24 Proven Tips for Quick Fat Melting…

Posted on September 9, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!!

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

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

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

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

See you next week.

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

Posted on July 21, 2012 by jghethe

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

Factors Affecting TEA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metabolic Energy Pathways

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be well!!

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54 tips to lose fat

Posted on June 2, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!

This week some quick but useful tips to help you lose fat (you’ll notice a lot are food based – remember you can’t out train a bad diet!!)

Be clear on your fat loss goal: Know the amount of fat you want to lose. You’re your time frame. Tell others to invoke accountability. Write in all down in an exercise book or a journal. Be clear.
Have a pair of skinny jeans ready for ‘success’ day. Or a jacket o blouse or bathing costume – whatever. Just have this on display where you can see it every day. It’ll help keep you on track.
Take your ‘before’ pictures. Stick them in a book with your weekly measurements next to your clear goals. (Waist, upper arm, mid-thigh, belly, chest)

No don’t keep these ones, keep the SKINNY ones where you can see them!!
Don’t weigh yourself every day. Weigh yourself the same day at the same time every week. Take your measurements at the same time. Write them down in your book. (Don’t have a fat loss journal – get one – any old exercise book will do.) The best 2 ways to judge your progress is how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror. Muscle weighs more than fat so you have your weight go up yet be losing fat. Be wary. “
Understand that it’s not all or nothing; if you fall off the fat loss wagon, dust yourself off, don’t beat yourself up and get right back into it!! This is a journey of inches not miles…
Be honest. With yourself— The only person that you fool by sneaking food or eating ‘off reservation’ is yourself.
Eat breakfast. Simply put those that ate a protein heavy breakfast ate less during the day, had more energy and less body fat. It can be eggs & bacon, a protein smoothies, nuts & yoghurt – so long as it is protein plus unprocessed carbs you’re be on the right track.
Drink tea. Lots of research suggests that drinking tea (any tea EXCEPT herbal teas) stimulates your metabolism, works on body weight re-partitioning and lowers your body fat – especially belly fat.
Drink more water. 2 glasses before a meal helps you feel fuller and interacts with fibre from vegetables to bulk them up. Water also helps shift fat by helping your kidneys & liver to function properly. 8 Glasses a day is good rule to follow.
Get at least 8 of these bad boys into each day!

Drop the store juice and sodas: Change to low or no-calorie drinks. Home- made iced tea, Coke Zero, diabetic sodas – all are good alternatives.
Eat more veggies. Calorie sparse, nutrient dense they fill you up, without loading you up with too many calories. Avoid the high fat/high calorie dressings.
Eat eggs. Every day. Forget the cholesterol BS – eggs don’t raise bad cholesterol and are nature’s perfect fast food.
Get enough fibre. Think of fibre like a sponge; it absorbs water and makes you feel full. Focus on fibre, not carbs.
Eat more fruits: No one ever gained weight from eating more fruit even the so called “high sugar” fruits, like bananas, melons and others.
Eat more protein. Lean protein helps satiate you, and increases your metabolism, through the thermic effect of food.
Eat protein at every meal & snack. This maximises the effects of #10
Eat less Grains. Increasingly it seems that grains and grain based foods are not good for us and predispose us to fat gain and a number of debilitating diseases like arthritis. Try to cut down on them. Besides most grain based foods are highly processed and that’s definitely not good for you.
Start meals with soup or a salad. Either will help you feel full more quickly so your

Prefer Chicken? Either is right!!

calories at the meal will be less. E sensible with your soup and dressing choices.
Steak & Salad Rules. Best way to get your veges & lean protein have a steak & salad meal at least once a day.
Add cayenne pepper to your meals. A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that when compared to placebo, capsaicin (the active ingredient in cayenne) increased fat burning. Spice up your meals!!
Watch your portions. Each meal try for a palm sized portion of protein and 2 fists of non-processed carbs. Don’t Supersize.
Bake, don’t fry. Slow cook in the oven or quick stir fry on the stove top. Both are healthier than pan frying.
Switch to smaller plates; visually your plate looks fuller and you’ll eat less.
Use a Barbeque or a grill. Less fat, more flavour. Marinade your meat overnight to cut down on the potential of carcinogens from naked flame cooking. Don’t cook or eat well done.
Keep it out of your house – or at least out of sight!!

Keep your house crap free. Chips and Cookies and cakes and banana bread and …you can’t eat them if they’re not in the house. For those of us with families – have less of these in the house and keep them out of sight – in the garage or back shed. Studies show that the food we see more of we eat more of.
Have a big bowl of fresh fruit in plain sight. See above
Don’t grocery shop when you’re hungry. Recipe for disaster. Have a meal or grab a handful of nuts first then go shopping for food otherwise you’ll fill the trolley with all the self-control eroding processed foods you’ve been conditioned to love & want.
Become a nutrition label guru: If you have to eat packaged foods check the labels and put back those with heavy sugars, Trans fats or HFCS.
Decrease/eliminate processed carbs wherever possible. They do nothing for you outside of creating a favourable environment for gaining fat
Eating out? Swap side dishes with steamed veggies. Restaurants will often allow you to switch the fries or chips with steamed veggies; all you have to do is ask.
Order dressing on the side, dip the fork in dressing, and then in the salad.

Ready for what?? Not ready to support health or fat loss…

This saves a ton more dressing than if one was to order it on the side, then poor the entire cup on the salad anyhow. Less calories equals less weight.
Skip buffets. These are a trap to overeating. Don’t.
Skip the Designer Coffees. Great way to get up to an extra 500 calories in one hit. Have black coffee or a tea instead.
Don’t socialise around the food tables at parties; Grab some food and move away from the table otherwise you’re more likely to pick, and eat mindlessly even though you’re not really hungry.
Try to eat slower. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes for your stomach to sense it’s full. Eat too fast and you’ll shovel in more than you need to.
Stay away from the alcohol— I‘ve written on this before – just drink sensibly – 1 or 2 a night is okay but any alcohol will put a dent into your fat loss efforts. Remember your body stops burning fat to deal with alcohol first. Plus having alcohol lowers your inhibition so you overeat other calories too – kebabs at 3 AM anyone??
Take a brown bag lunch. Do this as often as possible – not only will you control what you eat but you’ll save money.
Keep some healthy snacks on hand — like nuts — in your bag, your briefcase or your glove box so you’re prepared at all times. Swap them out regularly so they are always fresh
If you’re working this hard today – carbs aren’t going to be a problem…

Match your carb intake to your energy output. You need fewer carbs on the days you aren’t working out hard than the days when you are. Up the protein on non-workout days to support recovery and satiety.
Have fish oil – several grams a day. Omega-3s have more benefits than possible to list in this short blog – but one is more Omega-3 = less body fat!
Wake up and exercise; not only do you burn more fat but you’re more likely to exercise in the AM than at night after a day in real world.
Lift weights. Heavy weights. Build more muscle, burn more calories.
Do complex exercises like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, chin-ups, shoulder presses and push-ups. The more muscles you involve in each exercise the more benefit you’ll get. Leave the triceps’ kickbacks to the folk who aren’t serious about getting leaner and stronger.
Cut down rest time between sets. Just because you’re lifting heavy does not mean that you take a 10 minute break between sets. Rest long enough for your breathing to ease and then do the next set. Repeat. This keeps your metabolism surging and those calories burning…
Do intervals. HIIT = Faster fat loss. Study after study continues to show intervals are more effective for fat loss (and in less time) than traditional cardio. Ditch the treadmill and the marathon runs – get down get dirty get lean!!
Sprint twice a week. Sprinters have lower fat and more muscle. Just look at the

A sprinter. ‘Nuff said…

body of a sprinter vs. the body of a marathoner.
If you have a dog, take it for a walk—Aim to do this every day. Set it as a routine.
Buy a pedometer and aim for at least 10,000 steps each day.
At work set a timer. Most of us work at a desk so set a 30 minute timer like ‘Cool Timer’ and get up for a stretch every 30 minutes. Go for a brisk walk after lunch, but sit less and move more.
Try not to use internal email. Whenever possible get up and walk to a co-workers desk.
Eat standing up. In tandem with the above have your snack or lunch at work standing up – you’ll burn more calories. Want quicker meetings? Have them standing up with no chairs in the room.
A classic – Use the stairs, skip the escalator and the lift. Tried and true every bit of additional movement helps you lose fat. Doing this by itself won’t have a huge impact but as a part of the overall effort to move more it helps.
Even at work – move more sit less…

Another classic – Fidget. In Australia the Gut Buster program has this as one of its mainstays – fidgeting. Move more and more often. Get thinner.
Change who you hang out with. If your friends are all overweight, don’t show an interest in getting leaner, eat pizza or other fast foods a few times or more a week then you need to change who you’re hanging with. Research has shown conclusively that the people we hang out with can either assist or undermine our efforts to lose fat and get healthier.

Be well – see you next week.

The 4 Fat Loss Principles You Must Know to Drop Fat Fast…

Posted on April 28, 2012 by jghethe

Welcome back!!

In the spirit of last week’s list of 5, here are 4 principles that you have to apply if you are going to see fast fat loss results…

Principle the First – You gotta keep your metabolism humming along…
Cutting calories like most folk do when they decide to lose weight (ie Fat) results in a dive in the various processes that make up your moverall metabolic rate.

You eat less so you lose out on the thermic effect of food. Eating lessbecause most folk

Keep your metabolism humming – but don’t do crap like this!!

severley cut their calories back means you have less energy and so you move less and exercising becomes difficult.

Your basal metabolic rate drops off as you body enters into good ole starvation mode.

These things then combine to deliver a thump to your hormones.

Leptin (the ‘okay we’re full stop eating’ hormone) levels fall off a clif in as little as a week of moderate calorie reduction.

So you fix this by cycling your calories or even easier if you are going low carb then you must make sure that you a ‘Cheat day’ – the trick here though is to eat with some sense –

Eaten intelligently even pizza can help you lose fat…

don’t gorge and overfeed, just allow yourself to have some processed carbs one day a week if you are on a serious drop fat fast diet. ne day of ‘spiking’ your carb intake will reset your leptin levels to pretty much normal so you can cut calories for ht efollowing week and then reset again with a ‘cheat day’ and so on…

This strategy works best if you workout hard the day before your cheat day. here is a program from renowned training Expert Craig Ballantyne that you can use:

Do a minium of 3 rounds and try for 5 if possible.

Rest 15 seconds between exercises and 1 minute at the end of the circuit.

Do as many repetitions as possible in the given time.

Make sure to do a bodyweight warm-up of squats, lunges, and
pushups before this circuit (2 sets of 8-12 reps each).

1) Lunge Jumps – 20 seconds
2) Pullup or Bodyweight Row – 30 seconds
3) Spiderman Pushup – 30 seconds
4) KB Swing – 30 seconds
5) Walking Prisoner Lunge – 30 seconds
6) Cross-Body Mountain Climber – 30 seconds
7) KB Goblet Squat – 30 seconds

Lunges – work!!

By doing this you deplete your body’s store of glycogen and when you cheat the next day these stores get refilled so the extra carbs not only reset your leptin they don’t 9unless you are foolish) create a calorie overwhelm that results in fat loss. In fact doing this can help predispose your body to burn fat as preferred fuel…

Principle the Second – You gotta cut calories a lot if you want fast fat loss…

You’ve read it here before a pound of fat is 3500 calories (closer to 7200 for a kilo) and the only way that you get your body to shift those pounds / kilos is for you to eat less so your body burns more…

Of course there is more to it than just eating less – what you eat, how often and and so on all has an effect but the base line info to grab onto here is that you have to create a strong energy deficit for fat loss to occur.

Which would you rather be carrying around…

Dropping 5 kilos (about 11 pounds) of fat equates to a energy deficit of around 38,000 calories..

if you’re hooked on thinking in terms of weight loss rather than fat loss then you need to understand that a pure fat loss of 5 kilos probably means a total weight loss of 7.5 to 10 kilos becuase of fluid loss that comes along with dropping weight.

Principle the Third: You gotta use both DIET & Exercise to achieve your fat loss.

I’ve said it before – you can’t out train a bad diet and you can’t lose fat unless you get a number of things working together.

Forstly – take as many of the processed, then the the starchy processed carbs out of your diet as possible. Replace these with loads more vegetables, lean protein and fruit.

Step up your exercise and use HIIT protcols to get your metabolism revved up. Lift heavy weights at leat once a week to keep your muscle mass intact 9if not increase it!0 and then use cheat days to keep your homones on your side.

Is there more to it than this? Yep – but just do the above and you’ll get results better than 80% of the folk who try to lose ‘weight’…

Principle the Fourth: You gotta keep the muscle you’ve already got…

I mentioned this above but it is worth locking down on its own.

Muscle is more metabolically active than fat. The more you have the faster your basal

Lift heavy once or twice a week to hold onto fat burning muscle mass…

(resting) metabolism is and the more calories that you burn at rest. Likewise when you exercise if you have muscle your body will burn more calories more quickly than if you were fatter with less muscle.

Most people lose muscle when they diet becuase once your body goes into starvation mode it tries to protect fat stores and turns to breaking down muscle to supplement your energy needs. But you can stp this. Dead. How? Lift heavy weights. It has been shown in a number of studies that lifting heavy weights once or twice a week makes your body preserve if not add to) your muscle mass and gets it to burn more fat – even if you are in starvation mode due to calorie cuts.

Well there you have it – 4 principles to follow for rapid fat loss.

See you next week.

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

Fat Loss, Pain & Metabolism

Posted on October 8, 2011 by jghethe

Welcome back!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog then it’s a sure bet that you are either looking to take back control of your body or are at least pursuing a leaner, more toned body.

It also means that you know that I believe that reconditioning or at least elevating your metabolism is the keyto achieving this.

Body Weight works well...

There are many definitions of metabolism the one I like is: “Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in living organisms to sustain life.”

However if you are carrying too much body fat, or want to develop more muscle and become stronger and fitter, not to mention healthier – then simply sustaining life isn’t the goal to aim for. Just surviving shouldn’t be your standard. Changing how you look & feel, what you eat, how (& how often) you move basically moving past mere survival towards thriving, growing, exceeding, and surpassing – this is a worthy goal.

It is in fact a life goal.

Becoming fitter & leaner is as simple (& as complex) as the fact that the higher level your metabolism functions, the better become your results as far as fat loss and maintaining a slim, trim body. Notice I didn’t say the more efficient your metabolism becomes…(although it will of course do so)…in many ways we want our metabolism to stay somewhat irregular because once your body become efficient at anything homeostasis sets in and your body fights against change…

It is better to think in terms of elevating your metabolism by manipulating the components of it that we can exert influence over. Of course once you’ve achieved your desired fat loss / lean body then keep doing what got you there and create a new metabolic set point – this way you co-opt your body’s desire for homeostasis to work for your goal, not against it…

Metabolism is complex (& simple)

So let’s revisit some of the strategies that you can utilise to make your metabolism work at a higher rate for you…

Human metabolism can be broadly broken down into two parts: catabolism and anabolism. Catabolism is concerned with tearing things down – it is the burning of calories, the digestion of food, the breaking down of body tissues for energy or as a precursor to rebuilding (think sore muscles after a hard work out – for the sake of simplicity the muscle soreness you feel is associated with catabolic processes). It is essential the processes whereby your body fuels your cells with energy by breaking down available fuel sources.

Without the catabolic part of metabolism we would not have the energy to provide the energy to our muscles that is needed to stand, sit, move, breathe and generally create movement. It is often talked about in a negative sense but without catabolism we would just be inert sacks of chemicals & minerals.

The other side of this simplified metabolic coin is Anabolism. The anabolic side of the equation is the building part of our metabolism. Cell repair, muscle, hair, & nail growth are all anabolic processes. Basically anabolism takes energy and uses it to link / bind chemical compounds together to make larger molecules & cells.

In order to use these processes in your quest to become less fat, stronger & healthier you need to maximise both of them. For catabolism this means challenging, regular exercise that causes your muscles & other energy pathways to burn fuel like fat, carbohydrates, and sugars. For anabolism it too means challenging exercise coupled with protein and nutrient rich foods. The more intensely that you

Tabata protocol using KBs works both sets of muscles & burns fat...

train the more your metabolism elevates and more opportunities your body gains to shed fat and gain lean mass.

As we’ve seen intense training is not long duration training and more importantly training that uses protocols like Tabatas or HIIT tend to work a lot of muscles – and this is important for overall fitness, well being and fat loss.

Muscles are the furnaces that burn fat in your body. Muscles are numerous and together they have 2 general roles to play – mobility & stability. You know by now my preference for whole body workouts that use compound movements. Compound movements are important because they not only use the large muscles but they also activate and exercise the stabilising muscles. Stabilising muscles are an often overlooked component of movement & fat loss.

The larger muscles (think quadriceps, deltoids, pecs & lats) are called ‘prime movers’ and allow your body to move with what is called ‘Dynamic Mobility’– which is another way of saying through a full range of motion.

The stabilising muscles tend to be smaller, less obvious (even when developed) and lie deeper in the body & closer to the joints. Their role is to do as their name suggests – to stabilise. Stabiliser muscles like your shoulders rotator cuff, like your deep abdominals, like your infraspinitus and spinal multifidi all work to keep our bodies ‘together’ whilst it moves. Whether walking, pitching a ball, skiing a slope or sitting in a meal these muscles stop the actions of the prime movers from pulling us apart as we move dynamically. They are in use all of the time and as such are major (but oft times unsung) users of energy.

Working both types of muscles is important for another reason – if the Prime Movers become too strong &

Stress releases cortisol - belly fat anyone!!??

overwhelm the stabilising muscles then we begin to collect injuries – often chronic ones. Or if the stabilisers become weak then the Prime Movers have to pull ‘double duty’ and act not just as movers but also as stabilisers. This type of overload can lead to joint dysfunction and pain. Note I mean pain, not the soreness that accompanies a good workout, but deep lasting hurt!

Pain is read by your body as a source of stress and causes it to release stress hormones like cortisol which not only blunts anabolic metabolism but also directs fat storage to the belly area.

Chronic muscle imbalance = Pain = more belly fat.

So in order to avoid this you’ve got to move often, move intensely, & move well. This means using compound movements (think Olympic style lifts) with activities like sprinting and walking.

To get the most out of your metabolism, both in terms of catabolism & anabolism your training should involve training intensely in a way that is without pain. Chronic Pain will constantly undermine the effectiveness of your workouts and pull your metabolic levels down.

See you next week.

Shock! Gasp! LipoSuction is NOT permanent…Guess Metabolism Wins after all!!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by jghethe

Welcome Back!!

For years Liposuction has been the darling of the fat loss set – that part of it who could not be bothered with fixing their lifestyle & metabolism. It is equally as popular with Women & Men, and is very, very lucrative…

The traditional before & after fo Lipo ads with way too much fat being removed this way...

Quick, relatively painless with a hint of danger to spice it up Lipo has been the mode of choice for actors, actresses, body builders, matrons, aging gigolos, the rich the vain and in a very few cases those who needed it as a medical necessity.

The news is in though and it is not good for lovers of Lipo – the fat comes back … and where it comes back to is health threatening.

You can almost hear the shonky Plastic Surgeons weeping from here….(the good ones actually say that Lipo is NOT a get out of fat jail free card and that you will regain the fat if you don’t address factors like food intake, exercise and metabolism). Thing is Lipo along with rhinoplasty (nose jobs) and breast enlargement is one of the 3 most popular and profitable cosmetic procedures undertaken in the developed world.

The April 7^th 2011 edition of the journal ‘Obesity’ published the results of research, conducted by a team from the University of Colorado. This research not only assessed if the fat returned after liposuction, but where the body stored the returning sludge.

Invasive & potentially dangerous

You see Lipo actually ‘works’ by sucking fat cells out of the body – by removing them. Cosmetic Surgeons do this by inserting a canula through an incision in your body, pumping in a saline solution and then working the canula back & forth under your skin with the vacuum turned on…More modern approaches use lasers and vibration etc but the fact remains it is an invasive form of surgery that carries substantial risks.

The theory was that with these fat cells gone you would not only lose the fat vacuumed out but you would not regain the lost fat. Not true – you do get the fat back, just not in the same place… So you risk disfigurement, infection and at the very least several weeks of pain for a procedure that does not deliver as it has been advertised…

The researchers took a group of 14 non-obese women, performed some Lipo on their thighs and monitored them at six weeks, six months and one year after the surgery.
Women assigned to the control group did not have the Lipo performed on them.

The results found that after a year the fat not only returned but was now redistributed to the stomach area instead of the thighs. After 12 months there was no difference in bodyfat between the control and Lipo groups.

Lipo CAN fix this - but it won't last without other changes...

Although only a small study, and yes there is a lot of noise about that!!, the results support widely known anecdotal evidence from patients and Cosmetic Surgeons. The fat comes back if you don’t clean up your act – especially in the areas of diet & exercise.

So – the researchers found that a year after Lipo, that fat returned but not to the Lipo site – but to the belly. Lipo on the thighs resulted in increased stomach area fat 12 months after the surgery. This is a less healthy place to store fat.

Even worse – if Lipo was done on the belly, the fat gain after 12 months re-accumulated there, despite there being fewer fat cells. The existing ones just grew in size.

The fact that fat returns and goes to the belly is not really surprising as the belly is an area designed for fat storage in order to cushion, protect, insulate and provide quick energy to our internal organs. The real surprise is that people have undergone this dangerous procedure (Google ‘Liposuction deaths and injuries’ – just avoid the image search) and then kept the rest of their lifestyle as it was.

Not only can you NOT out train a bad diet, it seems you can’t out-surgery one either!!

So Lipo can give a quick cosmetic effect but for lasting body recomposition you need to live a lifestyle like the one we talk about here – eat a high protein, low processed carb, moderate fat diet; eat 6

Lipo only gives this if you also eat & exercise the right way...

times a day, exercise at 3 times a week using a HIIT / Interval protocol so you fire up your EPOC; go for a walk, hug your loved ones, do some stretching – move & have fun.

If you don’t the results of any quick fix – surgical or other will not last…

See you next time.

30 Something Reasons to Get in Shape for 30 Something+ Year Olds……

Posted on May 7, 2011 by jghethe

Hi & Welcome back!!

I have put together a list of what I believe are the most compelling reasons for the over 30’s (not to mention over 40’s or my mob – the over 50’s) to get in shape and stay there.

In shape - but not for most of us mere mortals

Being in shape for me means that I have a low & age appropriate body Fat %, I feel strong and have muscular endurance, that I hold a reasonable cardio endurance, can touch my toes and have a good general flexibility. It is my firm belief that getting better in the these areas will see you able to live and enjoy a fuller life. (You’ll also LBN!!)

So to get or to stay in great shape her are 30 something reasons…

LBN

Let’s clear up LBN – LBN means Look Better Naked. With a lower fat percentage, some muscle and more importantly the confidence that comes with being in shape you can’t help but LBN!

Reduces Cholesterol

Increasing research is showing that this is not the bad boy it has been painted as for the last few decades, but nonetheless too much LDL (Low Density Lipoproteins) is still not a good thing to have going on and regular exercise (especially Interval style – see earlier posts) has been proven to reduce LDL levels whilst increasing HDL ( High Density Lipoproteins) – the good cholesterol.

Not everyone can get in this shape - but we can improve our own!!

You’ll Sleep Better

Lack of sleep increases the release of cortisol and cortisol promotes fat storage especially around your belly. ( no cortisol is not bad – but too much of it is!) Regular challenging exercise helps you get to sleep quicker and to sleep longer and more deeply. It also reduces the release of stress related hormones like cortisol and promotes the release of HGH ( Human growth Hormone) This hormone is often called the ‘Fountain of Youth’ hormone due to its effect on your body’s fat stores ( it cuts them) your lean tissue (you get more muscular) and your over all health.

You’ll feel better about yourself

Just working out regularly and getting in shape makes you feel better about yourself. We can’t all look like Brad Pitt in Troy or Angelina in… (Well ladies insert your favourite here!) but we CAN make of ourselves the best we can. Doing this enables to feel more in control of our lives and being in shape for ourselves will give a confidence boost.

Physical appearance isn’t everything, but by getting into better shape you’ll look better, and this will improve your confidence.

Your Blood Pressure will reduce

Stress, lack of sleep, poor diet – all contribute to high blood pressure – a recognised killer. Getting in shape not only reduces your blood pressure but can actually prevent it from either re-occurring or taking place in the first place!

Your won’t ache or hurt as much

One of the most common (and in many cases debilitating) complaints of the over 30’s ( & it sharply increases for each 5 year increment above this in the general population) is back pain – usually lower back pain. Years of sitting actually shortens certain muscles & tendons resulting in constant & additional pressure on our lumbar region. General lack of movement and no weight bearing exercise weaken muscles generally. This combines to the dreaded ‘throwing your back out’…

You won't need one of these if you are in shape...

Simply by lifting weights, moving more and sitting less can & does reduce this. Getting in shape with the strength & flexibility can eradicate it completely or at lest reduce it to more manageable levels. A large number of studies show that exercise is an effective treatment for recurrent low back pain.

You’ll suffer fewer injuries

Getting in shape & developing a strong, fit body will see your injury numbers decline severely. Not just back pain, but twisted ankles, stubbed toes, sore shoulders and neck pain – but general aches & pains all decrease the fitter and more in shape that you are.

You’ll be able to stand in the one spot longer (important in supermarkets, cinemas, at parades, in Church or just life in general…

You’ll reduce your chances of getting some types of Cancer

There are a number of studies that show regular exercise and low body fat equal a lesser chance of developing a number of cancers – particularly bowel, colon and breast cancers. In some cases the studies suggest being in shape & regularly exercising reduces some cancer risks by up to 40%.

You’ll have a faster Metabolism (my favourite)

By now you know that this blog is primarily about ways to recondition your metabolism so you shed fat, get fitter and enjoy much better health. I’m not going to labour the point here – by getting in shape will recondition your metabolism meaning that you heal faster and burn calories more efficiently & effectively. A faster metabolism carries a host of health benefits.

You’ll recapture some ‘lost’ Range of Motion

Getting in shape & working out with a strategic program will help you rediscover the joys of being able to

Range of motion - not everyone wants this much, but you can get more...

touch your toes, scratch your back and other many other lost ranges of motion.

Nowhere else is it truer that if you don’t move it you’ll lose it as in the area of flexibility.

Becoming more flexible reduces joint stiffness, can assist with arthritis pain and also adds to reducing injury occurrence.

Your Functional Strength will improve

Functional strength is one of those terms that has become more of a marketing handle than a real descriptor of a real thing. However true functional strength means that you have the strength & power to do the things you need to each day in your life.

It can be carrying groceries, lifting a child, getting out of a chair, digging a garden bed, riding a bike, painting a ceiling, push starting a car or… you get the idea.

Being in shape improves your quality of life because you have the ability to do the things in your life.

You’ll improve your Insulin Sensitivity

Insulin sensitivity is the degree to which your body (primarily muscles) is able to receive and glucose from your bloodstream. Insulin resistance means that more & more insulin has to be released by the pancreas leading to increased fat storage, or in extreme cases (which are becoming less rare in these days of obesity) a loss of the ability to produce sufficient insulin at all. Yep – dose dependent diabetes…

Being in shape with a more efficient metabolism & lower body fat improves insulin sensitivity and can prevent the development of type 2 (often called adult onset) diabetes.

You can find a few out of the 168 hours each week to get in shape

With 168 hours each and every week we can all find 3 or 4 of these to use to get in and stay in shape. The benefits are too many to ignore and the results too important to miss out on because ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is on.

If you have to, make your workouts an appointment in a diary. Just find the time…

You’ll have a higher desire for Sex

No not enough that you’ll develop sex addiction, but being in shape & LBN certainly raises the sex drive of both males & females.

Part of it is better circulation, part of it is increased body awareness and feeling more in control of your body and a large part of it is improved hormone health. Regardless – getting or being in shape certainly improves the bedroom…

Heart Atack and more diseases either in progress or about to start...

You’ll Decrease your Risk of Heart Disease

Challenging exercise exercises the heart like any other muscle and like any other muscle regular exercise improves the hearts strength & responsiveness to the demands placed on it.

Contractile strength improves and with higher HDL & lower LDL your risk of heart disease drops. A lot.

You’ll get a kick out of exercise

Challenging exercise releases a number of ‘feel good’ hormones (think runners high) that elevate our mood, lift depression, decrease the effects of stress and poor sleep and have been proven to make us happier.

This effect is even more marked when you make at least a part of your exercise program an activity that you love to do. It can be ballroom dancing, squash, tennis, a martial art, yoga – whatever. When you have at least 1 regular activity of your exercise program as something you love you overall enjoy getting & staying in shape more. And you smile more – a lot more.

You’ll likely live longer

Folk who are in shape tend to live longer, have better health and less disease & injury. At the very least they experience a better quality of life.

You’ll develop (rediscover) better balance and Coordination

This sort of ties in with suffering less injuries if you are fit – but if you are in shape & working out regularly your kinaesthetic awareness (your mental awareness of your body’s place in the space around it) improves. You’ll trip less often, bump into less and find that you drop things less often.

Well maybe not this much more balance (unless you want to work for it!!)

Even better – for the older ones of us – you’ll be less likely to fall – and for anyone in their late 50’s on falls is a major health problem …

You’ll reduce your chance of Osteoarthritis

Weight bearing exercise coupled with moving more means stronger bones. Period. Calcium supplements have their place and so does diet but if you want strong bones move some weight and get stronger than you are today.

Your gut will work better

Getting in shape means more efficient processing of the food you eat. It means reduced risk of ‘over 40’s’ diseases such as diverticulitis, gastrointestinal haemorrhage, and inflammatory bowel disease; for everyone else it means a decreased incidence of constipation.

Getting in shape is not just for cosmetic external purposes – a reconditioned metabolism means everything works better.

Your weight will change

Getting in shape means dropping body fat and developing some muscle. Scales don’t count because muscle weighs more than fat, but the mirror, your partner’s reactions and how your clothes fit do.

Your body will use more fat as fuel

Regular exercise tends to improve your body’s ability to use fat as fuel. This is a good thing as is unfit folk our bodies have a tendency to store fat and breakdown muscle for fuel once glucose is depleted.

Even better – unhealthy fat stores like belly rolls and love handles, visceral (internal) fat can not only be prevented but heavily reduced if not wiped out by getting in shape.

You’ll get sick less often

Your entire Immune System will improve...

Being fit means a stronger immune systems and this translates into less illness – fewer colds, quicker recovery from the ‘flu and generally better health.

You’ll focus better

Another truth about moving into the above 30 age bracket – our ability to focus , concentrate and multitask begins to drop. A lot. By your 50’s it can be beginning to become a real issue.

A better supply of oxygen & nutrients to the brain due to improved circulation from regular exercise not only arrests this mental decline, but can on occasion reverse it.

You’ll have loads more energy

Exercising regularly improves your body’s utilisation of food and the performance of its various energy systems. Net result? A real increase in energy levels.

More energy means better quality of life and more engagement in living – to good to miss!!

You’ll reduce the chance of developing Alzheimer’s

Remeber when you had this much energy??!!

Although this is likely tied to improved circulation of oxygen & nutrients to the brain, getting in shape through challenging & regular exercise appears to keep your brain sharper and may reduce the chances of you developing not only Alzheimer’s disease but a number of other dementia type mental disorders.

It may be tied to the improved circulation and the increased amount of mental awareness required to partake of exercise or other physical activities. There is even some talk of the feel good hormones also playing a role…

In any case the research is ongoing but is too good to ignore.

You’ll feel like you are reaching your potential

Being out of shape, fat, flabby and out o breath with no strength means that you cannot possibly be at your best. The world is a nastier place when you are out of shape and your internal landscape can come to resemble your outer one. Not healthy – physically or mentally.

By getting in shape, reconditioning your metabolism and losing ft you transform into you Ver 2.0 – a better version of yourself.

The Greeks used to say ‘Healthy body, Healthy mind’ – and the more we learn about how our bodies work and how they integrate with our emotions and thought process the more correct the Greeks seem to be.

Undertaking a physical transformation will improve your mental, emotional, and spiritual state; and upgrade your quality of life.

From the appearance of your skin, to your overall body shape, to how well your metabolism works, how you think or shrug off illness – just about every physical attribute you posses gets better when you’re in shape.

Set them up for a better quality of life

You’ll set a good example for your kids (or grandkids, or…)

By taking charge of your shape & fitness and being committed to it you will also help your kids to develop similar habits. Being in shape has so many health benefits that if you can influence by example your children you could literally be reducing the amount of stress, pain & illnesses that they will suffer in their lives. A helluva a good reason to get & stay in shape as far as I am concerned…

(If you like this list and have sedentary friends then shoot them a copy of this blog – it just might get them moving.)

Please leave a comment below and I’ll see you next time…

Fat Loss Myths – Taken Apart – Part 2!

Posted on April 20, 2011 by jghethe

Welcome Back!!

Here is part 2 of our look at persistent but Oh so wrong Fat loss myths…

Myth: You should do very high reps to failure for fat burning…

Whilst there is a certain faux logic to this idea it is plain wrong. Research shows that weight lifting / resistance training burns calories through muscle fibre recruitment. The more fibres recruited, the more energy you burn. So the key to cranking up your metabolism is to recruit as many muscle fibres as possible with each set.

You don't get results like these using 'Barbie' weights

Lifting light weights, even for 100 reps, does NOT recruit many muscle fibres. When you do high rep training you’re only working the smallest, weakest muscle fibres – these will have little appreciable impact on boosting your metabolism.

By the same token lifting for maximum muscle fibre recruitment is brutally hard and not sustainable for most people long term. The answer is to use a mix of high weight low rep (3 – 6) training with the body builder rep range of moderate to heavy weight for 8 -12 reps. This way you recruit lots of muscle fibres but don’t drive yourself into the ground every time you train.

You can go hard, or you can go long. Going hard burns fat & build strength.

Myth: You don’t need to get stronger to get leaner.
This is really a follow on from the myth above – the stronger you are, the more muscle fibres you can recruit when you exercise. Stimulating as many muscle fibres as is sustainable with each set will ramp up the metabolic cost of your workouts. (Metabolic cost is a measure exercise scientists use to determine how many calories you’re burning up through exercise. It is also called TEA – Thermic Effect of Activity)

The higher the metabolic cost, the better for fat loss. The stronger you are the faster you can move and research shows that fast movement with heavy to moderate weights really gets the fat fires burning. Anyway – ever seen a fat sprinter?

Myth: All calories are equal – so eat less and you’ll lose weight…

A week of this or a week of Steak & salad - what would make you fatter??

This is correct all calories are equal – if you are looking at them as measurement of energy. (a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 litre of water 1 degree centigrade)

However if you are looking at them as food source types then – all calories are NOT equal. What is going to put more fat around your middle – eating steak & salad for a week or eating the same number of calories but as Hot Dogs, Fries & Ice cream? No prizes for guessing the answer here…

This is the kind of claptrap that far too many doctors & dieticians & nutritionists put out there – despite the mountains of peer reviewed, long term studies that all show that a calorie is not just a calorie. The source of the calories is important especially from a metabolic viewpoint.

Carbs, Fats & proteins are the macronutrient groupings (some folk add water to this list and I have friend who is convinced that alcohol belongs here – it doesn’t) and they all have a different effect on your metabolism.

The Thermic Effect of Food – how many calories your body has to use to process food – is different for each macronutrient. For Fat it is 2%, for carbs (depending upon type – fibrous or not) it is 4 – 6% and for protein it is a whopping 30%. That’s like getting a 30% discount on the calorie value of each piece of protein you eat.

It is the nutrients in the food we eat, not the calories, that stimulates (or slows) our metabolism. When you cut calories you slow your metabolism down because it is getting less of the nutrients it needs. Things like amino acids, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and so on. In all likelihood if you are eating the typical Western diet then your body is already slow metabolically because this diet is calorie dense but nutrient sparse.

If you eat less your body preserves fat and begins to burn muscle for food. Result – less muscle which means a slower metabolism. You can avoid this by simply choosing your calorie sources better. Replace low-quality foods like as bread, pasta, and rice with nutrient-dense foods such as berries, green vegetables, eggs and protein like fish.

Myth: You must eliminate entire food groups to see results.

In a word Bull!

A common misconception is that certain food groups should be avoided in order to lose weight. This is wrong and usually relates to either fat or carbs. The truth is that there are ‘good’ & ‘bad’ fats & carbs and the only elimination of foods that you indulge in should be to remove the ‘bad’ types of each.

Processed, denatured carbs like flour, cakes, cookie, commercial fruit juices, sweets, etc should be taken out of your diet or at least severely cut back. Any food that contains Trans fats (look for ‘partially hydrogenated oil’ on the food labels) has to be taken out of your diet and frankly anything you can identify as having High Fructose Corn Syrup (a cheap sugar but one which is processed differently in your body and leads to belly fat) should not even get into your trolley at the supermarket.

Elimination of some foods is good, of entire food groups is BAD!!

Eliminating all fats is also a furphy as excess calories from ANY nutrient source can and will be stored as fat by your body. So cutting out all fats just stops your body getting access to needed fats like Omega 3 fatty acids. This in turn has a number of anti-health effects. In truth every food group has its own benefits for example, carbohydrates are your body’s preferred energy source and fruit & veges deliver vitamins, minerals antioxidants, phytonutrients and more besides – all important for your well being. Protein provides the building blocks for your body – and the amino acids that make up protein is vital for bodily repair. Fats is important for joint lubrication, hormone creation and use, hair, nail & skin health.

It is very necessary to eat all macronutrients in proper proportion to promote weight loss.

Myth: You need to work out hard each day to see results.
Nope – fat burning, muscle growth and bodily repair all take place after you work out. The post-exercise period is when the benefits of working out accrue. This takes time and your body needs a mix of stress from exercise and periods of recovery so it come back fitter 7 stronger for the next round of exercise. Working out intensely every day does nothing more than drive you into the ground, reduce your recovery ability and slows your metabolism.

Knocking yourself out by overtraining will set you back...

Even worse, overtraining leads to your body releasing even more fat-storing hormones as a stress response. Cortisol has its uses but too much of it is a bad thing indeed if you are looking for fat loss….Lastly, being overtrained zaps your motivation and makes you more susceptible to illness and injury.

So train 4 – 5 times a week, no more.

Myth: There is a Magic Product that delivers Quick & Easy Fat Loss

Weight loss scams have been around forever and show no signs of going away. The sad but simple truth is that a strategically sound mix of diet and exercise is the only proven way to change your body composition and recondition your metabolism so it stays that way.

If you watch either late night or early morning TV you will see ads for all sorts of Pills, Powders, Potions, Fasts, Cleansing liquids, exercise tapes and miracle delivering fat loss machines that will completely transform your body in just a few weeks!

I like the 8 minute Abs one in particular – an abdominal 6-pack in only 8 minutes per day. Wow sounds great then I thought why 8 minutes? Why not 6 or 9 minutes or even 3? Although I have to say for sheer audacity and flimflam dressed up as pseudo science the Shake Weight and Toning Shoes come up close seconds…

The underlying message is that you can get in shape by being lazy and that if you don’t get the results they promise then it is your fault. It also appears that the money-back guarantee they offer is a safe bet for them – less than 2% of people return these useless gadgets for their refund. Either they can’t be

bothered packing it up or they are too embarrassed – after all most folk know that these things don’t work.

The supplement industry is even worse. In most countries – particularly the US of A, supplement companies are not regulated and don’t have to prove their claims. This is completely opposite for the pharmaceutical com

These don't work...

panies who have to prove the claims they make ( and we know how trustworthy they have proved to be despite government oversight and regulation…)

Pretty much supplement companies can tell you that their products will enable you to lose weight, get stronger, improve your heart health, think more clearly, perform better, reverse aging, get that loving feeling more often and their products don’t actually have to deliver a thing.

By feeding off people’s fears and vanity, by exploiting consumers and weak laws many of these companies are no more than clever marketers.

Folks, there is no easy way to get the body of your dreams if your idea of easy is just swallowing a pill in between handfuls of fries. There is no easy way to work out if your idea of working out is to lie down on some machine looking for the ride of your life…and in 5 minutes a day.

In today’s society where the emphasis is I want it NOW!, the truth is too damn simple and too damn hard for most folk to follow – Work out hard and eat right just doesn’t sound snappy enough. Thing is it is still the closest thing to the magic pill and machine we’ve got.

See you next time…tell your friends about us!!

Body Shape Shifters

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Tag Archives: HIIT