8 Exercises, 7 Ways & 8 Foods to boost your Metabolism

Posted on September 1, 2012 by jghethe

Hi & Welcome back!!

This week I want to give you some specific foods, exercises and techniques for boosting your metabolism. As you know a faster metabolism means a leaner body and less body fat. You also know that in order to fit healthy & lean you need to use a combination of diet, exercise and lifestyle to achieve this.

Exercise:

The best format to use when exercising as I have discussed in earlier posts is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). The best way to use utilise this training protocol is to do what is called Metabolic Resistance Training which is a mix of resistance and cardio training. You do this by creating a cycle or chain of exercises that are performed as a circuit for a set number of rounds.

A good basic bodyweight chain is:

Push ups
Squats
Chin ups

Still a killer metabolic booster…

Run through this chain 3 – 5 times with 2 minutes rest between each round and you will raise your metabolism for hours to come. However this is a format, a protocol that gives results.

In terms of actual exercises to pick…Overall the best ones to use are those which use a lot of muscle (ie compound exercises) and create a high metabolic cost. So the list below is my picks for the best overall metabolism boosting exercises. It is not exhaustive nor is it meant to imply that you would do a workout that uses all of these exercises. Instead you can take a couple of these and combine them into a circuit and get the most bangs for your metabolic buck that way….

1. Deadlifts

2. Chin / Pull ups

3. Squats

4. Push ups

5. Burpees

6. Jumping Jacks

7. Weighted Box Step ups

8. Push presses

7 Ways to Fire Up Your Metabolism

Sometimes the smallest things—like getting more protein in the morning or enough rest at night—can lead to the biggest weight loss surprises.

Don’t skip breakfast.

Eating lean protein along with some complex carbs in the morning will get your metabolism revved up for the day ahead. Protein from eggs will help stabilize your blood sugar, make you feel fuller, and keep you from overeating later in the day.

Get your beauty rest.

Human growth hormone works directly on cells to increase your metabolic rate by 15 to 20 percent and can only be produced during the hours of deep sleep. So make sure you get a good night’s sleep!

Eat Whole Foods

At mealtimes, try consuming lean proteins from beef, lamb chicken or fish along with low GI complex carbohydrates from fruits and veggies. Eating this way kills cravings, enables you to feel full, and helps you avoid the downsides of sugars and their insulin spiking effects. This magical combination will speed up your metabolic rate as food is transformed into usable nutrients. Food not only provides fuel for your body, but it also provides specific instructions for your metabolism.

Eat Often

Every time you eat you increase your metabolism, the more often the more your metabolism boosts. Grazing all day is okay but can be difficult to manage. Try to eat 5 or 6 protein containing smaller meals to get more boosts in your metabolism!

Build Lean Protein Into Every Meal

Your body has to work much harder to break down protein – it increases your metabolism by increasing the Thermic Effect of Food. Adding protein to every snack and meal will increase your metabolism boost.

Avoid Highly Processed Foods

Check foods that have a label closely for the various types of sugar (Maltodextrin, sucrose, fructose, lactose, sucrose etc etc) High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated Oils (Trans fats). These ingredients wreak havoc on your metabolism, generally lack fibre and don’t do a thing for your health.

Don’t Eat Carbs or Fat Just Before Bed

Instead have a protein shake (made with casein if possible as it is absorbed more slowly) as this will provide plenty of fuel for your body to use for repair & renewal while you sleep. Eating carbs or fat within 2 hours of going to bed however increases the chances of them being stored as fat.

8 Foods to Boost Your Metabolism

You know if you look over the magazines while you are waiting in the supermarket queue you’ll see endless headlines about the latest ‘super food.’ There seems to be one every week promising to melt those pounds away while you do whatever you want.

Often a good food is marketed with an emphasis more on people’s fears than any real effect it has. (Look at Acai berries – great for vitamin C, terrific source of antioxidants but not a miracle for fat loss…)

Unfortunately such foods with those wanted effects do not exist.

Without regular challenging exercise, a metabolic enhancing meal plan and a decent night’s sleep, your metabolic rate is not going to do anything except to stay sluggish.

The good news is that there are a number of things you can eat that will stimulate your metabolism. Even better all of these foods are delicious and nutritious.

Here are eight of my favourites:

Fish.If you are a regular reader of this blog you’ll be familiar with the benefits of taking a fish oil supplement – simply put Omega 3 fatty acids are essential to your good health and to a faster metabolism. Not to mention their anti-inflammatory effects and other benefits. But Fish itself is a great source of protein. Protein increases your metabolism through increasing the Thermic Effect of Food (ie our body has to burn more calories to digest protein than it does for fat or carbs). In fact eating fish has been found to boost your calorie burn by as much as 400 calories a day.
Dark green leafy vegetables. You know the ones – spinach, chard, kale, silverbeet, chicory, collard greens and so forth. These types of Veges are full of fibre (which increases your metabolism because of the extra calories needed to process it and ‘move’ it along. They are also full of vitamin A, vitamin C, loads of B group vitamins, calcium, and loads of other phytonutrients and minerals. Most Veges are high in fibre, low in calories and boost your calorie burn, but nutritionally speaking the dark green leafy vegetables are the best overall.
Tomatoes. Tomatoes contain high levels of the antioxidant lycopene, which is an anti-cancer phytonutrient (especially good for avoiding prostate cancer so the research suggests – so fellas need to eating a lot of tomato products) They also contain 3 acids in abundance – malic, citric and oxalic acid. These acids support your body’s kidney & liver functions which means that eating tomatoes helps your body eliminate waste and fat. Lastly like dark green leafy Veges, Tomatoes are a good fibre source.
Blueberries and other berries & whole fruits. Whole fruits – not juices – contain lots of fibre, loads of vitamins and lots of antioxidants. One cup of blueberries only has about 80 calories, but it has 4 whole grams of fibre. This means that blueberries (like most whole fruits) increase the thermic effect of food by expending calories to deal with the fibre content. Blueberries are also believed to lower cholesterol and help to regulate blood pressure. Even better frozen berries show very little nutrient loss so you can have them & their benefits all year round!
Whole grains. You’ll be getting the message by now – it terms of boosting your metabolism food can help through several mechanisms – through nutrients, through affect on hormones and through the mechanical cost of processing fibre. One of the best sources of fibre are whole grains. Personally I prefer to get my fibre from Veges & whole fruits but the fibre content of grains cannot be ignored and should be a part of your metabolism boosting food intake. However you need to check the food labels to ensure that the bread or cereal or pasta you are about to buy has whole grains as the main ingredient. Too many products proclaim themselves as whole grain but are chock full of sugars. Sugars that can take your metabolism in the wrong direction.
Chillies, curries, and other spices. A constituent called capsaicin found in many hot peppers and other spices has the ability to fire up your metabolism while it fires up your mouth and makes you break a sweat. There are studies that show a 50 percent increase in metabolism for 3 hours after eating capsaicin. So keep your metabolism firing and add some flavour to your food by adding hot sauce, fresh chillies, a good Thai curry or capsicums to your meals. Spices are a simple to add ingredient to help kick your metabolism into a higher gear.
Green tea. Yep – a lot of the hype is true – Green tea does increase your metabolism and your calorie-burning by up to four percent. It is also believed to assist in burning fats, reducing sugar cravings and works to inhibit the enzymes that slow digestion, thus raising metabolic rates. In addition to its metabolic properties, green tea is loaded with antioxidants and polyphenols, making it one of the most healthful beverage choices around.
Ice water.Water is necessary for all your bodily processes, including the ones that control your metabolism. If you’re under hydrated, your body will underperform. Water also flushes out fat deposits and toxins. Almost everyone from your Grandparents to the trainers on Biggest Loser to nutritionists the world over tells you to drink at least large glasses of water every day. The trick to using this to boost your metabolism is to make those 8 glasses ice water. If you drink ice water instead of room-temperature water, your body burns an extra nine calories per glass – not a lot but remember every bit helps when you are trying to recondition your metabolism. Drinking room-temperature water can burn roughly 16 calories per glass—ice water means a burn of 25 calories per glass. So eight glasses of cold water a day can be responsible for burning 200 calories!

Remember, the right types of exercise, a good night’s sleep and smaller, evenly spaced meals are the formula for getting your metabolism rocking again…

See you next time – don’t forget to Tweet this or ‘Like’ us on Face Book…

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 8

Posted on August 11, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!

So what causes downwards trends in your Metabolic Rate:

Children’s per body weight kilo metabolic rate is about 200% that of adults. Because they have a much higher proportion of their body composition made up metabolically active tissue (heart, lungs, kidneys, brain etc) in comparison to adults, are undergoing the demands of growth and simply having a more active lifestyle kids have a much higher metabolism than grownups.

It’s not just their activity level that makes children’s metabolism run so much higher than an adults…

However as growth finalises getting and we get older the proportion of metabolic active organs to our body composition drops. This alone means that our RMR decreases. Your RMR drops round about 25% between the ages of 6 and 18 as your adult proportions are reached and growth slows and eventually halts.

After age 18 your RMR decreases at least 2-3% for each decade that follows. (Many researchers put this figure even higher if you live the typical Western lifestyle.) By the time you have hit 40 your RMR is usually more than 40% less than it was as a child.

So this drop in RMR is coupled with an increasing loss of fat-free lean body mass as we take on adult, ‘real life’ responsibilities and move less, exercise less, eat metabolism slowing foods and eat more than our slowing RMR demands. Usually we eat more ‘on the go’, less regularly and the wrong foods with a lower TEF – so this compounds the RMR dropping effect.

So as we age we experience a lower RMR, lower TEF, and less TEA – these all combine to create a less lean, fatter, less metabolically active environment for our bodies. Even worse because these changes are gradual our bodies accept them and then strive to maintain them via a state of homeostasis.

Face it – by the time we are in our 40’s, if not before, most of us are well on the way to a future of not moving well, having larger fat stores than is good for our health and in fact be starting to experience firsthand some of the myriad health issues that our Western lifestyle is rife with.

So does Metabolism slow down or do we?

The answer is both.

Unfortunately the exception – not the rule!! (but most of us could if we wanted it badly enough…)

As we age we certainly move slower as the ability to contract our muscles lessens and undertake less physical activity.

The slowing of your metabolism is real. Our cells have miniature ‘furnaces’ in them called mitochondria. These mitochondria burn the fuel supplied to them and as we get older they become less & less efficient at burning fuel and recent research suggests that their numbers also decline as we age. This leads to a slower metabolic rate not just at rest but also for all activity.

Next we have a delightful process called sarcopenia, which is a fancy name for muscle wasting. Once past the age of 50 our ability to retain muscle tissue in the face of poor nutrition and lack of exercise diminishes rapidly. Again since muscle burns more energy than fat, this means the metabolism slows down. This means it is harder to burn off a cupcake when you are in your twenties than it is in your sixties!!

Lastly being overweight slows metabolism because overweight people burn fat even less efficiently. Add these together as the years go by, and it is little wonder that we get fatter, less lean and that the inches start to get more & more numerous around your waist.

Take Away: Your Metabolism slows as you age – especially if you follow the typical Western lifestyle & diet.

Part 9 next week!! Don’t forget to browse the blog backlog – lots of good info hiding there!!

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…

Don’t forget to Tweet of Face book us!!

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 2

Posted on June 23, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome Back!!

Remember – if you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are your metabolism is slowing and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

No sign of a broken metabolism here…

Today in part 2 of how to fix a broken metabolism we look at the Affect of Diet on Hormones:

The Affect of Diet on Hormones:

Fat Storage
Fat Sparing
Fat Burning

The main hormones in question are:

Cortisol – the stress & belly fat storing hormone
Leptin – the anti-starvation hormone,
Ghrelin – the ‘I’m hungry‘ hormone
Insulin – The blood sugar controller

In the last post we looked at the effect various foods can have on our metabolism – either raising it or blunting it. Now we need to look at the effect of diet on our hormones. Hormones are responsible for just about every physiological / chemical process that starts or stops in our bodies.

How we react to stress, how happy we are, how quickly a bruise disappears, a cut heals, a fingernail grows, how much lean tissue we create, how much fat we store (& where), gain or burn for fuel, how & what is repaired – our hormones control all of this and more besides.

No excess fat here – this is a peak metabolism…

To lose a pound of fat we have to shed / use / forego 3500 calories. That is the mathematical fact and in the past most fat loss programs looked at cutting calories as the main way to lose fat. What they did not take into account was the type of calories (see http://bodyshapeshiftersonline.com/?p=100) or the unintended consequences of calorie restriction on our body’s hormonal systems.

Our bodies equate a sudden & sustained drop in calories (especially those from carbohydrates) as a famine situation and they have a sophisticated defence system to stop us starving. If our body thinks we are starving then these hormonal systems kick in and fat loss becomes that much harder.

In many ways successful fat loss has more to do with our body’s hormonal environment than any other factor. As important as exercise and metabolic training is, as important as sleep and the right fuel is – the battle to lose fat is won or lost largely on the hormonal side. And this side of the equation is incredibly complex. Because of this complexity the discussion on hormones & their manipulation here will be necessarily lacking in depth and detail.

Unlike poking out your tongue, whistling, lifting your arm, rolling your eyes or breathing more deeply we cannot consciously control our hormones or their actions. But we can manipulate them in a gross sense through diet, sleep and exercise. Further if we know what certain hormones do and what triggers their actions we can at least alter our internal environment enough to make these hormones work with us rather against us as we work on losing body fat.

Cortisol:

Cortisol is not a villain – it is essential to our health and performs many beneficial functions. Cortisol is released in response to physical, emotional & mental stress. If this stress is constant it signals your body that it’s under attack and your body responds by

The best way to stop the negative effects of Cortisol – get plenty of sleep!!

increasing the amount of cortisol in circulation. Through cortisol, our bodies by increase our belly fat reserves. This location not only offers protection to our organs but also positions this fuel source for easy availability for sudden energy needs.

Too much cortisol has the following effects:

Increased belly fat storage
Increased sugar cravings
Lowered immune system
Slower healing
Increased lean tissue breakdown
Decreased Liver function
Impaired cognitive performance
Suppressed thyroid function
Blood sugar imbalances such as hyperglycaemia
Decreased bone density
Higher blood pressure
Higher LDL (the ‘bad’ cholesterol)
Lower HDL (the ‘good’ cholesterol)

So how do we manipulate our cortisol levels?

Firstly by getting more sleep. Cortisol levels can increase by up to 30% just from missing some sleep. Getting at least 8 hours a night is a solid way to reduce Cortisol.

Secondly by lifting heavy weights. Although Cortisol is released in response to stress and weight lifting is a physical stress – lifting heavy weights also increases the release of Human Growth Hormone. HGH has many actions but one of which is to reduce cortisol levels. (HGH levels also increase with sleep – another reason to use sleep to blunt cortisol) By heavy weight lifting that increases HGH release

Thirdly by eating frequently. It takes only 14 days to kick in fully but by eating ‘mini-meals’ no more than 3 hours apart, during the day has been shown to reduce Cortisol levels by up to 17%.

Lastly decrease your intake of simple starches (breads, pastas, processed junk) and sugars. In a vicious circle increased sugar intake increases the release of cortisol which in turn increase the craving for sugar which…

Leptin

Sharply lowering carbs creates lower leptin levels in the body. Falling leptin levels triggers signals to the brain suggesting that a famine is imminent and that the body needs to slow the metabolism, hold onto fat and try to maintain the current state of homeostasis in terms of body composition. Low leptin levels are the surest way to hold onto body fat.

Fortunately it is relatively easy to fix – add more carbs back into your diet, and eat 5 – 6 times a day. Whilst it takes a week for leptin levels to drop, they can be replaced with only a day of carb loading. This is the thinking behind carb cycling diets.

Ghrelin

Ghrelin is the hormone which controls cravings – heightened levels of it mean that your appetite is elevated. Ghrelin reacts in concert with Leptin so long carbs, sustained low calorie intake and low leptin levels means that ghrelin levels rise and you are hungry. The fix for ghrelin is the same for leptin – add in more carbs and if leptin rises ghrelin will fall and appetite drops off as well.

Insulin

Insulin is most associated in people’s minds with diabetes and fat storage – two things no-one wants. However a bit like Cortisol Insulin is not a villain – it is the main hormone responsible for helping your body recover properly after exercise. Insulin increases blood

Insulin resistance is a result mainly of a poor Western diet…

transport to and from your muscle cells so the “waste products” of exercise, like carbon dioxide, can be removed; helps reduce elevated cortisol levels that are formed during intense exercise, which helps reduce stress on your body and ensures that the muscles get sufficient nutrients for repair.

Insulin is both a storage and a transport hormone. It transports glucose from the blood into the muscles (&liver) to replenish glycogen stores. When these are full it then changes to a storage medium and moves the excess glucose into your body’s fat cells.

So if your glycogen stores (muscle & liver sites) are full and you eat enough simple carbs to cause a blood sugar spike then insulin spikes as well and stores the excess glucose in

Here’s one way to help overcome insulin resistance – move heavy weights…

the fat cells. Creating a ‘spike’ in blood sugar causes the body to ‘over react’ and release a surge of insulin. This causes a sudden drop in blood sugar creating tiredness and increased fat storage.

Unfortunately high insulin levels triggers a halt in fat burning when there is glucose present in the blood stream. Basically Insulin activates the shift from fat to glucose burning.

We can manipulate Insulin by:

Eating 5-6 times a day (seeing a pattern here?) which keeps blood sugar levels & therefore insulin levels more stable.
Eating complex carbs and avoiding simple carbs, sugars & starches which quickly metabolise into blood sugar.
Cut out processed foods as much as possible – including Bread, Biscuits, Cakes
Basically up your vegetable and fruit intake, cut out the grain based foods…
Increasing the amounts of healthy fats in our diet.

Don’t forget our next post will look at the ways that you can use the burn rate of different macronutrient types, meal timings & meal frequency to recondition your metabolism.

So we can manipulate our hormones by eating 5 -6 times a day, avoiding / reducing simple carb intake, getting enough sleep and exercising with heavy weights.

Next time we’ll look at the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

Thermic Effect of Food

Macronutrient ‘Burn rates’
Food timing
Meal Frequency

Don’t forget our next post will look at the ways that you can use just eating food itself to recondition your metabolism.

Be well!!

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 1

Posted on June 16, 2012 by jghethe

How can you fix a Broken Metabolism? Part 1

If you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are your metabolism is slowing and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

The next 4 Blog posts will look at the four main areas that not only affect fat loss but which we can influence to achieve a leaner, fitter body in the most efficient manner.

Let’s be clear everything we do, every process that takes place in our bodies, is an output of our metabolism. There are some areas where we can effect changes to it and the area we are most interested in is the area of fat loss.

Great way to recondition your metabolism…

Here is a quick overview of the various factors you need to strategically combine to recondition a flagging metabolism so that it is more efficient at creating fat loss…

Food types that:

o Boost Metabolism

o Blunt Metabolism

The Hormonal Affects of Food:

o Fat Storage

o Fat Sparing

o Fat Burning

The Thermic Effect of Food:

o Macronutrient ‘Burn rates’

o Food timing

o Meal Frequency

Exercise:

o Weight bearing – lean = Higher metabolism

o Cardio – work long or work hard can’t do both

o Metabolic Circuits – HIIT, drive metabolism up and keep it up for up to 30 hours after

o NEPA – non-exercise physical activity move more!!

Any attempt to shed body fat and to become leaner & fitter is at least 80% diet. But the diet

This’ll rev up your metabolism…

part of the equation is not as simple as the old fashioned ‘just cut calories’ approach. This is not only outmoded but leads to poor results. As we saw in an earlier post ( http://bodyshapeshiftersonline.com/?p=100) a calorie is NOT just a calorie except as a way of measuring energy.

We now know that certain foods can increase our metabolism, these are Metabolic Fuels.

Metabolic Fuels tend to be low in sugar, lightly or un-processed and closer to nature than many of the foods you eat at the moment. These are nutrient dense foods that promote feelings of fullness, provide metabolism supporting vitamins & minerals and amino acids. They increase our metabolism by requiring more energy to process (see the upcoming part 3 for TEF), by providing essential vitamins, mineral, fatty acids and proteins for body repair & growth and by keeping blood sugar levels (see Part 2 – hormones) steady.

Metabolic Fuels:

Any lean type of lean protein – including whey protein powder
Eggs.
High fibre complex carbs like Oatmeal
Fibre rich vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, cabbage, and brussel sprouts.
Dark green leafy vegetables like Kale, spinach.
Tomatoes.
Blueberries and other whole fruits.
Cherries.
Beans – any type
Nuts – especially Walnuts
Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids from fish oil
Healthy Fats like Olive Oil, Coconut oil
Greek style Yogurt.
Green tea.
Ice water. It costs your body around 9 calories to warm up ice water to body temperature – 25 calories per glass instead of 16.
Dark Chocolate: Lots of antioxidants at the 70% or higher cocoa level. Just don’t eat the whole block you only need a square or 2.

This does as well….

Spicy Metabolic Fuels:

Chillies, curries, and other spices – many of these contain a substance called capsaicin. Capsaicin can fire up your metabolism (some studies have shown a 50 percent increase in metabolism for 3 hours after eating capsaicin), act as an anti-oxidant and assist in stabilising blood sugar.

Here are some of my favourite metabolic & flavour enhancing spices:

Cayenne pepper
Chilli powder
Black pepper
Turmeric
Cinnamon
Ginger
- Garlic Coriander / Cilantro

This is not a complete list by any means but the rule of thumb here is the closer to nature a food is, the more beneficial it is for reconditioning your metabolism.

On the other side our culture is full of highly processed denatured, nutrient sparse foods that blunt & slow our metabolism.

These foods lack fibre, are quick to be processed by our bodies, convert easily to sugar and often need vitamins & minerals added back to them to give them some nutritional value after processing.

Food Like:

Sugars – fructose, sucrose, dextrose, maltodextrin, to name but a few varieties
White Flour & white flour products like white bread, cookies, & biscuits
White Rice, rice crackers
Noodles
Semolina
Most pastas
Soda Pops
Cakes & Baked Goods
Commercial Fruit Juices
Most commercial yoghurts – especially low fat varieties (this usually means high sugar!!)
Virtually any packaged product that screams ‘Low fat’

The rule of thumb here is if it contains ‘white carbs’ (think flour, sugar & rice) it is best

Years of a broken metabolism at work…

avoided or at least eaten sparingly. If it promises to be ‘low fat’ – check out the sugar content because high sugar is worse than saturated fat for your metabolism. If your Grandmother would not easily recognise it as food think twice.

Mum was right lots of leafy vegetables and fruit along with lean protein is the best way to eat.

Foods can also elicit a hormonal response from our bodies based upon calorie numbers and the quantities and types of macronutrient present. These responses can be either fat burning or fat storing.

Simply put look to move towarss food swith the fewest number of ingredients on the label. Generally fewer ingredieints means less processed and less processed means more nutrition and less calories…

Next time we’ll look at the Hormonal Affects of Food

The Hormonal Affects of Food:

o Fat Storage

o Fat Sparing

o Fat Burning

I hope you found the information above of interest. We’ll be backnext week to look at Hormones & Fuel.

A quick Food Change That Will Lower Body Fat.

Posted on May 25, 2012 by jghethe

Hi – Welcome back!!

Here is a quick food change that will lower your body fat:

It’s really quite simple – choose and eat more vegetables and fibrous fruits as your main carbohydrate sources and ditch the starchy foods.

Why?

Well every Carb you eat, no matter what type gets broken down to glucose (blood sugar).

So a slice of white bread, cup of rice, a pear , an apple a piece of broccoli or that iceberg lettuce all end up being processed by your body to end up as its’ preferred fuel source – glucose.

If this is the case then why is the type of carb we eat so important and how can it affect our body fat??

It’s really quite simple – different types of carbs are metabolised at different rates by your body. A couple of posts a go I referred to the Thermic Effect of Food and how different food types are processed at different rates by our bodies.

Processing food goes further than just macronutrient type though – different sub-types of macronutrients are processed at different rates. So with carbs some are processed more quickly than others.

This difference processing rate affects how quickly glucose is produced and even how much.
High Glycemic Index Carbs (ie those carbs that are closest to glucose already) are processed more quickly than Low GI carbs (the ones furthest away from glucose). The other way to look at these is processed versus lightly or un-processed carbs.

Processed carbs tend to be high GI and are processed rapidly whilst low GI carbs are digested more slowly.

So why does this matter? Well the quicker a carb is processed the quicker glucose is created and ‘dumped’ into the blood stream. This is handy for quick energy boosts. The slower carbs are digested, the slower glucose is released into the blood stream which leads to a more sustained the energy release.

Therefore complex carbohydrates should be your main choice for energy because they offer more of a sustained energy supply. Simple carbohydrates create a quick boost of energy followed by a rapid decline, almost like a “crash.”

Complex carbohydrates mainly come from those lightly or unprocessed foods which are high in fibre. Foods like nuts, broccoli, peas, and green beans.

Sidebar: Fruit is often called a simple carb – not true for all fruits. Those fruits with a significant amount of fibre are actually digested slowly. So yes grapes will be processed quickly but apples or kiwi fruit will not. On the other hand most types of breads are ‘quick carbs’ their lack of fibre means quick digestion, quick glucose release…

There are three reasons to switch from a diet full of starchy carbohydrates like bread, pasta, and rice to a diet with more fibrous, leafy ones like vegetables. First is the metabolism raising effect of eating more fibrous carbs – we’ve already mentioned the Thermic Effect of Food.

Add more of these to your diet...

Secondly is that by switching away from starchy, processed carbs we will see a drop in the number of calories ingested without (more likely an increase!) a drop in nutrients. Starchy carbohydrates like bread and pasta are more calorie dense than fibrous, leafy ones like vegetables.

The third reason to eat this way is the fact that sudden ‘spurts’ of glucose into the blood stream causes insulin to be released.

Insulin’s role in this case is to ensure that the glucose is shunted into storage as glycogen in the liver & the muscles. If the storage in these areas is full the glucose is stored in fat cells. Quick spurts of blood sugar are more likely to create this insulin response than slower sustained glucose release.

So what we want is to eat more of the foods that make us feel & stay full, that raise our metabolic rate, and at the same time giving us the nutrients that we need. Many processed starchy carbs are nutritional wastelands, quick to digest and do not promote feelings of fullness. Unprocessed carbs like fruit & vegetables are nutrient dense, fibre rich and calorie low – unless they are deep fried or drowned in margarine or butter..

I believe that for effective and permanent fat loss to occur it is important to choose foods that offer high fibre, high volume, high nutrient content, low calories and a sustained glucose release. Eating this way, you do not feel empty and because you are feeling full you tend to avoid developing the cravings that make staying on a change of diet so hard.

Look I know that you are thinking: ‘I can’t live without Bread / rice / pasta / biscuits etc’ Nor should you. But if you want to drop some fat and get your metabolism firing better you need to moderate the amount of High GI, starchy processed carbs that you eat. The sensible middle path to take here is to eat true multigrain breads, swap the white rice for brown and durum pasta for a more fibrous variety.

If you put your mind to it this is surprisingly easy and the Bread etc becomes not only less important on a daily basis but more enjoyable when eaten less often.

I’ll be back in a couiple of days – in the meantime why not leave a comment, Tweet us or visit our Face Book Fan Page???

4 Ways to Speed Up a “Slow” Metabolism

Posted on April 7, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!

How my friend wants to go back to looking like…

I was talking a friend of mine the other day who is trying, to lose weight. (Long term readers will know that I consider this ‘wrong thinking’ we should be focussed on losing fat, not weight…)

The amount of weight in question is only 7 kilos (about 15lbs) so my friend is not obese yet she has been struggling with this same 7 kilos for years now…losing most if not all of them only to have them come back often with extra ‘friends’…I’m sure that this sounds familar to many of you – it was certainly my experience in the past.(For my story and why this happens to so many of us sign up for the free report at the top right of this page)

You know the situation Lose 5kg. Gain 4. Lose that 4. Gain 6. And so on.

From our chat it was obvious that this pattern had been repeating over & over since her early 20’s. Having 3 kids in her late 20’s may have made it a bit worse, but nonetheless this weight has become a decade long issue. Her husband, a big athletic ex-kickboxer has also been fighting the same fight since he hit his late 30’s. This is not just a female or male only issue – we all want to look and feel healthy and the older we get the harder it becomes to get into and then stay in shape.

This is because our metabolism becomes de-conditioned. It is just not a matter of it slowing down – it actually becomes less efficient in a whole lot of areas all of which impact our health & well being.

This how we want see ourselves – lean & fit…

Now my friend & her husband are example so this. They get in shape about once a year through an all out campaign of huge exercise increase and dietary restriction. They drop weight (though not necessarily fat) look slimmer for a period of time and then the slow (or not so slow) weight regain happens and they end up being the same size as before if not larger. Even worse it takes more & more effort to get into shape each year and once there they are staying ‘slim’ for shorter & shorter periods of time.

Accepting a future of becoming ‘comfortably chubby’ is on the cards as far as they are concerned…My friend is concerned about this and wanted to know how she can speed up a slowing metabolism.

So how do you speed up a “de-conditioned” metabolism?

The bigger you are the faster your metabolism will be – this is simple fact. However if you took 2 people the same size and weight – the one with the lower body fat would have the faster metabolism and the easier time of it when it came to losing fat and getting healthier.

Why? Well because muscle – lean tissue – does increase metabolism more than fat, so less fat and more lean tissue keeps your metabolism running faster. A faster metabolism burns more calories and this means decreased fat.

Build muscle. The more muscle you have the faster you metabolism, the lower your body

Lift weigths, move more – get your metabolism reconditioned…

fat and the better you look naked – pretty good reasons to strive to get more lean tissue onto your frame don’t you think!!??

Muscle is more metabolically active at rest and when moving. Now some folk will tell you not to get too excited about this because for every 1 lb (500 grams) of muscle, research shows its only about a 9-15 calorie/day increase in metabolism. But as you know losing fat and looking better and being healthier is a game of synergy and incremental gains What you eat, when you eat, how often you eat; when & how you work out, how much sleep you get, your stress level, your DN – all of these things work synergystically for or against your fat loss. So in the scheme of things burning an extra 9 or so calories a day at rest is not exciting BUT fat loss is a game of increments not huge differences!! It all adds up – so while 1 lb of muscle doesn’t offer a huge calorie benefit, adding on more muscle than that does. Plus working out to gain that muscle has a ton of other health related benefits – including better calorie burn! If you work out properly you can be burining extra calories for hours afterwards.

Eat More.Unprocessed carbs and protein that it. It sounds contradictory but the other way

Eat more often & eat more protein with unprocessed foods…

to speed metabolism is to eat more. I have spoken about the Thermic Effect if Food (TEF) here: Metabolism-what-it-is-how-you-can-make-it-work-for-you-part-6

When you eat, especially if you eat protein and fibrous vegetables & fruits, your body has to use energy to digest & process your meal so your overall metabolism increases. Protein, of course, does more to boost metabolism than either carbs (even unprocessed ones) or fats because it takes more energy to break it down & process it. So make sure each meal includes a little protein — fish, eggs, chicken, turkey – skip the nuts, beans or soy their protein is not complete (they have to be eaten with foods containing a complete amino acid profile – ie flesh based protein) are less bio-available and does not have a) the same thermogenic affect and b) confer fewer health benefits.

Eat breakfast. Eating a good solid breakfast after what is effectively at least an 8 hour

A family favourite at our place….

fast gets the metabolism rolling in quick order. Again though it is protein and fibrous carbs that do the trick. That oatmeal, boxed muesli or buttered toast are marginally better than skipping breakfast entirely but only just.and is likely to be causing a lot of other less desirable health effects. (Mmm – insulin spikes for breakfast just what I need to stay fat!!)

The best breakfast to rev up your metabolism is eggs with spinach, mushroom, onions and capsicum as an omelette, along with some cheese, some fruit and a small handful of nuts. (Colby cheese and pear is one of Nature’s great duos – right up there with tomato and onion, bacon & eggs, cauliflower and cheese sauce..)

There’s now some solid data suggesting eating eggs in the morning boosts weight loss above and beyond choosing toast, cereal or a bagel.

Do HIIT for your workouts. I’ve said it before (Interval-training-the-1-not-so-secret-fat-loss-tool) – long, slow cardio sessions do next to nothing in terms of creating a post

When you’re fit enough sprints are a great HIIT workout…

exercise calorie burn (EPOC) when the workout is done. On the other hand, shorter, harder intensity exercise bouts cause a much longer increase in metabolism, even hours after your workout is finished. In fact, a number of studies show s much as a 14+ hour increase in metabolism after a high intensity bout of exercise. This boost burned an additional 190 calories! Again it is a game of increments so this will add up.

There you have it — 4 simple strategies to boost a slowing metabolism. If you’d like to know more about speeding up and reconditioning your metabolism go here and read the series. How-you-can-fix-a-broken-metabolism-part-1

PS My firend & her husband have adopted the above and in addition have gone ‘paleo’. They’ve never looked or felt better. I’ll write about Paleo soon.

See you next week – be well.

HIIT, Burst & ignore the CDC’s exercise guidelines!!

Posted on March 17, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!

Just how much time to exercise do you need to shift weight and to recondition your metabolism?

The Centre for Disease Control in the USA recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity cardio exercise per week for 18 – 64 year old adults in its Physical

Got 5 hours a week to spend on this??

Activity Guidelines for Americans¹. On top of that, to the CDC’s credit, they also recommend at least 2 sessions per week of ‘muscle strengthening’ exercise. And that’s if you are not overweight.

This recommendation ups to 300 minutes+ of cardio and then more resistance training if you want to lose fat. That’s 5 hours a week of cardio and likely another 3 or 3 of resistance training. Say 8 hours a week. Out of the 168 hours a week that we have available to us 8 hours doesn’t seem like a lot – but let’s look a little more closely.

Sleep (@ 8 Hours per night) = 56 hours
Food preparation, eating & clean up = 15 hours
Hourly commute to work = 10 hours
Work itself = 45 hours (8 hours work + 1 Hour lunch & breaks per day, 5 days)
Showering, laundry, household chores = 16 hours
Exercise (as per the CDC) = 8 hours

That leaves 18 hours a week for shopping, TV, recreation, reading, loving etc etc or a little over 2.5 hours a day.

Real Adults have real world responsibilities…

Really for most of us finding 8 hours a week just for exercise (this does not mean sport or recreation just fat loss focussed, fitness maintaining exercise) is not really feasible for the average adult with adult responsibilities.

In a word the CDC’s recommendations are not real life practical.

Now if fat loss is an imperative in your life, if it is deeply held goal then you will find the time – but such an effort is unlikely to become a regular habit for most of us. We’ll do it short term to drop fat for an event like a wedding or a reunion, but sustaining this type of effort is just not realistic for most of us.

And let’s be honest if we were to follow these guidelines who wants to spend 5 or so hours a week on an exercise bike, stair climber, treadmill or elliptical trainer?

Just ain’t going to happen, no where no how.

To make matters even worse it appears that everything we have been told for years about exercising especially for fat loss has been wrong.

It is not about duration, nor about finding some mythical fat burning zone – studies from conservative sources like Harvard University indicate that the key to effective exercise for fat loss and overall health is all about intensity.

Here are some guidelines for judging your level of intensity using a PRE(perceived rate of

Stair runs – now that’s intense!!

exertion) protocol:

Level 1 = Warm-Up or Slow Pace
Level 2 = Medium (you can talk easily
Level 3 = Medium-High (you can still talk)
Level 4 = High (Talking is in short bursts
Level 5 = Hard as you can go (Talking is not possible)

These levels are based on your current level of personal condition.

The available data shows that the long, slow, constant-speed aerobics that we’ve all been inculcated to believe are so good for us is exactly the wrong thing for us to be doing.

In fact I’d go as far as to say doing continuous cardio is a waste of time.

Why?

Hmm…Cortisol and low intensity perhaps??!!

Long slow constant cardio doesn’t get your metabolism running faster, nor does it build your fat burning capability or even really condition your cardiovascular and respiratory systems. It does increase cortisol release – which is not a good thing as high cortisol is associated with belly fat accumulation.

Look I’ve posted before on the benefits to your metabolism (both reconditioning and improving), your fat loss and your overall health of HIIT (high intensity interval training).

There has been a heap of research showing that high intensity interval training is better than traditional, long, slow aerobics if you want to:

Recondition your metabolism
protect your heart
burn body fat
build lean muscle
boost your overall metabolism
reduce insulin resistance
decrease cortisol levels
increase levels of HGH
increase your energy levels
improve your sleep patterns
Not waste time

You can get faster results in a shorter time period using HIIT. And that was where we

The results of HIIT (and okay maybe some help genetically…)

came in – 8 hours a week of exercise for so-so results when you could do HIIT style exercise for 12 – 20 minutes three times a week, add in a couple of 30 – 45 minute resistance training sessions and you you’ve got more time and better results. (in fact if you combined the 2 into what is called metabolic resistance training then you’d get all the benefits in under 80 minutes a week! – more on MT and how to design a program next week)

This is just not me speaking – here are some results from recent studies:

Harvard School of Public Health: A study of over 7,000 people found that the more intense the exertion, the lower the risk of heart disease.

Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada: Compared to treadmills and hour-long aerobics classes, HIIT helps you burn fat more efficiently and quickly.

Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada: Moderately active women (not on their backside all day but not running marathons either…) lost an impressive amount of fat doing just two weeks of HIIT.

School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Young males who did HIIT / Burst Training substantially reduced their risk for type 2 diabetes.

Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada: For people with type 2 diabetes, HIIT Training can improve blood sugar levels and reduce risks for diabetes-related complications.

The next level of HIT is a thing called ‘Burst Training.’ Regular HIIT requires intense effort for fairly short periods of time interspersed with short rest periods. Now I have to go on record here and say that I think that Burst training is largely a marketing term– if you are

Either way – HIIT or Burst – this is time efficiant and fat burning to the max!!

hitting high levels of exertion in your HIIT training then you are already ‘Bursting.’

Why this term has come about is because I think that many people say they are doing HIIT when they are really only doing timed exercise. It’s Tabatas – most folk do 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off for 4 minutes and say they’ve done a Tabata.

Unless you worked so hard during those 4 minutes that you are lying on your back sucking air then you have NOT done Tabatas – you’ve done timed interval exercise which is nowhere near as challenging or stressful. Nor does it deliver the health benefits we are after in as short a period of time as true HIIT or Tabatas.

Make no mistake unless you are going ‘balls to the wall’ for short periods of time followed by short periods of rest then you are NOT performing HIIT or Burst training. You’re working out, likely getting some benefit but far less than if you go flat out.

Burst training involves short (20 – 60 second maximum) bursts at such a high intensity that the created oxygen demand is higher than your body can supply.

Think about doing sand dune sprints, prowler sprint pushes or where Rocky runs the Philadelphia stairs…

This is so much more time efficient than the CDC’s ‘moderate cardio’…

This ‘over demand’ for oxygen creates a high level of metabolic “stress” in your body that it depletes your glycogen stores which requires your body to not only work harder to repay this ‘oxygen debt’ but means that it has to burn more fat.

The Health benefits of “burst training” are not dissimilar to that of HIIT and include…

Increased fat burning
Increased lean muscle mass
Improved cardiovascular health
Combined aerobic and anaerobic activity
Increased “feel-good” beta-endorphins
Increased human growth hormone (HGH)
Increased energy
Improved athletic performance
Reduced inflammation
Increased EPOC

If you really want to go for it then move to what is called “Threshold” intervals. These are insanely hard bursts of intense exercise that, unlike the shorter ‘burst’ style, last anywhere from 65 seconds all the way up to 2 or sometimes 3 minutes.

Now that is a HIIT and that will burn fat & recondition your metabolism like little else!

They are also so demanding physically & mentally that you can’t do this oftenwhich

Threshold training should leave you feeling like this…

means this training style should only be used on those days when you are feeling in touch with the Universe when a flow state is nigh and you want to up the ante a bit.

Few of us mortals can train this way on a regular basis – but if you can incorporate them once a week then:

1. Research shows that performing “Threshold” intervals is one of the best ways to accelerate glycogen depletion (which = faster fat loss).

2. Test subjects who regularly performed threshold intervals burned more fat when they performed steady state or higher intensity intervals.

In other words, using the Threshold system develops your metabolism where it becomes more adept at burning fat in less time that either HIIT or Burst style training.

So forget what the politically correct exercise guidelines are – get HIITing, Bursting or jump over your Threshold!! This is how you can recondition your metabolism in record time, get leaner, get healthier and LBN.

See you next week – don’t forget to share this!!

1) http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/adults.html

Reversing MS – Foods as Drugs

Posted on February 4, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!!

Thanks for putting up with lack of ‘on blog’ updates – it turns out one of the apps on the site had corrupted…Now we’re back with a new look & feel and some big plans for 2012.

This week I want to draw your attention to one of the most important TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) talks ever. This 17 minute Video could literally change your life for the better.

(TED, if you don’t know, is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”. Essentially it is a platform for the world’s best thinkers, scientists, artists and humanists to share ideas and thoughts. Since June 2006, the talks have been offered for free viewing online, TED.com. Check it out.)

Regular readers will be familiar with my (researched!) beliefs about the damage that our Western Diet does to our bodies. Whilst my focus has been on fat loss, reconditioning your metabolism and getting lean an underlying theme has been becoming smarter in the way we live & eat so our overall health improves.

Our bodies have an almost limitless ability to survive adverse conditions and adapt o changing environments. Our internal environment can become damaged through improper nutrition and a poor lifestyle and yet despite decades of abuse our bodies can heal themselves if given the right support.

I know of no better example of this than the story of Dr Terry Wahl.

A noted, active Doctor & Academician she was struck with MS in the early 2000’s and underwent the normal, prescribed therapies available. Her condition, like every MS sufferer continued to worsen despite her best efforts. She became wheel chair bound and watched as her body slowly deteriorated.

Then she fought back! Through her own research she not only found a way to halt the progress of the disease but she reversed many of its effects.

Watch the video for a truly inspiring and more importantly scientifically documented story of courage and cure.

Watched it? Inspiring and somehow frightening as well. What are we and have been doing to ourselves and our children for all of these years? It almost doesn’t bear thinking about.

Simply put good health and longer health and dare I say a fit and lean body is within all of our reaches. As Dr Wahl says eating the way she describes may cost a bit more but it is much cheaper than the seemingly inevitable hospitalisation, drug therapy and health care that awaits too many of us in our later years as our poor diet catches up with us.

The idea of food as a drug is not new and has been around for centuries but rarely has there been as compelling a case for the truth of this as DR Wahl’s example. When the latest pharmaceutical drugs failed she turned to food for a cure and found one in no uncertain terms.

DR Wahl went from Wheel chair to Bike riding in 12 months

It’s true – over80% percent of our health & vitality comes from our diet.

We are truly what we eat.

Dr Wahl’s case proves that eating a more nutrient dense diet of whole foods can indeed reverse a debilitating neurological disease that conventional medicine and drugs have not been able to so far.

The implications here are enormous – we could, perhaps, through better diet actually undo decades of dietary abuse and get rid of what we currently accept as the ‘diseases of old age’ – arthritis, Type II diabetes and more besides…

In Dr. Terry Wahl’s case she specifically designed her diet to combat the effects of MS, but her results are so astonishing perhaps eating this way will achieve the same results for other chronic conditions? Research continues.

Dr Wahl’s diet was aimed at being rich in the B group vitamin (B1, B9, and B12), Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Sulphur, Iodine and antioxidants. These nutrients were researched by Dr. Wahl as being essential to proper myelin formation, nervous system action and mitochondrial health.

Whole foods - good carbs & no grains!

Here are the main foods Dr Wahl includes in her diet – the ones that are responsible for reversing her MS disease:

Dark green vegetables – especially Kale – that are rich in vitamin B, A, C, K and minerals
Foods from the Cabbage family are rich in sulfur – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, turnips, & radishes.
The Onion family including leeks, chives, shallots and garlic.
Mushrooms & asparagus
Bright coloured foods such as beetroot, carrots, peppers, capsicum, red cabbage, berries, mangoes, tomatoes and strawberries. These are important sources of the flavonoids and polyphenols which act as powerful antioxidants that help support your retina, mitochondria, brain cells and even be used in toxin removal.
Omega 3 rich protein sources like salmon & herring, grass fed beef and lamb.
Organ meats like liver, kidney, heart, and sweetmeats which are high in the vitamins, minerals (including Coenzyme Q10 which is particularly important in protecting your mitochondria)
Seaweed for its richness of iodine and selenium. Not only does your brain need theses to produce myelin (The protective sheath that protects your nerves) but they help remove toxins such as heavy metals like mercury and lead.
Few grains, no wheat products and little if any dairy as these food groups have high incidences of food intolerance and sensitivities which increase inflammation in your body.
No sugar except that in fruits.
No transfats

Despite using some supplements at the beginning of her radical self-treatment Dr Wahl decided eventually to get all of the essential vitamins and minerals needs met through whole foods. She came to believe (as many nutritionists do) that whole foods contain many co-factors which assist in the assimilation and uptake of the nutrients contained in the food. Co-factors that supplements don’t have.

No grains!! Very Paleo style!!

In fact Dr Wahl’s diet is very close to a Paleo (AKA Caveman) diet. It is also dead in line with the one I have been talking about here – high vegetable and fruit with quality protein and no highly processed carbs.

In reality the diet Dr. Terry Wahl tailored for herself to deal with her MS is very similar to the diet that promotes an overall lean, fit and healthy body.

So eat better, move more and avoid processed crap and you will be going a long way to not only becoming leaner but the chances are that you’ll also be on the road to undoing decades of damage from our Western diet.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, Tweet this or even drop by the Face Book page.

See you next week.

Body Shape Shifters

Lose fat, Get Fitter, Look Better Naked

Category Archives: Reconditioning your Metabolism