Bodybuilding, Bodybuilders & Muscle Building Techniques : Spinning : 03/20/2005 - 03/26/2005 : Follow in Body Fat Information Part 2

Bodybuilding & Muscle Building Techniques

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Body Fat Information 2

Muscle: the real key to burning calories

Remember when you were a teenager and could eat everything in sight and not get fat? Somewhere in your 30's things changed. Now it seems like just looking at food can make you fat. What happened?

The main difference for most people is that they have less muscle in adulthood than they had in their late teens and early twenties. As we age there is a natural tendency to lose muscle and we also are less vigorous in our physical activity, which results in further muscle loss. This loss of muscle tissue results in a decreasing metabolic rate. Lose 5 pounds of muscle and your calories burned per 24 hours decreases by about 250 calories. While this may not sound like much, it adds up. If you continue to eat like you did when you were younger, you will gain a pound of fat in about 14 days. Over a 20 week period you will gain 10 pounds.

The key to getting rid of accumulated body fat is to get back your youthful metabolism by getting back your muscle. You have probably heard people say that "muscle has memory". Well, this is one popular saying that is actually true. With a proper exercise stimulus that dormant muscle can be reclaimed. When you get back the muscle that requires 250 calories a day to keep alive, what used to be an insidious weight-gain problem will become an insidious weight-loss technique. As you become stronger you will have a natural tendency to partake of more vigorous activities. This situation will allow you to lose weight with less attention paid to calorie counting and food selection. The more reasonable your diet can be, the greater your chance to stick with it. As you ride this spiral of success, you may be able to eat more like you did as a teenager. Putting just 5 pounds of calorie burning muscle on your body can really turn things around for you.

Proper exercise and discriminant weight loss

SuperSlow inventor Ken Hutchins was the first person to ever explain the idea of discriminant weight loss to me. He told me to picture the human body as a corporation that is run by a board of directors. He told me to assume that a body operating on a calorie deficit is like a corporation running at a budget deficit. Each of the body tissues could represent a different department within that corporation. He then presented two scenarios. In the first scenario there is a budget deficit and no department has any unusual demands. In this scenario layoffs can occur in all departments. So your body lays off some fat, some muscle, some bone and connective tissue, as well as nervous tissue . Your corporation (or body) becomes a smaller version of its former self. In the second scenario, there is a large demand placed on the muscle department. In this scenario, no layoffs can occur in the muscle department. Indeed, more muscle has to be hired on. This results in a larger layoff in the fat department. We cannot produce cutbacks in the bone or connective tissue department because we need their support because muscle is not helpful unless it is attached to strong bone by strong connective tissue. This means more fat has to be let go. We cannot lay off any nervous tissue, because our new muscle is useless unless it is innervated by new nervous tissue. This means more fat has to be let go. Under this scenario, all weight loss is shunted toward fat loss. In this scenario, your corporation (body) takes on a dramatic shape change. You have added a modest amount of shape-improving muscle and jettisoned a large amount of shape-ruining fat.

Don't put that in your mouthIt should now be evident to you that the easiest way to create the calorie deficit you need to lose bodyfat is to simply avoid putting the extra calories in your mouth in the first place. Even a very modest calorie reduction of 150 calories will result in significant fat loss over time. In the long run, the self-discipline required is much easier to produce than the effort of running on a treadmill for an hour every day (which is a losing proposition anyway). A calorie intake deficit of 500 calories a day is still fairly easy to achieve, and if you have added some muscle to your body the shape change you can produce in 6-12 weeks can be amazing. Initially, you may have to be very compulsive about counting calories, but within a few weeks you will probably learn to manage simply by controlling the portion size of the foods you eat.

Superhydration

Ellington Darden, PhD (Author and former Research Director for Nautilus Sports/Medical Industries) came up with this concept. The food calories that you count are actually Kilocalories or Calories. A Calorie is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a liter of water by one degree celsius. The calories that you count are actually just units of heat-energy.

Dr. Darden developed a program of drinking large volumes of ice-cold water throughout the day. The ice water that goes into your system has to be warmed to body temperature. Thus a liter of water at 1 degree celsius that ultimate leaves your body at 37 degrees celsius and thus requires 36 calories of heat energy. If you manage to consume 5 liters of water per day this results in roughly 180 extra calories burned.

According to Dr. Darden, superhydration helps fat loss in another way. If you are well hydrated most of your body's waste products can be eliminated through the kidneys. When you are underhydrated much of this burden is assumed by the liver. One of the liver's main functions is the processing of stored bodyfat for use as energy. If your liver is occupied processing waste products it is less efficient at mobilizing bodyfat. Superhydration not only burns calories, it allows your liver to be more efficient at mobilizing fat off of your body.

Plenty of Sleep

Dr. Darden also discovered that plenty of sleep was essential to fat loss. In his research he noted that subjects who were sleep deprived did not lose fat as easily as those who were well rested. It seems that calorie restriction is fairly stressful to the body and any further stressors can result in a protective slowing of the metabolism. My own theory is that a calorie restriction sends a biological signal of starvation and decreased sleep sends a signal that the organism is having to stay up to search for food, or it has to be vigilant because its environment is unsafe. These are probably powerful biological signals that cause a protective slowing of the metabolism.

Simple Dietary Guidelines and Recommended Diets

There are literally thousands of diet books out there. Many of these books make extraordinary claims or involve complex regimines that cannot be carried out long term. By far the best diet books written are those by Ellington Darden, PhD. His books are no-nonsense and have precise regimines that are easy to follow. Most importantly, his diets easily adapt into lifelong eating habits that will keep you lean. Some of Dr. Darden's best books include Soft Steps to a Hard Body, Living Longer Stronger, and A Flat Stomach A.S.A.P. Protein Power by Dr's. Michael and Mary Dan Eades is well written and makes a compelling argument for control of carbohydrate intake. Many of my clients have found that producing a calorie deficit on this program is easier for them than many other diets. The bottom line is that you will need to devise a system of reducing calorie intake that seems to work for you.

My own dietary guidelines for people are actually quite simple. It involves looking at your hand. You have five fingers that represent five meals to eat in a day (3 meals and 2 snacks). The serving size of any food you choose should be either the size of your palm or able to fit in the palm of your hand. Meals can have 4 servings from any categorie of food. Snacks have 2 servings. Your five fingers also represent the 5 liters of water you should drink over the course of the day. If you follow these guidelines you will limit your portion sizes so that you should be able to produce weight loss without excessive attention to detail. If you want a more detailed way of portioning your intake, I also suggest the "Food Mover" sold by Richard Simmons on his informercial (although I do not recommend his aerobics-based exercise program that comes with it).

The Bottom Line

The bottom line for fat loss is as follows:

Build some calorie burning muscle through proper exercise.
Create a modest calorie deficit through dietary restraint.
Superhydration.
Get some extra sleep.
Avoid over activity or steady-state activities that are popularly thought to "burn calories".

If you have the discipline, these simple steps will prove successful beyond your expectations. This is the second part of the article. You can read the first part Body Fat Information Part 1

posted by Frank Mori # Body Fat Information 2