You’ve heard it before, and maybe you’ve even tried it.  Carbs and Fat should be kept apart in each meal.

Well … too bad that isn’t backed up by science.  Here’s an article by Alan Aragon going over the issue:

More proof that having fat with carbs won’t hinder fat loss

A relatively recent
trial examined the effects of 3 diets consisting of roughly 1400 kcals
each for 8 weeks, followed by 4 weeks of maintenance [3]. The diets had
the following macronutrient proportions: a) very low fat  (70% carb,
10% fat, 20% protein), b) high unsaturated fat (50% carb, 30% fat, 20%
protein), and c) very low carb (4% carb, 61% fat, 35% protein). Since
none of the groups were told to separate their fat and carb intake, the
high unsaturated fat group should have lost the least amount of fat
because of all that dreadful mixing, right? On the contrary, no
significant differences were seen in total weight loss, or loss of
bodyfat percent. And here’s the kicker: this lack of difference in
bodyfat reduction was seen despite the distinctly different effects
each diet had on fasting insulin levels.

Another recent trial compared
two 1500 calorie diets, a non-ketogenic diet and a ketogenic one [4].
Insulin sensitivity was equally improved between the groups. No
inhibition of fat loss was seen in the non-ketogenic diet despite the
fact that it was moderate in both fat (30%) and carbs (40%). In fact,
the non-keto group lost more bodyweight and bodyfat than the keto
group, although neither of these effects was statistically significant.
It appears that any threat of fat/carb combining slowing fat loss is
imagination-based.

Nails in the coffin, anyone?

The current body of research
focuses on obese, deconditioned, or untrained subjects. And still, the
moderate-carb/fat-combining fails to show a fat loss disadvantage over
carb-restricted or carb-separated conditions. Putting athletic subjects
through the same conditions would show even LESS of a difference. Since
fit folks have far better glucose and insulin metabolisms than the
unconditioned obese, nit-picky combination or separation would be a
nonfactor for fat loss.

The bottom line is that as
long as you’re aware of your macronutrient targets for the day, go
ahead and sludge that peanut butter into your oatmeal if your little
heart desires it. Leave the neurotic eating behaviors for those with a
lot of faith in fairy tales.

OK, the title of this post is a bit misleading.  But, it seems as though many people believe that “Diet vs Exercise” is a valid question with an obvious answer: Diet. 

They may not believe it consciously.  But, in their actions this is what happens.  In truth, of course, there is not an exclusive “or” separating diet and exercise – you need both.  If you want to change your body composition; if you want to increase performance; if you want to live healthier; then you have to pay attention to both.

That said, there is an ordering of the two. 

I can sum up my entire fitness-philosophy with two phrases:

1. Exercise before Diet.
2. Weightlifting before Cardio

These two phrases imply an ordering of the list {diet, weightlifting, cardio}.  My ordering is

1. Weightlifting
2. Cardio
3. Diet

What is amazing is that my ordering is precisely to opposite of the order in which most people go about getting “in shape”.  When someone first decides they want to make a change, the first thing they do is go on a diet.  After they’ve gotten that down, they add in some cardio.  And if by some miracle they haven’t given up yet, they finally throw in some half-ass weightlifting. 

I’m here to tell you to do the opposite. 

If you want to get any benefit at all related to fitness (fat loss, muscle gain, strength gain, etc) then you must begin with weightlifting.  Slowly add in cardio (but not the kind most people think).  And finally get a diet plan that makes sense.

Why? You ask.

Dieting by itself doesn’t work long term.  If you’re goal has anything to do with performance or muscle gaining, then you know this. But, people looking to lose fat seem to delude themselves into thinking that they can solve their physical problems with a “magic” diet.   I’m not even talking strictly of “fad” diets.  Even a well-designed diet is worthless in the long run without exercise.

When you go an a calorie restricted diet you put your body in a catabolic state.  This lowers many of your bodies “good” hormones, and increases many of the “bad” ones like cortisol. (OK, strictly speaking there are no good or bad hormones, but some are better for your fitness goals than others.)  The negative hormones will decrease muscle mass, lower metabolism, and make it harder for you to lose fat. (Ironic, ain’t it!)

This hormone change is a negative byproduct of dieting that you have to deal with. However you need to mitigate it.  Exercise increases the positive hormones and decreases the negative ones.  It helps preserve muscle mass, and increases both metabolism and fat loss. 

Yes, if you want to make fitness progress you have to have a diet in place. But, you can’t rely on it by itself.

OK, so exercise first, diet second. Got it. But, why not start with cardio?  There are 2 reasons.

One, even when we’re talking about interval training (like sprinting) we’re only hitting part of your body. 

Let’s be honest, however.  When most people start their programs with cardio, they are not doing hard sprints (or metabolic circuits which involve weights), they are using steady-state cardio (jogging and its ilk).  Steady-state forms of cardio just don’t confer the same metabolic effects that interval training or weight training do.  While both intervals and weight training (done with intensity) raise your metabolism for up to 36 hours after exercise (called the EPOC effect), steady-state doesn’t.

In addition, steady-state cardio will cause your body to become more efficient at fat burning.  While that may sound good, it is very bad.  A more efficient car uses less gas to go the same distance.  You want your body to be a gas-hog.  You want it to burn tons of fat with little time – not tiny amounts of fat with massive time!  Weightlifting makes you the Hummer of fat-loss.

Two, starting with cardio can increase injury rates.  Weight training is very controlled.  You only lift the amount of weight you can safely in a controlled pattern of movement.  Cardio is not as controlled – even on a treadmill or other machine.  Think about how many “repetitions” your legs do every time you go jogging, or when on on the stair stepper.  It’s in the hundreds to thousands.  That is a lot of potential damage.  Each impact is worth many multiples of your bodyweight, slamming down on your joints. 

Conclusion

When you start with weightlifting, you increase the positive hormones you body needs to reach its goals, you increase metabolism, you lose fat, you gain muscle, and you decrease injury rates.  No other one thing can do all of that.

Once you are comfortable in your weight training routine, you can add in some cardio work.  I strongly suggest some kind of intervals over steady-state (the only exceptions are distance athletes – like marathon runners, tri-athletes – and strength athletes, as odd as that sounds).

And finally, when you have a solid weightlifting routine and a cardio routine, THEN you can start worrying about your diet. 

Today’s tip is a simple one, and one I’ve mentioned before. But, it bears repeating (a lot): Throw away your scale.

That may seem harsh, but unless you are a competitor in a weight-classed sport (weightlifting, wrestling, etc) then owning a scale and getting on it regularly is a sure-fire way to screw up your progress.

Here’s the problem. Women especially, but increasingly more men, are obsessed with weight loss. Not fat loss, as they should. And when you care about weight loss, then you’ll do some stupid things that will cause you to lose more muscle and gain more fat.

Most of the advertising for fitness-related products and programs promise big weight loss. What they do is they devise a way for you to lose a bunch of water weight in a short period of time. Any moron can lose up to 20 pounds of water in under 2 weeks. But, odds are, you didn’t lose a single pound of fat, and you might have lost some muscle – a lose/lose situation!

You all know how much I love watching the Biggest Loser (read my defense of it here), but they are particularly bad about this issue. Every week, contestants get on the scale and compete to see who lost a higher percentage of bodyweight. Since the contestants are so dramatically big (some of them carrying 300 pounds of extra fat), weight loss is highly correlated with fat loss in the beginning. But, once they get nearer to their goal weight, it gets brutal.

The reason being, they are gaining muscle at the same time, and that makes weight loss hard. They can still be losing fat at the same rate they always were on the show, but because it’s based on percentage of body weight, and their overall fat levels are now lower, they can’t possibly lose 2% per week! It’s just basic middle-school math, people.

What’s wrong with all of this? Weight loss is not the same as fat loss. Period. It’s only marginally related. You can lose both water and muscle at a much faster rate than you can lose fat. And guess what, you’re body would rather you did.

Some of this state of mind in our culture is the fault of the medical establishment that still pushes the BMI, the Body Mass Index, on an unsuspecting public. The BMI only tells you if you are heavy for your height, based on some antiquated notions of what “heavy” means.

Want to know something funny? Nearly every single one of the athletes I train is considered overweight by their BMI. In fact, I’m considered clinically obese!

How can that be possible?

Because scale weight tells you nothing important. Please read that again, and again, and again … till it sinks in.

Scale weight only tells you how much you weigh. It doesn’t tell you if you have a high bodyfat percentage, a large amount of muscle mass, strong bones (which weight more than weak bones), or if your carrying a lot of water. (Some women can gain a solid 10 pounds of water during their period – they didn’t get fatter. It’s just water, and it goes away when they are off their period.)

Scale weight is a lie.

What you should care about is if you have a low bodyfat percentage (teens to low twenties for women, high single digits to low double digits for men), a good amount of muscle, and strong bones.

Since muscle weighs a lot more than fat, then you can lose a lot of fat, gain a little muscle and not change your scale weight AT ALL.

This is common. Especially among people who have not seriously worked out before. If you have never done any serious weight training, expect to gain about 10 pounds of bone-mass alone. This won’t show in the mirror. You’re bones have been hollow for a long time, and now that you have been lifting weights, they are filling in. This is a GREAT thing. But, it makes you heavier.

If you are tall, then you can gain even more weight.

My best friend Brandy is 5’8”, and regularly weighs over 160 pounds. She’s well within the healthy range of bodyfat, and is carrying a ton of muscle. She looks great and is in great shape. But, when some women hear that she weighs over 160 pounds, they flip out!

“Oh. My. God!”

She looks so much leaner than that.

And there we hit the problem. They associate “lean” with “light”. When in fact it is usually the opposite. Athletes are the leanest and strongest people around. They are also heavy. If you are both small and light, you are either under 5’3”, have a remarkably small bone structure, or you are “skinny fat” and you need to lift more weight.

Throw away your scale. Start paying more attention to the mirror (and maybe a tape measure around your waist), and be more of an intellectual about your body composition. I promise you, you’ll be happier AND healthier.

Oscar Wilde, from The Importance of Being Ernest

Everything popular is wrong

That may not sound very Zen, but it is.  It comes down to being aware of the natural human instinct to jump on bandwagons.  The more aware you are of any natural tendency the more rationally you can react to them.  And jumpin’ on bandwagons is rarely a good idea.

In fitness and strength training, it is VERY true that nearly everything that is popular is wrong … dead wrong.  For instance, if you’re shocked by any of the following statements, then you have been following bad (but popular) advice.

1. There is no such thing as “toning” a muscle.
2. Jogging will not make you thin.
3. You should lift weights if you want to lose fat.
4. Carbs are not the devil.
5. Yoga is not enough.

Let’s go through these really fast just to help dispel any lingering disbelief you might have.

One:  There is no such thing as “toning” a muscle.

OK, sometimes I’m guilty of using the word “toning” my advertising to entice women to join my workout programs.  But, the fact is, the word is meaningless.  Muscles either get bigger or they get smaller.  They can also get stronger or weaker, but we’ll just talk about the visual stuff since that’s what “toning” refers to.

When someone says they don’t want to make their muscles bigger, they just want to tone them, they are talking nonsense.  What they MEAN (without knowing it) is that they want to keep their muscles the same size and lose the fat that is covering them up.  This way their arms will look long and lean, for instance.

Sadly what people think they mean is that they want to do specific styles of training that will cause the muscle to be lean rather than bulky.  This is silly.  Leanness is not the opposite of bulkiness.  Leanness is a function of how much fat you have.  If you have little fat, you’re lean.  If you have more fat, then you look less lean.  Bulkiness (in terms of big muscles – not just fatty tissue) is a function of how large your muscles are.  You can be both lean and bulky (think of Bodybuilders), or you can be lean and skinny (supermodels).

If what you want is to be lean and small, then say that.  Don’t walk up to a trainer and tell them you want to be toned not big and muscle-bound.  That’s a great way to make a good trainer cringe.

Two:  Jogging will not make you thin.

This fact trips people out.  The bottom line is not that jogging isn’t good exercise.  It’s that your body is far too good at adapting to it.

In order to make consistent progress, you have to do exercises that are hard for your body to do.  At first, jogging is hard.  But, after a fairly short period of time, your body adapts and becomes very efficient at doing the same workouts.  If you used to burn 800 calories on a 5 mile jog, after a few months you might only need to burn 400 for the same 5 mile jog – and you’ll feel like it’s easier to do!  (those are made up numbers, btw.)

One way to solve the problem is to up the number of miles.  But, once you get into the 8 to 10 range, we’re getting ridiculous.

Another way to up the workout is to stop jogging, and start running.  If you go faster, you will work harder and you’ll get a better training effect.  But, at some point you’ll start sprinting.  And no human being can sprint for 5 miles!

Instead, once you’ve gotten too used to slow cardio (again, it’s great at first for people who like it) then focus instead on weight training and interval training.  You’ll lose more fat faster, and your workouts will be shorter.  Win win!

Three:  Lift weights if you want to lose fat.

If you aren’t lifting weights, but your goal is fatloss, then you are missing out – big time!  Weight training not only helps you build muscle which in turn will help you lose fat.  But, weight training done in a superset style is very hard cardio much like sprinting.  You’ll burn more calories and you’ll get a more powerful EPOC effect (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) than cardio alone.  The EPOC effect basically raises your resting metabolism much higher than normal for up to 24 to 36 hours after exercise resulting in more fatloss.

And women, for heavens sake, no matter how hard you work at it, you will NEVER look like a man.  Read here to find out why.

Four: Carbs are not the devil. (Foosball is)

Carbs get a bad rap.   But, the fact is, you need them.  You need up to 130 grams a day just to keep your brain functioning correctly.  You need carbs before and during exercise to keep your workouts going strong, and you need them post-exercise to replenish glycogen stores.

If you drop carbs out completely, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Five:  Yoga is not enough

Yoga is VERY popular now.  For the most part, yoga is a good thing.  It’s great at getting totally sedentary people to get in some bodyweight strength work by holding themselves in tough positions.  It also does a great job of lengthening the muscles, which can aid in the prevention of injuries.

But, it doesn’t do much else.  Much like jogging, you adapt too fast to the cardio and strength components of yoga.  You need a dedicated cardio and a dedicated strength component in your fitness program.  Stretching is good, but flexibility is only one small component of overall fitness.

The points above are designed to make the simple point that you can’t just go along with what the conventional wisdom is when it comes to fitness and strength training.  You have to think a little harder, think outside the box, and search for solid information backed by science, not hearsay and inertia.

Everyone is always on the lookout for the Ultimate Diet Secret.  What can I do to lose fat FAST?!  I need to know NOW!  Please HELP me!

As a fitness and athletic coach I hear this all the time.  I hear it more than just about anything else (at least from women, men generally are more interested in muscle gain).   In fact I’ve been hearing that now for nearly 12 years!  But, let me tell you, there are precious few people who have actually done anything with the secret diet knowledge once I lay it out for them.

Yes.  There IS a secret.  The problem is that you already know it.  Since I couldn’t say it better, I’ll just quote Chad Waterbury:

If I told you to consume one gram of protein per pound of body weight, fibrous vegetables, water, green tea, 12 grams of fish oil, and spread those out over the course of six meals each day you’d be anything but impressed. But if I held you in captivity and forced you to do that every day for a month, you’d be blown away by the results. The nutritional methods to lose fat have already been found. The challenge we coaches face is figuring out how we’re going to get you to adhere to the guidelines.

What’s the take-home message?  Stick to the plan.  Losing fat, gaining muscle, and other forms of body composition change require the one thing most of us refuse to put in:  Consistency.  It’s often boring, but the boredom will pay dividends.

I stole this from an Article in Olympic Coach Magazine (the same one I referenced below)

I quote it in full:

Turkey Chili
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 Tbs Olive oil
16 oz Ground turkey (93% lean)
2 Tbs Garlic, minced
1 cup Diced onion
1 cup Diced bell pepper
1-12 oz Dark Beer or Broth
2-14oz cans Diced Tomatoes
1 can Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Celery Soup
1 can Low Sodium Black Beans
2 cups Frozen, shelled edamame
MRS DASH Southwest Chipotle Spice to taste

Preparation:

1. In a large sauce pan, sauté ground turkey in olive oil until brown. Add MRS DASH spice blend and garlic and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Add onions and peppers and cook until onions are soft (approx 5 min).
3. Add dark beer or broth and simmer until 75% reduced.
4. Add canned tomatoes, beans, and cream of celery soup. Stir well, cover, and simmer over low heat for 30-45 minutes.
5. Add frozen edamame, cover, and simmer an additional 10 minutes.
6. Feel free to spice it up at this point with your favorite hot sauce.

**Get creative and add more of your favorite vegetables like frozen corn, zucchini, mushrooms, and even jalapenos!

Nutrition per serving:
Calories: 420; Total fat: 16g Saturated fat: 4g; Protein: 29g; Carbohydrates: 36g; Fiber: 9g; Sodium: 570mg

Kitchen Tips:

1. Ground turkey may have the same total fat as ground meat; but it is lower in saturated fat than lean ground beef!!!
2. MRS DASH spice blends are a great way to season food without increasing the sodium. The blends are perfectly balanced and much more affordable than buying individual spices and blending them yourself!!!

Created by: Adam Korzun, MS, RD, LDN

Avocado Rice
Serves 6

Ingredients:
4 servings Instant Brown Rice
½ tsp Ground cumin
2 Tbs Scallions, chopped
1 ea Avocado, diced

Preparation:

1. Follow the package instructions for 4 servings of rice.
2. Cook according to package details.
3. When cooked, add in cumin, scallions and diced avocado.
4. Stir until well incorporated.

Nutrition per serving:
Calories: 165; Total fat: 5g Saturated fat: 1g; Protein: 3g; Carbohydrates: 27g; Fiber: 3g; Sodium: 50mg

Kitchen Tips:

1. Brown rice has only its husk removed during milling, so it is richer in fiber, trace minerals, and those important B vitamins than more processed white rice.
2. Instant Brown Rice has all of the benefits of traditional brown rice, but it cooks in one third of the time!

Created by: Adam Korzun, MS, RD, LDN

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!