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Is There a Fat Burning Zone and Does It Matter?

Posted in Fat Loss, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Training, Training Females with tags , on March 28, 2011 by mboyle1959

If you’ve been reading this blog on a consistent basis you probably already know where I’m going with this one. You guessed it. The Fat Burning Zone is another of the urban legends of fitness. Does anyone think that when they are in the so-called fat burning zone that stored bodyfat melts off them like butter?

A little reality therapy is in order. The Fat Burning Zone is a big fat lie. Here’s the truth.

1- The “fat burning zone” supposedly describes a level of exercise that results in a larger number of the calories burned during exercise being derived from fat. This does not mean that stored bodyfat is the selective source. It only describes the relative percentage of utilization of three substrates, fat, carbohydrate and protein.

2- The fat burning zone actually describes what percentage of calories burned are derived from fat as an energy source. Do you know when you are burning the most calories from fat? Sorry. The highest percentage of fat utilization is at rest. The more intense the exercise becomes, the more carbohydrate is used as a source.

Guess what. It doesn’t matter. The reality is that it’s about the number of calories burned, not the number of those calories that come from fat as a source. If the fat burning zone idea actually worked we could get extremely lean by simply sitting still. Guess again. That doesn’t work, does it.

Confused, let’s use a mathematical example.

Lets assume that we have two identical exercisers who are going to exercise for twenty minutes. Exerciser one is doing a slow walk to stay “in the fat burning zone”. Exerciser two is going to run hard for twenty minutes. To keep the example simple we will assume that exerciser one will derive forty percent of his or her calories from fat. Exerciser two will move out of the fat burning zone and only derive 20 percent of his or her calories from fat.

Exerciser one will walk at 3 miles per hour and will cover one mile in twenty minutes. This will result in a caloric expenditure of 100 calories with 40 calories coming from fat.

Exerciser two will run at 7.5 miles per hour and will cover 2.5 miles in twenty minutes. This will result in a caloric expenditure of  250 calories with 50 calories coming from fat.

Hmm, seems interesting. The exerciser in the “fat burning zone” burned less calories and less calories from fat in the same amount of time? The exerciser working harder and leaving the fat burning zone burned 2.5 times as many calories and, 10 more calories from fat.

I rest my case. Figures lie and liars figure. Stop worrying about burning fat and start worrying about working harder

PS- If you read Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat you might reconsider all of this. If you want to get leaner exercise is not the route. There are lots of reasons to exercise but fat loss is 90% diet. In either case working harder still beats working longer.

 

12 Comments »

Tone? Is That a Scientific Term?

Posted in Fat Loss, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Training, Training Females, Youth Training on February 22, 2011 by mboyle1959

Today’s subject is tone. How often do we hear someone say, “I don’t want to get too big, I just want to tone up”?

When I hear this, I want to laugh hysterically. It would be the nutritional equivalent of hearing someone say, “I don’t like apples so I’m going to just turn this apple into an orange”.

Just for starters, tone is not a scientific word. It is a sales gimmick. In my mind, any time a fitness professional uses the word tone, I can only hope that they are saying it to market to an uninformed consumer. If fitness professionals or consumers believe they can “tone up”, they are sadly mistaken.

Let’s get right to the truth. No one, I repeat no one, should ever worry about getting too big. The reality is that the hardest thing to do as a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach is to get someone to gain muscle mass. Strength is easy, muscle mass is much more difficult. If we acknowledge that the fear of “getting too big” is irrational and probably impossible, it is much easier to move on with the real process of training.

Getting too big should be put to rest with other foolish statements. For example, imagine a client telling you:

“I’m not going to concentrate on nutrition. I’m concerned I’ll get too lean.”

“I’m not going to exercise regularly, I’m afraid that I’ll develop too much consistency.”

“I’m not going to do any cardiovascular work; I don’t really want to live past 50 anyway.”

All of these statements are as foolish and inane as “I don’t want to lift heavy weights, I don’t want to get too big”. We need to stop perpetuating this fraud of “too big”. The “too big’ thing is a result of steroid-loaded athletes pictured on magazine covers. It has nothing to do with real life.

The best part of the joke is that the person who usually doesn’t want to get too big is a housewife or stay-at-home mom who has never picked up more than a ten-pound dumbbell. This takes the thought process from inane to absurd.

Do me a favor. Start telling your clients the truth. The key to improving a bad physique is simple. Hard work. Push yourself. Lose the “light weights and take a walk” thing. The reason we look like crap is that people try to convince us that gardening is exercise.

Gardening is something you do as a hobby. The only people who should just walk and lift light weights are those that can’t do anything else. Yes, something is better than nothing. But, something hard is far superior to something easy.

I read a great quote yesterday in a book called Raising a Team Player.

“When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.”

17 Comments »

Is Doing Abs a Waste of Time?

Posted in Core training, Fat Loss, Injuries, Low Back Pain, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Training, Training Females on February 15, 2011 by mboyle1959

I can’t even tell you how often I hear someone at the end of the workout say something like “I need to do more abs, I want to get a six-pack.” The truth is that passing on a six-pack is a better way to get a six-pack than six hundred sit-ups. The key to abdominal definition is the visibility of the abdominal musculature, not the strength of the muscles. You can do one million sit-ups, crunches or whatever exercise you want and it will have no effect on abdominal definition. When people ask me the best exercise for abs I tell them table push-aways. It usually takes a few minutes for them to get it. It’s not a joke, it’s the truth. If you want better abs, eat less and train more but, don’t just train your abs.

The idea of working abs to get abs is one of the oldest misconceptions in training. This goes back to the old idea of spot reduction. Spot reduction has never and will never work. The research has been done over and over and the answer is always the same. You can’t decrease the fat layer on a particular area by working that area. That means that the guys doing sit-ups to lose abdominal fat and the lady sitting on the adductor ( inner thigh) machine are both wasting their time. Good total body work is, was, and always will be the key to fat loss.

Want better abdominal definition? Finish every workout with some hard interval training instead of extra sit-ups or crunches. Interval training or what is currently called High Intensity Interval Training (abbreviated HIIT) is the real key to fat loss and the resulting definition. Interval training burns more calories than steady state aerobic training and because it is s sprint program you get a sprinters body.

Abdominal training may potentially reduce the diameter of the waistline but, will do very little to reduce bodyfat. The truth is there are lots of good reasons to do abdominal work or core training as we now like to call it. A strong core ( strong abs) is one of the keys in the prevention of  back pain. A strong core will help you look better and improve performance in a host of sports but, sit-ups or any other abdominal exercise will not reduce bodyfat.  The fact of the matter is that crunches will lead to back pain long before they lead to visual abs.

Another good tip. Don’t do crunches. A good abdominal or core program is a lot more than crunches. Most of your core work should be isometric exercises like front planks and side planks or carries like Suitcase carries. . One of the major functions of the core musculature is the prevention of motion. What does that mean? It means that the abdominals are great stabilizers. Work on the stability function, not on flexion and extension.

 

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Dining Out or Assisted Suicide?

Posted in Fat Loss, Nutrition, Random Thoughts on January 31, 2011 by mboyle1959

I love to go out to eat. I probably should stop talking about nutrition. I love beer. However I am beginning to think that the restaurant industry is like Dr. Kevorkian. The stuff they try to get you to eat is crazy. I know I blogged about the book  The End of Overeating-Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite  here. Take a minute to go back and view the post if you have a chance but, make no mistake about it. A lot of restaurants are trying to slowly kill you.

I think one of the major problems we face is the profit motive of the big food and restaurant companies. Eating well is not good for the economy. It’s too bad someone can’t make the connection between the purchasing side of the economy ( food and alcohol) and the healthcare costs in terms of diseases related to diet and lack of exercise. We have developed a perfect system for big businesses like food sales, health care and drug companies. The food companies spend millions to get us to eat poorly and make millions as a result. Healthcare costs are staggering because our diet stinks. Drug companies make billions developing pills that primarily make symptoms disappear. It’s the perfect financial storm. Everybody is unhealthy and the big businesses are making billions.

Sad but true, there is too little money in health and lots of money in destroying it.

11 Comments »

The Best Exercise for Weight Loss

Posted in Fat Loss, Nutrition, Training, Training Females on January 28, 2011 by mboyle1959

The following was actually written in 2006 for www.coreperformance.com . It is reprinted with the author’s ( my ) permission

The Best Exercise for Weight Loss

I tried to make a little joke on an internet forum the other day. A question was posed as follows. “What is the best exercise for weight loss?”. I posted what I thought was a humorous answer. I answered that the best exercise for weight loss in my mind is called a table pushaway. Surprisingly enough, the next post on the forum was “Does anyone know how to do a table pushaway?”. I guess most people don’t get my sense of humor. What I was trying to get people to understand was that the simplest way to lose weight was to simply push away from the table. This act alone will do more for weight loss than both running and weight training put together. Bottom line. Most people eat too much. On top of that they eat at the wrong times and they eat the wrong foods. It is really simple. Change your behavior. Eat less food and eat more often. Sounds contradictory but, it’s not. We need to eat less and spread less out across more meals. Now I’m not a nutritionist but, I know a lot about human nature.

I can tell you a few things about weight loss or more accurately how people fail at losing weight

#1- No breakfast. Mom was right. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Here’s my favorite cop out. “I don’t have time to eat breakfast”. Translation. I’m lazy and can’t get out of bed the fifteen minutes earlier that it would take to throw together some kind of breakfast. The second cop out is “I don’t really like breakfast food”. Fine get up and eat lunch. I could care less. Just have a meal with protein within fifteen minutes after waking. I could care less if you want a ham sandwich or a salad with tuna fish. Eat something.

#2 – Coffee is not food. Coffee with some type of carbohydrate is not breakfast. Coffee and a bagel is zero for two. The bright side as my friend Mark Verstegen says is something is better than nothing.

3#- No protein. Everyone yaps about how bad high protein diets are for you. First off this is a fallacy. Second, most peoples’ protein intake is so low it doesn’t matter. Try to eat more lean protein. Have ham and eggs for breakfast. It’s good for you. No kidding. Canadian bacon and eggs might be better. On a 2000 calories diet following a 40-30-30 plan you would need 600 calories from protein. That’s 125 gms per day. By most peoples estimate that’s a lot of protein. Very few who don’t take supplements can get 125 gms. Of protein a day.

The bottom line ( there’s a joke in there somewhere). Table pushaways. Eat less. Eat more protein. Eat less carbs. One thing I have realized is that for years we ate high carb-low fat and got fatter. That’s because as usual we didn’t listen. Anyway, high carb really meant more fruits and vegetables, not more bread, cereal and pasta. The proper diet is one that avoids breads, cereals and pasta like the plague. Skip the sandwich and just stuff a handful of turkey in your mouth.

8 Comments »

More Scary Stuff From Dr. Mercola

Posted in Nutrition, Random Thoughts on January 18, 2011 by mboyle1959

I know many of the more serious nutritionists who read these posts think of Dr. Mercola as a salesman and a sensationalist but I think he is also one of the few guys really willing to speak and publish the truth. This expose on the criminal behavior of drug companies is just plain scary. Take a second and read it. You will be shocked.

1 Comment »

Genetically Modified Food

Posted in Nutrition, Random Thoughts with tags , , on January 12, 2011 by mboyle1959

I’d love to hear some opinions from readers who have strong nutrition backgrounds. As many of our readers know I am a big fan of Dr. Mercola. He seems to be a lone sane voice in the insane world of food. Is he right about genetically modified foods or is he slanting the research? Read this and let me know what you think. It scares the heck out of me.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/01/12/wikileaks-reveals-us-sought-to-retaliate-against-europe-over-monsanto-gm-crops.aspx

 

7 Comments »

Children of the Corn

Posted in Fat Loss, Media, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Training, Uncategorized, Youth Training on January 7, 2011 by mboyle1959

Children of the Corn was a 1984 horror movie based on a Stephen King short story originally published in Penthouse Magazine, of all places. However, the real horror story is in the American Diet and how it is creating a new generation of Children of the Corn. Instead of children killing adults as in the King story the roles are reversed.

The truth is we are slowly killing our own children. Fast food, soda, chips and a distinct lack of activity has produced the most obese, least fit generation in history. I know the corn people say it is not their fault and that high fructose corn syrup is just sugar but, something remains drastically wrong. And don’t blame inactivity. Every fitness expert in the world will tell you you can’t out work a bad diet. Whether corn is the culprit or not, high fructose corn syrup and corn are the number one calorie providers in the American diet. If you want to keep your kids healthy a simple thing to do is avoid any item that has high fructose corn syrup in it. Whether high fructose corn syrup is inherently more dangerous than sugar is not the point. The point is that it is a cheap source of calories used in the food industry to save money. Remember a few things. Corn is a grain, not a vegetable and, it can now also run your car? Do you really want most of your calories coming from something that can also be a substitute for gasoline?

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Why You Can’t Lose Weight- Brandon Alleman

Posted in Fat Loss, Guest Authors, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Training Females on November 29, 2010 by mboyle1959

This post was written by Brandon Alleman on Saturday, November 13, 2010 and is reprinted with permission.

 

Why You Can’t Lose Weight

In response to e-mails requesting it, here are my Top Roadblocks to effective weight loss: 

1. Poor relationship with food.
It does not matter what you are eating or when you eat it, if you have a poor relationship with food, you are not likely to be able to lose those extra pounds. Get in touch with your Self and your food. Develop a healthy relationship with food first, then worry about the rest of this list!

2. Poor nutrition.
You will never out-train bad nutrition! Stop cutting calories, stop skipping meals, stop eating processed foods, and seek the services of someone, like yours truly, who can coach you on how to determine how you should be eating. Basically, stop eating C.R.A.P. Yes, that is actually an acronym (courtesy of Dr. Sherri Rogers) which stands for C = caffeine, cola, and corn. I actually added corn to the C list. In my experience, a large percentage of people are intolerant to corn when tested accurately with blood tests. Corn is universally contaminated in the U.S. and is almost completely genetically modified at this point and is nutritionally bankrupt. It is also the most highly subsidized crop in the world. You can find corn in batteries and diapers – yes, I am serious. How ridiculous is that?! R = Refined food and white rice; A = additives and alcohol; and P = processed foods and pasteurized dairy. All of these foods will serve to make you fatter and I do not care how much exercise or cardio you do – you cannot out train bad nutrition.

3. Wrong exercise.
Many people are over exposing themselves to cardiovascular exercise and are simply overtraining. Remember, “work out” means that you have to expend energy to get the job done. If you are already running on empty, working “out” will only serve as an additional energy drain on the system.

4. You are doing way too much cardio.
I have a previous post on the detrimental aspects of traditional cardiovascular training. An over reliance on traditional cardiovascular exercise will actually create a hormonal environment that is not conducive to building muscle and/or losing fat. You can read my post on the detrimental aspects of cardio here http://conscioushealthandperformance.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-cardio-sucks.html

5. You are cutting calories or skipping meals.
Consider this when using calorie cutting to achieve your weight loss goals: Within 24 hours of going on a low calorie diet, which is defined as eating less than 2000 calories per day (according to the World Health Organization), you immediately deplete your brain chemistry and have been shown to increase fat storing (lipogenic) enzymes in the body. This is particularly important for females who already have 3 times the amount of fat storing (lipolytic) enzymes as fat burning ones. Any changes in brain chemistry will lead to cravings, usually for sugary food items. Low calorie dieting is especially damaging for anyone with a history of depression, anxiety, eating disorders or alcoholism. Remember, all of this occurs after a single day. In many cases I can run Functional Lab assessments to determine how nutritionally depleted my clients are. Anyone with a history of chronic yo-yo dieting, calorie restriction, or long-term use of most medications is likely to have severe nutritional deficiencies.

6. Poor attitude and/or stinkin’ thinkin’.
You must have a positive frame of mind when making nutritional and lifestyle modifications if they are to be part of a lasting change. If you start a new exercise or nutritional program with a poor attitude and thoughts of what you are giving up or losing by making the necessary changes, you are doomed from the start.

7. Lack of Quiet Time.
Quiet time is necessary for introspection so that you can get very clear about what you want and why you want it. No quiet time means you have no time for introspection, which means all you are doing day in and day out is pouring yourself out. This will lead you to being very fatigued. I recommend sitting quietly in a dark room (alone) and just breathe and be a witness to your thoughts for at least 20-30 minutes per day!

8. Adrenal fatigue.
The adrenals are linked to the function of nearly every major physiological system in the body. If they are wiped out due to chronic stress of any kind, you will have a hard time losing weight despite even the best nutritional and exercise efforts.

9. Thyroid Dysfunction.
The thyroid is a key regulator of metabolism. When dysfunctional, this gland will serve as a major roadblock to weight loss success. The function of the gland is also related to the function of the adrenals.

10. Hormonal Imbalances.
Forget about losing weight in the presence of hormonal issues. It simply will not happen.

11. Poor Detoxification Capacity.
The body stores toxins in fat. If you have a history of eating the Standard American Diet (loaded with toxins), your detoxification system is likely overloaded. With that, you are likely to not have the nutrition on board to run the primary and secondary detoxification pathways efficiently. When this is the case, the body will not allow you to burn fat to prevent the further overloading the detoxification system. This is obviously not good for your fat loss goals.

12. Poor Sleep.
The body handles its physical and neurogenic/psychogenic repair during the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Poor and disrupted sleep can lead to issues in virtually any physiological system in the body. Poor sleep can also lead to over consumption of carbohydrates, stimulant (caffeine, sugar, etc.) cravings, fatigue, and poor mood to name a few. These will all sabotage your weight loss efforts.

13. You have no purpose.
It has been my observation that those individuals who view their life as connected to the world as a whole and view their life as one with meaning and purpose have a much easier time losing weight when given the correct advice for accomplishing that task. If you do not have a clearly defined purpose for the use of your life’s energy, you will be dealing with chronic stress everyday -even if you think you are not! That stressor can easily sabotage weight loss efforts.

14. You make poor choices.
Many people simply do not know the proper nutrition and lifestyle choices to make when it comes to trying to lose those extra pounds. They may have no real issues in the above-mentioned areas, but they simply make lousy choices on a daily basis and no one has taught them how to make better ones. You can often find these people running from place to place, doctor to doctor, and on and on – trying to figure out what is “wrong” with them. The only thing wrong is that they have made a series of rotten choices and need to learn to make different ones. Remember, the definition of insanity according to our good friend Alert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Well, there you have them (in no particular order I might add). My top reasons you are not losing weight. I look forward to your comments, e-mails, and posts.

Love and Chi,
Brandon Alleman, CHEK 3, HHP

13 Comments »

Dr Mercola Discusses Cancers Favorite Food

Posted in Guest Authors, Nutrition, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized on November 7, 2010 by mboyle1959

If you are a regular reader you know I am a big fan of Dr. Joseph Mercola. Do I think he is a ittle crazy, yes. Do I think he sells too hard, yes. However, do I think his heart and head are in the right place, definitely yes. Dr. Mercola is like a lone voice screaming in the food wilderness. Take a few minutes and read about cancers favorite food.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/27/warning–fructose-feeds-cancer-cells.aspx

3 Comments »

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