Tag Archives: Fat Loss

The most frightening of new words – Obesegenic.

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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.

 

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 8

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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 5

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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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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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Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 4

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Welcome back!!

Today – Factors affecting the Thermic Effect of Food

Harnessing the Power of TEF
TEF can be affected in four ways

  1. Overeating
  2. The composition up of the foods we eat
  3. When we eat
  4. The number of times that we eat
  5. Exercise

Overeating:

Your TEF can be raised by simply overeating as the body has to use more energy to digest a larger amount of food. This means that even if you ate 3500 calories (the number in a pound of fat) you still would not put on that pound as your body would use some of the calories as TEF. How strong the TEF effect on the 3500

calories would be depends upon what they made out of. If it was high GI, high processed carbs or fat your store more as fat than if it was made up of protein and low GI unprocessed carbs. Bottomline is that you would still put on fat, so overeating is not recommended.

NB There is no such thing as a ‘negative calorie’ food. Even celery requires less energy to burn that it contributes to your calorific intake.

The composition of the foods we eat:

As we have seen the different macronutrients all have a different thermic effect when we eat them. In order to maximise our fat burn and to increase our metabolism we should be eating protein with every meal, keeping fats generally low, avoid processed carbohydrates and eat un- / low processed, low GI, Low GI load carbs. The up coming Lose 20 in 30 Fuel manual explains all of this in greater detail.

It is important to note though that research has shown that that just upping your protein intake whilst severely reducing your overall calories does not produce enough of an increase in your TEF to offset the overall metabolic reduction such calorie restriction cause. Research has also shown that adding spices such as chilli and curry to your food increases your metabolism overall, but particularly your TEF.

When we eat:

Our TEF is higher (average 16%) in the morning than in the evening (average 11%) according to the American Journal of Nutrition. The variance is not huge but we should harness this to work for us. Every little bit helps when it comes to altering our metabolic set point.

You should also try to eat the majority of your carbs in the morning as your body is coming off the enforced ‘fast’ we call sleep. Carbs early gets your metabolism moving and research shows that carbs eaten earlier in the day are less likely to be stored as fat.

The number of times we eat:

Eating more often increases our TEF. But research has shown that the number of meals consumed has to be consistent from day to day for this to have maximum metabolic effect.

Research from Queens University has shown that eating in an irregular daily meal pattern (three meals one day, four the next, then two, then six then…) results in a significantly lower TEF than that found in folk who eating to a regular meal pattern. The TEF is even more enhanced in those who eat six meals per day. (Again don’t think of plates of food, but rather 3 main meals and three ‘snacks or top ups)

Food calories that are in excess of our body’s immediate needs tend to be shunted towards fat storage and are far less likely used for either energy, muscle growth / tissue repair or storage as glycogen. This is why eating 5 or 6 times a day not only increases your metabolism by the thermic effect of food but it also means that meal sizes are smaller and there is less chance of an ‘on the spot’ overload of calories.

Exercise:

Yep exercise. People who regularly perform exercise that is has a high metabolic cost actually have a higher TEF that that of sedentary people. This remains true even if you compare two groups of people that have similar fat free masses. Even more interesting this increase in TEF is not age dependent which means that the natural age related decrease in metabolism can be positively affected by challenging exercise.

Challenging exercise has also been shown to increase the TEF of carbs when they are ingested in the 45

minute post-exercise fuelling window. This means that not only is your insulin sensitivity heightened after exercise, but you burn more energy to digest the carbs and they are less likely to go into fat storage.

This means that you can give your TEF a ‘nudge’ every time you exercise and that you increase the efficiency of your post-workout fuelling.

So in summary we can affect the TEF in several ways:

  • Eat more protein and eat it at every meal
  • Eat hot spicy foods for example foods containing chilli, horseradish and mustard.
  • Eat more carbs in the AM than PM
  • Eat less fat
  • Eat a consistent number of meals each day – 5 or 6 is best
  • Exercise more

Maximising your TEF is important but it is only one part of the overall metabolic picture.

Take Away: Eat more in the AM than PM, eat often, and become familiar with the ‘burn’ rates of your food so you can maximise the TEF of your Fuel.

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 2

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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!!

A quick Food Change That Will Lower Body Fat.

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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?

Pizza sliced

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.

Fibrous vegetables

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

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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.

 

 

How often should you really be eating?

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Welcome back

How often should we eat?

I came across an interesting study late last year, which looked at the effect of eating frequency on folk of ‘normal weight’, or who had lost fat and were maintaining that fat loss, or were ‘overweight’. The number of meals eaten in the day was essentially the same across the groups – the typical ‘3 squares’.

70 years old – how often does she eat?

However, for snacks it was different:

Overall, those of normal weight and those who had lost weight ate more snacks than those deemed overweight.

In other words, in this study, increased eating frequency was associated with lower weight.

The authors of this study make the conclusion that eating three meals a day with two snacks in between ‘may be important in weight loss maintenance.’

The suggestion from this study is that eating more frequent can help with fat loss and weight control. This may be the case but this study most certainly does not prove that. That’s because it’s epidemiological (ie based on self reporting and in the field not in controlled lab conditions) in nature, and can only tell us that increased frequency of eating is associated with lower weight.

The increased snacking may not have caused the lower weight. It might also be that fatter individuals are more likely to forgo snacks because they believe this will help them lose weight or reduce the risk of weight gain.

People who look like this are actually prone to eat less often…

However, having said that, I find personally, that some well-timed snacking on the right sort of food  can make a huge difference to someone’s attempts to eat healthily and lose fat or maintain a healthy weight.

For some people the time that passes between meals is just too long.

This is usually more of a problem between lunch and dinner than between breakfast and lunch. Some people can eat lunch at 12.30 and not be able to sit down to their evening meal until 8.00 or later. By this time hunger can be at such a level that it makes healthy eating almost impossible, and junk fod a certainty if not a necessity!!

Starchy carbs such as bread, pasta and rice as well a processed ‘no preparation required’ foods are normally the order of the day at this point, and are often preceded by some unhealthy snacking (e.g. biscuits / sweets / potato chips) and then topped of with a none-too-healthy dessert.

Also, out of control hunger can drive people to drink more alcohol than they normally would.

The other effect of out of control hunger and too much alcohol…

All of these issues can usually be avoided by having a suitable snack  in the late afternoon. The snack of choice? For me it is nuts or if you are allergic to nuts – an apple with a slice of cheddar cheese.

Because both of these snacks are reasonably protein-rich and give a strong feeling of fullness they suppress your appetite in contrast to fruit alone which tends not to do the job nearly as well. And all of the above are vastly superior to the afternoon sugar rush from a chocolate bar or cake…

Snacking between meals is not a ‘must-do’ – if you can go from meal to meal without your cravings for food or your appetite getting out of control then snacking is unlikely to add much to your fat loss efforts.

However a lot of reasearch shows (and I am a proponent of this thinking myself) that eating 5 or 6 times a day with protein at every meal keeps your metabolism running faster, your insulin release lower and overall assists in fat loss.

Also, keep in mind  that how often you eat on each day can vary according to whether or not you’ve been working out, how hard you’ve worked out, the temperature, your sleep quality and the stress you may or may not beunder in your life.

If you exercise like this – you’ll eat more food but perhaps not more often…

Appetite like much else is variable. – some days you may just need more food or more frequent eating than others.

So for most people this means eating 2 or 3 meals a day with 1-2 snacks a day.

There are no hard and fast rules.

The important thing is to eat enough of the right foods, frequently enough to avoid getting ravenously hungry, and to eat the right foods that support your fat loss efforts. This means proteins and vegetables and fruits and nuts – low or unprocessed foods.

Eating like this is what makes healthy eating (and fat loss for that matter) easy and sustainable.

See you next week.

References:

1. Bachman JL, et al. Eating frequency is higher in weight loss maintainers and normal-weight individuals than in overweight individuals. J Am Diet Asso 2011;111(11):1730-1734

You’ve been lied to – we all have – and it’s a big FAT one!!

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They lied.

They lied big time.

I’ve written about this earlier – about the reporting only of data that supported a faulty hypothesis and the deliberate ignoring of contrary info.

Watch the vid – it explaines all:

You have every right to be angry…

See you next week.

Reversing MS – Foods as Drugs

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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.