Category: Getting Rid Of Fat

This category covers things that relate to metabolizing stored body fat. Generally speaking, burning this fat will result in a reduction of body fat levels, which has been linked to improved health outcomes. Lowering body fat is also one of the two main objectives when tackling body composition or aesthetic goals; the other being the creation of lean muscle mass.

Changing Body Composition – Find And Listen To An Expert

I remember thinking when I heard about JFK Jr. crashing his plane ”why do people think lawyers can fly?” It was sad, because he was young, and two other people died along with him. But it wasn’t that surprising to me, because he was a lawyer. He was a hobby pilot at best, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go flying with hobby pilots. If you want to fly, get an expert pilot to fly the plane.

I hold the same opinion when it comes to changing body composition. When I need to change something about the way my body looks; I ask an expert for their advice. I then follow their advice until I look the way I want to, or I realize that their advice doesn’t apply to me. It’s pretty simple. If I don’t look the way I want to it is because I don’t know how to make myself look that way. If I did know I would be doing what I needed to make it happen.

When I was a trainer at GoodLife it became obvious that almost everyone THINKS they know how to eat in order to change the way they look IN SPITE of the fact that they don’t already look the way they want to. When I asked them why they hadn’t achieved their fitness goals yet, their answers were all basically the same – it was due to a lack of effort and not a lack of knowledge. Hearing these excuses day in and day out was the main reason I made the decision to stop training people, and focus most of my energies on my own fitness and health related goals.

I give a lot of nutrition presentations to parents of young athletes, and I find it remarkable that so many sceptical people trust their children’s training to us, but don’t believe me when I offer them guidance concerning optimal nutrition for athletes. Sure there are some who agree with everything I say, and there are others who agree, but admit that it’s difficult and expensive to eat that way. But I’m baffled by the people who continue to tell me that fat is bad; that human beings need lots of grain; that too much protein will destroy the kidneys, and that supplements shouldn’t be given to young people. When I ask them how they know these things; they say that they don’t know how they know; they just know that they know. I don’t try to convince them, because my role is to educate, and people can only be educated when they are open to new information.

I try to win them over by saying that what they have been doing is not bad or dangerous because they are still alive. I suggest that it is just not optimal. I inject some science into what has traditionally been taught by parents. Serving size and food choices are perfect examples of this – we tend to eat the same foods and similar amounts of food that our parents feed us. In talking to these people, I try to make them doubt the scientific basis of their knowledge in an attempt to get them to open their minds a little. Over time, some of what I say may get in and make a difference at a later date – an approach that has worked with a number of my peers and clients. Those who are receptive to what I say begin to make the changes they have always wanted while those who remain sceptical tend to remain on the same path they have been on most of their lives.

I do consider myself an expert on nutrition; at least as it applies to body composition, because I have done everything that I recommend. I have also been a heavy guy who needed to learn the right way to eat, because my food choices were making me fat. It took a long time to figure it out, but once I did, I was able to bring about the changes I needed in order to improve the quality of my life, and to make my body look the way I had always wanted it to. But I only gained my knowledge because I remained open to what experts had to say about nutrition, and the results came only because I listened to their advice.

If you want to change the way you look, chances are that you are not an expert. Your first step is to accept that you don’t know how to make it happen. Your second step is to find someone who does know. And your final step is to follow their advice COMPLETELY. It’s very simple, the best people get the best results EVERY TIME.

Why We Over-Eat

20 Minutes to a Hard Body Get Full Without Getting Fat, And Other Tips by t-nations Chris Shugart paints an interesting picture of why human beings act the way they do when it comes to food. All in all, we are far from a perfect species that uses advanced and accurate methods for determining when we’ve eaten the right amount of food. In fact, most of us possess the biology that ensures that we over-eat at every possible opportunity.

We don’t have immediate feedback from our bodies telling us we’ve eaten enough. It takes about 20 minutes for food to be digested enough that glucose gets into the bloodstream and the hormones start working.

20 minutes is just long enough for us to eat about twice as much as we need to so it would appear that we’ve evolved to TRY to get fat. This is fine and good when there isn’t a surplus of food and we need to gorge every chance we get. But there’s no shortage of food in our modern world to this system gets in the way of eating appropriately.

Lesson – eat a small to medium sized meal and wait for 20 minutes before eating a second helping. If you are still hungry, eat a little more. If you aren’t, you made the right call stopping.

… secretaries ate more chocolates when they were easily within reach, and they ate more when they were visible instead of covered. And the kicker here is that they usually didn’t realize they were consuming more calories from closely-placed foods.

This is pretty amazing when you think about it: If a human being sees food within reach, he’ll eat it, even if he’s not hungry. If that same food is a few feet away and/or hidden from view, he’s less likely to eat it.

So seeing food makes us want the food. Great mechanism in a world where there isn’t a lot of food because we’ll eat EVERY chance we get, but this doesn’t make sense now given that we have an abundance of food.

Lesson – make sure you do not have easy access to any food that you don’t want to eat or know you shouldn’t be eating.

Think High Volume, Low Energy. By “energy” I mean calories. Some foods are calorically dense; others aren’t. The idea here is to have low-density foods with every meal so you’ll feel full without adding tons of calories. Basically, you’re taking up space in your stomach so you don’t eat so damn much.

The stomach will send stop eating signals to the brain when it gets physically full. This is a secondary and less accurate method for determining satiation but the outcome is the same, we stop eating.

Lesson – if you want to eat less overall, eat high volume, low calorie yield foods.

Steady-State Cardio IS Keeping You Fat

Let me start off by saying that the above statement does not necessarily apply to everyone but if you do a lot of cardio and can’t seem to drop those pounds, you may want to consider it.

The statement is based on a few facts:

  1. The body adapts to exercise very quickly by becoming more efficient to the physical demands – if you do the same workout two times in a row your body will be about 20% more efficient the second time.
  2. The body adapts to the energy system demands of a workout very quickly meaning that it will be more efficient at delivering the energy needed to perform the same workout next time.
  3. The body overcompensates to the demands of a workout to ensure that there is more than enough strength and energy to get it through the same workout next time.

Here is the problem with steady-state cardio as it deals with long term fat loss – your body is so good at adjusting to any repeating physical demands that there is a diminishing marginal caloric-cost to each workout. When you are working in the fat burning zone (between 50-65% of your heart rate max), your body adjusts to these workouts to ensure that there is enough energy to fuel them. Given that they rely more on fat utilization for fuel, the body adapts by increasing the amount of fat that is available. The consequence to this adaption is an increase in fat storage.

This isn’t a big deal initially as you are able to increase the amount of work that you do to stay ahead of the increased energy (fat) storage but at some point very early on, the body catches up and begins to store more fat than you are able to burn off (remember 1 and 2 above). At this point, steady-state cardio stops having a fat loss effect and starts having a fat maintaining effect. When one will achieve this point depends on a number of factors but I would estimate that most people will achieve it after about 2-3 months.

Examples would include the over-weight aerobics instructor, marathon runner or tri-athlete because these individuals spend a lot of time with elevated heart rates and have adapted to the physical demands of the activity. While their cardiovascular health is superb, their body rely so heavily on fat metabolism for energy that they store fat very effectively to allow for the sustained effort that their sports demand.

Long-term fat loss is best achieved through resistance and strength training to increase lean muscle mass, and moderate amounts of high intensity interval training (HIIT) to tax all energy systems. HIIT is best described as periods of increasing work effort followed by recovery phases. A good HIIT workout will see you heart rate modulate between 60% of you max to 95% of your max but will never stay at one level for more than a few minutes.

Just One Exercise – T-nation article

Just One Exercise by Michael Boyle of t-nation is one mans answer to the question “if you could only do one exercise, what would it be?”

He says push a heavy sled because each step engages one leg and there is massive core muscle recruitment involved with single leg movements. While this is not a single leg exercise, each step of it is so the core activation is superb. It also engages the glutes and hamstrings in the way that you come to expect from glute ham raises or good mornings. Check out the videos in the article if you’re not sure what he’s referring to.

I would have answered differently but for a similar reason. I say one arm corner barbell shoulder press because they recruit the pec, deltoids, triceps and the muscles of the core.

Once I started doing single arm and single leg work, I was able to dramatically reduce the amount of oblique work I was doing. In fact, I haven’t performed a single side bend or side planking movement in months and I’m happier than ever with the way my mid section looks.

Deconstructing Paul Chek – T-nation Article

Deconstructing Paul Chek by t-nations by Chris Shugart is a bullet point recap of a 4 hour conversation with the therapist / trainer / coach. He has been at it for a very long time and remains in the best shape of his life.

Personally I like the holistic nature of his approach; even though I’m not religious, I can see the value of including all aspects on ones identity into their health and fitness development plan. He draws a distinction between the different religious views that people hold but only in so far as to say that each is a very important aspect of the individual.

• It’s only through a healthy body that you can have a functional, rational mind. Aristotle made his philosophy students workout with the Olympic wresting team. One of the main reasons I train my body is so that my mind works effectively.

• Toxicity means you’re bringing in more toxins from the outside than you can release. You can’t have a functional detoxification system unless you have a functional digestive system. Anyone who’s eating cheap food is likely to have a digestive system that isn’t working.

• If you don’t want to have problems, eat real food. Stop eating all this cheap crap. I’ve had multi-millionaires and world-class professional athletes in my office tell me that organic food is too expensive.I walk them to the window and point to their $140,000 sports car and say, “Eat that fu#ker then! Because when you die they aren’t going to bury that son of a bitch with you!” It’s just a matter of getting your priorities right. The more toxic your body is, the lower your quality of life is.

• We have a tremendous dehydration problem today. The only thing that substitutes for water is water. When you’re drinking water you’re actually drinking nature’s most powerful detoxification agent. The best solution for pollution is dilution. And that means water, not tea, not soda pop, not orange juice… water!

It will probably take a few reads for everything to sink in. Even if you don’t agree with all that he says, try and let his words impact you if for no other reason than he’s 44 and still stronger than everyone you know.

Anti-aging Drugs And Performance

Drug Test – A Cautionary Tale is a first hand account to see the impact that taking anti-aging drugs has on long distance cycling and performance. Over an 8 month period, and a price tag of over $7000, the author uses a combination of human growth hormone, EPO, deca and testosterone and finds the boost he was looking for.

The entire experience was done under doctor supervision and is completely legal in the US.

… I remained skeptical about all the drugs until March 29, when I rode an event along the central coast of California, the Solvang Double Century, at what for me was a fast and hard pace, finishing in around 11.5 hours. About ten hours in, it dawned on me that something was definitely happening. Sure, I’d been training hard, but I’d done enough of that to know what to expect. All around me were riders—good, strong riders—who looked as worn out as you’d expect after ten hours in the saddle. I was tired, but I felt curiously strong, annoyingly talkative and fresh, eager to hammer the last 40 miles.

The last time I’d ridden 200 miles, I felt awful the next day, like I’d been hit by a truck. After the Solvang race I woke up and felt hardly a touch of soreness. I also felt like I could easily ride another 200, and I realized that I’d entered another world, the realm of instant recovery. I’ll be frank: It was a reassuring kind of world, and I could see why people might want to stay there.

When I checked in with the good doctor soon after the race, he wasn’t surprised about what I’d experienced. “With your hematocrit levels higher, you don’t produce as much lactic acid, which means you can ride harder, longer, with less stress. The growth hormone and testosterone help you recover faster, since you’re stronger to start with and recover more quickly. All those little muscle tears repair much more quickly.”

An interview with Dr. Jeff Volek – The New Low-Carb Guru

A fantastic read on t-nation has Dr. Jeff Volek talking about low carb dieting.

Basic biochemistry and metabolism would predict that carbs have a dominate effect on metabolism due to the close connection with insulin. Building on this notion, our research points to the idea that dietary fat plays a relatively passive role, and detrimental effects of fat will generally be seen only in the presence of high carbohydrate which, via insulin, determines the metabolic fate of ingested fat.Again, in the real world, some people will need to restrict carbs more than others to kick into fat burning mode, and others will be able to tolerate more carbs without observing adverse effects.

In the absence of insulin, dietary fat doesn’t necessarily become body fat. In fact, without insulin, your body will use fat for energy. Insulin is released when the blood sugar level rises above a certain threshold. Given that fat doesn’t increase blood sugar level, keeping sugar out of your diet is going to mean your body uses fat for energy.

I’ve been screamed at for suggesting this before and I’m sure I’ll get screamed at again in the future. But the science is starting to pile-up that both confirms and explains the observation that limiting carbs will cause your body fat level to drop.

How Much Exercise Should You Be Doing?

This is a question I get a lot and my answer of “it depends” leaves a lot of people a little disappointed because they are looking for a quick answer.

Why it depends?

How much exercise a person needs ranges none to +60 minutes per day and the amount depends on a number of factors. The following is a guide to help you determine how much exercise you should be doing based on some variables.

Do you smoke? If you do, it’s time to start exercising about 20-30 minutes a day. This will not cut the risks associated with smoking but it will help to slow the decline of your body. Make no mistake about it, smoking is killing you and it is ruining your health.

Have you maintained your weight over the last few years? If you have, your need for exercise is low – about 5 minutes per day – and is aimed at maintaining your cardiovascular health. Your goal will be to increase you heart rate in response to movement.

Do you want to decrease your weight? If you do, you should be exercising 30-60 minutes per day. The more you do, the faster you will see the weight drop, but 30 – 60 minutes of exercise should be enough to help anyone jump start their weight loss efforts.

Do you tire easily or have low energy? If you do, you need to do 20-30 minutes of moderately intense exercise per day to increase your cardiovascular health. A healthier heart and lungs will allow your body to deliver blood more efficiently increasing your energy levels.

Do you have any specific training requirements? If you do, you need to exercise enough to address these needs but not so much as to become over trained. This occurs when your body does not have enough resources to recover from the last bout of exercise. The most common cause of over training is too much exercise, but it can also be caused by not eating enough.

There are very few people who would not benefit from exercising a little more. Determine the amount you need and do it every day. It is going to improve the quality of your life.

50 Easy Weight Loss Ideas

58 weight loss ideas from Readers Digest Online cover a variety of areas from behavior modification, personal accountability and forced introspection – although I don’t think I’ll be putting a mirror up in the kitchen to watch myself eat, even if it causes me to eat less.

Carry a palm-size notebook everywhere you go for one week. Write down every single morsel that enters your lips — even water. Studies have found that people who maintain food diaries wind up eating about 15 percent less food than those who don’t.

Eat 90 percent of your meals at home. You’re more likely to eat more — and eat more high-fat, high-calorie foods — when you eat out than when you eat at home. Restaurants today serve such large portions that many have switched to larger plates and tables to accommodate them!

Sniff a banana, an apple, or a peppermint when you feel hungry. You might feel silly, but it works. When Alan R. Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, tried this with 3,000 volunteers, he found that the more frequently people sniffed, the less hungry they were and the more weight they lost — an average of 30 pounds each. One theory is that sniffing the food tricks the brain into thinking you’re actually eating it.

Passionately kiss your partner 10 times a day. According to the 1991 Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex, a passionate kiss burns 6.4 calories per minute. Ten minutes a day of kissing equates to about 23,000 calories — or eight pounds — a year!

An Interview with Dr. Christopher Mohr

You may not have heard of him before but you’ve likely seen some of his work – he was the nutrition consultant for LL Cool J’s book “Platinum Workout”.

T-nation’s Chris Shugart asks Dr. Mohr to weigh in on a number of topics on this thread. I really liked his advice about low carb vs. low fat.

When looking at carbs vs. fat for weight loss, let’s look at some of the research. First, any reduced calorie diet is necessary for weight loss, whether that reduction comes from carbs or from fat. I understand that there are some intricacies with each, so I’m not recommending a blind reduction in calories, as long as it’s a reduction. I’m all about nutrient quality and would rather have folks focus on eating a high nutrient diet rather than looking for anything that remotely resembles a carbohydrate and acting as if it’s kryptonite.

Now, there are data supporting both lower carbohydrate approaches and lower fat approaches. That basically means whatever you want to believe in can work — and there’s data to support it. However, what’s most important, and this data has been shown most recently in a publication in JAMA, is adherence to a program. It’s not as much about carbs or fat as it is about you following something… anything!

Pick one, stick with it and you’ll get results.