesn’t matter if you’re eating McDonald’s or organic fruits and vegetables… you just won’t be able to eat as many Big Macs as you would stuff that’s good for you.

The problem with diet without exercise is A) you end up being skinny-fat. You lose a lot of muscle with the fat, which is where a lot of the perceived weight loss comes, then once you have shed the fat your body still has no shape to it and doesn’t look good. B) Because you don’t have any muscle there isn’t a lot of fat burning going on. This means it’s much, much easier to bounce back up and put the weight back on, it many cases more then you lost in the first place due to the muscle loss. C) Burning calories during your workout means you can eat more during the day. Say you are limiting yourself to 1500 cal./day, that would be hard to do, you’d always be hungry and uncomfortable. Now add in a workout that is burning 600+ calories… that translates into another meal you can have that day which makes things much more tolerable.

Look at someone like Jarad from Subway vs someone like Ali from the Biggest Loser who was in the gym everyday working out. While Jarad did lose a lot of weight, it isn’t exactly a body people would want for themselves.

On a side note. P90X is made for those already in shape looking to go to the next level. The diet plan isn’t made with the caloric deficit needed for serious weight-loss, its made to give you enough fuel to build muscle, not lose 30lbs in 2 months. If you want to loose weight on it you need to build in that deficit on your own. I think it’s mentioned in the guide, but it is only 1 sentence in there and isn’t really stressed.

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dirty sanchez says:

September 21, 2009 at 6:37 pm

you look like sh1t dude and your breath smells like it to, stop shoveling it out you didn’t even finish p90x you pussy

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Mondo says:

September 21, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Paul, Paul, Paul. P90X works my friend. You just didn’t commit. It takes work. Some want it and work for it, some just want it. Understand? Look your self in the eyes… I think you do.

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Ananth says:

September 21, 2009 at 10:17 pm

All the best.. Paul I have seen your P90X and was eagerly waiting for you to complete it.. Wish you success this time..

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Paul Piotrowski says:

September 22, 2009 at 10:50 am

@Dirty Sanchez: Chuckle. Thanks bud. Guess I’m just not a real man like you.

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Paul Piotrowski says:

September 22, 2009 at 10:59 am

@Mondo: I’m not afraid of hard work Mondo. However, results can only be achieved by applying work to an effective strategy that works. If the strategy is ineffective, you can work all you want and still not receive results.

It’s like that in business as well. I know plenty of people that work *way* harder than I do, but make much less money. They cling onto the belief that hard work is the only thing that matters.

My belief is that if you take the time to understand the body and apply proper principles, you will begin to work *with* the body to help it get back into balance, rather than working against the body. That is why I’m testing out my own process for losing fat, because I think it’s a lot easier to work with the body to give it what it needs to help you lose fat.

I never said I wasn’t going to get back on P90X eventually, but in the beginning I want to lose fat without exercise so that I know my strategy works by itself, and not only in combination with a program like P90X.

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dirty sanchez says:

September 22, 2009 at 12:33 pm

i’ll help you finish

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LPS says:

November 2, 2009 at 10:59 am

How do you measure your fat content and the other parameters that you list? I would also like to measure by more than just pounds.

I have tried the South Beach diet and found that it took off 12 pounds immediately in Phase I but Phase II has been static with no weight loss after a few months. I know that I have to just take less calories in and that will be the key, more than the type of food. However, going through South Beach has definitely made me eat healthier foods than before.

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Paul Piotrowski says:

September 21, 2009 at 10:52 am

@Phormality: Thank you for your feedback. There are several assumptions that you’re making which may not be true according to my research, and which I am testing out for myself right now.

(1) You assume that when it comes to losing fat, all that matters is Calories IN vs Calories OUT and that all calories are created equal. I’ve tried following this theory for 7 years and no longer believe in it, which is why I’m testing something else now.

(2) You assume that in order to lose weight the body will shed muscle along with fat, unless you exercise to build muscle. I want to test this theory as well. Remember, I am not just tracking my body weight, I’m also tracking my body fat % so I can keep track of lean body mass along with the fat on my body. Maybe I’ll lose some lean muscle, maybe I won’t. We’ll just have to see.

(3) You assume also that the best way to keep the fat off is to build enough muscle to “burn the fat”. I want to test this theory as well as I don’t think it’s all that it’s cracked up to be.

(4) I’m not saying that losing 30lbs of fat is where I want my journey to “sculpt my body” to end. This is my first step. I want to test my own ideas on losing weight after EXTENSIVE research, and no longer follow what I’ve read by “experts” or listen to what the “fitness gurus” say, because I did that for 7 years and it didn’t work for me, and pretty much every single person I know in my life that struggles with weight (friends, coworkers etc.) have all failed to keep the weight off as well. Not to mention the fact that the general population keeps getting fatter even though there is no shortage of “diet books” on the shelves or fitness clubs all around.

(5) Yes, I realize P90X wasn’t created for fat loss. It was created for building muscle, which I did on the program. However, if you look at the testimonials on their product launch and the average person taking the P90X program, you’ll see that most people are looking for fat loss as well as muscle gain. According to my survey, most people were not happy with the P90X diet and they did not lose much (if any) fat even after building up muscle.

Once again, thank you for your comment and I see where you’re coming from with all this, as it is all based on the same information I’ve learned from fitness and diet gurus over the last 7 years. However, my own research has lead me elsewhere. We’ll see how well my program works soon enough.

In the meantime, if you’d like to challenge your thinking a bit, just pick any one of the assumptions you’re making and Google the opposite. For example, Google “Calorie Theory Wrong” and actually read some of the articles on the topic and perhaps even check out some of the books on the topic you’ll find at Amazon as well. You may be surprised what you find.

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Paul Piotrowski says:

November 3, 2009 at 7:10 pm

@LPS: I have a scale that tells me what my BF is.

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