Muscle Growth, Preservation, Insulin & Leucine

Posted on September 22, 2013 by jghethe

Welcome back!

I believe that as a species we humans were designed to be lean, fit, muscular and healthy. We were not designed to be fat, overweight, beset with diabetes, whole body inflammation, heart disease and the rest of the gamut of modern lifestyle diseases. Our genetic promise is being steadily eroded by lack of exercise and a diet high in ‘fractured’ / denatured / highly processed foods that predisposes us to chronic diseases…

And no I am not about to start ranting about the need to return to eating & living like our pre-agricultural forebears. (Although a lot of the anti-grain information does bear at least some consideration if you want to pursue optimal health…) Even those folk who exercise regularly have trouble reaching and then maintaining a state of lean muscular health.

With all of the information available, with the explosion in personal trainers, DVDs for home and gyms why is this case?

Certainly a major part of the issue is the fact that despite the huge amount of information out there and the writings of people like Craig Ballantyne, Pauls Rigby and John Romanello people still chooses ineffective types of exercise.

I have written at length here about the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), of mixing low rep high weight training with medium rep medium training – but done circuit style. I have sung the praises of sprinting and Tabata protocols and kettle bells… Once you begin to work out in HIIT fashion using whatever modality you choose you can and do shift your body shape amazingly fast.

I think a major part of the problem from an exercise perspective, is the overuse of ‘Trash’ exercise – and most traditional cardio falls into this category. Too much focus on cardio (especially the ‘normal’ treadmill, exercise bike etc) with little strength or mobility work is, I am convinced the reason why so many folk try so hard yet see so little change in their physique.

Doing long sessions of cardio just does not work except to perhaps help you convince yourself that you are doing all you can and the fat that is not shifting is due to genetics or you being ‘big boned’ or…when simply you are indulging in a form of exercise that was prescribed back in the 1970’s when the scientific study of exercise performance was in its infancy. It still has a lot to learn but this exercise science is now at least a robust adolescent yet we persist in following outmoded and discredited exercise protocols.

I’ve already written extensively about the benefits of HIIT & Metabolic Conditioning exercise protocols, so here I will look at what you need in terms of nutrition to achieve optimal muscle building for leanness, fitness, and health.

Nutrition for Fitness

The commonly held belief is that if you want to build muscle, you need to eat lots & lots of protein and stacks of carbs because after all aren’t carbs our bodies preferred fuel? Yes & No. However, the evidence that has emerged over the past several years shows us it’s not that simple.

In the upcoming ‘Lose 20 in 30’ program I talk about research that shows that your body has a mechanism that allows it to build muscle even when deprived of food. Basically it is tied to a number of survival mechanisms which you can turn on by lifting heavy weights for lots of low rep sets – your body becomes convinced that it is under threat from the weights and so shifts gear to preserve if not actively build muscle even in a state of calorie deficit.

An important part of this mechanism is that some types of amino acids can act as signallers to certain muscle cell genes and turn them ‘on’ to grow muscle tissue. See, it turns out, that amino acids and protein are not just present in our bodies to act as the building blocks for tissues and muscle. Even during times of food deprivation, as long as these amino acids are circulating through your blood stream, you can preserve and even build muscle.

I have said many times before that we eat too little lean protein and too many processed carbs. The ratio between your protein intake and carbs is important for muscle preservation and growth – and it becomes even more important the older we grow. Time & again research from all over the world

has shown that high-carbohydrate diets fail to build muscle. Even in younger people. In study after study it is always the high-protein, low processed-carbohydrate diet that proves the most effective both for muscle building, metabolism boosting and fat loss.

So in order to live up to our ‘genetic promise’ of being lean, fit & muscular; there are two primary nutrition factors we need to pay attention to:

A high-protein, low processed -carbohydrate diet
And a diet high in amino acids – especially one called leucine

One Amino above them all…

Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) are truly the building blocks of our bodies and, as we have seen, also serve as gene signallers as well as a number of other functions.

Amino Acids are split into essential and non-essential. The difference being that essential amino acids cannot be made in the body (like Vitamin C) and needs to come from our food. Non-essential amino acids CAN be made by the body.

The amino acids regarded as essential for humans are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine, methionine, leucine, lysine, and histidine. (Histidine was added in the last decade expanding the traditional 8 essential BCAAs to 9)

Leucine is a very powerful muscle preserver & builder. It serves multiple functions in your body the most important of which (for today’s blog) is that it acts as the signalling mechanism for the mTOR (Mammalian Target of Rapamycin) mechanism. No need to reach for your BioMed dictionary – simply put this mechanism is the one which causes protein to be created and builds your muscle.

However, as is so often the case, in order to get its full benefits, you need to take in far more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA).

Don’t forget the RDA is based on the minimum amount of a vitamin or mineral or other nutrient that a body would need to stay alive. It is not based on the amount needed for optimal health.

It turns out that we need what the RDA advocates would view as massive amounts of this amino acid.

Outside of BCAAs supplements, Whey protein, and quality cheeses (again because of their high whey content) have the highest concentrations of leucine and a number of other BCAAs.

Getting leucine into your diet is easy. However it is also a BCAA that is used very much for energy, recovery and repair which for most of us leaves very little over for use as a muscle building agent. This is why we need large quantities of it to get enough into our bloodstream in excess of the repair & recovery needs so that it can signal the genes to grow more muscle. We need more than maintenance quantities.

Okay I hear you say, we’ll simply take a supplement. Like so many other chemicals which our bodies use there can be side effects. Leucine from food sources has zero potential for causing side effects, but using a leucine only free form amino acid supplement can be counterproductive.

Too much of leucine by itself can cause insulin resistance ( and we know that this means slower metabolisms and increased storage) by impairing your body’s glycemic control.

Now as much as I believe in supplements (especially Fish / Krill Oil and Vitamin D) in general macronutrients act in concert with one another and too much of one affects the interplay of others. Really wherever possible it is best to eat whole foods – we appear to be programmed to benefit most from whole food nutrition.

So how much leucine from food instead of supplements, do you need to consume to get results?

Maintenance doses of leucine range from 1-3 grams per day, in order to move beyond this it has been estimated that leucine requirement should be about 8g – 16g daily. Given that per 100 grams, Whey has 8 grams of leucine, cheddar cheese about 4 grams, egg yolks 1.4 grams, beef about 2grams, chicken 1.4 grams and salmon 1.6 – there seems to be a lot of food needed to be eaten.

So in order to get your 8 gram leucine to preserve & grow muscle you would need to eat the following amounts of food:

a pound and a half of chicken (750grams)
three pounds of pork (1.5 kg)
over a pound of almonds (500 grams & over 3000 calories)
over a pound and a half of raw eggs (16 eggs)
half a pound of raw cheddar cheese (250grams)

And only 3oz (about 100gr) of high-quality whey.

So once again it is a no-brainer – adding a good quality whey protein to your diet will help you preserve & grow muscle even if you are cutting overall calories.

Carb Quality is important as well…

In order to get to our genetic promise we need to be careful about where we get our carbs from. You can get your carbs from cakes, cookies, sodas, foods containing high fructose corn syrup, from breads and pasta, or from vegetables, legumes & fruits. The source of the carbs you eat makes a major difference to your metabolism, leanness & overall health.

It only takes 1 meal of high GI carbs to reduce the sensitivity of your insulin receptors. Follow it up with a second and your body will use this next load of carbs, especially if they are simple carbs even less effectively and so on…

It is no secret that I am pro-carb and anti processed carbs. Processed carbs are denatured / fractured foods and just not good for you on a regular basis. Low-glycemic fibrous carbohydrates are best for your body. Best for insulin sensitivity, best for increasing metabolism (see my previous posts). Nuts and seeds especially walnuts and almonds contain not just carbs but healthy fats, lots of fibre and even some protein.

I personally believe (and there is an increasing amount of research to bear this out) that grains are rarely ideal sources of carbs. I love good bread as much as the next person and I certainly view Oats a great breakfast food but vegetables & fruits are the way to go for the carbs you need.

Fructose containing foods are at the bottom of the list. No, not fibrous fruit like Apples, pears or Kiwi fruits – but processed carbs & foods especially those containing High Fructose Corn syrup. HFCS is widely viewed as the main culprit in the ever increasing waistline of the Western world.

Whilst fructose is low on the glycemic index, it’s vital to realise that it is metabolised differently from other sugars and can directly – and adversely – affect insulin and leptin signalling. Both of which are near the top of the list in terms of controlling fat storage and metabolism. Your liver detects insulin activity, which helps your body determine how to metabolise your food. Insulin spikes caused by sugars in your blood stream are detected by your liver and it takes steps to regulate this. Because fructose rarely ever appears on its own in nature when it hits your liver with only a certain amount it can process and lacking an insulin spike the waste products of this metabolism accumulate in your liver. Too much of this and the liver itself develops insulin resistance.

But it gets worse – these by-products are then released and your body converts them to triglycerides whilst lowering HDL (the good cholesterol). All of this gives you a cocktail of insulin resistance, high blood lipids and likely hypertension and heart disease.

I’d even go so far as to say that if a food contains HFCS it is bad for you.

Want to lose Muscle? Get Insulin Resistant…

Insulin is a prime mover hormone – one of the most important, and amongst the most anabolic.

Insulin helps signals your body to move glucose from outside your cells into them, it affects your hunger levels on its own and through interaction with both ghrelin & leptin.

The insulin cascade is also a vital part of the mTOR signalling (other hormones do as well like testosterone, but the effect is greater with insulin as a part of the process) – if your body is insulin resistant this muscle preserving & building signal just does not get out and your muscles waste.

So use HIIT, eat more protein, include whey and cheese to get your leucine and lastly avoid the processed carbs. This is as close to a magic bullet for fat loss as there is.

Be well.

The most frightening of new words – Obesegenic.

Posted on November 13, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome Back – Sorry about the break between posts but as John Lennon used to say:’ Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans…”

This week a longer post on a frightening new word…and term that has been created to reflect our current health as a society.

Our Western Societies have become, according to the American Centre for Disease Control (CDC), obesogenic ones.

The typical Western diet (and an increasing number of other culture’s diets as they are exposed to Westerns ‘culture’) is full of unhealthy, fat forming, health damaging foods. On the whole, despite the growth in Gyms, Pilates, Yoga, marathon running, triathlons etc etc there is actually far less physical activity across the population of any Western country then there was 20 years ago. Even in the East as cities become more common and larger the physical activity index of these countries is dropping as well.

Simply put the World’s population is in danger but not in the main from wars, from famine or disease – although there are still plenty of those to go around unfortunately…

No – our lives are at risk because we can’t put our damn forks down!!

Because we can’t seem to eat close to unprocessed, calorie sparse, nutrient dense foods as our main fuel intake. Because we don’t move enough, often enough or challengingly enough.

We are simply killing ourselves and our societies because we are eating too much and too much of health damaging foods.

Moving less, eating more poor food and eating too much are the reasons why our risk and even worse our children’s risk of obesity have increased.

In countries like Australia, the USA & Great Britain the number of overweight and obese citizens was in the minority 20 years ago.

Today, dare I say, the scales have tipped and lean, healthy weight individuals are the minority.

Hard to believe? According to HCF – one of Australia’s top health insurance providers and the Australian National Health Survey and the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

Sixty-five per cent of men and 45 per cent of women are now overweight or obese, says the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. That’s an increase of around 15 per cent among both sexes since 1980.
In the 10-year period from 1985 to 1995, the level of combined overweight/obesity in Australian children more than doubled.
Analysis of data collected in state surveys between 1967 and 1997 shows that from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s the prevalence of obesity tripled
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently reported that, of a sample of 13,000 Australians over the age of 18, only 52 per cent say they regularly take part in a sport or physical activity.
That’s barely one in two Australians and down from the 59 per cent who said they did so in 1999.
Further the Australia National Health Service reports that 61.4% of the Australian population are either overweight or obese

In the US of A it is reported that:

America has the largest population of overweight and obese individuals. (Although some sources say that Australia has that most dubious of Honours…)
33% of the population are obese – that is a 60% increase from 20 years ago.
1 in 6 American children are obese.
There are over 300,000 obesity related deaths per year, second only to tobacco related deaths.
Two-thirds, or 167 million Americans, are overweight. One-third of those individuals are clinically obese.

Scary stuff – if you want to learn more you can go here:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity

Our ability to stay lean & healthy began to erode significantly with the introduction of processed foods loaded with sugar and extra calories. It skyrocketed with the now discredited food pyramid that de-emphasised fats & protein & stressed bread & ’carbs’ and got even worse when food manufacturers changed to using high fructose corn syrup in their products as a cheaper replacement for more traditionaltypes of sugars.

But if you’re not a part of these stats – Congratulations – you are in what appears to be a dwindling minority…

But if you a part of these stats – what does it mean?

Say you’re 10, 20, or 30 pounds over fat (I prefer to think, as you know, in terms of fat not weight) is this really a big deal? After all in most urban cases, we don’t depend upon our physical fitness to put food on the table or pay the bills. Sure you might not look great naked and your clothes are a little tight, the stairs make you puff and the kids (before they get too fat as well) run you ragged but what’s the big deal? Your joints may creak, your back ache, your Doctor starts talking about adult onset diabetes but hey you’ll lose the extra 20 pounds; that belly centred 10 kilos of extraneous padding at some point. Right?

The evidence suggests not.

Remember we can’t put or forks down, can’t move more or even choose the right health affirming foods.

That extra 10 kilos or even 10 pounds are putting your health at an increased risk of future health complications.

Being over fat puts into place the processes that create unhealthy living conditions, stops fat loss and heads you firmly towards a host of avoidable health issues.

Being over fat:

Increases your chance of disease
Increases inflammation in your body and
Alters the function of fat cells from being health supportive to not.

Being too fat can make your fat cells unhealthy.

Your Fat Cells Are Becoming Unhealthy

By unhealthy I mean that they stop working the way they are supposed to. Healthy fat cells help control energy expenditure and metabolism by releasing amongst them – leptin. Leptin is an important regulator of fat storage.

Leptin, amongst other things tells out brain when we are full signalling the release of ghrelin to make us feel satiated and unable to eat any more.

Leptin comes in two forms, one bound and one free. Lean people have higher amounts of bound Leptin, while obese individuals have higher free Leptin levels. Researchers believe that high free Leptin levels means less of it reaches the brain to signal fullness and ghrelin release – result we keep eating, take in too many calories and store them as fat.

Obese individuals appear to lack the ability to tell their brain to stop eating!

This results in increased appetite, increased cortisol levels, and resistance to the good hormones.

Obesity is also associated with lower levels of Adiponectin than their lean counterparts. Low levels of Adiponectin are associated with increased body fat mass, poorer insulin response, Leptin, and insulin resistance. Adiponectin is a protein which is secreted by fat cells and like Leptin; it has positive effects on obesity.

Adiponectin has anti-inflammatory effects on the walls of the arteries and adipose tissue. Adiponectin works to break down fatty acids in muscle tissue; with this breakdown process resulting in better sensitivity to insulin.

This helps to utilise fatty acids for fuel rather than of storing them in other tissue. This means there is less toxic fat, making us more efficient at utilising insulin.

Without enough Adiponectin, your body is unable to breakdown fat in the blood, resulting in the fat landing in other organs and sites on your body.

Worst of all is that its levels are lower in obese folk. And lower levels of favours inflammation.

Increased Inflammatory Response

Disease creates a break in your body’s homeostatic condition and it responds usually by initiating an inflammatory response as it tries to contain the factor disturbing the equilibrium or actively attacking the body itself.

Inflammation in and of itself can be a good thing – as a part of our body’s immune & repair response it heals wounds, fights of bacteria & viruses.

But when an inflammation response does not stop our cells begin to become inflamed themselves and develop resistance to the hormones that keep our fat cells healthy.

One function of healthy fat cells is the ability to store fat from your blood.

Thing is when prolonged inflammation meets adipose tissue you gain a reduced ability to store fat. This means that increased levels of sugar & fatty acids are in the blood and in order to deal with these our body releases more insulin to force these into storage. It also releases increased levels of cortisol. What is cortisol famous for? Storing excess calories as belly fat.

Increased cortisol leads to higher belly fat levels.

Increased belly fat stores are a known indicator of increased disease risk and inflammation in the body. Increased inflammation also leads to arthritis & gout – painful disfiguring diseases whose incidence worldwide has jumped dramatically the last 3 decades – again lead by those countries following a Western diet.

Of course once your fat cells are becoming inflamed and start to refuse insulin its proper action you’ve established a nice circuit that will keep repeating with only a single way off – lose the excess fat.

Increased Disease Risk

Carrying extra bodyfat is proven beyond all doubt to increase your risk of developing a host of diseases or worsening some you are already genetically predisposed to.

Diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, arthritis, and gout are just a few…

The world wide rise in diabetes has mirrored the rise in obesity. In fact if you want to stop Type II diabetes – lose that gut!

Think of this 221 million people worldwide suffer from some form of diabetes and nearly all of them are in societies that follow a Western diet. America has over 13 million of these folk alone…

It is a no-brainer over fat folk have a much greater risk of developing chronic debilitating disease than lean folk.

Get too fat? Get Sick!!

Like diabetes, heart disease has risen dramatically side by side with obesity – again in those countries & societies that follow the typical Western diet. Heart troubles are amongst the most preventable of diseases. If you are over fat you stand a 10 -50% greater chance of dying from obesity related condition – and heart disease is the main one.

Chronic diseases can possibly lead to premature death.

Being just a few pounds over fat starts you down a dangerous path.

The answer is the same as it has always been – by actively seeking to recondition your metabolism you can alter your body’s make up, drop the extra fat, release more of the good hormones, reset you body’s homeostatic point and avoid the increased risks of chronic disease incubation.

Move LOTS more, eat nutrient dense, calorie sparse foods, eat lots of protein, vegetables & fruit, avoid boxed foods, go easy on the alcohol, cut down sugars, avoid trans fats & HFCS.

It sounds complicated but it’s not – and you can start by putting down your fork more often and

earlier.

By increasing physical activity, watching the source of your calories, and the amount of calories you eat, will eventually lead to lower fat stores and decreased disease risk.

By making intelligent lifestyle changes to curb your body fat gain you will reduce your risk factors for developing chronic diseases.

I’ve already drawn you attention to the fact that being over fat causes your Adiponectin levels to drop and that when they drop fatty acid metabolism is adversely affected. By shedding the extra body fat, you help your body raise Adiponectin levels. This means that you body is then able to burn more calories by utilising fatty acids properly.

Losing body fat helps your body release the right hormones, at the right time, which in turn helps you burn more fat. People who lose fat can increase their Adiponectin levels.

It is never too late to lose body fat. When you do your fat cells actually return to normal functioning, becoming healthy again.

See you next week.

Tying all the diets together…

Posted on October 9, 2012 by jghethe

Hi & Welcome back!!

There is a lot of confusing information out there about diet and what works and what doesn’t and so on.

Even the so-called experts seem to rarely agree – and then there is the mixed messages from the media as they report on ‘scientific’ findings from scientists who are funded by various parts of the food industry (Same thing as big tobacco did for years to discredit the mounting proof of the devastating effect of smoking on health…)

Personally I have moved to a more Paleo high vegetable, high protein, moderate fat and low to no processed carbs – especially grain based ones!- and low dairy) style diet and am feeling the better for it but I have friends who each lots of grains and are very healthy. What don’t see – ever – is anyone on the typical western diet, full of processed carbs, high fructose corn syrup, sugars and transfats who is or feels in their optimum health…

So ignoring the ‘normal’ folk here is a list of things that pretty much everyone I know—from Atkins to vegans, Vegetarians to Paleos, or from raw foodists to calorie counters—should be able to agree on.

Eat more vegetables. Try to think of yourself as a ‘vegevore’ that is someone who eats 40 to 50%+ of their diet as vegetables then protein then fats and finally fruit. Veges generally have a low calorie impact (depending upon how they are cooked or ‘dressed’) are the best source of vitamin. minerals, co-factors, antioxidants and even anti-inflammatories. Add to this the presence of fibre and chemopreventive agents like polyphenols, catechins, indoles, flavanols, and flavonoids; and you’d have to be plain dumb not to be eating as many veges as you can.
When (and if) you eat meat, make it grass fed. The research continues to grow that grain fed cattle, pigs and sheep produce less healthy meat than grass fed. It does tend to be more expensive but it contains fat that is higher in the anti-inflammatory omega-3’s and lower in pro-inflammatory omega-6’s. Well worth the effort and cost.
When (and if) you eat starchy carbohydrates, the less processed the better. Oatmeal beats Coco Pop or Sugared Flakes. True wholegrain bread beats anything white, brown or vitamin added. If you’re going to eat grain derived, starchy carbs then the less processed the better.
Drink lots of water and green tea. These are are two of the healthiest beverages you can drink and the more you have of them the better. I’ve now come to believe that even diet soft drinks (sodas) are just as bad for you as regular sugared ones Not for any fanciful cancer link but because ingesting artificial sweeteners appears to stimulate hunger and cravings as your body recognises them as being calorie free and the taste primes your body for calories…) Coffee is fine but not in large amounts. rankly water and green tea, a couple of litres of each and you’ll be doing your body a huge favour…
Berries, beans and nuts should be a large part of your diet. Hard line Paleo folk don’t eat beans and have few if any nuts but lots of folk seem to thrive on them so I’ve included them here. Personally I no longer have beans and my nuts are restricted to the occasional walnut binge…As for berries everyone should be eating a couple of cups of these nutritional storehouses every day. Fresh or frozen doesn’t really matter nutritionally – just eat lots!!
Add supplements to your diet. Just about everyone would benefit from adding Vitamin D, a multivitamin, fish or krill oil; zinc and possibly magnesium to their diet.
Do your best to cut out or limit high fructose corn syrup and sugar from your diet. By now this should be a no-brainer for anyone remotely interested in being lean and healthy.
A certain portion of your daily diet should come from raw foods. Raw food contain enzymes and other co-factors that cooking and processing in general destroy. Of course veges and fruits are the target here although some braver folk include raw meat from trusted sources…

There you have a moderate, sensible set of guidelines to follow to eat healthier, support your health and become leaner.

To quote noted author Michael Pollan:

Eat food.
Not so much.
Mostly plants.

Or as Sean Croxton of ‘Underground Wellness’ says:JERF

Just Eat Real Food.

Not everyone will agree and every day you’ll find some expert or another saying that low carb or low fat or no dairy or no grain is the only way to go…but the next time you feel like hitting your head against the nearest hard object because the “experts” can’t “agree on anything”, take a deep breath, a sip of green tea and re-read this list.

Trust me it’ll do you wonders.

See you next week – don’t forget to like us on FB!!

The Real Truth about Low Carb…

Posted on September 15, 2012 by jghethe

Hi & Welcome Back!!

There seems to be a real lack of consensus as to what low carb means in a food / diet choice..

For many people the term low carb means ‘old’ style Atkins where the perception is that you ate nothing but fatty meats, cheese and eggs. (this of course was not true – the ‘old’ Atkins was more severe in terms of carb intake than the later versions, but all most folk know about the Atkins diet is the severe carb reduction of the initial 2 week dial in phase) For others low carbs means carbs making up less than 60% of your daily food intake. For still others it means aiming for no more than 20% of your food coming from carbs.

It is confusing – especially when diets that advocate a 40 / 30 / 30 split amongst the macronutrients is called ‘low’ carb when it patently is not.

For me Low carb is a misnomer and confusing – what we should be eating is as close to NO PROCESSED Carbs as possible.

In terms of general health & well being, in terms of stimulating your metabolism I don’t recommend low carb. Carbs are great! They are your body’s preferred fuel source after all.

But… and it is a big but…it depends upon the type of carbs that you choose to eat.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that I am dead set against processed carbs. No ifs, no buts these have been proven time & again to wreak havoc on our bodies – especially when they are eaten like is predominant in the western lifestyle. The effect they have on your hormones (especially insulin) on your body composition (fat storage anyone??) on your energy levels (Afternoon fades anyone??) and your general health verges on the deadly.

By Processed carbs I mean sugar (in all its forms), white flour, white rice, most pasta, sodas, fruit & vegetable juices, any food labelled ‘diet’ or Low Fat’, cakes, cookies & breads – if it comes in a box or your grandmother would not recognise it as food – it’s a processed carb. Processed carbs also stimulate your appetite, meaning that you have to fight cravings for more food because the processed carbs are so nutrient sparse that your body triggers its hunger stimulants to try to get more of the nutrients that it needs.

Preferred carbs are those remain as close to the filed as possible – the classic fresh fruit and vegetables (frozen too!!) are high in fibre, create a higher TEF (Thermic Effect of Food – ie our body burns calories just to process them!) and have vitamins & minerals. These are the real deal – most are low in calorie count and high in nutrients and frankly I believe that you should eat as much low or unprocessed carbs as you want to. The only caveat being that you should ensure that you eat a variety of carbs,. If all you eat is pears – you could put on body fat due to the way fructose is metabolised – fibre or not. But a variety of fruit & vege choices ensure that this type of potential effect doesn’t happen.

But the real secret to eating healthy carb is to ensure that you have some protein with every meal.

If I eat a plate of pasta I am hungry again in short order. If I eat a plate of steak and veges. I am sated for hours to come. Carb type matters.

Eating 2000 calories of processed carbs will, I guarantee, ensure that you are hungry again in a short time and are causing large insulin spikes as your body tries to deal with the increase in blood sugars. This is what happens to most people… once they start eating large portions of processed carbs like pasta, cereals, or rice it becomes hard to stop and even worse they want more an hour (or less) later!

Now if you were to eat the same 2000 calories as low or unprocessed carbs a couple of things would happen. Firstly the sheer bulk of this amount of unprocessed carbs would ensure that you did not feel hungry for hours and secondly this amount of unprocessed carbs would mean that you would have to eat more slowly and slow eating has been shown to beneficially affect both metabolism nutrient uptake and satiety.

What I have found that works best for me is to avoid as many processed carbs as possible, try to have some protein with every meal and eat as much unprocessed or low processed carbs like fruit & veges as I want. This is not eating in the ‘old’ Atkins style, it just means reducing or avoiding cereals, grains & pasta products, refined sugars and diet or low fat dairy products as much as humanly possible.

I am not going into the Paleo / Hunter gather diet versus the Western diet here – but the way I find works best for me is closer to this than the Government approved, obesity inducing food pyramid. I honestly think that this is the healthiest way to eat.

All it takes is a little lateral thinking – eat your burger without the bun, have your eggs without toast for breakfast, drink water instead of fruit juice have a sald instead of rice and os on. Try it – you will feel better, your energy levels will rise and like as not your fat will begin to decrease. Cool!

So the message is not to eat low carb, but eat low or no processed carbs as much as possible. Trust me your body will thank you for it!!

Be well. Don’t forget to lik us or Tweet…

24 Proven Tips for Quick Fat Melting…

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!!

The last 10 or so weeks have been about using your metabolism in a number of ways to enable your desired fat loss – here are some short tips to support it also…

Remember that a calorie is NOT just a calorie – where a calorie comes from determines how your body will use it and that there is no escaping that a pound / 500 grams of fat is about 3500 calories. To lose a pound / half a kilo of fat you need to create a deficit of 3500calories.

Here are 24 proven tips to adopt that will help you to melt away bodyfat and develop a lean & healthier body…

Change how often you eat – move to eating 4-6 small meals a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. As we’ve discussed in earlier posts – by eating more often you regulate blood sugar and boost your metabolism to burn more calories.
Eat with smarts! This means eating as many unprocessed (don’t come in a box or bag) foods as possible. Eat whole foods – foods that are close to the way they come from nature as possible. (If your Grandmother wouldn’t immediately recognise it as food don’t eat it!)
Eat more Protein, and the protein that you eat should come from roasts, steaks & chops, chicken breasts, whole birds, turkeys, buffalo, kangaroo or fish etc NOT from salami, pastrami or other processed proteins. Occasionally cheeses and Greek style yoghurts.
The only real exceptions to the processed food rule are whey protein powders for shakes, cold pressed olive oils dairy products..
Get your carbs from fruit & vegetables – and the higher the fibre content of these the better! Low Glycemic carbs choices are generally best – but use your common sense – Ice Cream is low GI on some measures but it is not a fat loss promoting food. Likewise potatoes are a high glycemic food but only if cooked & eaten OUT of their jacket…Eat nuts. Avoid carbs out of a box! If possible avoid grains and grain based foods except for the occasional meal on a weekend.
Eat as close to 10 servings of fruit and vegetables everyday to ensure that you are getting all of your needed micronutrients. Add these to their fibre content and you appetite control, insulin management and overall body health well underway!
Consume at least 25-35 grams of fibre every day – not too difficult if you are eating a lot of fibrous fruit & vegetables. Fibre not only ‘keeps things in motion’ but it also enables you to eat calorie sparse meals and still feel full. Fibre also helps control insulin release and response. And we know that controlling Insulin means controlling potential fat storage!
At every meal consume some form of lean protein.(Whey protein comes into its own here) It helps satisfy hunger and taps into your metabolism by utilising TEF (Thermic Effect of Food– see earlier blogs on this topic) Not only that, but a regular protein intake ensures that your body has all of the essential amino acids it needs to repair & rebuild your body and maintain muscle mass while you are altering your body composition by losing fat.
Eat Fat. Seems contradictory but your body needs essential fatty acidswhich you can only
really get from eating healthy fats. Many nutritionists will tell you to get your fats in a balanced manner – 1/3 from saturated fats, 1/3 from monounsaturated fats, and 1/3 from polyunsaturated fats. This can be difficult to manage if you are living an adult life with adult responsibilities. Better to look at it this way use Olive & Macadamia oils and coconut milk for salads and cooking, eat walnuts & almonds, take an Omega-3 supplement, use butter, avoid margarine and read labels so you don’t ingest transfats.
Avoid vegetable oils (really grain oils) this means Canola, mixed vegetable oil, corn oil, etc etc. Stick with Olive, Macadamia, Coconut, Palm and, in small amounts, nut oils.
Avoid any food that says ‘Low Fat’ as in 98% of times this means high in sugar…
Avoid Sodas, fruit juices, cordial, or heavily sweetened teas & coffees. Drink Green Tea or Water (aim for 2 litres a day of water on top of your tea / coffee intake) the many health benefits of Green Tea are well documented as are the benefits of drinking lots of water. (Added tip – drink chilled water and your body will burn a couple of extra calories just warming it up – not a huge number but it all helps & accumulates!)
Ensure that you get plenty of Omega-3’s (from coldwater fish, walnuts, almonds or easiest of all via supplements) and lots of Vitamin D3. Not only do these nutrients help with reducing inflammation in the body, they have roles to play in fat loss, tissue repair, brain health, and general cell health.
Don’t use a To Do list – create a Habit List and write down the things that move you towards fat loss that you should do every day. Things like eat 6 times a day, eating 10 serves of Fruit & Vegetables, like getting at least 20 minutes of some form of exercise in each day and so on. Make these behaviours & actions habits and you’ll find it easier to do them and best of all your fat loss will be consistent. It will take about 21 days of consistent effort but once you’ve done each of these things 21 times they will have become a habit. Draw up a list with a checkbox for 21 days & stick it on your fridge where you can see it and tick off each habit successfully done each day.
Be consistent with your foods – in other words plan your meals for each day (or more) in advance and buy the foods you need to make them fresh. Most of us rotate between less than 20 different meals – if you identify 15 fat-loss supporting meals that you like then plan your week around them. Consistency comes from repetition.
Speaking of food consistency – try to make what they now call “Super foods” into your meals on a daily basis. This means Berries (especially blueberries – & the frozen are just as nutritious as the fresh!) Nuts, Salmon, natural Greek style yoghurt (never low fat or fat free yoghurt – sugar laden are theses!) olive oil, fish oil, buffalo or kangaroo meat, spinach, broccoli and (yep I don’t like ’em either)brussel sprouts, apples, pears & melons and beans. At worst make sure you add
one of the powdered ‘super green’ supplements to a shake. (Sorry Acai berries and secret Himalayan bat cheeses don’t make the list – neither does whatever this week’s you beaut MLM company ‘must have’ food…)
Aim to get about 35 – 40% of your calories from protein (lean & unprocessed is best), about 30% from healthy fats and the rest from unprocessed, non-grain carbs.
Use herbs & citrus juices, chillies & garlic, olive oil and nuts to add zest 7 flavour to dishes – avoid store bought mayo and salad dressings and you’ll avoid extra calories (surprisingly a lot from sugar)
Sugar is the enemy. It is a poison in the amounts the average Westerner eats. Some types are worse than others (High Fructose Corn Syrup for example). Avoid as much and as often as possible. Read labels and try to cut it out of your diet.
Have a sweet tooth and fruit just doesn’t cut it? Try the lollies and sweets from the diabetic section of your supermarket usually low calorie and always low sugar these can be used sparingly to help you get over any sugar ‘jones’ you may have.
Avoid ‘white foods’ – bread, rice pasta and products made with them.
Get your exercise in. High Intensity Interval Training is best for rapid fat loss (see earlier posts) but if you are not ready for this level of intensity just yet, then simply aim to do at least 20
minutes of movement everyday at a level that makes it just a little hard to have a conversation whilst doing it. Walk fast (with hand weights!) Use some of Craig Ballantyne’s excellent Turbulence Training programs, get on a rowing machine, swim some laps, do some push ups, some squats, some burpees and pull ups, skip rope, try P-90X, sprint some hills, climb some steps – the important thing is to get moving! Just as you can’t out train a bad diet you get faster and more permanent fat loss by combining diet with exercise. Yes, you can reduce body fat just by changing your eating habits but results are slow to come and it takes much longer to lose fat . (Quick rant DON’T fall into the old chronic cardio routines of hours on bikes / ellipticals or step machines – get your heart rate up, move some weights and get on with your day. Anymore than an hour is counterproductive to your fat loss efforts.)
I personally find this one difficult to do – but for a week to 10 days use a food journal and record everything that you eat or drink. Use Fitday.com to see how many calories you are ingesting.
Doing this brings to light all of the hidden foods we eat and makes you more aware of eating so that mindless eating (think popcorn in front of the TV) becomes less easy to slip into. I also suggest hat if your fat loss has stalled that you do the 7-10 day food journal exercise – usually when fat loss stops it is because your food intake has moved in the wrong direction.
Allow yourself to be human and fall off the fat loss wagon now & again. Try to adhere to the 90% rule – that is: stay with the good, fat loss promoting habits 90% of the timeand you’ll getresults even if you don’t follow them the other 10%. If you start edging towards using a 80 / 20 rule (and as good as Paretto’s principle is) you need to stop, re-evaluate and get back on track.

See you next week.

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Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 10

Posted on August 25, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back for the final part of this series on your metabolism …

How do I know if my metabolism has increased?

We all know why we want a reconditioned and faster metabolism – but how do you know if your metabolism is increasing?

But how do you know if your metabolism has been raised?

A raised metabolic rate will cause some physiological changes which indicate that your metabolism has been increased:

Greater energy levels:A reconditioned and faster metabolism means that your body is able to more quickly release calories as fuel. This means that your energy systems are running more efficiently and you just have more ‘Get up & Go’ and are able do more. You’ll even find yourself looking forward to working out as it remains challenging but you have the reserves to do more and get more out of it.
A better metabolism = More Energy!!!
Temperature sensitivity alters: For most of us an increase in metabolism means that we produce more heat from our bodies and as a consequence feel the cold less. If you are one of those folk who rarely feel cold you may find that you are feeling hotter more often. You will also find that you break out into a sweat easier when you exercise as your body more quickly heats up and that you tend to sweat more as your body sheds heat. This is a good thing – it means you are burning calories!!
Hormone Levels alter: You can get tested to find out for sure but the research shows that as your metabolism reconditions & speeds up you will experience a change in your hormone profile. Your energy highs & lows will smooth out meaning Insulin is under more control, you’ll feel les hungry meaning Leptin & Ghrelin are playing their roles better and you’ll be adding lean muscle, recovering faster, getting stronger and experiencing a higher libido – all of which means your testosterone levels have increased and likely your cortisol levels have dropped.
Lower Resting Heart rate: This sounds counter to everything we’ve looked at about RMR – but a low resting heart rate is a sign of fitness, and disease aside the fitter & leaner you are the lower your heart rate. Now ‘low’ is an individual thing. My resting heart rate is 56 – not bad for a 50+ year old with a history of smoking, obesity and little exercise for way too many years!! Generally a resting rate of over 80 is unfit, and lower than 60 is good. However judge it after your 30 days based on where you started – if it was 90 and you’ve done your Lose 20 in 30 Program and it is now 79 that is a significant improvement.

Your heart will have a better recovery rate so you can be fitter...

(NB: anytime the body needs to speed up recovery, your heart rate is usually speeded up for some time. So your resting heart rate can be higher on occasion when you have had a particularly challenging session the day before. This is because your body will be in rebuild / recovery mode and increases in heart rate are a part of this as your body removes wastes created by tissue breakdown and also strives to deliver nutrients & other tissue building compounds.)

Exercises get easier: Another sign of an increased metabolism is how much more you can lift / run / do before feeling fatigued. This is increased fitness and increased levels of fitness mean a reconditioned metabolism.
You eat a huge meal and feel full for less time: Whilst you should NOT be eating to bursting at any meal, occasionally we all do and you will find with your new reconditioned, faster metabolism that your body deals with the excess food more quickly and reduces the tendency to bloat. The reason is the body is digesting the food quickly by activating more digestive enzymes so it can rapidly break down the essential nutrients to speed up muscular recovery. Of course if you are eating as the Lose 20 in 30 Program suggests then this will not be an issue for you.

The more of the above signs you experience, the more likely it is that you have reconditioned and increased your metabolism. Of course the other real sign is that your clothes are fitting better and you are seeing changes to your body shape & appearance in the mirror. The best sign of an increased metabolism is less bodyfat.

The real sign - you need to buy smaller clothes!!

Take Away: Signs of increased Metabolism will vary from person to person, but the changes in your appearance and the way your clothes fit are the most visible ones.

Conclusion:

Well there you have it – a good grounding in what metabolism is what affects it and how you can manipulate it to reach your goal of becoming leaner and healthier.

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 9

Posted on August 16, 2012 by jghethe

How to Keep Your Metabolism Fired-Up as You Age (How to slow the slowing…):

Welcome back to the next to last on this series aboiut your metabolism.

Your Resting Metabolic Rate or RMR is where the majority of our calorie / kilojoule use takes place. The higher this is, the less fat we carry. You see, as we’ve discussed before decreases in your RMR are heavily associated with the reduction of lean muscle tissue.

Age-related weight gain is purely a function of the loss of muscle.

Muscle is a hungry tissue and requires a lot of calories to maintain. The more functional muscle mass you have the faster your metabolism and the lower your fat stores. Muscle tissue atrophies –diminishes – as we age because in general we move less, exercise less and become generally physically less active.

While it’s not entirely clear whether this muscle loss is just a result of the ageing process or because most people become less and less active as they get older, what is clear that you do not have to accept it as inevitable.

It is hard to argue with your mitochondria, but nonetheless you can offset many of the factors which cause the slowing of your metabolism. The quickest way to disrupt your current metabolic set point and loosen your current homeostatic state is through metabolically costly exercise. Challenging regular exercise actually increases the number of mitochondria and as we’ve seen already, the more of these little ‘furnaces’ you have, the more calories you burn. (See the soon to be released Lose 20 in 30 Work Out Manual)

Research has shown that regular, metabolically taxing strength and resistance training can reduce, reverse or even prevent this muscle loss. This in turn leads to less fat. So the first way we can work to negate the

The best insurance against age-related fat gain is lifting weights…

metabolic slowing effects of aging is by maintaining our muscle mass through regular challenging conscious exercise.

Move more and lift weights dammit!

However the type, duration and choice of exercises are vitally important. A specific exercise protocol called Metabolic Conditioning (referred to as Metabolic Chains in the promised Lose 20 in 30 program) has to be used. The up coming Lose 20 in 30 Exercise Manual has all of the details on this.

But exercise is only one of a number of the lifestyle modifications that you can adopt to keep your metabolic rate fired-up – regardless of your age.

What can I do to increase or maintain my metabolic rate as I age?

You can (Warning – recap of some previous information ahead!!):

Ensure that you engage in at least 20 to 25 minutes of medium to high metabolic cost exercise every second day
Ensure that you engage in 20 – 35 minutes of moderate physical activity on the alternate days.
Begin eating more small meals throughout the days instead of just 1 or 2 larger meals.
Look for other small ways to move more and stay more active. Take a parking spot away from the main entrance of the mall. Likewise do the now clichéd but still effective, take the steps instead of the elevator. Give the dog an extra walk each day or just go for a walk each evening after dinner etc etc.
Stop drinking soda & fruit juices and drink more cold water and green tea instead.
Avoid foods that contain high levels of saturated fats and any level of transfats wherever possible.
Sleep – enough & your metabolism thrives, too littel & you get fat – simple really…

Avoid highly processed foods wherever possible especially the ‘whites’ – sugar, flour, rice and other processed carbs.
Don’t eat anything labelled ‘diet’
Try to eat more un – or low processed foods like fruit & veges, fish, eggs and protein.
Eat more protein & fibre.
Add spices to your meals.
Take fish oil
Take Vitamn D ( the D3 version NOT the D2)
Eat like the Lose 20 in 30 Fuel manual suggests – slow, low GI carbs, good fats, lean proteins and as little processed carbs as possible.
Try out stress reducing activities like Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi or start meditating daily. A walk on the beach, in the Park, in a Forest or a Field – are all great stress busters.
Take 500mg of Vitamin C when stressed this will reduce cortisol significantly.
Make love more often.

Your metabolic rate has always been, and will always be, a result of a combination of your activity levels, caloric intake, and the types of foods that you consume. Low or unprocessed foods are simply better for your metabolism and make it easier for your body to maintain a faster metabolism.

It’s very important for all of us, regardless of our ages, to eat better proper foods, more often and to maintain regular levels of physical activity. To a very large degree your metabolic rate is yours to control.

Remember your age or even your sex does not matter, in order to lose fat fast, efficiently and to transform your metabolism three things have to fall into place – you must have an absolute burning desire to change the way you look & feel, you must have a strategic training protocol to follow which disrupts your current

A strong old age – something to aspire to …and within reach for us all.

homeostatic set point and ramps up & re-conditions your metabolism and lastly you must follow a diet that supports the reconditioning of your metabolism by creating a calorie deficit whilst firing up your metabolism and manipulating your hormones.

In the end, age will slow us down. But by staying active and eating well, the experts agree: You can slow the effects of a slowing metabolism.To a very large extent your metabolic rate is yours to control.

Take Away: You’ve heard it before – you don’t have to accept the metabolic slow down of aging – you can offset it!!

Metabolism – What it is, How You Can Make It Work For You Part 7

Posted on August 4, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome Back !

As different as we all are there is one area that affects us all the same way – Sleep or rather the lack of it. Two of the things that have the greatest blunting effect on your metabolism are stress & a lack of sleep.

Stress and Lack of Sleep can affect your Metabolism

As mentioned earlier your BMR & RMR both decrease as you get older. This means that it is harder for your body to burn calories and harder for you to lose fat. A daily routine of conscious, challenging exercise not only improves your health and fitness, but it increases your RMR.

Stress has both positive and negative impacts on our metabolism.

In reaction to any stress our body initially increases our metabolism, but when the stress becomes prolonged or chronic then the opposite occurs and our metabolism slows down.

The famous ‘Fight of Flight’ response is our body’s reaction to stress. But this heightened physical state can only be sustained for short periods before the body exhausts its stores of the main hormones it responds with.

During periods of stress, your hypothalamus (sort of the hormone control centre – see the Lose 20 in 30 Hormone Primer) instructs the adrenal glands to release three chemicals – epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine and cortisol – into your bloodstream. Initially these three chemicals act to speed up your heart rate, your respiration, your blood pressure, and your overall metabolism.

Epinephrine breaks down glycogen into glucose in the liver, and both it and norepinephrine

increase the amount of circulating free fatty acids for use as a readily available fuel source. However once these have hormones have done their job and we have not used the fuel available then the cortisol kicks in and acts in its role as the belly fat storing hormone. The more prolonged the stress the higher your cortisol levels & the more belly fat you store.

Cortisol serves many important functions, including the rapid release of glycogen stores for immediate energy. But persistent cortisol release requires that other vital systems effectively shut down – immunity, digestion, healthy endocrine function, and so on. Among other stress-health associations, the link between elevated cortisol and weight gain has already been clearly established.

Chronic stress, largely through your hormone system, can disrupt your digestive system resulting in a lower uptake of nutrients and to the stomach producing higher than normal amounts of digestive acids on a prolonged basis. This can lead to IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome which definitely lowers nutrient uptake. Stress can often cause our abdomen to become bloated, creating cramping, constipation or even diarrhoea. Even worse studies suggest that stress may make a person more susceptible to the bacteria that cause peptic ulcers.

All of these conditions lead to a lowering of your RMR.

The good news is that if the stress is removed, the body quickly improves and your RMR is raised.

How to de-stress? – Get your sleep!!

Inadequate sleep interferes with nearly every aspect of your fitness & fat loss program. The negative effects of lack of sleep cannot be overstated.

Tired people burn fewer calories because they lack the energy to exercise or work out intensely. Some studies show that even if sleep deprived folk exercise for the same length of time as rested individuals they burn far fewer calories / kilojoules.

Lack of sleep not only makes you too tired to exercise, but it negatively affects your hormone system by altering the hormone levels in your body. Miss enough sleep and you’re effectively disrupting your biological processes, especially those that control & regulate your metabolism.

Lack of sleep affects the levels of cortisol, leptin and ghrelin, three hormones linked with muscle catabolism, belly fat storage, appetite and eating behaviours. Researchers at Stanford University found that when you are sleep deprived, your body decreases production of leptin, (the ‘I’m full & don’t need to eat any more’ hormone) at the same time it increases levels of ghrelin, the hormone that triggers feelings of hunger, and our old friend cortisol – which exists to store fat around your belly and increase the catabolism (tearing down) of your muscle tissue.

The researchers found that nearly three-quarters of the people they studied slept less than

8 hours per night, and that the increase in obesity was directly proportional to the decrease in sleep. This goes a long way towards explaining why very sleep-deprived people are nearly twice as likely to be obese.

Lack of sleep also causes levels of growth hormone to decline. Growth Hormone naturally blunts & counteracts the effects of cortisol so lowering it raises the effects of cortisol. This reduces your muscle mass, your strength, decreases your recovery ability, increases your fat tissue stores, and weakens your immune system.

Too little sleep also raises your Insulin levels increase. This, as we now know, increased insulin makes fat control difficult due to its effect on storing blood sugar as fat. Sleep deprivation also leads to low energy levels which often bring about the dreaded candy / cookie / chip cravings which turn into binges which in turn lead to more insulin release and fat storage – especially if your glycogen stores in your liver & muscles are full. There is even some research which suggests that lack of sleep reduces your body’s ability to store as much glycogen as when it is fully rested. This means that even more blood sugar has to be cleared from your blood stream and with less glycogen storage available, it gets shunted into fat cells.

About 25% of the adult population are insulin resistant. This means that your pancreas

has to pump out a lot more insulin to achieve that same blood sugar clearing effect. It turns out that excessive insulin reduces the ability of your body to burn fat for energy even after the glucose is cleared. Insulin resistance also typically leads to an increase in under the muscle, “visceral fat” around the organs, particularly in the abdomen, and this increases the risk of heart disease. Insulin resistance is even more common if you have diabetes in your family, or if your diet has been high in sugars and other processed carbs, and saturated fats.

Fortunately, by keeping your carbohydrates low-glycemic, and by exercising you reduce the need for this excessive output of insulin, and you keep your fat-burning in high gear. By itself Exercise improves insulin sensitivity.

Even better news is that is improving your sleep immediately reduces the negative effects on your hormone levels & their effect on your body. If you reduce the amount of stress in your life and get more sleep each night, your normal BMR will return. This is not easy in the modern world, with its fast pace, work commutes, paucity of easily available good foods and the general demands on your time, but it can be done.

As for the number of hours of sleep, there’s no one-size-fits-all number of prescribed hours. The right amount for you is based on your individual sleep requirements, although there’s some evidence indicating that somewhere around seven hours a night is ideal from a general health perspective.

Still, numerous factors can influence the amount of sleep you need, such as pregnancy, illness and stress levels, for example. As a general guideline, if you feel sluggish and foggy-headed upon waking, you’re likely not getting enough sleep, or the quality of your sleep is not very good.

Unfortunately, many people are quick to jump on the pill wagon once they start having

sleep problems. But sleeping pills come with numerous side effects and can cause more harm than good – better by far to try to reduce the stressors in your life. At the very least a solid exercise program not only helps burn fat but has been proven to lower the levels of the ‘stress’ hormones in your body.

Bottom line for a healthy metabolism you need at least 7 hours of sleep a night.

See with part 8 next week…

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Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 6

Posted on July 28, 2012 by jghethe

HI & Welocme back!!

Today we’ll take a quick look at other factors that affect your RMR.

Your RMR isn’t just affected by your TEA & TEF (Thermic Effect of Activity & Thermic Effect of Food) – there are a large number of factors that often work in combination.

Some of these are:

Body size – Because of their size adult bodies have more metabolic active tissue and a
higher RMR than a child. This does not hold true for obese folk as they have a lower RMR in general than lean folk. So to raise your RMR – get leaner
Age – Our metabolism slows with age, due to loss muscle tissue along with hormonal and neurological changes. Not a lot we can do about getting older but keep an eye out for the ‘Counterclockwise’ program (coming later in 2011) which is a 100 day program aimed at reducing your biological markers of age.
Growth – Babies, infants, children and teenagers all have a much higher energy demand per unit of body weight than adults. This is due to the energy demands of growth, the energy needed to maintain their body temperature when little, and the fact that (apart perhaps from teenagers) they are so physically active.
Gender – In general – men have faster metabolisms than women because they tend to be larger, have more muscle tissue and have proportionately less body fat.
Genetic predisposition – Your metabolic rate can also be partly decided by your genes.
Amount of lean muscle tissue – Muscle burns more calories than fat – even at rest. The higher your proportion of muscle tissue to fat the better for your metabolism.
Amount of body fat – Fat cells are metabolically less active than muscle cells (and most other tissues in your body) and burn far fewer calories. It’s simple: the more fat you have the slower your metabolism.
Hormonal and nervous systems – Your RMR is controlled by the nervous and hormonal systems; and any hormonal imbalances (Insulin resistance, or increased Cortisol due to excessive stress, decreased Leptin or raised Ghrelin for example) influences how quickly or slowly your body burns calories / kilojoules. You can affect your hormones through carb manipulation, other dietary ‘tricks’, sleep and exercise. – See the accompanying Lose 20 in 30 Hormone Primer
Dietary deficiencies – If, for example, your diet is low in iodine this reduces thyroid function, which in turn slows your metabolism. (The Lose 20 in 30 Nutrition program makes it damn near impossible to be deficient!)
Environmental temperature – By cooling or heating our immediate environment we can increase out RMR by causing the body to work harder to maintain our normal body temperature. Being too hot or too cold both burns calories / kilojoules.
Infection or illness – In most cases our RMR increases when we are ill because our body has to work harder to build new tissues and to create an immune response. Not recommended for fat loss.

Crash dieting, starving or fasting – Eating too few calories / kilojoules encourages our body to slow its metabolism to conserve energy; this means that your RMR can drop by up to 15 per cent if the change is sudden. Not recommended.
Loss of lean weight due to sudden calorie restriction. This often happens when people go on a strict restricted calorie diet, forcing the body into what is known as “negative nitrogen balance.” This means that more protein is lost than is replaced through your diet and is a sign of more catabolism than is normal. This nitrogen imbalance causes a gradual loss in lean weight and lowers the RMR. On the upcoming Lose 20 in 30 program we avoid this by using a combination of calorie sparse, but nutrient dense foods – with a heavy emphasis on ingesting sufficient quantities of good protein along with an exercise regime that creates the need for your body to maintain its current muscle level if not increase it. This in turn forces your body to take more & more energy from your fat stores. (see the soon to be released Lose 20 in 30 Workout Program for details)
Drugs – A number of drugs, legal, illegal, prescription and non-prescription can be used to increase your RMR. Caffeine is a good example of a legal drug that affects metabolism. Body builders used to use a ‘stack’ of caffeine, ephedrine and aspirin (in a specific ratio which I am NOT going to divulge) to really burn fat as well as some anti-asthma (no NOT Puffers) medications. These had obvious side-effects but they worked by amping up the RMR – something you can do but through effort not pill popping!!

Take Away: So if we manipulate our TEF & TEA wisely & strategically, we can increase our RMR and BMR which leads to a faster overall metabolism, a shift away from fat storage and a healthier, leaner body.

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Part seven next week….

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 5

Posted on July 21, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back – last time we looked at the thermic effect of food – how the foods you eat can increase or slow down your metabolism. This time we’re looking at TEA – the Thermic Effect of Activity.

Factors Affecting TEA

It is easy to have an effect on your TEA – move more, sit less, and exercise 6 days a week using HIIT & metabolic conditioning protocols (like those found in upcoming the Lose 20 in 30 Exercise program).

Weighted vest training is a great example of MetCon training!!

Take the stairs, park further away, spend some of each day at work standing up – just add more activity to your day on top of conscious, challenging exercise.

Long traditional cardio is NOT the best way to increase your TEA – you need to use an interval style approach to max out your TEA. The best way to recondition your metabolism is to use a mix of resistance training, interval training and a training style called Metabolic Conditioning. (MetCon)

Ensuring that you work out using strategies that elicit a high metabolic cost, uses high EPOC inducing exercises will increase your RMR and reset your metabolic set point over a short period of time (you’ll see changes in under 30 days!). Again – the use of high intensity intervals, metabolic conditioning, and resistance training are the best forms of exercise to achieve a faster metabolism and a leaner body. (see my other post on HIIT)

The more active we are, the harder we work our bodies & increase the demands on our muscles, the more energy we need for fuel and more importantly the more energy we need for recovery. Regular, challenging exercise increases lean muscle mass and ‘teaches’ the body to burn kilojoules at a faster rate, even when at rest. In this way we can alter what the body currently has as its homeostatic set point for a new one. Remember your body likes things to stay the same so if you add regular exercise this becomes the ‘norm’ and your body adjusts to cater for and adapt to this.

By improving / increasing your TEF & TEA you can in turn raise your RMR. As we have seen – this is important because your RMR accounts for the majority of your calorie / kilojoule burn & use. The higher it is, the more you burn and the leaner you become…

Exercise is the other metabolic affecting variable that we can manipulate, but it needs to be done strategically using the right exercise protocols & techniques.

Metabolic Energy Pathways

There are three different metabolic pathways that the body can use in order to tap into its energy stores.

Looks complicated but using this to your advantage isn’t!!

Without going in-depth to biochemistry, the three energy pathways are:

ATP/PC – This is your quickest and most powerful energy source. It is instantly available and requires no oxygen. ATP itself is the raw fuel for exercise as it is the chemical that drives muscular action. However our bodies only store enough for between 6 & 10 seconds – after that it has to start manufacturing more ATP.
Anaerobic Glycolysis – This is the next quickest energy source and is the way your body creates ATP without oxygen. It is also the process that creates the ‘burn’ in your muscles. This energy system is good for 2 -3 minutes of activity and enables you to continue a relatively high level of activity but it does create a high level of muscle fatigue. This makes it difficult to continue using this metabolic pathway beyond the initial couple of minutes.
Aerobic– This last system is the slowest to act and is good for fuelling a moderate activity level. However it can sustain this level of activity virtually for as long as there is fuel available to use. The aerobic system is the process your body uses to produce ATP but with oxygen.

Following high intensity activity, the aerobic system is required for recovery and to re-establish balance within the body, removing the metabolic by-products, re-synthesising metabolic compounds such as creatine phosphate and providing energy for the repair of exercise induced tissue damage. (She’s definately got her TEF & TEA working for her!!)

In a simple way, our normal energy system is primarily the aerobic system, with the ATP-PC and Glycolitic systems acting as reserves. They provide extra power when needed, but are a very limited resource in comparison.

When we talk about metabolic conditioning exercise we are talking about a strategic exercise protocol that works all three of these energy pathways. (See the Lose 20 in 30 Exercise manual coming soon!)

That’s it for this week – next time we’ll look at other factors that affect your resting metabolic rate – some will surprise you!!

Be well!!

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