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Lose Weight or Fat?

Hi,

Okay, you have to lose some weight (or fat) for an upcoming event.  Maybe it is for your wedding, an upcoming show, or you just got sick and tired of weighing so much.

If you are like most people you will reduce your calories and do some aerobics.  If you watch most people “running” outdoors or indoors on the machines you will notice that very few actually run.

Most jog at best or do some type of motion between a walk and a jog. 

Now, let me say there is nothing wrong with that.  After all everyone has to start somewhere.  And even walking – if done consistently – will help you lose weight.

But, is this the most efficient way to reshape your body?

The answer is no and here is why.

Low or medium intensity exercise will help you lose weight.  That is fat weight, muscle weight, bone weight, organ weight.  At most it is estimated that you will not lose more than 35-50% body fat following a low intensity aerobics or jogging/walking program.

This translates to a smaller you.  But the worst part of this is that you have not upped your metabolism. 

Low intensity exercise is not demanding on your body.  And it does not switch on the after burning effects of a raised metabolism.    So you are only burning up your body (fat, muscle, etc.) while you are doing the exercise.

Once you stop the burning effects of exercise stop.   And since you have not raised your metabolism the  body perceives that you do not need to burn as much fuel for energy.

The overall effect is that your body gets smaller and your metabolism drops.  Your body shape will pretty much remain the same. 

And what happens if you start eating a little more or exercise a little less?  Fat gain quickly is what happens.

There have been several studies that compare weight loss, fat loss and raised metabolisms.

While weight loss exercise does help you lose weight, it does nothing to raise your metabolism. 

If you can raise your metabolism you will burn more calories and more fat even if you are exercising 1/2 of the time. 

We will continue this lose weight or fat series for the next few posts. 

Thanks

couple lost weight

Hi,

Saw another BS diet ad. Surprisingly it was on a blog that said some half way intelligent things.

Yet the ad screamed: Lose 28 pounds in 28 days! Okay, is that even possible?

Yes, it is possible. Is it probable or is it safe?

Probably not.

If you have read any of the posts on this site before you know that the key to taking off weight and keeping it off is to do it slowly.

Your body rebels big time if you upset its homeostasis. That is a big word to say that your body likes to maintain the same old way.

So any drastic changes are going to wreck havoc with your body and your mind also.

Back to the diet. This was the Spice diet. Now, I suppose that if all you ate were spices and exercised like crazy that maybe you could lose those 28 pounds.

But, I would bet that not 1 person in 100 could even stay on that diet for 28 days.

But, it sure does sound good and I am sure many people click on the ad and even buy the product.

Only to be disappointed yet again when they don’t lose the weight and when they regain it again.

Look losing weight isn’t easy and it takes a concerted effort of aligning your body and your mind and even your spirit to lose the weight you want to.

Then you have to make sure you lose it in such a way that your body doesn’t rebel against you.

And that doesn’t even get into losing body fat, which I think would be better for you. After all if you could lose some body fat and gain a little muscle, your weight might stay pretty much the same, but you will look much different – better.

Anyhow, please don’t fall for these BS diet ads. They are only meant to part you with your money. Time and time again.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the world’s biggest diet scam going on right now.

woman abs

Just read an article on the perfect abs and how to get them. It was in Muscle and Body (July 2010) and it was by Kim Lyons who is a fitness trainer of some renown. (Was on The Biggest Loser.)

She was answering a question for someone who wants to know how to get fabulous abs.

The overall article was okay, but there were a few problems.
Kim said that the person should get her body fat tested. And then monitor it to see if it is coming down or not.

Then she provided a chart for comparing to various fitness levels.
For example a competitive female competitior would have around 7-9% body fat. Very lean would be under 15%. Average would be 21-25%.

Maybe she was talking about average competitors, because if she was talking about averages in the population she is way off.

Since approximately 35% of the population is overweight and another approximately 30% is obese, the average for the female population is closer to 30% body fat.

Then she says that in order to get your body fat down, you will need a large calorie deficit. Whoops, sorry, but that is not accurate.

As you may have noticed from the previous posts in this blog, it is much more important to lose body fat, then it is to lose weight.

You lose body fat by getting your hormones in alignment, not by having a large calorie deficit.

Kim also talked about training. She mentioned that core exercises are good. But, then she went on to say that “you should be engaging your core muscles every second of the day to help you build a strong and toned midsection”.

Really, every second of the day? Don’t you get to sleep, don’t you get to relax?

Even more, how in the world are you going to focus on engaging your core muscles every second of the day? Don’t you have a job that might take some of your focus away?

Don’t your drive to work or to the store? Don’t you have to focus on driving? Don’t you have friends and family that take some of your focus away from your core muscles?

Maybe you think I am being a nit picker. But, if the goal is to try to help everyone achieve a great body, then the advice that any health, diet or fitness guru gives has to be accurate.

If the average person sees that they have to focus on their core every second of the day, they know they can’t do that. Are they even going to start?

If the average person hasn’t kept up to date on hormones and fat loss, are they going to be thrilled to try a large calorie deficit diet?

No they aren’t. So if you want perfect abs, pay attention to what really works. Pay attention to new research and science.

If you don’t have the time to keep up to date on all of this, then follow someone that does. Like this blog:-)

diet boredom

You probably know there are hundreds of different types of diets. But, which type of diet works best?

That is what some researchers tried to figure out in a study published in 2009 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Four types of diets were studied to see which one would have the best weight loss.

All the diets were approximately 1200 calories and included 90 minutes of exercise a day. Everyone also had counseling sessions for the duration of the 2 year study.

The four types of diets were low fat/low protein – low fat/medium protein – high fat/medium protein – high fat/high protein.

Now I see one major flaw here right away. What about the carbs? My initial guess was that there wouldn’t be any major difference in any of the diets because there wasn’t any control over the carbs.

And turns out I was pretty accurate. Every group lost the same amount of weight for the first year. This was about 13 pounds or 1 pound a month.

That is not a lot and this was with 90 minutes of exercise a day.

It gets worse. By the end of 2 years the average weight loss for each group was 9 pounds.

This was not 9 pounds more. It was a total loss of 9 pounds over the 24 months. In other words each group gained 4 pounds over the 2nd year.

Again this was with 90 minutes of exercise every day.

Okay, so basically the average person didn’t even lose 1/2 pound a month over the 2 years.

Those are not good results. It does show two things however. Manipulating your fat and protein doesn’t really do much for you. It would have been a much better study if they had manipulated the carbs also.

2nd, it shows that low intensity (what else could it be) exercise for 90 minutes a day does not really help with weight loss.

As you have learned from the previous posts, it is the short duration, high intensity exercise sessions that will have your burning fat after the exercise session is over.

This never happens with low intensity exercise.

So what type of diet works best? You won’t find out from this study.

couple lost weight

Finally, we get to the exercise aspects of the lose body fat or lose weight series. It has been a long time in coming.

Okay so let’s look at how exercise works. This will be somewhat simplistic so that even I can understand it:-).

When you start exercising you first burn ATP (adenosine-5-triphosphate).

ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism. This immediate source of energy gets used up within the first few minutes of exercise.

Then the body look for more energy. It gets it from the carbs stored in your muscles. Once that gets too low then it goes looking for carbs stored in your fat.

This happens after about 20 minutes. Thus the you have to do aerobics for at least 20 minutes before you burn fat.

Problem is you really don’t want to burn fat during exercise.

If you do you are signaling the body to store more fat, so that it will be on hand when you exercise the next time.

What we are saying here is that long term, low endurance exercise will actually help your body store more body fat. Not exactly what you are looking for.

The goal then is to do the correct amount and type of exercise.

We touched upon this in other posts before this series.

You want to do high intensity exercise for short periods of time.

For example you would do a sprint, whether running or on a stationary bike, for 10-60 seconds. Then you would walk or pedal slowly for say 30 seconds or until you get your breath back.

Then you do the same thing again. Do that series for 20 minutes. Or at least build up to that.

Remember how you have to introduce diet changes gradually. Well, the same is true of exercise changes.

If you go out and try to sprint and walk for 20 minutes, you probably won’t be able to move for a few days afterwards. That is because your body isn’t used to it.

Maybe you have to start out with a jog and walk. Or a walk and stop and rest. It doesn’t matter. Start somewhere and build up to that level.

Exercising this way will burn way more body fat than long term slow and steady workouts.

The reason this happens is because of the after burn effect, or more scientifically (EPOC – excess postexercise oxygen consumption).

This means that you will burn way more body fat after the exercise stops than you ever could by doing normal exercising.

In effect this high intensity exercise affects your hormones in a positive way. Here is a very -again – simplistic way of following the hormones.

Exercise raises adrenaline and cortisol (remember you do need cortisol in the picture). This builds up lactic acid which in turn triggers the release of testosterone and HGH.

So this hormonal concoction of adrenaline, cortiso, testosterone and HGH puts your body into a fat burning mode – turning on the EPOC effect. This effect can last up to 48 hours after you stop exercising.

Long term medium aerobic exercise does not affect any of these hormones (at least not in the same way), so your fat burning switch does not get turned on.

Okay, so there you have it. A simple way to lose body fat, along with losing weight.

Now you can use this high intensity stuff with running, biking and weight lifting or just about any activity. Again, just build up to it and once you reach your body fat loss goals then keep on the program exactly as it is for another 36 days.

Then you will have the body of your dreams for your lifetime.

couple lost weight

This is part 8 of the lose body fat or lose weight series. If you missed any of the other posts, just check them out under the archives section.

Last time we talked about diet and how what you ate and how much influenced your hormones.

One thing I forgot to mention was that you can not try and make immediate and drastic changes to your diet.

Even if you are changing from a unhealthy diet to a healthy diet.

If you make drastic changes you are setting yourself up for disaster.

Your body likes to maintain homeostasis, which means “the same old, same old”.

It likes the same old way of doing things. Anytime you try and upset the apple cart it will resist.

Remember the checks and balances system that your homonal system has. Well, this checks and balances affects everything you do to your body.

So making a drastic change means the body will counter those changes. This plays havoc with your system and your life.

So, instead of trying to drop 1000 calories and day and eat only steak instead of pizza every day, you need to make slower changes.

Drop your calories a few hundred a day. Eat a little more protein and a little less carbs.

Instead of chips for a snack have an apple or a pear, or some mixed nuts.

Keep doing this over a period of time – like a few months – and within that time your will have changed from an unhealthy diet to a healthy diet.

And it will have been so gradual you almost don’t even know it. Then when you do reach your fat loss goals don’t stop.

This is one thing that screws up people’s permanent weight and fat loss goals.

You need time to adjust to your new levels. Most people once they reach their goals stop trying and guess what happens. Their weight shoots right back up.

The reason for this is that your body and mind have not adjusted to the new you.

You have to make the new you a habit.

Now most people think a new habit takes 21 days to form. I don’t think that is accurate. I even did a lot of research to see what that was based upon. Couldn’t find any.

But, I did find something interesting. This came from a study on astronauts. Since astronauts spend a lot of time in a non gravity environment which includes being upside down, sometimes they get disorientated.

So the study made these astronauts wear glasses that inverted images. Even though the study was conducted in a gravity situation the glasses made everything seem upside down.

They kept these glasses on 24-7. A funny and totally unexpected thing happened to every single astronaut in the study.

After the 34-36th day everyone -with the glasses still on – reinverted the images so that now the images were right side up.

In other words it took the body and mind that long to make the abnormal appear normal again.

So, it seems to me, that it will take you 34-36 days for your body to accept the new normal you. To date there is no “proof” of this, but it just makes sense to me.

That means that once you reach your ideal fat loss goals, you need to continue doing whatever you were doing to maintain that for let’s just say another 36 days.

After that your routine will be a normal habit. Your eating habits and exercise habits will be part of your new lifestyle.

It will actually be hard for you to gain the weight and fat back that you lost.

If you have lost body fat of lost weight, you want to make sure you keep it off. So don’t congratulate yourself when you reach your goal.

Make sure you continue what you were doing to maintain it for another 36 days. Then you will make sure that your attempts to lose body fat or lose weight will be permanent.

Okay, I promise I will get to the exercise system in the next post.

couple lost weight

Here is where we start to finally answer the question, lose body fat or lose weight? If you missed any of the previous posts, just check the archives at: http://www.femfigueres.com

Losing weight is pretty simple – at first. You reduce your calories and you will lose weight. You increase your calorie burning activities and you will lose weight.

Problem is most of that – at least at first – is water weight. After that is gone then you start losing fat and muscle with your weight loss.

And as you know eventually the diet you are on stops working. They are supposed to, they are designed that way.

You stop losing weight and if you are like millions of others, you start gaining that weight back, only this time it isn’t muscle. It is all fat.

So you end up in much worse shape then before.

So how do you counter this? First you concentrate on losing body fat and don’t worry about the weight so much.

The first step is to get your hormones primed for fat loss. There are two steps to this. One is your diet and one is your exercise program.

As you have seen in this series, your hormones are in a constant state of checks and balances. When your diet or exercise program throws these checks and balances off, that is when you prime yourself for either fat gain or fat loss.

Let’s see how this works. Ideally you want to have high levels of glucagon, low levels of cortisol, high levels of human growth hormone, low levels of insulin and low levels of leptin.

With this combination your body becomes a fat burner.

If, on the other hand you have high levels of insulin, high levels of cortisol, high levels of leptin and low levels of HGH and glucagon, then your body is primed for storing fat.

Let’s look at an example. You are under a lot of stress at work and like most people you relieve some of that stress with a high carb diet, followed by a nice chocolate desert.

This will increase the insulin surge to take care of that blood sugar and push it into the cells for storage. So your blood sugar drops and coritsol comes to the rescue.

Cortisol gets released and helps raise your blood sugar levels back to normal. This is a back and forth game and if continued for any length of time will lead to metabolic resistance.

The ultimate end game is fat storage. As adrenaline is released the body stays in a sugar burning stage and never taps into the fat storage.

If you could cut way back on the carbs and deserts and eat more healthy protein this will change the way your hormones react.

More protein and less carbs equals more glucagon. This means your body is primed to burn fat. Adrenaline is now signaled to start burning fuel, but with the lower cortisol, and lower insulin levels you will now start burning fat instead of sugar.

Testosterone and HGH also come into play now and signal the body to go into a fat burning mode. Cortisol switches to a fat burning mode when the levels of insulin are down.

Ghrelin, our hunger hormone, is affected by eating more protein, more fiber and exercizing properly.

A high carb diet helps your fat storing hormones. So does a high calorie meal even if a lot of it is protein. That is why I recommend 2 mini cheat meals a week instead of one huge one.

Why attempt to undo a weeks work of eating right by gorging yourself for a few minutes of supposed pleasure?

Increase your protein and eat smaller meals. Try for your 2-3 normal meals a day and add a couple of snacks. Try to eat protein at each of your meals and snacks.

Vegetables and fruits have lots of fiber in them and you will need that if you are going to increase your protein levels. Go heavier on the vegetables.

I know if I eat too many fruits I start to smooth out. So watch out for that.

Okay, this article is getting very long. We’ll get to your exercise program next post.

couple lost weight

This is part 6 of the lose body fat or lose weight series. We have looked at several hormones over this series.

As you have seen the most important role hormones play is keeping your body in balance to help maintain your health.

Today’s hormones are no different.

You have probably heard of these two; estrogen and testosterone, or the female and male hormones.

Everyone has some of each. The most masculine male in the world has some estrogen and the most feminine woman in the world has some testosterone.

And everyone has HGH or human growth hormone. Really tall people have more than really short people.

I point out that obvious fact, because it is one of the few times you can actually see what happens when a hormone gets out of balance.

With the right amount of HGH people fall into an average height for their culture. Too much and that person’s height goes overboard.

People over 7′ tall definitely have too much HGH. Now HGH doesn’t just affect height, but it is an easy one to see.

Testosterone is known as the muscle building hormone and fat burning hormone. More testosterone and the more muscular you are.

As men age their testosterone levels drop, especially if they don’t do any thing to counter this drop.

Their estrogen levels also rise. This has more to do with the food we eat. Eating non grass fed (natural) beef and chicken means you are eating lots and lots of hormones (mostly estrogen).

Do this over a life time and that is why you are seeing pretty big breasts on men (even younger ones) and soft muscles.

Estrogen or the female hormone also plays many roles. But, for our purposes, it helps more with fat storage.

Now, this is more important for women, because of their ability to give birth.

Women on average will burn 6-8% less calories after a meal then men will. This is because of the fat storing effects of estrogen.

This gets especially bad -for women- around premenopause and menopause time. During these times estrogen goes and little wacky and doesn’t want to burn any fat at all.

But, fear not, this only lasts for awhile. As the menopausal symptoms reside so does the wackiness of estrogen and you will find that weight/fat gain will drop off fairly quickly.

Okay, so far we have hit most of the hormones engaged in helping you lose body fat or lose weight.

The next post will will look at how to bring this all together to help you lose as much body fat as you want.

couple lost weight

Today we are looking at a couple of more hormones that affect whether you will lose body fat or lose weight.

The first is adrenaline, also known as epinephrine. It is both a hormone and neurotransmitter. You might know it as the fight-or flight hormone.

It increases heart rate, contracts blood vessels and dilates air passages in order to get you ready for action.

It also signals the body to begin burning fuel and it starts a chain reaction with other hormones to do this.

Now here is where it gets interesting. If your body is primed to burn fat then it will. If it is not primed to burn fat then it will burn sugars in the body.

So how do you prime your body to burn body fat instead of sugar for energy? That is what this whole series is about, so just be a little more patient as we bring this all together.

But, first let’s talk about the muscle destroyer hormone as some people call it. Cortisol is this “bad” hormone, but as with most things in life, it is not all bad.

In fact without cortisol you would die pretty quickly.

However, again, when your body is not primed correctly, then cortisol can indeed help store fat and destroy muscle.

Problem is that most people are not primed correctly, so most people only know these bad effects of cortisol.

If your body is primed correctly then cortisol does exactly the opposite. It helps block muscle burning and helps with fat burning.

Again you have seen how the body has the checks and balances to help you live a healthy life. It is only when you go out of your way to destroy these healthy checks and balances that your health goes out the window.

And it makes it almost impossible to lose body fat or lose weight.

Just a couple of more hormones to discuss in the next post, then we start putting this all together to see just how easy it is to burn body fat permanently.

couple lost weight

Last post on the lose body fat or lose weight series we looked at the hormones ghrelin and leptin. These two hormones control your hunger and how much you eat.

You saw how they – in a normally functioning body – balance each other out. Which is what they are supposed to do.

Today we look at two others that also balance each other out, depending upon the type of foods you eat.

One of these hormones is insulin, which I am sure you have heard of. The other one is not so well known. It is called glucagon.

Insulin regulates the energy and glucose metabolism in the body.
For our purposes insulin does two things.

First it causes cells in your body, like muscle and fat cells to take up the sugars in the blood and store it. This lowers your blood sugar levels.

The second thing insulin does is it stops the use of fat as an energy source.

The higher the insulin levels the more fat you will gain. You get high insulin levels by eating lots of sugar and starches and processed foods.

This has the dual affect of storing more fat in the body and decreasing any fat burning.

On the other hand you have glucagon, which helps you burn fat and helps your raise your blood glucose levels.

So basically it does just the opposite of insulin. Again this feedback mechanism helps maintain your normal and healthy blood glucose or sugar levels.

Eating more protein helps glucagon do its job more effectively.

That is one of the reasons the high protein diets seem to work so well. At least for awhile.

Problem is that it is a hard diet to maintain. And the first really popular high protein diet (Atkins) was misinterpreted as basically being able to eat anything.

So pizza was okay, even though pizza has hundreds of carbohydrates (starches).

And people started eating more and more food in the mistaken belief that they would burn more fat.

But, you have to look at the science and not the media interpretation – which is almost always wrong. Why? Because they never seem able to give you the whole story.

They just want the sound bite, or the headline, so they find some obscure item in a study and go hog wild over that and only report that rather than the whole story.

Same is true on the web. That is why you have to find an expert, someone you like and who knows his or her stuff and follow them.

One person you can check out is Mike Val. His blog is at:
http://www.valshealthblog.com/fitnesstips

In the meantime, to lose more body fat and lose more weight, cut down on your processed foods and start eating a little more protein and vegetables.