Tracy Reifkind battled through compulsive eating, and the tribulations of weightloss to lean down 100 lbs in less than a year. How’d she do it? Read about it here.

Her blog is also a wealth of inspiration.

The basics of her “secret” are low calorie diet, combined with kettlebell circuit training. A great combo.

Alwyn Cosgrove once said, “Intervals and Circuits always work.” And he was right. The price you pay is a lot of really hard work, but the benefits are nothing short of amazing.

Great Job Tracy.

I write a lot about why people should lose body fat.  But, that doesn’t mean you should be “small”.   Becoming fit is a two part process.  The first part is losing fat, but the other, that is equally important is gaining muscle.

If you don’t actively try and put on muscle while you are going through a fat loss program (ie, weight training), then you will end up Skinny Fat.  A small person, with no muscle.  And the instant you eat one little cookie, you’ll become EVEN FATTER than you were before.

Never neglect the weight training.

A recent article in the LA times states that Interval Training is on the rise.  I don’t buy it.

OK, OK, the shear fact that there was an article on it in the LA times does bode well, but I work in the industry, and I ain’t seeing it.  It’s not on Opera, or GoodMorning America.  And everywhere I look, I see fat people.

If it was REALLY popular, like K-Fed popular, then we’d have a far fitter nation.

And yet, there is an interest.  When I tell someone that 10-15 mins of intervals 3 to 4 days a week beats out an hour of “heart zone” cardio 6 days a week, they can’t help but be interested.  But, it’s hard to believe, until you try it.

But, that brings up the second problem.  Steady state, heart-zone cardio can be fun and relatively relaxed.  You can read an article in Cosmo or People and carry on a conversation while you do it.

However if you do 15 min’s of intervals, you can’t read, you can’t talk, and you will likely feel like passing out.  In short, it’s HARD.  So, people don’t WANT to do it.  But it WORKS.

I hope that it really does become a more popular training method, our entire country would benefit.

Rachel Cosgrove Appeared on the Fitcast a while back, and it was a fantastic episode.  I thought I’d repost it here.

She discusses a ton of cool topics, among them why women shouldn’t be afraid of lifting heavy weights in the gym.

Apparently, Stripper-Cardio has gotten really popular, and no-one has bothered to tell me. The “hot” guy above is one of the new guru’s of grind at AerobicTease.

His name is Andrej Kalinak, and he hails from the Czech Republic.  Honestly, though, if I had a stripper dancing like that … I wouldn’t be tipping.

Even if your main goal is fat loss, you should structure your workout routine with Weight training at the beginning.  If your workouts are as tough as they should be, then you’ll need your nervous system to be firing at full speed.  If you do Cardio first (AKA Intervals, remember), then you will have taxed it too hard, and will be unable to perform at peak levels.

If you can’t perform at peak levels, then you won’t gain optimal physical benefits, and you won’t reach your goals as quickly.

Even if all you have is a tiny little space, you can still find a way to work out.  Here (Above) is national champion Natalie Woolfolk Proving it.

Myths of Womens Weightlifting, Part 1

(See Part 2 Here)

We humans are an animal that has Survived, in part, because of our ability to learn from others, and apply that knowledge to our own lives. From fire to the Wheel, we’ve built on the knowledge of one another, and taken our species to ever grander heights. Unfortuanately, in our effort to not reinvent the wheel, we rely on eachother to be honest, and correct, in the information they relay to us.

Whether I’m training men or Women, there is always an initial stage of Re-education. I can’t call it education, because that would imply a clean slate. And My clients have rarely if ever come to me from that preferred vantage point. Instead, they come with preconceived notions about what constitutes good eating, good training, and good living.

And they believe this because they’ve been taught it from people they trust. The trouble is that the information is wrong. If it were supposed to be a wheel, it’d look like a square.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not so naive as to believe that all preconceived notions are inherently false or bad (I’m naive for other reasons). But, some of the ideas swimming in the minds of many of you out there with regards to weight training, and what effects it has on you, and in what way, are patently vile.

The Myths seem to also come with a gender bias. Women are faced with a wholly different set of concerns than are men (in MOST cases, this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive statement). As such, the information they seek out, and get, is of a different nature. (of course, there is overlap).

I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that the BULK of the training knowledge being spouted off by people in the gym is at best only ½ the story, and at worst TOTALLY false.

Of course, you can’t blame them. The magazines dedicated to the gym-culture are nearly all crap. And at the top of the heap of crap is FLEX magazine. The one with all the huge Pro Bodybuilders on it.

If you could do one great thing for your body and life, it would be to look at one of the proposed routines in FLEX, take their advice to heart, then do the exact OPPOSITE.

In truth, there is little or no science behind any of their advice. It’s made up. Period.

But, the culture of bodybuilding (and the fiction associated with it) has become so ingratiated into the new gym culture, that there is now no separating out fact from fiction.

To complicate matters, there was a time in our not too distant Past when even the medical community was convinced that training with weights was BAD for you. They were sure that it would give you a heart attack, make you “muscle bound”, slow you down, etc (more on this later).

Thankfully, now-a-days, the world of science, through diligent testing, and research is realizing in fact that weight training is among the most important parts of any successful health building routine, and down right essential for changing body composition.

But the Myths remain. In this series I’ll examine some myths I often hear from Women. (I’ll eventually do one about the men, who’s myths are often even more wild and outlandish).

MYTH 1—Lifting Weights makes you Bulky and look like a Man!

This is by far the most commonly heard myth given when a woman is worried about starting a weight training routine. It is saturated in the minds of the female public. And it is often crippling. Women are so worried about weight gain, and looking “big” and “Manly”, that they avoid the one thing that will help them the most to look “Small” and “Feminine”.

Bad Bad move!

To Debunk this myth, we need to break it down.

The main argument is that their muscle size will increase and therefore increase the size of their overall “look”. There is some truth to this. But it misses the point. Of course, if you increase the size of your muscles, and everything else (fat mass) stays the same, then you’ll get bigger.

But, this isn’t how it works. In the real world. When you increase muscle size, you increase your metabolism, which aids in burning fat off of your body. You get leaner and less fat.

The second argument, is that it will make you weigh more. Also partly true. Muscle weighs more than fat. But muscle is Denser than Fat. Which means, that 2lb’s of muscle is smaller than 2lb’s of fat.

Of course, the weight gain is part of it. When you lift weights, your bone density increases. That is, your bones get stronger, a lot stronger. You can’t see it, but it’s happened. You are at less risk for osteoporosis, fractures, breaks, etc. And, yes, this makes them (and you) weigh more. But, is that a bad thing when you LOOK better? Get off the scale, it says nothing about how you LOOK.

The most important reason for lifting weights is not even the muscle gain, but the act of lifting itself. When you do a form of High Intensity Training (like weight training), you actually raise your metabolism for up to 24 hours! That’s right, for 24 hours you are burning more calories than you would have had you not trained with weights.

None of that “heart-zone” cardio shit you’ve been doing will give you that benefit. When you do high intensity exercises like weight training (and intervals, hill running, sprinting, etc), you end up causing more general fatigue to your body. It also breaks down slightly your muscles, which in turn requires your body to repair them (takes energy, calories). You body must replenish ATP stores, remove acid and other metabolic by-products. And restore Glycogen (the fuel you body uses to exercise).

All of this is energy intensive, and keeps your calorie burning furnace going long after you leave the gym

In the end, that means you will NOT look bulky, you will look lean, and fit.

And the last one is the most ridiculous and related to the first. You WILL NOT look like a man unless you take steroids. It isn’t possible. The average man has up to 10 times as much Testosterone running through his body than you, and he doesn’t even look like much of a man. To get truly huge, bulky muscles requires years of dedication, a solid workout routine, perfect diet, and gobs of Testosterone.

You can and should build muscle. But, you’ll never look like a man without hormone therapy. Sorry.

You will, however, look more feminine.

So, lets just remind ourselves of a short list of benefits of weight training:

1. Increased strength and ability to get around

2. Increased bone density, decreased risk of osteoporosis

3. Reduce arthritis pain

4. Reduce Back and shoulder pain

5. Increased metabolism

6. Lowered body fat percentage

There are many, many more.

MYTH 2—Women should use machines, not Free weights

TRUTH: No-one other than the decrepit, and severely injured should ever bother at all with machines. I make exceptions for cables, and a few others, but by and large, your entire routine should consist of free weight movements.

You are human. Being a Man or a woman is not going to change that much how you physiologically respond to a given stimulus. There are differences of course: The higher Testosterone levels of Men means that they have a higher plateau point generally, and sometimes means they can recover faster than women. But, the Stimulus used is very close to the same.

In fact, because of the fact that women have less stable joint cavities than men, free weight training is even more imperative, because it builds balance strength. It trains the little stabilizer muscles that don’t get worked on a machine.

Research has shown that machines cause MORE injury than free weights, because they force your body to conform to the movement pattern of the machine, rather than your own. No machine is one size fits all. We are all shaped slightly different. Free weights allow our bodies to move in their natural pattern, without mechanical hindrance.

MYTH 3—Cardio is better for your Health

Wrong. At least not steady State cardio. (for an Article on the kind of Cardio you should be doing, check out this Article by Keith Scott).

A Harvard Allumni Health study, followed 17,000 men for 4-years, and found that only VIGOROUS—NOT moderate—exercise reduced risk of death. There is very good reason to believe this study would apply to women, as the cardio vascular systems of both sexes are nearly identical.

Hard and Heavy weight training that includes circuits, and super sets will be far better for your health than slow paced heart-zone cardio. Add in Sprints, and intervals, and you’re golden.

There you have (my rather long) first installment. I will debunk more myths in Part 2. Until then, lift heavy!

Women, what if I told you there was something you could do, right now, that would boost your metabolism by a whopping 10%, and keep it that way for up to 24 hours! Would you believe me?

You should. And it’s as simple as Strength Training.

And you women out there shouldn’t think that by “strength training” I mean high rep, feel the burn stuff. I mean heavy and hard training. Yep, the kind usually reserved for men.

In a recent study, women received a greater metabolic boost from using 8 rep’s per set than from high-rep (12 reps) sets. So stick to the harder exercises like pushups, squats, and chin ups. (Don’t worry if you can’t do a full chin up yet, soon I’ll be posting an article on how any woman do 10 chins).

More proof that Weightlifting isn’t just for men.