THE REAL SKINNY BEHIND LOSING THE FAT

Everyone wants to know the best way to reduce body fat. The truth, however, is that it isn’t just about diet or exercise. There are some scientific facts about the body that many people fail to take into account when they approach the issue of losing body fat through training and or diet; and those facts have to do with your metabolism.

The simplest way to understand how your metabolism works is to think of it as the energy your body needs just to be alive. Basically, you can think of your body like an engine that needs fuel to power it just to stay on. However, unlike a car engine, which can be shut off, your body’s engine never shuts off until you die. Even when you are asleep, you are still burning fuel to power the ongoing systems of your body, which includes your respiratory and cardiovascular system, digestion, body temperature, and cellular functions and rebuilding. One thing to remember is that your body rebuilds itself constantly from the inside. Even after we become adults and stop growing, our body still replaces worn out cells with brand new ones. Physiologists call the caloric (fuel) needs of a body at rest the “basal metabolic rate” or BMR. Common sense tells you that the bigger a body you have, the more calories it will burn at rest to keep it functioning. But, your metabolism is also related to how much muscle you have as opposed to fat, since a muscle cell is used more for everyday functions, it will also use more calories at rest. So body composition (body fat vs lean body mass) is also a determinant of what your BMR is.

Exercise physiologists William McCardle and Frank Katch came up with a simple formula that you can use to estimate your BMR once you have your Body Fat % measured. It is:

BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Example:
You are female
You weigh 120 lbs. (54.5 kilos)
Your body fat percentage is 20% (24 lbs. fat, 96 lbs. lean)
Your lean mass is 96 lbs. (43.6 kilos)
Your BMR = 370 + (21.6 X 43.6) = 1312 calories

REMEMBER, that is the calories needed just to maintain yourself if you were lying in a bed ALL day. This is not your maintenance amount of calories if you do any activity at all, including just sitting at a desk. To find out what your maintenance level of calories would be, you have to factor in your activity level. Below is a chart to help gauge this number which is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure needs (TDEE):

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

Example:

Your BMR is 1312

Your activity level is moderately active (work out 3-4 times per week)

Your activity factor is 1.55

Your TDEE = 1.55 X 1312 = 2033 calories

According to exercise physiologists McArdle and Katch, the average maintenance level for women in the United States is 2000-2100 calories per day and the average for men is 2700-2900 per day. These are only averages; caloric expenditure can vary widely and is much higher for athletes or extremely active individuals. Some triathletes and ultra-endurance athletes may require as many as 6000 calories per day or more just to maintain their weight! Calorie requirements may also vary among otherwise identical individuals due to differences in inherited metabolic rates.

Calculating your TDEE is very useful for planning any weight loss program. Basically, you would want to create a slight caloric deficit (15-20% of TDEE) in order to lose body weight, but you have to be careful that you also maintain a lifestyle that helps you lose fat and not muscle, or you could wind up with deceptive results (more about this later).

Most of us don’t know our exact body fat % or our TDEE. However, if your weight hasn’t changed in several years, you can still figure out some important information that you can use to reduce your body fat. If your weight has been consistent, than you are in a homeostasis (metabolic balance) in that your body is maintaining a fairly steady weight. Most of us will over eat some days and under eat on others. Even with these variations in our caloric intake, our bodies will adjust metabolically to settle back to what it feels is our regular weight. The formulas above make it look like all you have to do is establish a negative caloric balance from your usual TDEE and voilà, the fat will burn off. The truth is that is a little more complicated than that, especially at first. This is one reason it is so hard to lose weight just through exercise. In terms of establishing a negative caloric balance, you can burn 250Kal on the elliptical (around 30 minutes) and cut out 250Kal from your diet daily and you still might not lose a whole pound each week, even though formula wise, 7 x 500 = 3,500K which equals one pound of fat. The reason is your body is going to fight going down to a weight it is not used to. I have found that you actually have to hit specific targets in terms of exercise and diet and maintain them for several weeks, before the body accepts the change permanently and resets itself with a new metabolism matched to your new weight.

One of the exercise targets that absolutely must be met is to increase your cardiovascular endurance to where you can do 45 minutes to an hour of steady aerobic exercise. Studies have shown that for the first 45 minutes of aerobic activity, your body will derive most of it’s energy from the carbohydrates floating in your bloodstream and in your muscle cells. Only a small percentage of your energy needs come from fat during this time since fat is harder to break down and it doesn’t have the need for using it as fuel yet. After you go past 45 minutes however, the metabolism will kick into burning fat mode, using it as its primary source of energy to support your aerobic exercise. So, someone who does 30 minutes of cardio every day may still be frustrated from not seeing fat loss results because they never reach the 45-minute threshold. I actually don’t recommend anyone to do 7 days a week of cardio, nor do I think you have to. Five days a week of exercise is plenty to reach the 3,500K goal, especially if you add some weight training into your fitness program. Which is exactly what you want to do if you want to lose body fat, because increasing muscle tissue has been proven to increase the metabolism. Twice a week should be enough for the strength training to have a noticeable effect. However, there is an interesting phenomenon with the two different forms of exercise; strength training has been associated with an increase in appetite, while moderate aerobic training hasn’t. So, you should do both kinds for best results. For most people, they should build up to doing 4 – 5 days of cardio training, with 2 workouts lasting over 45 minutes long. On the other 2 days of cardio, you could try doing shorter “interval training” workouts, which have been shown to help people lose weight faster than plain steady pace aerobics [please see following article on Interval Training Plan].

In terms of diet, of course you have to cut some calories if you want to lose weight, but again, you need to be really careful how much and when you do this or you can really sabotage your system. A lot of people find breakfast the easiest meal to skip. This is a big mistake. You don’t have to eat breakfast right away in the morning, but you should try to eat within 2 hours of getting up. That means you could even go for a 45 minute run after you wake up (drink at least 8oz water before), and then come home, shower, and then eat and you would still be within the guidelines. What is not good, is skipping breakfast and not eating anything until 4 hours later. By that time your metabolism will have reset itself into starvation mode, which is a low calorie BMR, and even small amounts of calories will be more than your body will be ready to burn so it will be more likely to be stored as fat. It really isn’t the calories that will hurt your goal, it is the lowering of your metabolism over time that is the sabotage that skipping breakfast will cause. Skipping any meal will hurt your metabolism because it get’s partially turned on by regular timing of your meals. Now, if one day you are really sedentary, you might be able to eat breakfast, and lie down and just read for hours on just a cup of tea. So, activity does play a key part in the timing and quantity of food you would want to consume. If you are having a normal active day, the four-hour rule is a pretty good one to be conscious of, meaning you should eat something every four hours, even if it is just a snack, in order to keep the metabolism charged.

The quality of the foods you eat is also vitally important to your health and to maintaining a healthy weight. The worst in terms of foods that hurt your metabolism are sugary ones, also known as simple carbohydrates. Breakfast again is the meal where people are the most neglectful of this. It never fails that most of the people who buy the glazed donut or super sized caramel mocha latte are overweight. Eating sugary foods for breakfast are the worst thing you can do to your energy system. They take the metabolism, by way of your glucose levels, on a roller coaster ride. Riding up for a few short minutes, then crashing down for hours afterwards. The best thing to have in the morning is protein, a little fat, and some complex carbohydrates. In terms of actual food, that could be 3- 4 egg whites and some whole-wheat toast with Smart Balance spread. You could eat an orange as well, or later as a snack before lunch. There is enough fiber in the orange pulp to help offset the sugar in the juice. But, just a glass of juice or a fruit based smoothie in the morning is not the best idea for a fat-loss lifestyle.

The end of the day is also a time to be mindful of eating. Generally, your metabolism slows down the later in the day it gets. Therefore, eating big meals really late at night is a lifestyle habit you should try to break. If you work at night, plan on eating an early dinner right before work, and then eating only lightly afterwards, like vegetables or salad. When we are tired at the end of a long day, our willpower is also tired. That means that fattening comfort foods and desserts start looking better the later the hour gets. Be conscious of this and just avoid the temptation by not having them around you and hitting the hay sooner rather than later.

Lack of sleep is a stressor, and like stress in general, it has a negative effect on the metabolism. Studies have shown that living under stress causes the body to release extra amounts of cortisol, which is a hormone that causes the body hold onto fat. More than that, studies on sleep deprivation show that being tired causes your body to lose its sense of “satiation”. Normally, after you’ve eaten, the body releases a chemical that tells the brain it is full, and this makes you no longer crave food. If you are sleep deprived, this chemical isn’t released so you never feel satiated. This explains why late night binging is so common in people with eating disorders.

So, in conclusion, to lose fat properly means to look at where you are in terms of current weight, activity level, diet, and lifestyle and making sure you pay attention to each aspect. Everyone is different in terms of what is best for his or her individual situation. However, there are common rules about the body that anyone can use to help lose fat and look leaner. To summarize, here are the steps you can take to get better control over your metabolism and body fat:

A. If possible, find out what your body fat % is right now. Many health clubs offer this free as a part of your membership, or you can ask a trainer to measure it for you. I personally prefer the Lange Skinfold Caliper measure. After that, use the formulas provided above to

figure your Lean Body Mass(LBM) and then calculate your BMR = 370 +(21.6 X LBMkg)

Then you multiply your BMR times your activity factor (see above) to find your TDEE, which is the number of calories you need to consume to stay the weight you are now. This is a good number to know just for your own information, and can help guide you if you start to measure your caloric intake for a weight loss program.

B. If you don’t know your BF%, you can still begin a sensible program to reduce your by following the specific exercise, diet, and lifestyle rules summarized here:

EXERCISE RULES:

1. Do aerobic exercise 4 – 5 days a week, start with one of those days being a longer workout of at least 45 minutes within your training heart rate, and then try to increase to two long cardio days each week. The other two days of cardio should be shorter in length (25-30min) with one being an interval speed workout if running, or interval incline workout if walking.

2. Do resistance training (strength) at least twice a week. The easiest plan would be to do a full-body routine each day, starting with large muscle groups (legs, back, chest) and then smaller muscle groups (shoulder, biceps, triceps). Hit your large muscle groups with two exercises each, doing one warm-up set and two progressive sets, meaning a little heavier each time. Hit your smaller muscles with at least one exercise each, two sets each. You also want to do abdominal exercises and stretching, which you can accomplish in a Pilates class!

DIET RULES:

1. Creating a negative caloric balance between what you consume and what you expend is of course essential to losing weight. However, if you weren’t exercising at all before, you will be creating a negative caloric balance just from that. Try just reducing your portions slightly (200K a day) and keeping healthy snacks like fruit, nuts, and non-fat yogurt around if you need an energy boost.

2. Make breakfast a conscious choice each day. Remember, you can exercise before breakfast as long as you can do that and still get to eating within two hours of when you wake up. Also, you will support your metabolism better if you choose lean protein as the main ingredient in your breakfast choice.

3. Stay away from sugary foods.

4. Don’t skip meals entirely. If you have a sedentary day of rest, you could eat lightly(small portions), but don’t let too much time go by with an empty stomach.

LIFESTYLE RULES:

1. Try to eat dinner earlier rather than later. The later it gets, the slower your metabolism is.

2. Learn how to cope with stress so you minimize its effect on your metabolism. Luckily, exercise is one way to combat stress, both physical and mental. Nevertheless, you may want to investigate meditation and lifestyle coaching to help you deal with persistent stress and its negative health effects.

3. Be patient. Remember that body fat is pretty stubborn stuff. You will probably start to lose it where you have it least (face, neck, back) and from your main problem areas last. There is no such thing as spot reduction, meaning you can do exercises for the back of your arms all you want, but that only works the muscles, possibly building them bigger if you do too much, and won’t touch the fat that covers them. Body fat, no matter where it is stored, is used for energy; it can’t be changed from fat to muscle. So, the best way to burn it is to up your metabolism, as described above.

4. Be consistent and enjoy yourself. Find friends to work out with, or even a pet dog. You can use music to motivate yourself as well. Keep the faith, you will succeed if you just stick to it.

For more on nutrition, please see my Seven Lifestyle Eating Principles under the Nutrition section in the Exercise and Tutorials tab on my website.

Follow up to Salt Post

I realize I left out another often overlooked source of sodium in the product category - hydration replacement drinks like Gatorade. Many people will buy drinks like this just like they buy flavored water, thinking they are the same. But they are not. Gatorade and its like have tons of sodium in them (110mg per 8oz). Unless you are sweating profusely in the hot sun for along time, you probably don't need sodium in your hydration drink. The biggest mistake you can make is drinking these drinks like water when you are just thirsty. They will make you retain water and bloat you. You can get all the electrolytes you need after a spin class or long run just from drinking real lemonade or other juice drink.

SALT - THE NEMESIS TO LOOKING THIN

I have a weakness when it comes to snacks. Basically, I can eat an entire bag of potato chips in less than an hour. This is especially bad for me because salty foods make my blood pressure go up, as it does with many people. Lately, salt and it's chemical name sodium, has been in the news alot. The 2010 report from the USDA on Dietary Guidelines (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DGAs2010-DGACReport.htm) shows that sodium intake is increasing for all Americans. It is especially high for young men, with an average of over 3,500mg per day. Considering the recommended amount is 1,500mg/day, we have a ways to go. Sodium is directly linked to increases in blood pressure and to cardiovascular disease, so don’t kid yourself, too much salt can kill you. But even if high blood pressure isn’t an issue for you, you could still be holding pounds of excess water weight due to high sodium consumption. Yes, I said pounds!!!

Now, I don’t really put much salt on my food – a pinch in the water when boiling grains or pasta. A little on my salad, and on meat, but I never use the salt shaker at meals. I even eat my egg whites sans salt. The truth is we don’t usually over salt our foods ourselves. The real culprits for our high sodium diet are packaged foods and sauces. Obviously, snacks are loaded with salt – chips, pretzels, crackers, even most dried nuts are also heavily loaded with sodium. It is also very prevalent in cereals. You think you’re being healthy by eating that high fiber cereal, but you’re consuming a ton of sodium in most of them. Grape Nuts for example has 290mg of sodium per half-cup serving. That is around 30% of the total recommended dietary daily allotment. Funny thing, on the website Livestrong.com, the so-called experts highly recommend Grape Nuts and falsely state that its sodium content is only 5% of total recommended amount. Even based on the old dietary value of 2,400mg of sodium per day, the nutrition label on the side of the cereal box says it is 12%, not Livestrong’s 5% of total dietary value. In any case, you have to read the labels and just know all those packaged ready to eat cereals have sodium added. One of my favorite morning meals is a bowl of Hodgson Mill MultiGrain cereal, which is high in fiber and also has flaxseed and soy. It is like quick oatmeal (ready in 5 minutes), only it taste a lot better and is even better for you. Oh, and its sodium content is ZERO.

The other main culprit in our salty diets is prepared sauces and soups. Look at the labels of any pasta sauces and you will see how high they are in sodium. And for you bean lovers, watch out for canned beans. I just looked at a can of black beans from Goya – 460mg sodium per serving. Soups are just as bad if not worse. For example; Progresso Light brand soups (endorsed by Weight Watchers and Livestrong) have huge amounts of sodium. The Progresso Light Chicken and Dumpling soup label says it has 690mg per serving. The sad thing is that people see the cover of these products and believe they are healthy. The actually believe the marketing hype and their mouthpieces in the media and that is why the overall health of our country is still getting worse.

The report by the USDA does acknowledge that changing our sodium intake will take time because of acquired tastes. They state that for the first couple of weeks, people on a restricted sodium diet craved salty foods. But, within a fairly short time, they no longer craved salty foods (8 weeks or less). I know from my own experience that if I eat salty foods one day, the next day I crave that flavor again. But, if I don’t eat salty foods, I not only don’t crave them, I find I start to taste more of the natural flavors in foods and appreciate the subtle flavors from other spices. Most cooks know that you can substitute lemon juice for salt in most foods and get the same taste bud effect. Although not recommended for children, adults would do well to “heat” up their food with cayenne pepper. The spice has been shown to help digestion, reduce inflammation and have anti-oxidant value. It is especially good to add to soups, eggs, and chicken dishes.

Lastly, I want to emphasize how much water your body can retain when you eat salty foods. I literally can gain 5 lbs in one day from eating salty foods and snacks, and it is all water retention in my cells. Sodium gets stored in your muscle and fat cells and sucks in water that ordinarily would be excreted out. I see many clients who look bloated after eating salty foods the night before. The only remedy for this is to drink water and do significant amounts of aerobic exercise (over 30 minutes) to get your cells flushed of the sodium as you sweat. Just sweating from heat exposure isn’t as good. Then, if you sharply restrict your sodium intake, within two or three workouts, your body should have lost the excess water weight.

For more nutritional information including my “7 Lifestyle Eating Principles”, please visit http://www.yogilates.com/ and click on Exercise and Tutorials. Best of luck to all of you and stay healthy!!!

Mobility for Living!

As I look toward my upcoming birthday in about a month, I am more personally aware of just how aging affects the body. Every morning when I get up, right away I feel the stiffness in my joints. It takes a full ten minutes in the hot shower to get my body feeling normal again. As I dry off, I use the time to stretch a little, and then again before I put my shoes on, I do more stretches before I feel ready to face the day. Even though I teach Pilates and yoga just about everyday, I still need to stretch and practice mobility exercises as a part of my daily living. Most people my age, even those who exercise regularly, have problems with stiffness and restrictions in range of motion. In addition to stiffness, mature people often exhibit physical and mental sluggishness due to poor blood circulation. After years of working with clients my age and older, I have come to realize that we really need focus on staying mobile or the quality of life can suffer.

You Got to Move It!
For mature people no matter what your occupation, there are some simple mobility exercises that I have found greatly help relieve stiffness and aid in getting the blood circulating and bringing alertness back. These 8 exercises only take 10-20 seconds each and can be done anywhere, anytime, especially to get the day started or as a mid-day pick-up.
1. Arm Breaths:
Stand in a neutral parallel stance and inhale as you lift your arms up from your sides. Exhale as you bring them back down. Repeat 4 times. Focus on inhaling and exhaling fully and feeling your arms long and loose.
2. Overhead Reaches:
Start standing with arms up, then reach one arm higher than the other for one second, then switch. Alternate these reaches 16 times. Focus on reaching through your whole side body as well as your arm, and spread your fingers as you reach to help stretch your hands.
3. Head Turns, Tilts and Half-Circles:
Standing with arms by your sides, turn your head from side to side in an easy, smooth rhythm. Repeat 10 times. Then tilt your head slightly to one side for one second, then repeat to other side. Repeat 3 times to each side using gentle force. Then tilt to one side and hold for 3 seconds, deepening into the stretch by exhaling and relaxing the jaw completely. Repeat 3 times to each side. Lastly, slowly circle your head from one side to the other, doing a half-circle in front, and repeat the other way. Avoid circling or dropping the head to the back. Repeat 2 times each way.
4. Shoulder Circles:
From standing or sitting, circle your shoulders 4 times to the back, and 4 times to the front. Leave your arms straight and loose and breathe normally.
5. Side Bends with Reaches:
Open your legs to a wide parallel stance with your knees bent. Reach up and over with your left arm to the right side, curving your torso over, and placing your right hand on your right thigh for support. Repeat reach up and over to the left. Alternate 4 reaches to each side.
6. Torso Twists:
Stand with feet a little wider than hip-width distance apart, knees bent. Holding arms in an easy bent position, twist torso from side to side while keeping hips and lower body absolutely still. Use an easy, smooth rhythm without using too much force. Repeat 5 times to each side.
7. Front Leg Swings:
Stand with your left side next to a wall (or a ballet bar). Lightly place your left hand on the wall or bar for support and swing your right leg up in front keeping the leg long, but not locked straight. Bring the leg back down and tap the toes in back. Repeat the leg swings 10 times, being mindful not to swing too hard or so high that you have to bend the standing leg or sense a collapse in the lower back because the hip is moving with the leg. Turn around and repeat the swings with the left leg.
8. Arm Circle Swings:
Stand in neutral parallel stance. Swing right arm up and around in as full a range of motion as feels comfortable. Let the arm feel pulled around by centrifugal force to really loosen up the shoulder socket. Repeat 8-10 times with one arm, then repeat with the other. Next, reverse the arms circle swings with each arm.

Corrective vs Postural Jargon Debate & 3 Postural Exercises for Everyday

In my never ending quest to deconstruct the latest rhetorical trends in fitness, one of the newest trends is the use of the word “corrective” in front of an exercise. In the past, therapists and fitness professionals would call an exercise a “postural exercise” when it was designed to stretch shortened muscles so that a person could achieve better alignment of the spine, pelvis, shoulders, or other area of the body. Another postural exercise would be one that strengthened over-stretched or weak postural muscles to give support to the spine. Nowadays, the lingo is “corrective exercise”. Whatever, I personally don’t like to think that people need correction, except in parochial schools. I think postural exercise sounds better in that it doesn’t have any negative connotation to it, and really it is about good posture that needs attention to always, rather than just fixing a mistake. For most people, bad posture is an ingrained habit. It comes from lack of awareness and poor mechanics. You can’t correct ingrained habits just from doing a particular exercise. Many therapeutic modalities have been created, such as Alexander, Feldenkreis, Hanna Somatics, etc., to help deal with the subconscious roots of poor posture and improper mechanics of how we move and hold ourselves. As in my Yogilates method, it begins with awareness and relaxing of unnecessary tensions. I can’t fully describe the methods that these different techniques utilize, but my point is that they all include the deepening of the mind/body connection and are much more than just exercises. I believe that they are also more integrative than “corrective” in that one is encouraged to listen to their body and is informed by how their own body responds. True integrative fitness is one that empowers the client to own their body and the condition it is in, and encourages them to visualize for themselves how to achieve release from bad habits and maintain good form, and to see themselves in a more positive and healthier light.

The images at the top are for the following three postural exercises that I have found most of us can truly benefit from on a daily basis:
1. Wall Neck Lean:
Stand with your back against the wall. Place the back of your head against the wall making sure the top of your head and bottom of your chin are level. Keep you body in straight line and walk your legs away from the wall about a foot. Stay leaning in this position for 1 minute.
Benefit: Strengthens muscles in back of neck that get over-stretched and weakened from poor head position while working at computer. Helps mitigate forward head position.

2. Shoulder Blade Pinch:
Standing of sitting, clasp your hands behind your back and push your arms straight while you roll your shoulders back. You should feel your shoulder blades coming together and your thoracic spine push forward. Hold for two full breaths, then relax your shoulders back to neutral. Repeat and, if possible, reach the arms up for more stretch and hold 10 seconds.
Benefit: Stretches front shoulder and chest area and extends thoracic spine. This mitigates internal rotation of arms and hunched upper back.

3. Straight Leg Bridge on Box or Couch:
Lying on the ground, place your feet up on a 12 inch high box. You can also use the edge of your couch. Turn out your legs and keep the heels close together. Hold for 10 seconds, then roll the spine down. Repeat.
Benefit: Strengthens lower back and gluteal muscles which get over-stretched and weakened from poor posture while sitting for long periods.