Monthly Archives: March 2011

Physical Activity Burns Sugar More Than Fat

You hear and read a lot about how good it is for diabetics to be physically active because it helps regulate blood sugar. And it does.

So, why then do so many fitness experts procliam that physical activity is good for losing body fat? Well, they think that when you run or play tennis or engage in some form of rigorous physical activity most of the energy being utilized comes from fat stores.

It doesn’t. It comes from glucose converted by your body from stored glycogen. And we don’t have a lot of it. When marathon runners “hit the wall” around mile 16-20 depending on the individual, glycogen is depleted.

This is why physical activity is so important for diabetics, especially those who do not adhere to a low sugar/carb diet.

So the next time you hear the Jillian Michaels of the world screaming at you that you need physical activity to lose fat, don’t you believe it.

Truth is, you’d have to burn through all of your glycogen stores to be bereft of glucose before much if any stored fat comes into play for fuel. I once calculated that you’d have to run at full tilt from NYC to Hartford Connecticut in order to burn one pound of body fat. I could be wrong give or take a small town or two in between, but you get the idea.

Think about that the next time you decide to plod on the treadmill for 45 minutes.

Top 10 Strength Training Books

As requested by one of my subscribers, here is my list of the top 10 books on strength training – in no particular order.

Some of my reccomendations may come as a surprise to those who view me as a pure slow rep HIT enthusiast. But the truth is that many books have little pearls of wisdom in them that can be useful in your training like this little gem (these are from my collection):

SANDOW strength

Or this one:

GRIP

This one is a real gem:

THE TRUTH

All of these books have weight training information that is both valuable and overkill.

In thinking about all this, now may be a good opportunity for me to state that I do not consider slow rep, Slow Burn, HIT training the only way to develop strength and muscle mass. It is obvious that many different methods work quite well. Some people live for the gym and need to configure routines and programs that keep them in their lair of love for hours and days on end.

Some people have an almost primal need to lift very heavy things and put them down. If you watch any of this guys videos, you can see his method of lifting has produced very good strength gains – in some cases amazing strength gains. But what you will also notice is that his methods are not what one would consider safe – certainly not as safe as possible.

To each her own.

OK. Here’s the list (the links to the books I’ve listed are Amazon affiliate links so if you click and buy it via the link, I’ll get a shekel or two):

Moment Arm Exercise by Bill DeSimone

Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
by Doug McGuff M.D.

Dinosaur Training: Lost Secrets of Strength and Development
by Brooks Kubik

Power Factor Training : A Scientific Approach to Building Lean Muscle Mass
by Pete Sisco and John Little

Science and Practice of Strength Training, Second Edition
by Vladimir Zatsiorsky

The New High Intensity Training: The Best Muscle-Building System You’ve Never Tried
by Ellington Darden

Building Strength and Stamina: New Nautilus Training for Total Fitness
by Wayne Westcott

Maximize Your Training
by Matt Bryzcki

Brawn, 3rd Edition
by Stuart McRobert

(Also Beyond Brawn is a good one too.)

These 10 books have just about everything you need to get strong and muscular. Some are overly elaborate, some a bit too sparse and simplistic.

From my experience, which at this point is not too shabby, the key elements to successful training are:

*Heavy weights (for you – not compared to others).
*Intense effort (If you can do 10 repetitions in an exercise, don’t stop at 5. Go for the gusto. Try the 11th!)
*Adequate recovery (Training too often is a definite mistake. But so too is training too infrequently.)
*Meticulous record keeping (Write down everything!)
*Nutrition (Adequate protein and fat intake.)
*Sleep (Individual total time varies but for all people, several hours of sound sleep is critical.)
*Positive attitude (“Whether you think you can or can’t, either way you’re right.” – Henry Ford)

If I’ve left out some books that are clearly great training references, I’d love to know about them!

Elimination Diet Week 2 – Feeling Strong Now

Thus far all goes well on our journey into a healed gut – a bit too well in terms of my body weight. I stepped on the scale yesterday before my Slow Burn workout and weighed in at a trim 162.5 pounds. The week before I weighed in at 167. I thought “WTF?!”

I’m not sure what is going on here exactly. The first week I went from 168 and change to about 166 and change. This loss seemed a lot to me as I don’t have a lot of fat to lose – maybe 15 pounds tops. But 4 more pounds in one week? Yowsah.

And I am eating quite a lot of food. As much or more than I was before having added coconut butter to offset the calories lost to removing all dairy (even butter – sigh). My wife Linda is down 11 pounds and perhaps more since it is that time for her this week.

Here’s what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast:
*2 tins of sardines in olive oil
(I drink some of the oil in the can adding some Euphoria oil. )
*2 tablespoons of coconut butter (93 cals per tablespoon)
*Black coffee

Snack:
*Half pound of roast beef drizzled with Euphoria OO
*2 table spoons of coconut butter

Lunch:
*2 large chicken breasts, half sweet potato all drizzled with Euphoria OO
*Can of seltzer

Then I worked out for 20 minutes.

Post workout meal:
*Half pound of smoked salmon
*1 table spoon of coconut butter

Dinner:
*1/2 pound sous vide cooked wild caught salmon drizzled with Euphoria
*Large portion of cabbage sauteed in grass-fed stock with chopped apples, garlic, shallots
*4 tablespoons of homemade green chimichurri sauce made with Euphoria (sans red pepper flakes)

Dessert:
*1 mandarin orange

Doesn’t sound like I am under-eating right?

Certain nay-saying experts I’ve talked to about this have already claimed that the weight she’s lost is mostly water (as is common when high carb eating folks lower their carb intake either by reducing calories or going low carb) but nuh-uh. She is already a low carber and you can see that she has lost a huge amount of size from her belly. I really wish I’d have had the forethought to have measured and documented this with photos.

We are a very good example of how the calories in/calories out folks are just dead wrong. As I mentioned in my first post my wife had gained nearly 30 pounds in a little under one year. This was due to contracting Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. She was not eating any more than she ever did but due to the hormonal imbalance and dysfunction of her thyroid, most of the calories she ate went to fat storage. Thank Allah that she’s a low carb, fat eating gal. Who knows how fat she’d have become if she followed the USDA food pyramid.

She feels a lot better but is still getting systemic joint pain. We thought we had this licked but apparently not. She has been very careful not to take in any gut irritants going so far as to not take certain supplements if they even have a smidge of rice flour or potato starch. But two weeks is not that long to be on an elimination diet we’re told so we’re staying the course.

Thus far it has not helped my arthritis a jot. I fear that my condition is a localized degradation, completely separate and apart from leaky gut. But again, it may be too soon to tell so…

You Put You On Meds

(Picture courtesy of Trekkyandy from Flickr.)

I often hear clients say things like “My doctor put me on Lipitor.” or “My physician put me on steroids.”

No she didn’t. YOU did.

I know – I’m being a tad harsh here, but I have to put it out there loud and clear because I’ve seen far too many clients take drugs that do considerably more harm than good. When I’ve asked them “Do you know the side effects of the meds your taking?” The answer is usually “No.” Statins are the worst offender by far.

No, I’m not a doctor and I do not pretend for a second that I know much if anything about medications. However, over the years I have read a ton of info on certain meds because I have to when a client tells me they are on a new drug. It is my responsibility to learn about the potential side effects because intense exercise can be contraindicated when on certain drugs. And let me tell you that some of the side effects are scary as all get out.

Bottom line: You put yourself on any medication you take. You must take the time and do your due diligence. You must scour the web, ask other doctors and seriously consider all of the information your homework produces before you ever put a med near your mouth.

Pretty please?

The Wisdom of Dale Carnegie

I just finished reading a very good book that uses the wisdom of Dale Carnegie as its premise called <a href="The Leader in You. I wanted to share the highlights with you all. I think these principles are the kind of things we need to remember and remind ourselves of often.

Post them on your fridge, your bathroom mirror, forehead and heart:

*Look at things from the other person’s perspective
*Offer genuine appreciation and praise
*Harness the mighty power of enthusiasm
*Respect the dignity of others
*Don’t be overly critical
*Give people a good reputation to live up to
*Keep a sense of fun and balance in your life

Wise words to live by!