So far in my articles I have shown you that not changing your exercise and other training variables frequently will stall your fat loss efforts. I have also shown you that being dehydrated and consuming carbohydrates before and during exercise will limit your fat oxidation. Today I’m going to show you how you can increase fat oxidation at rest and during exercise with fish oil.
One of the first studies to show the fat loss effects of fish oil in humans at rest was published back in 1997. In this 12 week study, the objective was to investigate whether the substation of fish oil for visible fats influenced body fat mass and substrate utilization in six healthy adults (5 men, 1 woman).throughout the 12 week study, participants ingested a diet consisting of 52% carbohydrates, 32% fat, and 16% protein, but at week 9 some of the participants were asked to substitute 6 grams from their diet with 6 grams of fish oil for the remaining 3 weeks.
The results: Substituting 6 grams of visible fat by fish oil over three weeks reduced body fat mass and increased basal lipid oxidation. Body weight didn’t reduce much during the study, but body fat did, showing that fish oil can manipulate the partitioning of fat between oxidation and storage (positive calorie partitioning).Resting metabolic rate was approximately 4% higher (burning more calories during the day). Protein and carbohydrate oxidation were also lower in the fish oil group (burning less protein and carbohydrate calories throughout the day and more fat). This last affect will help during your workouts, but I will explain that in a future write up.
Can fish oil help you burn fat during a workout? A study done 6 years ago looked at supplemental fish oil to assess the effects of acute and chronic fish oil supplementation on fat oxidation during exercise during a high fat diet. The study design wont interest you much so I will keep it short and get to the results. The researchers report that 4 grams of fish oil per day for three weeks increased fat oxidation during exercise.
What’s the take home message? Two studies, one high in carbs and no exercise, another high in fat but with exercise, shows that fish oil can help you burn more fat. Both of these diets are not conducive to fat loss, but as you can see, the fish oil acts as a strong positive partitioning agent and I would strongly recommend you take a high quality fish oil supplement for both health and fat loss purposes. I believe so strongly in the power of fish oil that a few years ago, one of my clients was a major owner of one of the world’s biggest fish oil manufacturing companies, and that allowed me to get as much free fish oil as I wanted for all my clients. It didn’t take long for everyone to get hooked on it once they seen the results.
In the future I will discuss the many mechanisms of which fish oil can help burn fat and increase muscle mass. This is what I call one of those best bang for the buck supplements. If you would like to know more about the benefits of fish oil before I present them on this page I recommend you read Omega Rx by Dr Barry sears, the author of The Zone. It’s a bit dated, so see if your library has it. Be warned though, some of Dr. Sears recommendations can be borderline crazy (manipulating prostaglandins), and he does sell fish oil at a price that will make you put a second mortgage on the house. If you’re interested in buying fish oil but confused about which brand and how much it should cost, please send me an email telling me what country you live in and I will do my best to help you.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Carbohydrate ingestions before and during exercise limits fat oxidation
Yesterday I reviewed a study on fasted exercise and glucose tolerance. Please read it now if you haven’t done so. Although the investigators were interested in finding out whether fasted state exercise is more potent than exercise in the fed state to rescue whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during a period of hyper-caloric fat-rich diet and not body composition changes, the body composition changes at the end of the study were quite interesting, so today I will briefly discuss what happens when you ingest carbohydrates before and during a workout.
In yesterdays review both groups followed the same exercise program but the diet was different. The fasted group (exercise performed in a fasted state) but consuming a hyper-caloric fat-rich diet (50% of calories came from fat, and consuming 30% more calories than required to maintain a stable weight).Group two, the carbohydrate group, which ate breakfast 90 minutes before exercise consisting of 675 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 70% carbohydrates, 15% fat, 15% protein (118 grams of carbs!!!) plus consuming a beverage containing 1gram of maltodextrin per kilogram of bodyweight during exercise, and finally group three, no training, but same diet as group one and two.
At the end of the 6 week study, the fasted exercise group gained 0.7 kilograms (kg) in bodyweight, and the carbohydrate group gained 1.4 kgs of bodyweight. So how did the carbohydrate group gain double the weight even though they consumed about a 1000 less calories per day? It has long been recognized that carbohydrate ingestion during exercise reduces fat oxidation during exercise. It has also been shown that a high carbohydrate dense meal can suppress fat oxidation for at least four hours after a meal. It doesn’t take much of a rise in insulin (carbohydrate ingestion raises insulin) to slow down fat oxidation. Innumerable amount of studies have proven that carbohydrate ingestion shortly before (2-4 hours) and during exercise can suppress fat oxidation during exercise. One study that had volunteers consume carbohydrates during exercise report “glucose ingestion during moderate-intensity exercise inhibits the expression of genes involved in the transport and oxidation of lipids”. So by having higher insulin levels at the time of exercise you are suppressing these favorable adaptive changes in fat metabolism that you’re hoping for, and you start to accumulate fat. That’s exactly what happened to the carbohydrate group in yesterdays review even though they were training intensely 4 times a week.
What’s the solution? If you’re on a carbohydrate dense diet (300 plus grams a day) I would suggest you lower your carbohydrates and increase your fat and protein consumption. The lower your carbohydrate intake is the less fat oxidation suppression you will experience. I would also suggest you don’t time a carbohydrate dense meal too close to a workout. Regardless of which diet you’re currently on, fasted exercise can work great for dropping excess fat, especially when doing cardiovascular / endurance exercise. There are more solutions to this problem and I will write about them in the future.,
In yesterdays review both groups followed the same exercise program but the diet was different. The fasted group (exercise performed in a fasted state) but consuming a hyper-caloric fat-rich diet (50% of calories came from fat, and consuming 30% more calories than required to maintain a stable weight).Group two, the carbohydrate group, which ate breakfast 90 minutes before exercise consisting of 675 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 70% carbohydrates, 15% fat, 15% protein (118 grams of carbs!!!) plus consuming a beverage containing 1gram of maltodextrin per kilogram of bodyweight during exercise, and finally group three, no training, but same diet as group one and two.
At the end of the 6 week study, the fasted exercise group gained 0.7 kilograms (kg) in bodyweight, and the carbohydrate group gained 1.4 kgs of bodyweight. So how did the carbohydrate group gain double the weight even though they consumed about a 1000 less calories per day? It has long been recognized that carbohydrate ingestion during exercise reduces fat oxidation during exercise. It has also been shown that a high carbohydrate dense meal can suppress fat oxidation for at least four hours after a meal. It doesn’t take much of a rise in insulin (carbohydrate ingestion raises insulin) to slow down fat oxidation. Innumerable amount of studies have proven that carbohydrate ingestion shortly before (2-4 hours) and during exercise can suppress fat oxidation during exercise. One study that had volunteers consume carbohydrates during exercise report “glucose ingestion during moderate-intensity exercise inhibits the expression of genes involved in the transport and oxidation of lipids”. So by having higher insulin levels at the time of exercise you are suppressing these favorable adaptive changes in fat metabolism that you’re hoping for, and you start to accumulate fat. That’s exactly what happened to the carbohydrate group in yesterdays review even though they were training intensely 4 times a week.
What’s the solution? If you’re on a carbohydrate dense diet (300 plus grams a day) I would suggest you lower your carbohydrates and increase your fat and protein consumption. The lower your carbohydrate intake is the less fat oxidation suppression you will experience. I would also suggest you don’t time a carbohydrate dense meal too close to a workout. Regardless of which diet you’re currently on, fasted exercise can work great for dropping excess fat, especially when doing cardiovascular / endurance exercise. There are more solutions to this problem and I will write about them in the future.,
Monday, October 4, 2010
Training in the fasted state improves glucose tolerance during fat-rich diet.
I was originally going to write about breakfast and fat loss today, but then I got an interesting email from a lady who is following my articles. Specifically she wanted to know if fasted cardio / endurance exercise is beneficial to losing fat. Her trainer is against fasted cardio because, so he claims, she will lose muscle and get weaker. To top it off, this trainer also has her consume fruit juices and sports energy drink during the workout. Talk about making a bad situation worse. This lady was clearly frustrated with her results and is desperate to find someone that can help her. I’m sure our conversation today will put her on the right path to success.
One of the great debates coaches have amongst each other is whether fasted exercise is a valuable tool, or detrimental, to fat loss and gaining muscle. I believe that fasted exercise, especially when doing cardiovascular / endurance exercise is one of our most valuable tools for causing positive partitioning effects in our body, and in the future you can count on me to review these studies on my blog so I can make you a believer too.
A study I want to review today is quite interesting. Most studies that deal with exercise and obesity usually have the subjects consume 70% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 15% fat. Although this type of diet is far from ideal for losing fat and gaining muscle, most studies do show that fasted exercise does result in a large amount of fat oxidation versus doing exercise in the fed state.
The researchers investigated whether exercise training in the fasted state is more potent than exercise in the fed state to induce favorable adaptations in whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during a period of hyper-caloric fat rich diet. .All volunteers were male, healthy, between the ages of 18 and 25. The length of the study was 6 weeks. Exercise was performed four days a week, two-60 minute sessions and two-90 minute sessions of running (85% of Vo2Max) and cycling (70-75% of Vo2Max). Three groups; the fasted group (exercise performed in a fasted state) but consuming a hyper-caloric fat-rich diet (50% of calories came from fat, and consuming 30% more calories than required to maintain a stable weight).Group two, the carbohydrate group, which ate breakfast 90 minutes before exercise consisting of 675 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 70% carbohydrates, 15% fat, 15% protein (118 grams of carbs!!!) plus consuming a beverage containing 1gram of maltodextrin per kilogram of bodyweight during exercise, and finally group three, no training, but same diet as group one and two.
The results: the fasted group gained 0.7 kilograms (kg) in bodyweight, the carbohydrate group gained1.4 kgs of bodyweight, and group three gained 3 kilograms of bodyweight. Glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity increased more in the fasted group than the carbohydrate group. Muscle GLUT-4 protein content was increased by 285 in the fasted group and only by 3% in the carbohydrate group. I will stop here about the results and get to the point, “This study for the first time shows that fasted training is more potent than fed training to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during hyper-caloric fat-rich diet.” If your glucose intolerant and insulin resistant, fasted exercise will be of great benefit to you.
The fasted group consumed approximately 1000 more calories than the carbohydrate group and only gained 0.7 kgs (insignificant).why did the carbohydrate group gained double the weight while following the same exercise program? Nutrient partitioning! If you can set up your diet and training program properly to include more fat, more protein, less carbohydrates, and fasted exercise, you will see some very pleasant results in your body composition. If your working with a trainer, doctor, nutritionist, or whatever, that recommends consuming carbohydrates during exercise, I suggest you fire them immediately.
Just so we are clear, fasted means fasted. No food at all. Some coaches recommend a small amount of fat and/or proteins before or during early morning exercise and still calling it “fasted” exercise. That’s not fasted. Fasted to me means at least 7 hours since your last meal and preferably when you wake up. One last warning; please don’t duplicate this study. It was an experiment, the results were positive, and let’s leave it there. Consuming an extra 1000 calories on a fat-rich diet while doing fasted cardio resulted in an insignificant amount of weight gain. Imagine what would happen if the diet was set up correctly. Later this week I will explain what happens when you do consume carbohydrates during a workout.
One of the great debates coaches have amongst each other is whether fasted exercise is a valuable tool, or detrimental, to fat loss and gaining muscle. I believe that fasted exercise, especially when doing cardiovascular / endurance exercise is one of our most valuable tools for causing positive partitioning effects in our body, and in the future you can count on me to review these studies on my blog so I can make you a believer too.
A study I want to review today is quite interesting. Most studies that deal with exercise and obesity usually have the subjects consume 70% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 15% fat. Although this type of diet is far from ideal for losing fat and gaining muscle, most studies do show that fasted exercise does result in a large amount of fat oxidation versus doing exercise in the fed state.
The researchers investigated whether exercise training in the fasted state is more potent than exercise in the fed state to induce favorable adaptations in whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during a period of hyper-caloric fat rich diet. .All volunteers were male, healthy, between the ages of 18 and 25. The length of the study was 6 weeks. Exercise was performed four days a week, two-60 minute sessions and two-90 minute sessions of running (85% of Vo2Max) and cycling (70-75% of Vo2Max). Three groups; the fasted group (exercise performed in a fasted state) but consuming a hyper-caloric fat-rich diet (50% of calories came from fat, and consuming 30% more calories than required to maintain a stable weight).Group two, the carbohydrate group, which ate breakfast 90 minutes before exercise consisting of 675 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 70% carbohydrates, 15% fat, 15% protein (118 grams of carbs!!!) plus consuming a beverage containing 1gram of maltodextrin per kilogram of bodyweight during exercise, and finally group three, no training, but same diet as group one and two.
The results: the fasted group gained 0.7 kilograms (kg) in bodyweight, the carbohydrate group gained1.4 kgs of bodyweight, and group three gained 3 kilograms of bodyweight. Glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity increased more in the fasted group than the carbohydrate group. Muscle GLUT-4 protein content was increased by 285 in the fasted group and only by 3% in the carbohydrate group. I will stop here about the results and get to the point, “This study for the first time shows that fasted training is more potent than fed training to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during hyper-caloric fat-rich diet.” If your glucose intolerant and insulin resistant, fasted exercise will be of great benefit to you.
The fasted group consumed approximately 1000 more calories than the carbohydrate group and only gained 0.7 kgs (insignificant).why did the carbohydrate group gained double the weight while following the same exercise program? Nutrient partitioning! If you can set up your diet and training program properly to include more fat, more protein, less carbohydrates, and fasted exercise, you will see some very pleasant results in your body composition. If your working with a trainer, doctor, nutritionist, or whatever, that recommends consuming carbohydrates during exercise, I suggest you fire them immediately.
Just so we are clear, fasted means fasted. No food at all. Some coaches recommend a small amount of fat and/or proteins before or during early morning exercise and still calling it “fasted” exercise. That’s not fasted. Fasted to me means at least 7 hours since your last meal and preferably when you wake up. One last warning; please don’t duplicate this study. It was an experiment, the results were positive, and let’s leave it there. Consuming an extra 1000 calories on a fat-rich diet while doing fasted cardio resulted in an insignificant amount of weight gain. Imagine what would happen if the diet was set up correctly. Later this week I will explain what happens when you do consume carbohydrates during a workout.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Negative partitioning and fat Loss: part 1
“Changing the macronutrient composition of an individual’s diet can result in weight loss despite the ingestion of the same amount of energy”
Lambert CP, Frank LL, Evans WJ. Sports Med. 2004; 34(5):317-27.
One of my most valuable lessons came about 20 years ago when I had a conversation on nutrition with a very successful bodybuilding coach. He taught me about nutrient partitioning, what your body does with the food you consume. Your body will either send nutrients to muscle cells or to fat cells and certain compounds, hormones, cytokines, lifestyle choices, exercise and the macronutrient distribution of the diet can have a pronounced effect on nutrient partitioning. Since that conversation, the majority of my study time has been devoted to understanding how to best manipulate the body’s biochemistry to enable my clients to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Without understanding nutrient partitioning, your fat loss efforts may not be so rewarding, resulting in failure to achieve your body composition goals. Once you understand what causes negative (gaining fat) or positive partitioning (losing fat and gaining muscle), you will realize how easy it can be to lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously. You will also realize how the common recommendation of reducing caloric intake (negative energy balance) and increasing energy expenditure (exercise) is so wrong, and leads to a high failure rate. Let me give you a quick example; your overweight, you have low testosterone, low thyroid, a slow resting metabolic rate, leptin resistant, feel tired to exercise frequently and intensely and following a typical high carbohydrate, low protein, low fat diet.. What strategy would you use to lose fat? Most dietitians, doctors, and coaches would have you lower your calories (creating a negative energy balance, the difference between how many calories you eat and how many your body expends) and exercising more. Will this work? Rarely! The failure rate on such a program is huge. Even if you did lose considerable weight on such a program, 25 to 50% of that weight would be muscle tissue, now leaving you looking skinny fat, and in a worse metabolic condition that will further shift your body into a negative (losing fat and muscle) over a positive (losing fat and building muscle) state. Reducing calories doesn’t tell me which calories you’re reducing. Was it the carbohydrates, fat, or protein? Does it matter? Is a calorie a calorie like most scientist tell us? Yes it matters if you want to create a metabolic advantage (positive nutrient partitioning). No, a calorie is not a calorie. Different types of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins will have different effects in the body (positive or negative partitioning). Different macronutrient ratios will also affect partitioning. Proteins and fats are essential nutrients, carbohydrates are not. Protein is more thermogenic than carbohydrates, and carbohydrates are more thermogenic than fats. In an insulin resistant state, carbohydrates lose there thermogenic power, resulting in a lower thermic effect of food. In my above example, simply increasing the total calories and calories from protein and fat while reducing your carbohydrates intake would have resulted in a metabolic advantage that would have allowed you to lose fat, build muscle, increase your testosterone, increase thyroid, elevate your metabolic rate, increase your insulin sensitivity, increase your leptin sensitivity, increased your energy levels that will allow you to perform better, more productive workouts without feeling tired and hungry all day. Low calorie diets don’t work and increase negative partitioning of calories through various mechanisms. With the low success rate of low calorie diets (regardless of macronutrient ratios) your setting yourself up for repeated diet / fat loss cycles (think yo-yo dieting) and that can be extremely damaging to your overall health. This review isn’t even scratching the surface on what we know on nutrient partitioning, but remember, fat accrual is a disorder of nutrient partitioning. To find out more about positive and negative partitioning, and other fat loss tips and tricks be sure to come back to this page frequently.
Lambert CP, Frank LL, Evans WJ. Sports Med. 2004; 34(5):317-27.
One of my most valuable lessons came about 20 years ago when I had a conversation on nutrition with a very successful bodybuilding coach. He taught me about nutrient partitioning, what your body does with the food you consume. Your body will either send nutrients to muscle cells or to fat cells and certain compounds, hormones, cytokines, lifestyle choices, exercise and the macronutrient distribution of the diet can have a pronounced effect on nutrient partitioning. Since that conversation, the majority of my study time has been devoted to understanding how to best manipulate the body’s biochemistry to enable my clients to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Without understanding nutrient partitioning, your fat loss efforts may not be so rewarding, resulting in failure to achieve your body composition goals. Once you understand what causes negative (gaining fat) or positive partitioning (losing fat and gaining muscle), you will realize how easy it can be to lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously. You will also realize how the common recommendation of reducing caloric intake (negative energy balance) and increasing energy expenditure (exercise) is so wrong, and leads to a high failure rate. Let me give you a quick example; your overweight, you have low testosterone, low thyroid, a slow resting metabolic rate, leptin resistant, feel tired to exercise frequently and intensely and following a typical high carbohydrate, low protein, low fat diet.. What strategy would you use to lose fat? Most dietitians, doctors, and coaches would have you lower your calories (creating a negative energy balance, the difference between how many calories you eat and how many your body expends) and exercising more. Will this work? Rarely! The failure rate on such a program is huge. Even if you did lose considerable weight on such a program, 25 to 50% of that weight would be muscle tissue, now leaving you looking skinny fat, and in a worse metabolic condition that will further shift your body into a negative (losing fat and muscle) over a positive (losing fat and building muscle) state. Reducing calories doesn’t tell me which calories you’re reducing. Was it the carbohydrates, fat, or protein? Does it matter? Is a calorie a calorie like most scientist tell us? Yes it matters if you want to create a metabolic advantage (positive nutrient partitioning). No, a calorie is not a calorie. Different types of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins will have different effects in the body (positive or negative partitioning). Different macronutrient ratios will also affect partitioning. Proteins and fats are essential nutrients, carbohydrates are not. Protein is more thermogenic than carbohydrates, and carbohydrates are more thermogenic than fats. In an insulin resistant state, carbohydrates lose there thermogenic power, resulting in a lower thermic effect of food. In my above example, simply increasing the total calories and calories from protein and fat while reducing your carbohydrates intake would have resulted in a metabolic advantage that would have allowed you to lose fat, build muscle, increase your testosterone, increase thyroid, elevate your metabolic rate, increase your insulin sensitivity, increase your leptin sensitivity, increased your energy levels that will allow you to perform better, more productive workouts without feeling tired and hungry all day. Low calorie diets don’t work and increase negative partitioning of calories through various mechanisms. With the low success rate of low calorie diets (regardless of macronutrient ratios) your setting yourself up for repeated diet / fat loss cycles (think yo-yo dieting) and that can be extremely damaging to your overall health. This review isn’t even scratching the surface on what we know on nutrient partitioning, but remember, fat accrual is a disorder of nutrient partitioning. To find out more about positive and negative partitioning, and other fat loss tips and tricks be sure to come back to this page frequently.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Effect of hydration on exercise induced growth hormone response.
In my last blog, I discussed a study that resulted in lowered noradrenaline, heart rate, lactate, growth hormone (GH), and cortisol levels to a short-term endurance training program. The scientists believed these adaptations were due to “familiarization to exercise protocol.” These adaptations would definitely slow down your fat loss efforts.My suggestion to this problem was to change your exercises and program variables no less then every 3 weeks. Today I’m going to discuss another factor that can decrease your exercise induced GH output, your hydration status. Whenever I begin to consult a new client, I’m almost always asked the same question, and that is “what should I do first?” And my answer is always ‘hydration!”.Without being properly hydrated, you can be sure that your health, diet, exercise program will all be suboptimal, and this will make your fat loss efforts extremely difficult. GH is extremely important for fat loss. A properly designed exercise program is well known to increase GH levels. In 2001, French researchers investigated the effect of water replacement on GH response during exercise. Seven healthy males performed two submaximal endurance sessions, separated by 3 days, consisting of cycling for 40 minutes. During the first session, no water was consumed, and water loss was calculated. The total water loss was determined by the difference in body weight before and immediately after exercise. For session two, the subjects were asked to drink 4 equal parts of spring mineral water that amounted to the water lost in session one (approximately 17 ounces) at 15 and 5 minutes before the session, and at the beginning and 20 minutes after the start of the session. The results: total GH was significant lower in the no water group (approximately 30% lower). Unfortunately the French study did not look at fat oxidation in relation to the exercise and GH response, but we have known for decades now that GH is a powerful fat burner, and I plan on reviewing many more studies on this topic. In the last two blogs I have taught you that once your body familiarizes itself with an exercise program, and when you exercise in a dehydrated state, your GH output is significantly lowered. This will lower the amount of progress you make towards your fat loss efforts. Don’t make these mistakes. Change your exercises frequently and make sure your hydrated.
ENDURANCE TRAINING FOR FAT LOSS: PART 1
ENDURANCE TRAINING FOR FAT LOSS: PART 1
Today you will learn something very valuable. The information contained in this blog will be one of your most powerful weapons against body fat. I will briefly talk about aerobic exercise programming, and how to get the most from your cardiovascular exercise, and adapt in ways that will not only result in lower body fat, but also important health parameters. Enjoy
There are two main components of an effective fat loss program: proper diet and an effective exercise program consisting of resistance training and a complete cardiovascular program. You can find hundreds of books and fat loss plans in any bookstore and on the internet. You will also find dozens of books on resistance and cardiovascular training. However, very little information is available about proper exercise training; especially in regards to aerobic training. Aerobic training has taken a beating over the last decade. Many coaches and scientist now preach that aerobic exercise will actually make you fatter and will catabolize your muscle tissue. So have we been wasting our time with “aerobic’ exercise for fat loss? I wouldn’t exactly use the word “wasting’, but I do know for a fact that most people do not follow an optimally designed aerobic exercise program, and this may lead to wasted time and effort. One of the ways we get better from exercise is by adapting to the load and stress. After a certain period, the body adapts to the previous stress (exercise) positively or negatively, and at which time a change in program variables (choice of exercises, order of exercises, training loads, training volume, rest intervals) will have to take place in order for the body to adapt to the new stimulus (hopefully positively). So it isn’t so much that ‘aerobics’ are ineffective for fat loss, it has more to do with adaptation. Some of the well established beneficial adaptations to aerobic exercise include:
• Increased capillarization, which allows for an increase in oxygen and nutrient delivery• Increased hemoglobin concentration, red blood cell number, and red blood volume
• Increased maximal aerobic power (VO2 MAX)
• Increased cardiac output• Increased stroke volume
• Increased blood flow to working muscles
• Decreased submaximal respiratory rate
• Increased type 1 fiber content
• Increased oxidative enzyme capacity
• Increased mitochondrial density and size
• Increased muscular endurance capacity
• Improved mental health, including reducing stress and lowering the incidence of depression
• Enhancing the speed at which muscles recover from high intensity exercise
So what happens when your body adapts to an endurance training program? In a study done in 2005, twelve male, sedentary volunteers (22.0 ± 0.7 yrs) were submitted to three weeks of a bicycle ergometer training, consisting of 45 min exercise (at 70% VO2max), 4 times in the first week and 3 times in the next 2 weeks. The present study was designed to determine how quickly the moderate exercise training program evokes the hormonal changes in previously sedentary men and if so whether these hormonal responses to exercise correlate with other training-induced early circulatory and metabolic changes. I don’t want to review the whole study in great detail; instead I will get right to the results. The study showed that within the first week, the exercise protocol caused a significant decrease in plasma noradrenalin concentrations. The next two weeks of training lead to a similar decline in noradrenaline concentrations, which was accompanied by a significant decrease in exercise and resting heart rate, a decrease in lactate accumulation in both muscles and blood during exercise, decreased exercise induced and resting growth hormone levels, and decreased exercise and post-exercise cortisol levels.
The scientists believe the reduced noradrenaline, heart rate, lactate, growth hormone, and cortisol levels are due to “familiarization to exercise protocol.” .In other words, the subjects in the study adapted to the exercise protocol, and any further positive adaptations would be difficult to obtain. The heart rate and hormonal modifications found in this study are all importing for inducing exercise adaptations, and for your specific goal, fat loss. It would take me a few pages to explain why the adaptations seen in the study can have a negative impact on your fat loss efforts, so I will explain it in future blogs. What do the results of the study mean to you? It means that if you’re not switching around your aerobic exercises frequently, along with other program variables, you may not be optimizing your fat loss efforts in the gym. Aerobic exercise is not a waste of time for losing fat, bad advice is a waste of time. Changing around your exercises and other program variables is one of the best advice I can possibly give, so put it to good use and watch the fat melt off.
If you feel that you’re not getting the results you want from your exercise program please contact Workout Solutions for consultation at info@workoutsolutions.net
Today you will learn something very valuable. The information contained in this blog will be one of your most powerful weapons against body fat. I will briefly talk about aerobic exercise programming, and how to get the most from your cardiovascular exercise, and adapt in ways that will not only result in lower body fat, but also important health parameters. Enjoy
There are two main components of an effective fat loss program: proper diet and an effective exercise program consisting of resistance training and a complete cardiovascular program. You can find hundreds of books and fat loss plans in any bookstore and on the internet. You will also find dozens of books on resistance and cardiovascular training. However, very little information is available about proper exercise training; especially in regards to aerobic training. Aerobic training has taken a beating over the last decade. Many coaches and scientist now preach that aerobic exercise will actually make you fatter and will catabolize your muscle tissue. So have we been wasting our time with “aerobic’ exercise for fat loss? I wouldn’t exactly use the word “wasting’, but I do know for a fact that most people do not follow an optimally designed aerobic exercise program, and this may lead to wasted time and effort. One of the ways we get better from exercise is by adapting to the load and stress. After a certain period, the body adapts to the previous stress (exercise) positively or negatively, and at which time a change in program variables (choice of exercises, order of exercises, training loads, training volume, rest intervals) will have to take place in order for the body to adapt to the new stimulus (hopefully positively). So it isn’t so much that ‘aerobics’ are ineffective for fat loss, it has more to do with adaptation. Some of the well established beneficial adaptations to aerobic exercise include:
• Increased capillarization, which allows for an increase in oxygen and nutrient delivery• Increased hemoglobin concentration, red blood cell number, and red blood volume
• Increased maximal aerobic power (VO2 MAX)
• Increased cardiac output• Increased stroke volume
• Increased blood flow to working muscles
• Decreased submaximal respiratory rate
• Increased type 1 fiber content
• Increased oxidative enzyme capacity
• Increased mitochondrial density and size
• Increased muscular endurance capacity
• Improved mental health, including reducing stress and lowering the incidence of depression
• Enhancing the speed at which muscles recover from high intensity exercise
So what happens when your body adapts to an endurance training program? In a study done in 2005, twelve male, sedentary volunteers (22.0 ± 0.7 yrs) were submitted to three weeks of a bicycle ergometer training, consisting of 45 min exercise (at 70% VO2max), 4 times in the first week and 3 times in the next 2 weeks. The present study was designed to determine how quickly the moderate exercise training program evokes the hormonal changes in previously sedentary men and if so whether these hormonal responses to exercise correlate with other training-induced early circulatory and metabolic changes. I don’t want to review the whole study in great detail; instead I will get right to the results. The study showed that within the first week, the exercise protocol caused a significant decrease in plasma noradrenalin concentrations. The next two weeks of training lead to a similar decline in noradrenaline concentrations, which was accompanied by a significant decrease in exercise and resting heart rate, a decrease in lactate accumulation in both muscles and blood during exercise, decreased exercise induced and resting growth hormone levels, and decreased exercise and post-exercise cortisol levels.
The scientists believe the reduced noradrenaline, heart rate, lactate, growth hormone, and cortisol levels are due to “familiarization to exercise protocol.” .In other words, the subjects in the study adapted to the exercise protocol, and any further positive adaptations would be difficult to obtain. The heart rate and hormonal modifications found in this study are all importing for inducing exercise adaptations, and for your specific goal, fat loss. It would take me a few pages to explain why the adaptations seen in the study can have a negative impact on your fat loss efforts, so I will explain it in future blogs. What do the results of the study mean to you? It means that if you’re not switching around your aerobic exercises frequently, along with other program variables, you may not be optimizing your fat loss efforts in the gym. Aerobic exercise is not a waste of time for losing fat, bad advice is a waste of time. Changing around your exercises and other program variables is one of the best advice I can possibly give, so put it to good use and watch the fat melt off.
If you feel that you’re not getting the results you want from your exercise program please contact Workout Solutions for consultation at info@workoutsolutions.net
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Resistance training in overweight women on a ketogenic diet conserved lean body mass while reducing body fat
The general prescriptions for fat loss is exercise more, and eat less. It’s a simple formula, unfortunately the success rate with this prescription is very low long term, and in order to achieve your fat loss goals you will require more details than simply ‘exercise more, and eat less”. My main focus is to teach you the most effective ways to lose fat, which is why I’m delighted to share with you the following study, which details some of the more effective strategies that can, and should be used to achieve your fat loss goals.
In a recent study from Norway, 16 overweight woman between the age of 20 and 40 took part in a 10 week resistance training program in combination with either a regular diet (Ex) or a low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (Lc + Ex) to compare the effects on body weight and body composition. The percentage of energy from carbohydrates, fat and protein was 6, 66, and 22 respectively in the (Lc + Ex) group and 41, 33, 17 in the Ex group. No restrictions were made regarding energy content, fat, and protein or fatty acid composition. The only restriction was on carbohydrate intake until ketone bodies were detectable in the urine, to ensure the subjects were in a ketogenic state. Participants were told they can consume unlimited amounts of meats, fish, eggs, cheeses, margarines, butter, and oils. Participants were told to limit their carbohydrate intake to less than 20 grams per day until ketosis is achieved, and then they could add low carbohydrate food at their convenience as long as they maintained ketones in the urine.
All participants have not participated in regular resistance exercise during the previous 6 months. Eight resistance exercise machines were used that trained all the major muscles groups in the body. For the first 5 weeks of the study, all exercises were performed with a weight that was equal to 12 repetition maximum with 3 sets performed for each lower body exercise and one set for upper body exercises. After the initial 5 weeks, the resistance load was increased to 8 repetitions maximum and one additional set added to the upper body exercises. Rest periods between sets throughout the study were approximately 90 seconds.
The results: all subjects in the low-carbohydrate exercise group (Lc + Ex) lost weight (5.6 ± 2.6 kg of fat mass) with no significant change in lean body mass, while the regular diet group (Ex) gained 1.6 ± 1.8 kg of LBM (p = 0.045) with no significant change in fat mass (average loss of 0.6 kg of fat mass). This study proves that resistance exercise can be a valuable tool for fat loss, and in my opinion, due to the fact that resistance training can protect your muscles during a catabolic phase of dieting, it should be a part of everyone’s exercise program. In the future, I will explain why some loss of LBM is to be expected, and some of the negatives associated with that, but with proper planning, LBM loss can be minimized, and even prevented. There was no loss of LBM in this study in either group. Some scare tactics used by some scientists and organizations such as the American Heart Association (AHA) tells us that high protein / low carbohydrate ketogenic diets cause a loss of LBM, and have negative cardiovascular consequences. Obviously these organizations are not worried about our health, or simply choose to ignore the scientific literature that has proven decades ago that ketone bodies are indeed anti-catabolic, and that ketogenic diets is a safe, and effective way of losing weight, promoting non-atherogenic lipid profiles, lowering blood pressure and improving fasting blood glucose levels. Don’t let people sway you from the truth. Science has shown repeatedly that resistance training can protect our vital muscle tissue during time of stressful situation. Science has also shown that calorie restricted diets high in carbohydrates cause a massive loss of lean muscle tissue, and that ketogenic diets have a sparing effect on LBM. The more you restrict your carbohydrate intake, and increase your consumption of healthy fats and essential proteins, the more successful your fat loss efforts will be.
In future blogs I will expand on this study, show you where some of the protocols were suboptimal, and how we can maximize the training and diet strategy to achieve the fastest rate of fat loss, and adding healthy lean muscle at the same time. If you have any questions please contact me at workoutsolutionscoach@gmail.com
Jabekk PT, et al. Resistance training in overweight women on a ketogenic diet conserved lean body mass while reducing body fat. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2010 Mar 2; 7:17.
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In a recent study from Norway, 16 overweight woman between the age of 20 and 40 took part in a 10 week resistance training program in combination with either a regular diet (Ex) or a low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (Lc + Ex) to compare the effects on body weight and body composition. The percentage of energy from carbohydrates, fat and protein was 6, 66, and 22 respectively in the (Lc + Ex) group and 41, 33, 17 in the Ex group. No restrictions were made regarding energy content, fat, and protein or fatty acid composition. The only restriction was on carbohydrate intake until ketone bodies were detectable in the urine, to ensure the subjects were in a ketogenic state. Participants were told they can consume unlimited amounts of meats, fish, eggs, cheeses, margarines, butter, and oils. Participants were told to limit their carbohydrate intake to less than 20 grams per day until ketosis is achieved, and then they could add low carbohydrate food at their convenience as long as they maintained ketones in the urine.
All participants have not participated in regular resistance exercise during the previous 6 months. Eight resistance exercise machines were used that trained all the major muscles groups in the body. For the first 5 weeks of the study, all exercises were performed with a weight that was equal to 12 repetition maximum with 3 sets performed for each lower body exercise and one set for upper body exercises. After the initial 5 weeks, the resistance load was increased to 8 repetitions maximum and one additional set added to the upper body exercises. Rest periods between sets throughout the study were approximately 90 seconds.
The results: all subjects in the low-carbohydrate exercise group (Lc + Ex) lost weight (5.6 ± 2.6 kg of fat mass) with no significant change in lean body mass, while the regular diet group (Ex) gained 1.6 ± 1.8 kg of LBM (p = 0.045) with no significant change in fat mass (average loss of 0.6 kg of fat mass). This study proves that resistance exercise can be a valuable tool for fat loss, and in my opinion, due to the fact that resistance training can protect your muscles during a catabolic phase of dieting, it should be a part of everyone’s exercise program. In the future, I will explain why some loss of LBM is to be expected, and some of the negatives associated with that, but with proper planning, LBM loss can be minimized, and even prevented. There was no loss of LBM in this study in either group. Some scare tactics used by some scientists and organizations such as the American Heart Association (AHA) tells us that high protein / low carbohydrate ketogenic diets cause a loss of LBM, and have negative cardiovascular consequences. Obviously these organizations are not worried about our health, or simply choose to ignore the scientific literature that has proven decades ago that ketone bodies are indeed anti-catabolic, and that ketogenic diets is a safe, and effective way of losing weight, promoting non-atherogenic lipid profiles, lowering blood pressure and improving fasting blood glucose levels. Don’t let people sway you from the truth. Science has shown repeatedly that resistance training can protect our vital muscle tissue during time of stressful situation. Science has also shown that calorie restricted diets high in carbohydrates cause a massive loss of lean muscle tissue, and that ketogenic diets have a sparing effect on LBM. The more you restrict your carbohydrate intake, and increase your consumption of healthy fats and essential proteins, the more successful your fat loss efforts will be.
In future blogs I will expand on this study, show you where some of the protocols were suboptimal, and how we can maximize the training and diet strategy to achieve the fastest rate of fat loss, and adding healthy lean muscle at the same time. If you have any questions please contact me at workoutsolutionscoach@gmail.com
Jabekk PT, et al. Resistance training in overweight women on a ketogenic diet conserved lean body mass while reducing body fat. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2010 Mar 2; 7:17.
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