Health & Fitness

When you mention diet you instantly think of several things, two of which are calorie counting and weighing yourself.

In our goal oriented society the amount of gravitational force acting upon your body (that’ll be your weight) is regarded as the single most important figure when trying to lose weight.

After a weeks hard graft in the gym and eating very clean all week you want to see instant results and those results are usually delivered by your bathroom scales.

However, standing on a set of scales can be totally demoralizing when you don’t see the figure go any lower. You start to question yourself, your work load and whether it’ll be easier to move next door to KFC and give back your gym card.

What you may not realise is that your weight can fluctuate by as much as 5lbs in a single day. If you’re the reading sort, then check out this article for why. Feel free to just believe me on this.

Another factor is body composition. In terms of bulk, a square inch of muscle weights more than a square inch of fat. If you’re eating below your maintenance metabolic rate and you’re exercising well, then it’s quite likely that you’re losing fat but gaining muscle.

A brief case in point: I’m still exercising to lose weight. Ideally, I’d like to get down to around 185-190lbs. I’m currently stuck at around 203lb and I have been for a few weeks. Even though my actual weight hasn’t changed, I’ve gone down a trouser size and added visible definition to my shoulders, arms, legs, chest, et cetera as well as adding a few centimeters to my arms and chest. If I haven’t put weight on, then I must have burned fat and replaced it with muscle.

My recommendation is to use the scales once a month as a guide. Don’t get disheartened if you don’t see the results you expected to see, instead take the following advice:

• Take monthly pictures of yourself without a shirt on. Don’t be embarrassed, I’m not asking for you to share them. Store them somewhere safe. Be honest, too. Don’t suck your gut in or take ages trying to get your best side. This isn’t your Men’s Health audition picture. You want to relax your muscles to get a natural shot. Cheat on your pictures and you won’t get a real idea of your changes.
• Purchase a decent measuring tape, like this one. Take measurements of your waist (around your navel), your chest (around your nipples) and your biceps and thighs. Do this once a month. Record the measurements, obviously.
• Purchase a pair of fat measurement calipers, like this one. Record your monthly body fat percentage.
• Take the batteries out of your scales or hide your mechanical ones until your monthly weight in.

Your measurements and body fat percentage are far more reliable than your gravitational offset.

One small caveat with measurements: Don’t worry if your chest doesn’t get any smaller. It’s likely you’re turning your man-boobs into man-pecs. You should see a gradual reduction in your waist size although this is almost always the last bit of fat to shift.

I like to keep a record of my exercise sessions. I log the exercises I do, in the order I do them and how many reps I perform with the weight I use.

I find it really handy to keep these so I can look back at my progress, or lack-thereof and decide if something needs to be changed so that I keep progressing.

I’ve attached a PDF of the sheet that I use. I list the exercises down the left hand side and use each column for a set. In each box I write the number of reps and the weight, for example: (10/40) would denote 10 reps using a 40kg weight.

You may find it useful, too - especially if you’re using the exercise plan I previously blogged.

Download here: Exercise Log

Introduction

The first thing people think when you mention the words “fat loss” and “exercise” in the same sentence is running. I know I did.

It makes sense too. Running makes you sweat and leaves you puffing for breath. Professional runners are skinny. Case closed. Where’s my running shoes?

It’s actually not that simple. Running for long distances is an aerobic endurance exercise. Endurance exercise will put your body into a catabolic state. A catabolic state is where your body stops taking energy from your glycogen supplies, stops taking energy from your fat supplies and starts breaking down muscle for energy. Your metabolism will slow down and you’ll find it harder and harder to lose weight.

I know this from recent education and long-term experience. I ran off almost 100lb over two years. On some weeks I ran 40km (24 miles) over four days with each session lasting 60-70 minutes. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was burning more muscle than fat which made it harder and harder to lose weight. I was also left with excruciating sciatic pain down my left side.

The good news is that you don’t have to kill yourself running to lose weight and I’d actually advise against it. Aerobic exercise has its place for fat loss in shorter controlled sessions as we’ll see later.

More muscle means quicker weight loss
If we accept that the more muscle you have the higher your metabolism will be. The higher your metabolism, the easier you’ll lose weight. With that in mind, it makes sense to build your lean tissue and muscles. Resistance training or weight lifting is a anaerobic exercise. It’s a great cardiovascular exercise and will strengthen your heart and lungs just as much as casual running will do. It will build muscle and it won’t put your body into a catabolic state although it will cause muscle damage which is our aim. When you damage your muscles your body sets about rebuilding them a little stronger and a little thicker if you have the right nutrition — which we’ll get to later.
Also, weight lifting has a great “After-burn” effect where your metabolism is raised for up to 48 hours after your session.

A lot of people fear weight training because they assume that they’ll end up like Arnie in his prime. That’s simply not true. Arnie put in years and years of hard 6 day a week training to achieve his physique. Our aim is to increase our muscle mass and definition, commonly known as ‘to tone’ even though that’s a misnomer guaranteed to annoy body builders.

Training
We’ll concentrate on a total body workout plan, three times a week based on my own routine. Working your whole body in one session will keep your metabolism raised high and it’ll promote growth proportionately. A lot of beginners don’t bother training their legs and concentrate on the “mirror muscles” (chest, shoulders and biceps). This is a flawed plan because your legs contain the most muscle mass. When you put your largest muscles under repeated strain your body reacts by releasing a growth hormone which is your body’s natural steroid.

Equipment
If you can stretch to it, purchase a barbell / dumbbell set like this one. Aim for around 100kg (220lb) or more. That might seem like a lot of weight, but it won’t be long before you need it. Trust me on this. Barbell weights stack neatly and don’t take up much room. You don’t need a lot of floor space to train in, either. Just enough for you and a 6 foot bar is ideal. If you can’t get the barbell set, at least get a set of dumbbells like these ones. You can lift around 30% less with dumbbells so even a 20kg/42lb set will keep you going for a while. Ideally, you’d also have a weight bench, like this one although that’s not essential.

If you don’t want to purchase any weights then you can do a lot with just your body weight. I do recommend that you get a chin-up bar that fits in your door way. I have this one and it doesn’t require permanent fixing.

Whatever equipment you have, follow the basics outlined below.

A quick word on machines
Most gyms these days are kitted out with all kinds of different weight machines. This is mainly because it’s easier to get someone to sit on a seat and push a lever or bar than teach them how to use free weights.

I’d strongly advise against using machines and instead use free weights. Machines force you into a single range of motion that may be unnatural for your body shape and size. Your connective tissues and assistance muscles will also be unworked leaving strength imbalances that could lead to injury. I’d opt for a decent bench with lat tower every time over a smith machine or a “multi” gym.

The only time machines are of any use is if you’re recovering from an injury and want to isolate a muscle group. Of course, if all you have access too are machines and don’t want to purchase a weight set then it’s better than nothing.

A quick word on nutrition
Good nutrition is key to your success. You simply cannot out-train a poor diet. Ideally, you’ll be following the suggestions in my other blog entry. When you’re exercising, you have some other nutritional requirements. You’ll want to make sure you’re in a positive protein balance going into exercise. After exercise you’ll need a good source of protein with refined carbs to repair any muscle damage. If you don’t have any, I suggest you stop right now and order some whey protein powder. It’s hands down the best way to get important nutrients into your system pre and post workout. If you’re in the UK, I recommend ‘Express Whey’ from Boditronics and if you’re in the US I recommend this. If you’re elsewhere in the world, let me know your recommendations.
Both the listed products have excellent amino acid (BCAA) profiles and around 20g of protein per scoop. Have a scoop with water 10-15 minutes before you start exercising. Immediately post-exercise (and I mean *immediately* - you have 30-60 minutes for your post workout meal before you miss the window) have a scoop of whey with a scoop of dextrose (called glucose in the UK, available at all pharmacies) with water. The dextrose is a refined carb which causes an insulin spike. Usually that’s bad, but post-workout it speeds the amino acids to your damaged muscles. After you’ve showered, you’ll need some more protein and refined carbs. This is the *only* time I’ll recommend “white” carbs. A white bagel with chicken and tomato is ideal.

The jargon
First off, lets get the jargon out of the way. A “rep” (or repetition) is a completed movement of an exercise. In a bicep curl, a “rep” will be the action of moving the bar from your waist to your chest and back down again. A “set” is a number of repetitions done without rest. If you were to do “3 sets of 10 reps” for bicep curls then you’d move the bar from your waist to your chest and back down ten times before taking a rest. You’d do that three times in total.

A few words on technique
This is the important part. You have to nail your technique before you get carried away with yourself. Start with a light weight and practise the movement until you’re sure you have it perfect. You have to leave your ego at the door and forget about piling on loads of weight to impress your parents. That will lead to muscle or ligament tears and a rise in your medical insurance.
The most important rule is to never round out your back, ever. This goes for whatever you’re doing including picking up the weight before use. Concentrate on keeping the base of your spine in a natural curve by keeping your shoulders back and your ass poking out. It’ll become second nature after a while.

The rules
Perform this routine three times a week with a non-weight day between workouts. I do this on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The non-weight (commonly known as a “rest” day) is imperative to your success. Your muscles will need a day to recover if they are to rebuild stronger and thicker.

You can mix up the order of these exercises for each workout and I suggest you do. You have to constantly out train your body’s natural urge for efficiency. If you do the same exercises in the same order with the same weight you’ll stop growing new tissue because your body will have adapted to the motions. Switch between workout A and B. So, for example, do workout A on Monday, B on Wednesday and A on Friday. If you don’t have access to weights, try the body weight exercises across all three days. Each workout should last between 45-60 minutes.

Try and add a little weight to your barbell or dumbbell each week. You have to really push yourself and take yourself out of the comfort zone. If you’re not pushing yourself hard then you’ll not see any gains.

Take a 60 second rest between sets. Try not to leave it any longer otherwise your heart rate will drop and your body will start sending out hormones to repair your tissues which will leave you lethargic and unable to continue effectively.

The routine: Weights Workout A
You can use a dumbbell or barbell for each of these. If don’t have a bench, substitute the chest press for press-ups.
Click each exercise to see a demo in a new window.
4 sets of 10 Chest Press
4 sets of 10 Deadlift
4 sets of 10 Front Squat
4 sets of 10 Bent Over Row
4 sets of 10 Military Press

The routine: Weights Workout B
You can use a dumbbell or barbell for each of these. If don’t have a bench, substitute the chest flye for press-ups. If you don’t have a chin up bar, substitute chin-ups for bent over rows.
If you can’t manage 10 pull-ups (and not many people can, starting out) then concentrate on the ‘negative rep’. That is, do as many as you can and then jump up and lower yourself down slowly for the rest of the reps.
If you don’t have a barbell, substitute the front squat with dumbbell lunges.
Click each exercise to see a demo in a new window.
4 sets of 10 Chest Flye
4 sets of 10 Deadlift
4 sets of 10 Front Squat
4 sets of 10 Pull-ups
4 sets of 10 Arnold Press

The routine: Body Weight Exercises
4 sets of 10 Press Ups
4 sets of 10 Prisoner Squat
4 sets of 10 Chin Up
4 sets of 10 Back Extension

The routine: Notes
Do as close as you can to the number of reps for each set. Choose a weight that you can complete all 10 with but start struggling on the 8th or 9th rep. The last rep should be a real effort. Make sure you go slowly when pushing/pulling/raising/lowering the weight. Try and move the muscle through the complete range of movement and don’t allow inertia or body rocking to assist in the movement.
Notice how we don’t have any abdominal work or bicep curls? The aim here is to lose weight by using our largest muscles and the compound movements will do that. Your biceps assist in many of the exercises also, such as the chest press, bent over row and military press. Your abdominal (”core”) also gets a work out with squats and deadlifts. I’ve never seen any value in sit-ups / crunches or any other ab isolation work so I don’t include any in my program. A sit-up won’t burn many calories either, so it’s almost useless for fat loss.

Aerobic exercise on rest days
If you want to speed up your fat loss then you can do 20-30 minutes of aerobic exercise on your non-weight days. This can be running, cycling or any sport (football, tennis, etc). 20-30 minutes is ideal - anymore and you risk a catabolic state which will eat away your lean tissue. I do 30 minutes (6k) on the treadmill on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Conclusion
You should see some definite muscle definition coming through with this program in around four weeks. Just make sure you’re eating and resting well to supplement the plan. Good luck and let me know how you get on!

Preamble

Health and fitness has become a bit of an obsession of mine.
The picture shows me at my heaviest in May 2004 and most recently at a 5k race in March 2007. I’ve always struggled with my weight which basically means that I struggled to take weight off. Putting it on was very easy. Over the three years I’ve read a lot, researched a lot and — most importantly — gained a lot of information from my own experiences. There is a lot of confusing and conflicting information which makes it hard to formulate a successful plan. There are also many misconceptions regarding weight loss. Many people assume you have to eat like a sparrow and workout like a horse which really isn’t true. All you need to do is give your body the nutrition it was designed to have.

So, if you’ll allow me to put aside PHP, javascript and MySQL for while and talk about protein, carbs and fat instead.

The Basics
The food and drink you consume has three basic macronutrients. These are protein, carbohydrate and fat. Each one has a vital role to play in maintaining your well-being. We’ll quickly examine each one to get a better understanding what foods we should eat and why. I’ll try my best to avoid a science lecture and I’ll distill it down to the basics.
Your metabolism is your body’s best weapon for fat loss. Your resting metabolic rate is the term given to the number of calories your body uses just keeping you alive. The higher the number, the more fat you’ll burn.

Protein
Protein is the building block for your lean tissue (your muscles and connective tissues). Your body is in a constant state of protein synthesis. Old protein blocks are constantly being broken down and new protein blocks are being built. If you’re breaking down more muscle tissue than you’re creating then you’ll lose muscle which happens a lot with crash dieters and explains why those individuals have folds and folds of lose skin once they’ve lost their weight. They have lost a lot of the skin’s supporting muscle leaving it with engorged fat cells under the surface which is why it can’t contract properly.
Protein is good because it helps build and maintain your lean tissue. Lean tissue is expensive for your body to maintain which basically means you burn more calories in a day for no extra effort. Protein has a good thermic effect too. Protein is expensive to digest which means your body has to work a little harder burning more of those calories doing so.
Protein is rarely stored as fat in your body unless you eat a huge amount of it.

Carbohydrate
Carbohydrate is your body’s prime source of energy. Controlling carbohydrates are key to losing weight. Refined carbohydrates such as white bread and white pasta will raise your blood sugar levels (glucose) which causes an insulin spike to control it. This hormonal response stops your body from using its fat supplies until your glucose levels have fallen. Complex carbohydrates such as wholemeal bread, brown rice and wholemeal pasta don’t raise your blood sugar levels and are excellent sources of slow release energy. Like any carbohydrate, excessive quantities will be stored as fat. Fruits and honey contain fructose which don’t raise your insulin levels are is stored as glycogen in the liver ready for use. Excessive quantities of fructose are stored as fat in your liver.

Fat
Fat is probably the most misunderstood macronutrient. Fat has a bad name because it has 9 calories per gram whereas protein and carbohydrate have only 4 calories per gram but eating fat won’t make you fat. Consuming a sensible amount of good fats (oily fish, nuts, seeds, olive oil, etc) will allow your body to continue using its fat supplies. Always avoid man made ‘trans-fats’ (partially hydrogenated oil) and keep an eye on saturated fat levels, although those won’t be much of a problem if you eat good natural foods.

Low Fat and Low Calorie Diets Won’t Work
Most diets will get you to go low fat and low calorie. This won’t work because you’re limiting the very things it needs to continue burning away your fat supplies. Too few calories and your body will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy and it’ll start burning your lean tissue instead! The less lean tissue you have the slower your metabolism gets and the harder you find it to lose weight. It’s a cycle that leads you straight back to junk food in despair.
It’s very easy to think you’re eating well on a low fat diet of rice, pasta and baked potatoes without realising you’re flooding your body with carbohydrates which will end up around your waist as fat.

Golden Rules

• There are a few golden rules to keep in mind when deciding on which foods to eat.
• Eat 5 or 6 smaller meals a day to keep your body’s metabolic fire burning well
• Eat protein with each meal to keep your in a positive protein balance to build more muscle
• Never eat refined carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, etc) with fat. The refined carbohydrates spike your insulin. Your body stops burning and processing fat so the fat you eat gets stored straight away.
• Avoid eating carbohydrates three hours before you sleep to prevent a hormonal response which will slow down the burning of your fat supplies.
• Eat at least three servings of low fat dairy a day. Calcium promotes fat loss in a big way.
• Drink at least 2-3 litres of water each day. Your metabolism will slow if you’re as little as 2% dehydrated. The water also helps mobilise the fat cells for use as energy.

What to Eat
The first thing you need to do is to figure out your daily metabolic rate. This is the number of calories you burn in a day going about your daily business. An average 200lb office worker will burn around 3200 calories a day. You can find out yours with this simple calculator.
A pound of fat costs around 3500 calories. If you want to lose a pound a week then reduce your calorie intake by 500 a day (making 2700), double that to lose two pound a week (making 2200). It’s suggested that you go no lower than around 1800 calories a day (for our 200lb office worker).
You’ll need to aim for around 1g per 1lb of body weight of protein a day. Around 1 to 1.5g per 1lb of body weight of carbohydrate a day although you can go as low as 100grams a day if you want a weight loss boost although continued low carbohydrate dieting will make you very tired and it promotes mood swings. Aim for around 70g of healthy fats a day.

Example Menu
Here’s what I eat in an average day on a non exercise day. When you exercise you have other nutrient requirements which I’ll cover in a later blog entry.
BREAKFAST: Protein shake (whey with water). Instant oats (unflavoured and unsweetened) made with skimmed milk with 20g raisins and a dab of honey.
The oats are a low GI food which gives a nice slow supply of energy. The raisins and honey contain fructose which are stored as glycogen in your liver ready to be used.
SNACK: Natural yogurt or Banana with small cup of mixed nuts.
Nuts contain many useful vitamins and some protein. The banana is a good source of slow release energy and low in sugars.
LUNCH: Wholemeal sandwich (no mayo) with chicken and tomato. 1 large apple
The chicken is a good source of protein. The wholemeal bread is a good source of slow release energy. The apple contains many useful vitamins.
SNACK: Tuna (canned, in spring water or brine) with a small piece of cheese
Tuna is another excellent low carbohydrate source of protein. The cheese is an essential fat which helps transport the protein to your lean tissues.
DINNER: Salmon or Tuna or Chicken or Steak (grilled or fried in a touch of olive oil) with either mixed vegetables (I like the stir fry vegetables) or salad.
The fish or meat provides the protein while the vegetables supply fibre, vitamins and are low carbohydrate
SNACK: 250g 0% Fat Greek Yogurt mixed with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter with two chopped dried apricots
The yogurt is low in carbohydrate and lactose but high in calcium and protein. The peanut butter provides some essential good fat and the apricots are a good low carbohydrate way of sweetening the yogurt
BEDTIME : Protein shake (whey with milk)
Mixing whey powder with skimmed milk provides another serving of dairy and the lactose in the milk slows down the protein breakdown which will sustain you through the night.

This totals around 2300 calories, 220g carbohydrates, 210g protein and about 70g fat.

Conclusion
The past three years have taught me that you don’t really need to change too much to start losing weight and to keep that weight off. You should be realistic and not look for an overnight change. A steady weight loss of 1-2lb a week is ideal. A little exercise will keep things moving too which I plan to cover in a later blog entry.