Can Exercise Actually Make You Gain Fat?

What really ticks me off is when journalists who can’t come up with creative, helpful content, just write crap in order to make headlines!

Take John Cloud from Time Magazine. In his Aug 9^th column, he writes an article entitled “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin”.

HELLO MR. CLOUD: MY JOB IS HARD ENOUGH WITHOUT YOU DOING YOUR BEST TO MAKE IT HARDER!!!!!

Sorry folks, but this is going to be a bit of a rant!

In his article, Mr. Cloud writes about how he’s been exercising for a few years now and can’t seem to get rid of his gut. He quotes a number of studies that are all “true”, but mean nothing in the big picture context.

Mr. Cloud tells his readers how the country now spends more money on trainers and gym memberships than ever before, but still manages to show increasing rates of obesity. He also finishes the article saying how tomorrow he may skip his workout and his post-workout blueberry bar because there is some research showing that as a survival mechanism, when we expend large amounts of energy during intense exercise, hunger signals from our brain are increased.

There’s also a survival mechanism that says if you don’t look both ways before crossing the street you might get smoked by a truck. I wonder if Mr. Cloud would suggest we all stay home and not ever leave our homes anymore to avoid being run over.

YES, Mr. Cloud is correct, when you exercise harder you get hungrier. Makes sense doesn’t it? We are designed by nature to survive, not get lean and ripped. And by the way Mr. Cloud have you actually looked on the wrapper of your (Kellogg’s) Blueberry Bar? There’s about 270 calories, maybe 5g of protein, 45g of carbs, and 7g fat. If you eat this after your exercise, you’ll definitely replace the energy you just burned off.

There is a huge problem with Mr. Cloud’s article as a whole. It is basically telling the reader that they are powerless in their weight loss pursuits. That if you exercise harder you might actually gain weight, because you wont’ be able to help yourself .

Here are two quotes from Mr. Cloud’s article. In the first quote, he is speaking in the first person. In the second, he is quoting the journal Psychological Bulletin:

“What's going on here? Church calls it compensation, but you and I (Mr. Cloud) might know it as the lip-licking anticipation of perfectly salted, golden-brown French fries after a hard trip to the gym.”

“If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza.”

Excuse me for a second… are you freakin’ kidding me?

I HAVE NEVER, EVER OPTED FOR PIZZA OR FRENCH FRIES AFTER LEAVING THE GYM WHEN MY GOALS HAVE BEEN FAT LOSS.

Seriously folks… if you’re trying to lose body fat, and you exercise hard and then go eat a bunch of crap… then you’re just plain hilarious. Clearly, you have either no idea, in which case now you do… or you just don’t really care if you lose any weight.

You can look all you want for examples of people who exercise and don’t lose weight and you can use it as your excuse to not exercise, but all the people I know who are serious about losing body fat, and who are actually making progress are busting their butts at the gym and it shows!

Maybe the editor of Time Magazine Online should make sure that with such a serious obesity problem as the country faces, that any articles they publish empower people to take action instead of just giving them another excuse to do nothing.

No matter how you look at it, this article by John Cloud gets a serious thumbs down from me!

Anybody else agree with me? Please leave your comments below!

:)

Shane Miller, CPT, CSN

Your Strength and Fat Loss Coach

www.your-beach-body-boot-camp.com

www.your-strength-and-fat-loss-coach.com




Day 7 Review of Your Beach Body Boot Camp

Keeping it short, we're back with guest blogger Katy Sinha's Day 7 review of
www.your-beach-body-boot-camp.com

Enjoy!


Hey everyone,

WHOA! Day 7 boot camp just picked up a notch. Ten minutes into the sessions, I was so winded and leg muscles feeling like spaghetti that I started thinking I'd have to sit out for one drill. I think it was the back-to-back "battling ropes of death" and then the long jump. I was fooled thinking "hey, the long jump! I did that in grade 3 during PARTICIPACTION.

More accurately, I should have said... I haven't done that since grade 3!

Push ups again... tough tough tough. I don't feel like I've improved yet. And THEN...bilateral "battling ropes of death" in the first session and again in the second session using one arm independent of the other. Those are deadly, ugh!

The other day in the mirror, you know what I noticed?! Shoulder, biceps, triceps, and (I think even my) butt muscles developing! I guess those pushups and sandbag cleans are working their magic.

So it's true and out in the open for us to digest. We are going to increase boot camp frequency to 3 mornings a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next four weeks. I have sorted out my child-minding and now have to get my brain used to 6:15am wake ups 3x/week.

More after Thursday's camp.

Katy


That's it for today folks, I'll be back tomorrow with an article on body weight only training that you can do at home with minimal equipment, to build both strength and increase muscle mass, as well as burn fat fast. I'll also be featuring Katy's Day 8 review of www.your-beach-body-boot-camp.com

Until then,

:)
Shane Miller, CPT, CSN
Your Strength and Fat Loss Coach
www.your-beach-body-boot-camp.com
www.your-strength-and-fat-loss-coach.com

Fat Loss Quite Possibly The Most Effective Program Ever

Do you need to lose weight fast? Have hours of boring cardio on that painful bike seat finally brought you to your senses? Are you sick of all the silly fat diets and completely ridiculous claims of the next miracle weight loss pill? Are you looking for what just may be the most effective fat loss program anywhere?

If so, you're going to love what I've got in store for you. I've put together a fat incinerating workout using completely unconventional equipment that is loads of fun to use, and I guarantee you will never work so hard and have so much fun at the same time. I developed Your Beach Body Boot Camp to help you burn more body fat faster than quite possibly any other workout ever devised.

Here’s why it is so effective:

1. Every exercise requires an all out effort. There is no medium, no low, only high! The more effort the workout requires, the more calories are needed to fuel it. Do you see where I'm going here?
   
2. Proven, and well established in the literture**, High Intensity Interval Training has been shown to be the single most effective method of rapid fat loss compared to other forms of exercise.
3. Producing a significant increase in excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), High Intensity Interval Training causes a whopping boost to your 24-hour energy expenditure. This means you burn way more calories all the time. Who doesn’t want that?
4. Group training environment promote encouragement and teamwork from your peers, which always helps you to find energy you didn't know existed.
   
5. When your fatigue level is second only to your level of excitement, hard work doesn't seem so hard. I guarantee you haven't done these exercises! After making it through your first workout at Your Beach Body Boot Camp, I can't imagine you'd ever do someone else' bootcamp.
6. Come at your own risk, your risk losing fat fast, getting in crazy shape, and loving every minute!

Here's an example of what we'll be doing...

The Battling Ropes of Death

The website is almost done, so stay tuned as we go live, ready or not, tomorrow at noon.

** Tremblay, A., J. Simoneau, and C. Bouchard. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Metabolism. 43:814-818, 1994.

Fat Loss Supplements Are Dangerous

Hydroxycut fat loss supplements are dangerous! There I've said it! I've been hesitant to outwardly state it, but now there's finally proof. The company that makes the Hydroxycut products has removed 11 products from the shelves of stores in Canada plus an additional three products not sold in Canada after 23 reports of serious liver damage and one death of a 19 year old boy after use of the Hydroxycut products in the US.

PRODUCTS RECALLED IN CANADA:

• Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
• Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets
• Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Capsules
• Hydroxycut Max Liquid Capsules
• Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets
• Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets
• Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix)
• Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets
• Hydroxycut Liquid Shots
• Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed Capsules
• Hydroxycut 24 Caplets

I get no satisfaction from saying so, but "I TOLD YOU SO!!". If you've known me for any time, you'll know that I have never promoted fat loss supplements to my clients or to anyone asking for my advice on how to lost fat.

Whatever small advantage supplements can give is largely negated by the horde of nutritional mistakes most people who seek out these products are making anyway, so to me it's a complete waste of money.

It works something like this. If you choose to continue to skip breakfast (my number one most important fat loss rule is to have a good breakfast), then you will undoubtedly make poorer food choices all day long including over-eating at dinner and in the evening. So yes, you could take some fat loss supplement like Hydroxycut that costs you $5 a day and maybe, just maybe, it might help counteract this nutritional mistake, but folks, this is a $5/day band-aid for poor eating habits. It doesn't even begin to help you actually lose fat, it's just possibly reducing how much fat you are gaining by how poor your nutritional choices are.

This is presuming that Hydroxycut or any other fat loss supplement actually works. A few years ago legislation passed that made ephedrine illegal in the U.S. Ephedrine is probably the only substance that actually has a half decent fat burning effect that in small enough doses in relatively healthy individuals won't cause any health problems. But of course, marketed to everyone, including severely obese people who have cardiac issues in the first place, ephedrine can be problematic, hence the legislation against it.

So with ephedrine largely off the market, any fat loss supplement that you're spending your money on likely doesn't do anything other than burn a hole in your pocket book. And if you haven't checked, some of these fat loss supplements like Hydroxycut are ridiculously expensive!

If you are serious about fat loss, here are some important rules that you must adhere to. If you can't manage to stick to these rules, then fat loss just isn't in your life trajectory!

1. MOVEMENT
If you aren't moving, you aren't going to lose fat PERIOD! And you don't have to spend hours on end on boring cardio machines to make it happen. But you do have to work hard enough to generate a serious sweat. Two to three 20-30 minute high intensity fat loss intervals a week is enough.

2. INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM
Strength training, whether using weights, or bodyweight exercises like pushups, chin-ups, and lunges can all help you to build muscle. Muscle uses more calories than any other tissue in your body (except the brain) so the more muscle you have the more calories you burn 24 hours a day!

3. BREAKFAST
Have a sensible breakfast that includes a protein, fat, and carbohydrates from healthy sources. For example:
2 eggs (whole... yes including the yolk!!!)
1/3 cup oats
1/2 cup milk
1/2 banana
2 tsp Udo's oil or a few walnut pieces

4. BALANCED SNACKS
Research has shown that to maintain energy levels throughout the day and to prevent overeating at main meals, having a small nutritionally balance snack, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon is the key. Snacks should consist of fruit, vegetables, and dairy products, although the limit is your imagination.

Healthy examples for mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks are:

Handful almonds
1 apple
1 oz 2% cheddar cheese

or

Handful walnuts
1/2 cup organic plain yogurt
1/3 cup blueberries

How much you eat at your snacks depends on your activity level and your bodyweight. Smaller people generally need to eat less and if you're nursing a desk all day long, then opt for vegetables instead of fruit if possible.

Example:

Chicken salad with spinach, pine nuts, tomato, and a low fat dressing

4. HEALTHY MAIN MEALS
I already covered breakfast, but the same principle applies for lunch and dinner. Start with a protein choice, add a healthy fat choice, add unlimited vegetables, and finish with appropriate carbohydrates depending on your energy requirements.

If you're going out to play hockey in the evening, then eating chicken and spinach isn't going to provide you with much energy to play. So be sure to have a serving of brown rice or sweet potato. You could even have a mixed bean salad with dinner which would provide you with enough carbohydrate energy to last you through your hockey game.

If your evening activities are limited to helping the kids with homework and making their lunches, then your dinner can skip the starchy carbs (if fat loss is your main goal) and focus solely on a variety of vegetable sources.

5. DESSERT
It seems for some that dessert is just part of the day. Some people eat dessert every single night. I think it starts as a kid, and depending on whether or not your parents gave you dessert every night, many people carry this throughout their lives.

Folks... you don't HAVE to have dessert every night! Yes, it's nice.. I enjoy it too. But if you have fat to lose, daily dessert is guaranteed to keep your bodyfat right where it is, and possibly even increase it. Think of it this way. Eating a dessert is like not doing 30 minutes of exercise. So if you want to eat a dessert each day, you'll need 30 minutes of exercise daily to counter it so that you don't gain any bodyfat. So if you actually want to lose bodyfat then you need to do even more.

It's much easier to skip the dessert 4 or 5 nights of the weekk, enjoy it the other two or three nights, get your 2-3 sessions of cardio in, and lose the bodyfat!


6. ELIMINATE LIQUID CALORIES FROM YOUR DIET
Other than milk, if you drink soft drinks or juices (sugar free or not) you can forget about losing body fat. It's just that simple. Liquid calories are one of the main causes of increased body fat. Diet soft drinks in very small quantities are ok, but if you're putting back more than one can of diet soft drinks a day, then you will also have a hard time losing body fat. Your brain recognizes the sweetness of the artificial sweeteners in these products and releases insulin in much the same way as it does in response to actual sugars! Can't trick your brain!

FAT LOSS NIGHTMARE

7. WATER
I can almost guarantee that everyone who has too much bodyfat drinks too little water. Get your water consumption up and you'll be surprised what it can do for your fat loss efforts. Starting with reducing your cravings for junk, much of the time people confuse the early signals for thirst with hunger.

One to two hours after each meal, drink 250-500ml of water and notice a reduction in cravings for junk food. It's a free, no brainer! Mess this one up.. and well.. stay as you are! Your choice!

8. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Alcoholic beverages like wine have a somewhat culturistic place in our society it seems, and some people feel like it is an afront to their righs and dignity to suggest that they shoudn't have their wine with dinner. And while for folks who are lean, and who exercise and eat a generally healthy diet, their wine consumption isn't a problem. But if you aren't doing everything else right (diet & exercise), then wine is just like dessert... extra calories!

Beer, mixed drinks, and wine all contribute to increasing calories. Don't fool yourself into justifying yourself out of getting the fat loss results you seek. Trust me, once you get rid of the body fat, you can re-introduce these pleasures with little effect, but until then... their consumption is your choice to not change your body!

I know.... I'm mean!

Well I hope this information helps give you some concrete steps you can take towards getting rid of any unwanted body fat without the use of harmful (and mostly useless) fat loss supplements!

Please remember, my job is to help you, so if there's anything I can do to help you, please comment below or send me an email at shane@spectrumfitness.ca

While I can't personally reply to every email I get, I will take all your questions and answer them in a future Frequently Asked Questions post.

Have a great week!

:)
Shane Miller, CPT, CSN

BULLDOZE YOUR FAT LOSS ROADBLOCKS

I received two emails today from a couple of my online readers and while their questions were both quite different, they were both suffering from the same fat loss roadblocks. The basic underlying problem they both have is meal structuring throughout the day. So in this article I'll go through a typical day and show you how to build each meal for optimum fat loss.

First, if you burn calories all day long, then doesn't it makes sense that your calorie intake should be spread throughout the day to ensure optimal energy levels? Surprisingly few people take advantage of this simple trick which can significantly increase your metabolic rate.

Just think about it for a moment. If you need 1800 calories each day, and you eat 90% of those calories at night when your only energy requirement following dinner is a few chores, making lunches for the kids, and then going to bed, do you really believe that your body is going to magically make all those calories disappear?

Of course not. And believe me this is going on all around us. Just take a look around, its not hard to spot an overweight person these days, and chances are they're making this huge mistake.

The problem when you go all day without eating is that you're teaching your body to conserve calories. The big caloric load that subsequently arrives with dinner is dumped onto a sluggish metabolism that has no way to use it. The result? Increased bodyfat storage.


FAT LOSS ROADBLOCK #1 - POOR CALORIE DISTRIBUTION

Your calories should be divided over your six meals prioritizing meals consumed before and after your workouts. Up to 50% of your daily calories can be consumed in these two meals providing an abundance of energy for your workout and for replenishing your muscles afterwards without risk of storing any bodyfat. After that, earlier meals should contain more calories than later meals.


FAT LOSS ROADBLOCK #2 - POOR MEAL STRUCTURING

Typically, when people are hungry they open the fridge, nothing is prepared, they seek instant gratification for their hunger and they down whatever strikes their fancy. If it's breakfast, a bowl of sugary cereal will do the trick. If it's lunch, heck, who eats lunch these days anyway!!! Well ok, if they do eat lunch then it's a quick peanut butter and jam sandwich or a quick stop at Tim Hortons or McDonalds. If it's dinner, hot dogs, hamburgers, hamburger helper, kraft dinner, all these items are fast to prepare and they very quickly satisfy your hunger, but their consumption is another fat loss roadblock.

Constructing meals should always start with your protein source, then progress to fat source, and finally end with carbohydrate source.

Here's an example of a typical North American breakfast at home:

Cereal w/milk
Juice
Bread w/jam
Fruit

All four items are carbohydrate based foods. Carbohydrate based means that the majority of the calories come from carbohydrates. The problem with this breakfast is that while it will get you going with a bang, it will also stop you like a truck shortly after.

Fast in, fast out! All night you've fasted, and your blood sugar, blood amino acids, and blood fat levels are likely at the lowest they'll be all day. So if you dump all carbohydrate based foods into your bloodstream, your insulin is going to spike like crazy and your energy will drop off just as fast as it came on.


Here's an example of a typical North American Breakfast at a restaurant:

Bacon
Eggs
Sausages
Hash browns
Toast with margarine
Juice
Coffee

IF THIS IS YOUR IDEA OF BREAKFAST THEN YOU'VE GOT SOME MAJOR FAT LOSS ROADBLOCKS TO BULLDOZE!

The solution is to ALWAYS have a mixture of protein, carbohydrate, and fat based foods maintaining a moderate caloric load. And in fact this should be the way you structure all your meals, not just your breakfast. You can modify it as needed depending on what you're doing, but as a general rule, a mixture of all three will always elicit the type of result you're seeking: lasting energy!


Always start by deciding on your protein source. And remember, a protein based food is a food that contains more protein than carbohydrates per serving. Just look at the label and it will tell you.


Here's a list of acceptable protein sources:

Eggs
Organic Yogurt (must have a higher protein than carbs... check the label!)
Cottage Cheese (2%)
Low Fat (2%) Cheese
Beef (steak... trim visible fat)
Beef (ground... choose lean or extra lean and try to drain off a bit of the fat after cooking)
Bison (both steaks and ground are very lean)
Lamb Pork (tenderloin is the best choice)
Bacon (not a great choice, but if you're going to eat it, choose Back Bacon it's lower in fat)
Salmon (Farmed or Fresh... both are low in mercury)
Tuna (Skipjack light tuna from cans... Albacore tuna has higher levels of mercury)
Protein Powders (Natural or plain flavour... use Stevia to sweeten if needed and fruit to add flavour)


Once you've picked your protein source, then you look for your fat source. If you're having eggs, you don't need an additional fat source. Often is the case for higher fat meats too.


Here's some great fat sources:

Flax seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Sunflower seeds
Hemp seeds
Almonds
Pecans
Walnuts
Hazelnuts
Udo's oil


And finally, when you've made it this far, select a carbohydrate source:


Great carb sources:

Oats
Quinoa
Bulgur
Spelt
Brown rice
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Fruit
Vegetables


There are too many veggies and fruit to list them all, but try combining different veggies when you eat them. Veggies generally don't give you many calories compared to fruit or other carbohydrate sources, so typically you choose your carbohydrate sources based on your energy requirements for the following three hours.


Obviously if you're going to be sitting down and watching television at night, then you don't need many carbohydrate calories so multiple vegetable selections is best. If you're getting up Saturday morning, and you have a long day ahead of you of taking the kids to their sports, groceries, and various chores, you'll want to have a mixture of some starchy carb sources as well as fruit and/or veggie sources. If you have a workout planned for 4pm, then at 2:30pm, a good dose of starchy and fruit carbs will see you through your workout with plenty of energy.


Let's look at a typical day. This example of daily meal structuring must be tailored for each person based on your weight and activity level. If you were to eat this menu exactly day in and day out over a few weeks and you gained weight, then you would simply need to reduce the amount you eat. But the combinations of foods is excellent and shows how you should combine foods to eat for optimal health and fat loss.


Breakfast
1/2 scoop whey protein powder - PROTEIN
1 tbsp Udo's oil - FAT
1/3 cup Oats w/skim milk - CARBS
1/2 banana - CARBS
1/2 cup thawed frozen raspberries - CARBS
1/4 tsp stevia powder (sweetener)


Mid-Morning Snack
Handful of almonds (maybe 10-20) - PROTEIN & FAT
1 apple - CARBS


Lunch
3 oz chicken breast - PROTEIN
7 or 8 walnut pieces - FAT
big handful of spinach (not baby spinach) - UNLIMITED
1 Mandarin orange (put pieces in salad) - CARBS
1tbsp Udo's oil - FAT
1tsp balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper to taste


Mid-Afternoon
1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese - PROTEIN & FAT
1/4 cup chopped fresh pineapple - CARBS


Dinner
6 oz salmon fillet - PROTEIN & FAT
10 asparagus spears (steamed) - UNLIMITED
1 med carrot (steamed) - UNLIMITED
1 small red potato (chopped and steamed) - CARBS
1 tsp butter - FAT
salt & pepper to taste

Salad
Bowlful mixed greens - UNLIMITED
6 halved cherry tomatoes - UNLIMITED
10 cucumber slices - UNLIMITED
small handful pine nuts - FAT

Salad Dressing
2 tsp Renee's Caesar dressing - FAT
1 tsp Udo's oil - FAT
2 tsp Organic Plain Yogurt
mixed well and drizzled over salad


Evening Snack
High Protein Fat Free Butterscotch Cinnamon Jello Pudding
Ingredients: Fat Free Butterscotch Jello Pudding prepare as
directed and add 1-2 scoops protein powder and a half tsp
of cinnamon for improved flavour.

1 serving is 1/4 of prepared product.



FAT LOSS ROADBLOCK #3 - CONVENIENCE FOODS

If you know how to put together healthy fat loss meals, but you don't because you feel like you don't have time, coming to the realization that the time spent preparing healthy meals is an investment is inevitable to smashing your fat loss roadblocks! Convenience or fast foods are always laden in fat and sugar to make them taste good so you always crave them whenever you are in a rush.



FAT LOSS ROADBLOCK #4 - GLUTTONY

Another common fat loss roadblock is just plain old eating too much! Even the healthiest of foods will make you gain body fat if you eat too much of it. Heck, thousands of years ago when there was no unhealthy food, there were still some heavier people. Of course they were the wealthy ones who could afford to eat enough food to actually become heavier.

Sometimes it's tough to say no to convenience foods, but if you ever want to shed the fat and see those abs you have to draw the line at some point and just plain not step over. For me personally, I just plain out refuse to eat fast foods except at certain times. If I travel I'll allow some exceptions. Camping is definitely another time I'll break the rule. In fact, I'll even seek out a McDonalds to get a couple McChicken sandwiches when I go camping. But a good 99% of the time I just plain old say no.

Well there you have it folks! Some great meal tips to help you bulldoze your fat loss roadblocks!

Oh yeah, my wife made some Fat Free Butterscotch Jello Pudding tonight... ohhhh... Here I come!