Losing Weight Could Save Your Life
May 31st, 2008 by ryhan
Sounds very dramatic, doesn’t it? But it’s true, and for more reasons than you would think.
Being overweight places an enormous strain on your entire system. Every aspect of your life is affected. Most people are aware of the social discrimination being overweight causesevery now and then some narrow-minded fitness fanatic appears on talk show television, and accuses people who are overweight of being greedy and lazy, with mixed responses from both host and audience. Most people are outraged by such faulty preconceptions, and with good reason. They know what statements like these can do to someone’s self esteem.
Unfortunately, these are not the only problems facing people who are overweight. There are many physical complications that result form carrying excess weight around. Aching backs, and arthritic knees are examples of the so-called mechanical side effects of being overweight. And so is sleep apnoea, an alarming condition for partners, where the person affected stops breathing while they are sleeping, due to the relaxed tissues in the neck pressing on the airway, cutting off air flow to the lungs. As a result of this, sleep is disturbed, both for the person with sleep apnoea, and for their partner, who often spends wakeful nights elbowing them in the ribs to get them to breathe again. In the short term, this can lead to overweight people being tired, grumpy and bruised in the morning. Other effects include morning headaches, loud snoring and poor sexual functioning. But the long-term effects are far more dangerous. Sleep apnoea is associated with death due to heart disease, and half of all people who suffer from sleep apnoea have high blood pressure.
Which brings us to the most important issue regarding health and excess weight : insulin resistance. Most people are aware that being significantly overweight is a risk factor for heart disease and sudden death, but few seem to know that insulin resistance is responsible for most of this risk. Insulin resistance is an exceptionally common condition, affecting at least one in four people, and is the cause of Metabolic Syndrome, Type 2 Diabetes and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It is associated with high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, high blood glucose, clotting tendencies, and inflammation within the blood vessels, all of which contribute to an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks. And more than half of all people who are significantly overweight have insulin resistance.
Which is why conventional diets and diet pills seldom work. Insulin resistance makes it almost impossible to lose weight on low calorie, low fat diets, and yet doctors and other healthcare workers continue to prescribe these diets, with the underlying message being “EAT LESS!” This lack of insight is responsible for so many failed diets, as well as the loss of self-esteem and feelings of hopelessness that these failures cause. People with insulin resistance should not be eating less food, but rather eating different types of food!
Aside from these more common health risks are a number of rarer, but even more unpleasant conditions that can result from being overweight. These include various cancers, such as those of the breast and ovaries in women, the prostate in men, as well as the colon, oesophagus, liver, gallbladder and pancreas.
As you can see, being overweight can have terrible consequences for both your psychological, as well as your physical health. But it is not all bad news. Weight loss is an attainable goal, and is something that will decrease your risk of getting any of these conditions. As far as preventative medicine is concerned, weight loss is one of the few measures that really can save your life.
Dr Guin Van Niekerk is the author of “Why Fat Sticks : An Introduction to Insulin Resistance” For more information on insulin resistance, go to www.insulinresistancesite.com.
Dr. Guin Van Niekerk qualified as a medical doctor at the University of Cape Town in 1997. It was while working a few years later as a general practitioner that she developed a strong interest in insulin resistance and its associated conditions. She subsequently ran a small metabolic syndrome clinic for her patients and discovered that the concept of insulin resistance was largely unknown to the public. This led to her decision to write the book, Why Fat Sticks. She resides in Oxfordshire.
Tags: diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, weight lossMaximize Results with a Perfect Workout
May 30th, 2008 by ryhan
When it comes to exercise, routine is your enemy. Your body should constantly be forced to guess what crazy new workouts you decide to put yourself through. This practice inhibits your muscles and physiological systems from gradually adapting to the demands you place on them. While some training programs address this adaptation by completely changing the workout program’s set, rep, and exercise routine every 4-8 weeks, I’d like to explain a less common idea: changing the daily intensity. For the purposes of this article, I will be incorporating three different intensities - high, medium, and low. With a routine like this, you won’t have to worry about switching your workout mode every few weeks, as long as you constantly plug and play new exercises.
Think of your body as a car’s engine. Low intensity would involve idling at a stoplight. Your primary fuel is fat, and your actual caloric expenditure is low. There is still a good amount of blood flow to exercising muscles, but the actual cardiovascular stress and fiber tearing in the muscle is minimal. You are not breathing hard, conversation with your fellow gym-goers is fairly non-stressful, and muscles really don’t burn all that much. Such an intensity is great for a recovery workout, or for a strength/power workout with long rests between sets. You could potentially go for several hours at this intensity and still be able to do another workout the next day.
You’re cruising down the highway when in medium-intensity mode. Breathing and heart rate become a bit more rapid, you can feel a burn in the working muscles, and the primary fuel is a mixture of fat and carbohydrate. Mental focus is typically a little higher than low-intensity mode, and the workout itself is challenging, but not daunting. You can usually exercise the next day, but typically want to avoid stressign the same muscle groups.
In high-intensity mode, you are working at a 100%, all-out effort. Muscles are constantly burning, breathing and heart rate are very high, carbohydrate is the main fuel source, and caloric expenditure is through the roof (as is your post-workout metabolism). The entire body is tired after this type of workout and you generally need about 24 hours of rest of very easy work afterwards. Many times, it can be difficult to mentally force yourself to *begin* one of these kind of workouts, although once you launch into and the adrenaline kicks in, energy levels naturally rise.
The key to the sample training program outlined below that the low, medium and high intensities are stacked so that your body optimally responds and optimally recovers from each workout. So here is a sample daily-intensity based workout for a fairly frequent 6 day work-out routine.
Day 1 (i.e. Monday): high-intensity cardio intervals (shorter, i.e. 20 minutes) with high-intensity full body resistance training (longer, i.e. 45 minutes), incorporating back-to-back sets, challenging weights, difficult training scenarios, and short rest periods.
Day 2: low-intensity cardio, long and steady (i.e. 45 minutes+), with no lifting. Good day for an outdoor workout, like a hike or easy bike ride.
Day 3: high-intensity cardio intervals with medium-intensity full body lift, incorporating primarily body weight training. Great day to experiment and try new exercises and/or group exercise classes.
Day 4: low-intensity cardio, long and steady (i.e. 45 minutes+), with no lifting.
Day 5: medium-intensity cardio (shorter, i.e. 20 minutes) with low-intensity lifting (longer, i.e. 45 minutes),. For the lifting, incorporate heavier weights with longer rest periods, and focus on slow and controlled movements with perfect form and little to no ballistic activity.
Day 6: high-intensity cardio (longer, i.e. 45 minutes) with high-intensity full body resistance training (shorter, i.e. 20 minutes). Great day to try the Weekly Trainer Challenge, plus some extra cardio.
Day 7: active rest. Does not equal couch+bon-bons. Get up and move around, but just don’t stress your body too much.
There you have it. This type of exercise routine allows for sufficient recovery after the high-intensitiy periods, while still allowing for maximum caloric burning and efficient workouts. There are many different ways you could approach such a routine (in terms of exercises, specific cardio intervals, etc.). Just let me know if I can help you put a training plan together…you can e-mail me at elite@pacificfit.net.
Head trainer Ben Greenfield runs the online training website Pacific Elite Fitness, and holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Sport Science and Exercise Physiology, as well as certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a Personal Trainer and Strength and Conditioning Coach (NSCA-CPT & CSCS). For over 6 years, Ben has coached and trained professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes, and helped hundreds of individuals achieve their personal fitness goals. For more information on online personal training and fitness, contact Ben at elite@pacificfit.net.
www.pacificfit.net
What Are You Eating
May 27th, 2008 by ryhan
What are you eating? High fattening foods (even only once a day) can destroy any weight loss that may have occurred during your low fat eating. Fast foods, fried foods, foods and sodas high in sugar are detrimental to weight loss- Avoid them! Even if you only eat these kinds of foods once a day, they can really hinder weight loss efforts. Try to eat well-balanced meals with protein, carbohydrates and a small amount of fats. One good example would be: 1) Protein- a chicken breast or fillet of fish, 2) Carbohydrates/Fat- a small salad with vinegar and olive oil (the oil will be your fat for the meal) 3) Carbohydrates- a small baked potato or a serving of rice (either should be plain- no butter!).Meal Replacement Powders (MRP) such as Met-Rx, MyoPlex, Atkins Shakes, Balance 40-30-30, Ultramet or Complete Protein Diet are excellent fast meals, or snacks, that are effective when added to your eating plan. (All of which are carried by MaxLabs). MRP’s are an excellent way to get a high protein, low calorie meal into your diet once or twice a day. This will keep you from eating fattening foods that hinder weight loss. (Plus these products yield many vitamins and minerals).
I eat low fat foods at the restaurants I visit. Why is this bad? An example of how normal food is bad, bad, bad!
You proceed to your favorite restaurant for: a salad with dressing, no fat pasta with sauce, a cola, and some bread! First, the dressing from the salad is usually 100% fat so there is 15 grams of fat. Second, the pasta is easily stored as fat because it is a starchy carbohydrate. (Starchy carbohydrates are easily stored as fat unless you are on a serious exercise program). Should we mention the sauce that was on the pasta (mostly fat as well- lets store that on the hips!)? The bread well, you guessed it, high-glycemic foods such as this are hard to burn off too! That cola you drank (depending on the size) had anywhere from 40 grams to 100 grams of sugar (which almost always turns to fat if not burned off with exercise). Did you have refills? CONCLUSION: You can see how what most people view as eating low fat, can be detrimental to a diet!
When are you eating? Do you eat more at night or during the day? If you eat at night right before bed, you have a greater tendency to store that food as fat! Try to eat your biggest meal at breakfast, a medium meal at lunch and a light dinner. Drink MRP’s in between meals or as meals by themselves. Try not to eat within 3 hours of the time you go to bed. The metabolic process slows down drastically when we rest. If there is food in our stomach that has not been fully digested by the time we go to bed, there is a strong possibility that food will be stored as fat!This means that all the hard work you did during the day may be negated by storage of fat at night!
Are you skipping meals?If you skip any meals, you have a great chance of storing your next meal as fat. People who do not eat very often, “train” their bodies to believe it will not be eating for a while. Therefore, the body stores everything we give it for its future energy needs. In other words, the body stores much of what we eat as- .you guessed it, FAT! Do not put your body in a “starvation mode”; eat 3-5 very small (almost snacking) meals a day! This will boost your metabolism and allow your body to better burn off the things you eat.
Here is an example:
You get up in the morning get ready for work and rush out the door without eating breakfast. A hectic day leads to a late lunch at 12:30. You eat what you believe is a low fat, well-balanced meal. Now think about this, you have not eaten anything for around 18 hours (since dinner the night before). 18 hours, that’s huge! And, believe me, your body knows this! So when you do eat, even if you do eat low fat, your body is going to store everything you eat, because you have trained it to know that there is a strong possibility it will not be refueled again for another 18 hours.
Another thing to consider is that our bodies can only digest so much food at a time. Consider this: person A is eating 1500 calories a day and person B is also eating 1500 calories a day. Both person A and person B have the approximately the same body structures and chemical make-up. Person A eats 5 meals consisting of 300 calories per meal and person B eats 3 meals at 500 calories per meal. Person B puts a lot of stress on his body because his body has a hard time digesting 500 calories at a time while person A’s body has no problem digesting 300 calories at a time. For this reason, person B can’t lose weight while person A does lose weight by eating the exact same amount of
calories. The reason for this is person B usually stores a little of each meal as fat because his body just can’t handle digesting 500 calories at a time.[500 & 300 calories were just examples used for simplicity]
Are you exercising? This obviously has a great impact on weight loss. The more you exercise, the greater your metabolism is boosted! Also, what type of exercise are you doing? The best is to get 3 days of aerobic-type exercise (30-45 minutes per session) and then to get 3 days of weight lifting. Most women (and some men) do not want to lift weights because they don’t want to look big and bulky. But getting big is very, very tough to do. With exercise, most people will end up just looking lean (this is good). The bottom line is that weight lifting is one of the absolute best ways to boost your metabolism and get your body to burn calories. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE! Plus, the more muscle you add to your body, the more calories you burn just sitting still. This is because one pound of muscle burns more calories than one pound of fat.
Are you drinking lots of water? This aspect of weight loss is often under-looked. Drinking water is very, very important to weight loss. Many people are under the impressions that they “retain water” and this is the reason they are overweight. RUBBISH! Water is a major contributing factor in aiding the weight loss battle. Drinking plenty of water is a vital component for weight loss.
How much weight are you trying to lose? The less weight you are trying to lose, the harder it may be. For example, if you are only trying to lose 5-15 pounds, every little thing you do will matter more to you than to someone who is trying to lose 50-100 pounds. As we get closer and closer to our ‘ideal’ weight, our body tries very hard to hold on to those pounds. Now this doesn’t mean we should take it easy if 50-100 pounds is your weight loss goal. It just means that usually the last pounds are harder to bring off than the first ones.
These are just a few of the topics you should look into, and obviously, these things vary from individual to individual. I also recommend for you to get a good multi-vitamin or antioxidant. The healthier your body is, the more efficiently it will get rid of those excess pounds. Also, educate yourself. There are about 10-15 very good health/fitness magazines out there to keep you well informed about fat loss, burning of calories, exercise programs and descriptions of what/when/why to eat.So learn, learn, learn, and as you build your knowledge base you will begin listening to your body and watching for signs that tell you “This works” or “This does not work”.
Many people have a hard time losing weight, and this too is natural. It is the natural tendency of your body to hold on to extra calories and fat for future energy use. You have to shock it into losing. Thermogenic products like Max Ten, Max Fifty or Max Sports Fuel help significantly, but sometimes it takes that extra effort (the extra mile, the extra workout, one less soda a day) to get yourself moving in the right direction.
Loren Bailey is the webmaster and content advisor for MaxLabs.com, HighFiberFoods.net and other health related web sites.
Tags: carbohydrates, diet plan, eating healthy, high fat foods, weight loss