Posts Tagged ‘metabolism’
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
As an athlete, you should always be looking for ways to increase energy, strength and performance. Do you know that through the proper nutrition you can increase all of the above?
But what foods should you eat in order to make sure you stay performing at the top of your game?
We’ll take a look at these top 5 tips to ensure your body is given the proper nutrition for athletic enhancement and performance.
1. Eat 5 to 6 Small Meals a Day
This is by far the #1 tip when it comes to proper nutrition for athletes. Imagine your body like a race car. In order for a race car to function properly you need to give it the best gasoline, oil and tires to run the way it is supposed to. Likewise, without proper nutrition, you will not reach your full athletic potential. By eating 5 to 6 small meals a day, you will be able to recover at a faster rate and increase your energy levels!
2. Consume The Right Ratio of Macronutrients
A topic not discussed very often with regards to proper nutrition for athletes is macronutrients. They consist of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Without them you will not be able to survive. If you consume the correct amount of macronutrients at the right time, you will be well on your way to achieving your set goals, regardless of the sport you are in.
Definitely make sure that you emphasize complex carbs throughout the day and also include some simple carbs before and after the workouts. Finally, lean protein sources in every meal and some fats that are high in Omega 3s should be the sort of foods that make up your diet.
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At Last! Tom Venuto confesses the real truth
Behind his smashing bodybuilding successes…
World’s Top Natural Bodybuilding and Fat Loss Expert Reveals His Lifetime of Secrets – Including How He Easily Reaches Incredible, Ripped Single-Digit Body Fat – Without Steroids, Fat Burners or Supplements…And…How You Can Do It Too!
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3. Drink Plenty of Clean Water
The ideal amount of water to consume is your body weight multiplied by .66. So, if you weigh 200 pounds, you will require 132 ounces (200 multiplied by .66) of water. If you are not properly hydrated, your athletic performance will be hindered.
Water also helps to cleanse your body and acts as a detox to any harmful substances that may linger around. It keeps you hydrated and cools you off when you are sweating. In addition, water is required for important processes such as fat burning and muscle production.
4. Consume a Post-Workout Recovery Meal
Post-workout meals are important as they help you replenish your glycogen levels. Glycogen (stored carbs) is needed for energy and gets burned up after a workout as they are your main source of energy. As a result, after working out you should consume a meal that is high in protein and carbohydrates (both simple and complex). By doing this, you will allow your body to recover faster and will allow you to be that much better the next time you exercise or perform any physical activity.
5. Take Your Multi Vitamin and Minerals
Vitamins and minerals allow your body to process chemical reactions at an accelerated rate. B-complex vitamins provide a great health benefit as they help to further break down carbohydrates which in terms will give you energy. While you do obtain vitamins and minerals from certain foods you eat, they usually are not enough for those who are involved in physical activities such as exercising and sports.
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Tags: athlete, burn carbs, burn the fat, calories, cardio, cardiovascular fitness, duration of cardio, endurance training, Exercise, exercise fitness, fat burning zone, fat loss, fat oxidation, intensity of cardio, metabolic rate, metabolism, muscle chemistry, muscle contractions, nutrition for athletes, proper nutrition, sports and fitness, Strength, substrate utilization, thermogenic, tom venuto, Weight Lifting, Weight Training
Posted in Diets, Exercise, Fit Living, Fitness Goals, Nutrition, Recovery, Sports, Weight Gainer, Weight Loss | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT for short, has been promoted as one of the most effective training methods ever to come down the pike, both for fat loss and for cardiovascular fitness. One of the most popular claims for HIIT is that it burns “9 times more fat” than conventional (steady state) cardio. This figure was extracted from a study performed by Angelo Tremblay at Laval University in 1994. But what if I told you that HIIT has never been proven to be 9 times more effective than regular cardio… What if I told you that the same study actually shows that HIIT is 5 times less effective than steady state cardio??? Read on and see the proof for yourself.
“There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.”
- Mark Twain
In 1994, a study was published in the scientific journal Metabolism by Angelo Tremblay and his team from the Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory at Laval University in Quebec, Canada. Based on the results of this study, you hear personal trainers across the globe claiming that “HIIT burns 9 times more fat than steady state cardio.”
This claim has often been interpreted by the not so scientifically literate public as meaning something like this: If you burned 3 pounds of fat in 15 weeks on steady state cardio, you would now burn 27 pounds of fat in 15 weeks (3 lbs X 9 times better = 27 lbs).
Although it’s usually not stated as such, frankly, I think this is what some trainers want you to believe, because the programs that some trainers promote are based on convincing you of the vast superiority of HIIT and the “uselessness” of low intensity exercise.
Indeed, higher intensity exercise is more effective and time efficient than lower intensity exercise. The question is, how much more effective? There’s no evidence that the “9 times more fat loss” claim is true outside the specific context in which it was mentioned in this study.
In order to get to the bottom of this, you have to read the full text of the research paper and you have to look very closely at the results.
13 men and 14 women age 18 to 32 started the study. They were broken into two groups, a high intensity intermittent training program (HIIT) and a steady state training program which they referred to as endurance training (ET).
The ET group completed a 20 week steady state aerobic training program on a cycle ergometer 4 times a week for 30 minutes, later progressing to 5 times per week for 45 minutes. The initial intensity was 60% of maximal heart rate reserve, later increasing to 85%.
The HIIT group performed 25-30 minutes of continuous exercise at 70% of maximal heart rate reserve and they also progressively added 35 long and short interval training sessions over a period of 15 weeks. Short work intervals started at 10 then 15 bouts of 15 seconds, increasing to 30 seconds. Long intervals started at 5 bouts of 60 seconds, increasing to 90 seconds. Intensity and duration were progressively increased over the 15 week period.
The results: 3 times greater fat loss in the HIIT group
Even though the energy cost of the exercise performed in the ET group was twice as high as the HIIT group, the sum of the skinfolds (which reflects subcutaneous body fat) in the HIIT group was three times lower than the ET group.
So where did the “9 times greater fat loss” claim come from?
Well, there was a difference in energy cost between groups, so in order to show a comparison of fat loss relative to energy cost, Tremblay wrote,
“It appeared reasonable to correct changes in subcutaneous fat for the total cost of training. This was performed by expressing changes in subcutaneous skinfolds per megajoule of energy expended in each program.”
Translation: The subjects did not lose 9 times more body fat, in absolute terms. But hey, 3 times more fat loss? You’ll gladly take that, right?
Well hold on, because there’s more. Did you know that in this oft-quoted study, neither group lost much weight? In fact, if you look at the charts, you can see that the HIIT group lost 0.1 kg (63.9 kg before, 63.8 kg after). Yes, the HIIT group lost a whopping 100 grams of weight in 15 weeks!
The ET group lost 0.5 kilograms (60.6 kg before, 60.1 kg after).
Naturally, lack of weight loss while skinfolds decrease could simply mean that body composition improved (lean mass increased), but I think it’s important to highlight the fact that the research study from which the “9 times more fat” claim was derived did not result in ANY significant weight loss after 15 weeks.
Based on these results, if I wanted to manipulate statistics to promote steady state cardio, I could go around telling people, “Research study says steady state cardio (endurance training) results in 5 times more weight loss than high intensity interval training!” Or the reverse, “Clinical trial proves that high intensity interval training is 5 times less effective than steady state cardio!”
Mind you, THIS IS THE SAME STUDY THAT IS MOST OFTEN QUOTED TO SUPPORT HIIT!
If I said 5 X greater weight loss with steady state, I would be telling the truth, wouldn’t I? (100 grams of weight loss vs 500 grams?) Of course, that would be misleading because the weight loss was hardly significant in either group and because interval training IS highly effective. I’m simply being a little facetious in order to make a point: Be careful with statistics. I have seen statistical manipulation used many times in other contexts to deceive unsuspecting consumers.
For example, advertisements for a popular fat burner claim that use of their supplement resulted in twice as much fat loss, based on scientific research. The claim was true. Of course, in the ad, they forget to tell you that after six months, the control group lost no weight, while the supplement group lost only 1.0 kilo. Whoop de doo! ONE KILO of weight loss after going through a six month supply of this “miracle fat burner!”
But I digress…
Back to the HIIT story – there’s even more to it.
In the ET group, there were some funky skinfold and circumference measurements. ALL of the skinfold measurements in the ET group either stayed the same or went down except the calf measurement, which went up.
The girths and skinfold measurements in the limbs went down in the HIIT group, but there wasn’t much difference between HIIT and ET in the trunk skinfolds. These facts are all very easy to miss. I didn’t even notice it myself until exercise physiologist Christian Finn pointed it out to me. Christian said,
“When you look at the changes in the three skinfold measurements taken from the trunk, there wasn’t that much difference between the steady state group (-6.3mm) and the HIIT group (-8.7 mm). So, much of the difference in subcutaneous fat loss between the groups wasn’t because the HIIT group lost more fat, but because the steady state group actually gained fat around the calf muscles. We shouldn’t discount simple measurement error as an explanation for these rather odd results.”
Christian also pointed out that the two test groups were not evenly matched for body composition at the beginning of the study. At the beginning of the study, the starting body fat based on skinfolds in the HIIT group was nearly 20% higher than the ET group. He concluded:
“So while this study is interesting, weaknesses in the methods used to track changes in body composition mean that we should treat the results and conclusions with some caution.”
One beneficial aspect of HIIT that most trainers forget to mention is that HIIT may actually suppress your appetite, while steady state cardio might increase appetite. In a study such as this, however, that can skew the results. If energy intake were not controlled, then some of the greater fat loss in the HIIT group could be due to lowered caloric intake.
Last but not least, I’d like to highlight the words of the researchers themselves in the conclusion of the paper, which confirms the effectiveness of HIIT, but also helps put it in perspective a bit:
“For a given level of energy expenditure, a high intensity training program induces a greater loss of subcutaneous fat compared with a training program of moderate intensity.”
“It is obvious that high intensity exercise cannot be prescribed for individuals at risk for health problems or for obese people who are not used to exercise. In these cases, the most prudent course remains a low intensity exercise program with a progressive increase in duration and frequency of sessions.”
In conclusion, my intention in writing this article wasn’t to be controversial, to be a smart-alec or to criticize HIIT. To the contrary, additional research has continued to support the efficacy of HIIT for fat loss and fitness, not to mention that it is one of the most time efficient ways to do cardiovascular training.
I have recommended HIIT for years in my program, using a 1:1 long interval approach, which, while only one of many ways to do HIIT, is probably my personal favorite method. However, I also recommend steady state cardio and even low intensity cardio like walking, when it is appropriate.
My intentions for writing this article were four-fold:
1. To encourage you to question where claims come from, especially if they sound too good to be true.
2. To alert you to how advertisers might use research such as this to exaggerate with statistics.
3. To encourage the fitness community to swing the pendulum back to center a bit, by not over-selling the benefits of HIIT beyond what can be supported by the scientific research.
4. To encourage the fitness community, that even as they praise HIIT, not to condemn lower and moderate intensity forms of cardio.
As the original author of the 1994 HIIT study himself pointed out, HIIT is not for everyone, and cardio should be prescribed with progression. Also, mountains of other research has proven that walking (GASP! – low intensity cardio!) has always been one of the most successful exercise methods for overweight men and women.
There is ample evidence which says that obesity may be the result of a very slight daily energy imbalance, which adds up over time. Therefore, even a small amount of casual exercise or activity, if done consistently, and not compensated for with increased food intake, could reverse the obesity trend. HIIT gets the job done fast, but that doesn’t mean low intensity cardio is useless or that you should abandon your walking program, if you have the time and if that is what you enjoy and if that is what’s working for you in your personal situation.
The mechanisms and reasons why HIIT works so well are numerous. It goes way beyond more calories burned during the workout.
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
Reference: Tremblay, Angelo, et al. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Metabolism. Vol 43. no 7 (July). Pp 814-818. 1994..
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com
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Tags: 9 times more fat, burn the fat, cardio, cardiovascular fitness, endurance training, fat loss, high intensity interval training, high intensity training, hiit, metabolism, tom venuto
Posted in Cardiovascular, Exercise, Interval Training, Running, Treadmill, Walking, Weight Loss | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Wu Long Tea (oolong tea): Does it really help you lose weight?
www.burnthefat.com
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
You’ve probably seen the advertisements:
“Drink wu long tea and lose a jeans size every 7 days!”…
“Burn 20 lbs of fat in 30 days with wu long tea!” …
Maybe you even watched Oprah a few years ago when Dr. Perricone said that switching your coffee for green tea would help you take off the pounds.
You may have also read or watched countless news stories which say how healthy it is to drink green tea.
The odds are good that if you’re interested in improving your health and losing fat, you probably either drink tea, take a green tea supplement or you’ve at least thought about it.
But what if I told you that most of the fat reducing claims for green tea were absolute, total BS, based on misinterpretation or deliberate misreporting of the research?
Unfortunately, it’s true. If you’ve bought green tea based on the claim that it causes large reductions in body fat, then you have been scammed.
Here are the facts:
Green tea DOES stimulate your metabolism.
However, the research is very unclear about what kind of impact this small, short term increase in metabolism will have on your bodyweight in the long term.
In the most often quoted study (Dulloo, 1999), A swiss research team found that 270 mg of green tea extract 3X a day increased metabolic rate by the equivalent of about 79 calories on average and increased the oxidation of fat as the fuel source.
If you do the math, it appears that 79 kcal a day would add up to an extra pound of fat lost every 44 days. Not much, but you’ll take it, right? Hypothetically, that would add up to an extra 8 pounds lost per year.
What advertisements quoting this study don’t tell you is that this and other similar studies did not even measure long term change in body fat percentage or bodyweight. They only measured a 24- hour increase in energy expenditure.
One study which is used as marketing ammunition to claim that wu long tea burns 2.5 times more fat than green tea was based only on a 120-minute increase in energy expenditure! (reminds me of that Mark Twain quote: “There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.”)
Numerous follow up studies have confirmed the short term increase in metabolism, but the studies are mixed on whether green tea improves weight reduction or maintenance in the long term.
The research IS compelling, but not conclusive.
As for ad claims that say you’ll lose a lot of weight just from drinking green tea… absolute BS! Hopefully the Federal Trade Commission will catch up with these scammers sooner rather than later, as the marketing messages on the Internet are getting louder and bolder every day.
As for health benefits – green tea is certainly a champ. It’s high in antioxidants and there are more than 2,000 research citations about potential health benefits of green tea (not to mention a 5,000 year history of use in China and the far east).
Even if you’re a skeptic, green tea is hard not to like and it’s hard to dispute that it’s a good idea to add green tea to your nutrition program as one part of a well-balanced fitness lifestyle.
But when it comes to claims for large and rapid losses in bodyweight and bodyfat, (especially the wu long tea ads that are currently all over the internet), buyer beware.
The science we do have says that the thermogenic effect of green tea – while very real – is also very small.
Train hard and expect success always,
Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com
Tags: burn the fat, calories, green tea, green tea extract, green tea supplement, lose weight fast, metabolism, thermogenic, tom venuto, wu long
Posted in Diets, Weight Loss, Women's Fitness | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com
I’ll never forget the very first time I got ripped, how I did it and how it felt. I’ve never told this entire story before or widely published my early photos either. Winning first place and seeing my abs the first time was sweet redemption. But before that, it was a story of desperation…
I started lifting weights for bodybuilding when I was 14 years old, but I never had ripped abs until I was 20. I endured six years of frustration and embarrassment. Being a teenager is hard enough, but imagine how I felt being a self-proclaimed bodybuilder, with no abs or muscle definition to show for it. Imagine what it was like in swimming class or when we played basketball in gym class and I prayed to be called out for “shirts” and not ‘”skins” because I didn’t want any one seeing my “man-boobs” and ab flab jiggling all over the court.
Oh, I had muscle. I started gaining muscle from the moment I picked up a barbell. I got strong too. I was benching 315 at age 18. But even after four years of successful strength training, I still hadn’t figured out this getting ripped thing. Muscle isn’t very attractive if it’s covered up with a layer of fat. That’s where the phrase “bulky” really comes from – fat on top of muscle. It can look worse than just fat.
I read every book. I read every magazine. I tried every exercise. I took every supplement in vogue back in the 80’s (remember bee pollen, octacosanol, lipotropics and dessicated liver?) I tried not eating for entire days at a time. I went on a rope skipping kick. I did hundreds of crunches and ab exercises. I rode the Lifecycle. I wore rubber waist belts.
The results were mediocre at best. When I made progress, I couldn’t maintain it. One step forward, one step back. Even when I got a little leaner, it wasn’t all the way. Still no ripped abs. When I played football and they beat the crap out of us at training camp, I lost weight, but STILL didn’t get all the way down to those elusive six pack abs. In fact, it was almost like I got “skinny fat.” My arms and legs lost some muscle but the small roll of ab fat was still there.
Why was it so hard? What was I doing wrong? It was driving me crazy!
My condition got worse in college because I mixed with a party crowd. With boozing came eating, and the “bulk” accumulated even more. At that point, the partying and social life were more important to me than my body. I was still lifting weights, but wasn’t living a fitness lifestyle.
Mid way through college I changed my major from business management to exercise science, having made up my mind to pursue a career in fitness. That’s when I started to feel something wasn’t right. The best word for it is “incongruence.” That’s when what you say you want to be and what you really are don’t match. Being a fitness professional means you have to walk the talk and be a role model to others. Anything else is hypocrisy. I knew I had to shape up or forget fitness as a career.
But after four years, I STILL didn’t know how to get ripped! Nothing I learned in exercise physiology class helped. All the theory was interesting, but when theory hit the real world, things didn’t always work out like they did on paper. My professors didn’t know either. Heck, most of them weren’t even in shape! Two of them were overweight, including my nutrition professor.
However, out of my college experience did come the seeds of the solution and my first breakthrough.
In one of my physical education classes, we were required to do some running and we were instructed to keep track of our performance and resting heart rates. Somehow, even though I was a strength athlete, I got hooked on running. After the initial discomfort of hauling around a not so cardio-fit 205 pound body, I started to get a lot of satisfaction out of watching my resting heart rate drop from the 70’s into the 50’s and seeing my running times get better and better. And then it happened: I started getting leaner than I ever had before.
The results motivated me to no end, and I kept after it even more. My runs would be 5 or 6 days a week and I’d go for between 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I had a circular route of about 6 miles and I would run it for time, almost always pushing for a personal record. When I finished, I was spent, drenched in sweat and sometimes just crashing when I got home. And I kept getting even leaner.
That’s when I started to figure it out. If you’re expecting me to say that running is the secret, no, that’s NOT it per se. I was thinking bigger picture. In fact, I noticed that my legs had lost some muscle size, so I knew that over-doing the runs would be counter productive, ultimately, and I don’t run that much anymore these days. But that’s how I did it the first time and I had never experienced fat loss like that before. The fat was falling off and I had barely changed my diet.
My “aha moment” was when I realized the pivotal piece in the puzzle was calories. It wasn’t the type of exercise, it wasn’t the specific foods and it wasn’t supplements. Today I realize that it’s the calorie deficit that matters the most, not whether you eat less or burn more per se, but in my case creating a large deficit by burning the calories was the absolute key for me.
These runs were burning an enormous number of calories. Everything I had done before wasn’t burning enough to make a noticeable difference in a short period of time. 10-15 minutes of rope skipping wasn’t enough. 45 minutes of slow-go bike riding wasn’t burning enough. Hundreds of crunches weren’t enough. I put 1+1+1 together and realized it was intensity X duration X frequency = highest the total calorie burn for the week. How much simpler could it be? It wasn’t magic. It was MATH!
It was consistency too. This was the first time in SIX YEARS I stuck with it. Body fat comes off by the grams every day – literally. Kilos and pounds of body weight may come off quickly, but they come back just as fast. Body fat comes off slowly and if you have no patience or you jump to one program to the next without following through with the one you started, you’re doomed. In six years, I had “tried everything”… except consistency and patience.
Then the stakes went up. I had finally gotten lean, but there was another level beyond lean… RIPPED! My buddies at the gym noticed me getting leaner and then they popped the question: Why don’t you compete? My training partner Steve had already competed 3 years earlier and won the Teenage Mr. America competition. Since then, I had been all talk and no walk. “Yeah, I’m going to compete one of these days too… I’m going to be the next Mr. America.” Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The only title I had won was “Mr. Procastinator.” Then finally, Steve and my other friends challenged me almost in an ultimatum type of way. Well, the truth is, I set myself up for it with my big mouth and they called me out, so I would have been the laughing stock of our gym if I didn’t follow through.
The first time you do a real cut – all the way down to contest-ready – is the hardest. Not as much physically as psychologically, simply because you’ve never done it before. Doing something you’ve done before is no big deal. Doing something you’ve never done before causes uncertainty and fear, sometimes even terror! I was plagued with self-doubt the entire time, never sure if I was ever going to get there. It seemed like it was taking forever. But failure was not an option. Not only did I have an entire gym full of friends rooting me on, I had great training partner who was natural Mr. Teenage America! The pressure was on. I had to do it. There was no way out. No excuses.
Some other day, I’ll tell you all the details of the emotional roller coaster ride that was my first contest diet, but let it suffice to say, at that point, I still didn’t know what I was doing. It was only later that I went into “human guinea pig” mode with nutritional experiments and finally pinned down the eating side of the equation to a science (and gained 20 lbs of stage-weight muscle as a result).
In the late 1980’s, the standard bodybuilding diet was high carb, low fat. For that first competition, I was on 60% carbs – including pancakes, boxed cereal, whole grain bread, and pasta – so I guess you can toss out the idea that it’s impossible to get ripped on high carbs – although high carb is NOT the contest diet I use today. But it didn’t matter, because I had already learned the critical piece in the fat loss puzzle – the calorie balance equation. Understanding that one aspect of physiology was enough to get me ripped. It only got better later.
In the end, I took 2nd place at my very first competition, the Natural Lehigh Valley, and one month later, I won first place at the Natural New Jersey. Seven months later, the overall Natural Pennsylvania.
Looking back, was all the effort worth it? Well, my good friend Adam Waters, who is an accountability coach, teaches his students about using “redemption” as a motivator. Remember the Charles Atlas ad where the skinny kid got sand kicked in his face and then came back big and buffed and beat up the bully? That’s redemption. Or the dateless high school nerd who comes back to the 10 year class reunion driving a Mercedes with the prom queen on his arm? That’s redemption.
After all the doubt, heartache and frustration I went through for six years, I not only had my trophies, my abs were on the front page of the sports section in our small Pennsylvania town newspaper. The following year, I was on the poster for a bodybuilding competition… as the previous year’s champion. THAT’S REDEMPTION. You tell me if it was worth it.
There are 7 lessons from my story that I want to share with you because even if you have a different personal history than I do, these 7 lessons are the keys to achieving any previously elusive fitness goal for the first time and I think they apply to everyone.
1. Set the big goal and go for it. If your goal doesn’t excite you and scare you at the same time, your goal is too small. If you don’t feel fear or uncertainty, you’re inside your comfort zone. Puny goals aren’t motivating. Sometimes it takes a competition or a big challenge of some kind to get your blood boiling.
2. Align your values with your goals. I understood my values and made a decision to be congruent with who I really was and who I wanted to be. When you know your values, get your priorities straight and align your goals with your values, then doing what it takes is easy.
3. Do the math. Stop looking for magic. A lean body does not come from any particular type of exercise or foods per se, it’s the calories burned vs calories consumed that determines fat loss or fat gain. You might do better by decreasing the calories consumed, whereas I depended more on increasing the calories burned, but either way, it’s still a math equation. Deny it at your own risk.
4. Get social support. Support and encouragement from your friends can help get you through anything. Real time accountability to a training partner or trainer can make all the difference.
5. Be consistent. Nothing will ever work if you don’t work at it every day. Sporadic efforts don’t just produce sporadic results, sometimes they produce zero results.
6. Persist through difficulty and self doubt. If you think it’s going to be smooth sailing all the way with no ups and downs, you’re fooling yourself.. For every sunny day, there’s going to be a storm. If you can’t weather the storms, you’ll never reach new shores.
7. Redeem yourself. Non-achievers sit on the couch and wallow in past failures. Winners use past failures as motivational rocket fuel. It always feels good to achieve a goal, but nothing feels as good as achieving a goal with redemption.
Postscript: My journey continued. Since that initial first place trophy, I have competed as a natural for life bodybuilder 26 more times, including 7 first place awards and 7 runner up awards. And yes, I finally nailed down the nutrition side of things too. You can read more about that and the fat loss program that developed as a result at www.burnthefat.com
Train hard and expect success always,
Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
www.burnthefat.com
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Tags: ab exercises, bodybuilder, bodybuilding, burn the fat, burnthefat, cardio, crunches, Exercise, fat loss, fitness, gaining muscle, lifting weights, man boobs, metabolism, muscle, muscle definition, six pack abs, strength training, tom venuto, waist belts, work out
Posted in 6 Pack Abs!!!, Body Building, Weight Loss, Weight Training | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 26th, 2009
Faith based diets have been around for decades. But is overeating really a sin? Does God punish you for being fat? A recent column in an issue of USA Today answers, “weight loss is hard enough without feeling that the almighty is on your back, too”…
Recently, I was sitting in a wonderful little breakfast “parlor” on Main Street in Santa Monica (California), enjoying a bowl of oatmeal, a mountain of fresh fruit and a “sexy omelette” (the bodybuilder’s favorite). There was even a “Schwarzenegger omelette” on the menu – I kid you not! Although the usual dietary temptations are omnipresent everywhere, I noticed a lot more healthy eateries and healthy options on menus out here, which is okay by me! It seems like people are much more health conscious in Southern California compared to back home in the New Jersey/New York City area.
One thing is for sure – people are definitely in better shape. No doubt, it’s partly due to the year-round beautiful weather. You can’t hide under those winter coats in this weather! When I left Newark airport it was a blustery 37 degrees. It’s 77 degrees and sunny as I sit here on my hotel balcony, laptop on my lap, overlooking the palm trees and Pacific ocean.
A friend of mine once said that “Palm trees are God’s way of saying, LIVE HERE!”
Speaking of God, that brings me to the subject of this article. As I was finishing up the last few bites of my high protein omelette, I came across an article in USA Today that I simply HAD to pass on to you because it’s related to some of the weight loss work I’ve been recently doing and it bears some important lessons.
The column, written by Christine Whelan, a professor of sociology, said that religious diet groups are growing in number and some of them say that “God might not approve of that second piece of pie.” In fact, some of these groups, reported Whelan, warn that God will punish you for overeating and being fat. The Weigh Down Workshop, one of the most “hard-line” of such groups, tells their participants that God will “destroy you” if you abuse your body by overeating.
Well, we’ve certainly heard of gluttony referred to as a deadly sin, but is this going a little too far?”
I’m not sure what other people think, but I prefer to think of God as a loving God, who does not punish a person in the hereafter for being fat in this life. But then again, why would he have to? He has created a magnificent physical world based on immutable physical laws of cause and effect, reward and consequence, which mete out all the “punishment” needed, right here in this life: diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis, gout, and even cancer. All of them are linked to obesity. Combined with the emotional pain of being overweight and the lower quality (and sometimes quantity) of life, I’d say that’s punishment enough, wouldn’t you?
But enough of my theological viewpoint, I found some tremendously valuable practical lessons in the newspaper article.
I don’t believe that instilling guilt or fear of eternal damnation is an uplifting way to change behavior. Perhaps it might be effective for some, as fear of consequences can be a powerful motivator. But aren’t there more positive ways to achieve behavior modification than hellfire and brimstone?
For example, metaphors are also powerful motivators, especially because metaphors are language that your unconscious mind can understand. Didn’t Jesus teach in parables and metaphors? What if you said your body was like a temple? Would you behave differently? Would you look after your “temple” with more care? Those with spiritual beliefs almost certainly would, if they kept that in mind and believed it on a deep level.
In my books, I delve into the emotional, psychological and social aspects of body fat loss.
Some of the chapters are devoted to teaching you how to build a fortress of positive, uplifting, inspiring energy around you in the form of positive, uplifting, and inspiring people. But many of my readers and clients tell me this is easier said than done in their world. “What am I supposed to do when peer pressure from my friends is pulling me down?” “What do I do if my own family won’t support my new, healthier choices? What if they keep bringing potato chips, cookies and ice cream into the house?” “What if no one supports me?”
Enter spiritual diet support groups. Not all of these groups are so extreme as to pronounce that being fat is a sin. And as Whelan put it, “religion may be the ultimate trump card of many behavior modification programs.”
No matter how independent we are, we all need support in our journeys toward personal improvement. It’s the great paradox of succeeding in any endeavor in life – you have to do it by yourself, but you can’t do it alone.
Spiritual communities and religious support groups can be the last refuge of support and encouragement for some people. For anyone with spiritual beliefs, these groups may be one of the best places of all to turn for social support. There’s your church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. There are also organized weight loss support groups.
One such group mentioned in the USA Today article is BABES – Beautiful Accountable Babes Exercising Sensibly. The mission of babes is “connecting with others to lose weight and build friendships.” Accountability. Exercising. Connecting with others. That all sounds pretty sensible to me! Moreover, according to BABES co-founder, Barb Swanson, “we are not into sin and judgment. God wants balance and it’s more than the size that you are.”
Indeed it is. As I have said before, body fat is not a person, it’s a temporary physical condition. What we really are is far more than physical bodies.
There’s enough guilt, fear and shame for people who are struggling with weight issues already. They don’t need any more negativity from their spiritual leaders. Instead, if you are a person of faith, use your spiritual community as a source of social support and inspiration, and motivate yourself by focusing on the positive and uplifting side. It will pay you eternal dividends.
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach
www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:
www.burnthefat.com
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