Did you know that you can turn your body into a fat-burning powerhouse that will destroy your extra weight as you sleep? According to cardiologists, muscle tissue can burn calories up to 70 times faster than fat. Metabolism is a natural process that takes place in your body all the time – but you can use it to your advantage by increasing its calorie-burning power.
Metabolism: Your Body is a Powerhouse!
Did you know that you can turn your body into a fat-burning powerhouse that will destroy your extra weight as you sleep? According to cardiologists, muscle tissue can burn calories up to 70 times faster than fat. Metabolism is a natural process that takes place in your body all the time – but you can use it to your advantage by increasing its calorie-burning power.
First of all, what is metabolism? It's the process during which food is broken down into energy to power your body. This energy, in turn, is used for everything – from helping regrow a tiny scratch on your palm to constructing new muscle tissue. Better still, your body is smart enough to know when it needs more energy than usual – and when it does, it will increase your metabolism rate accordingly.
The higher your metabolism rate is, the faster your body will be breaking down food into energy. But it gets even better; it will also try to use up your energy reserves to power the body when needed. Those energy reserves are better known as fat, and are formed when you supply your body with more energy than it needs.
By now, you can see how having a higher metabolism rate can help you lose weight. But how can you increase your metabolism? Luckily, the answer is very simple. The easiest way to increase your metabolism rate is through strength training.
As you can imagine, the process of raising and lowering heavy things leads to more than just a feeling of complete desperation about the state of your body – it also causes your muscles to grow. Muscle mass is very metabolically active, which means that your body will always need energy to maintain it. As your body's need for energy increases, so will your metabolism rate; eventually turning your body into a fat-burning machine that passively does its job as you go about your daily activities.
For best results, strength training should be done every other day. The reason is that every time you exercise, small tears will develop in your muscles. These tears are perfectly healthy, and will disappear if you give them time. This is one good reason why it's always best to give your body some time to rest, but as you will see later, it's not the only one!
Another great thing about strength training is that it also gives you a huge one-off metabolism boost in addition to the one you get from increased muscle tissue. The tears described above also need energy to regenerate, which means that, immediately after the exercise, your metabolism rate will increase for a period of time to help your muscles recover. This is the so-called “afterburn” effect that can last for up to 24 hours, depending on how hard you exercise, and it's also why giving your body some time to relax is such a good idea.
As you can see, metabolism can be a very powerful tool for weight loss. The best thing about it is that you don't have to bore yourself to death by jogging on the treadmill for hours without end. Strength training can be a lot more fun, and with the passive metabolism boost that you'll gain at the end, you will not only look better, but burn fat faster!
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Losing Weight and Loving It – 5 Motivation Tips
Have you ever committed yourself to a fabulous new diet or a daily exercise routine – only to give up on it weeks later? Losing weight seems deceptively easy during the first week – it's the week after that you first start thinking that you're just too tired to go to the gym today, or that maybe, just maybe, that little piece of cake can't make that big a difference.
Have you ever committed yourself to a fabulous new diet or a daily exercise routine – only to give up on it weeks later? Losing weight seems deceptively easy during the first week – it's the week after that you first start thinking that you're just too tired to go to the gym today, or that maybe, just maybe, that little piece of cake can't make that big a difference.
Staying motivated is always hard, but it's twice as difficult when you have to get yourself to a gym every other day or watch every last bite you eat. Fortunately, in this article, you will discover five tried-and-true ways to make weight loss a little bit less painful – and maybe even fun!
1. Set a Goal
The first thing to do to stay motivated is to set a clear goal of how much weight you want to lose, in what period of time, and how you're going to accomplish it. Commit yourself to exercising a fixed number of days every week. Don't accept any excuse you make up not to go – there's rarely such a thing as being too tired for a 30 minute workout session.
2. Share Your Plan With Others
If you're not sure that you can stick to the promises you made to yourself, what about keeping promises given to others? A great way to make sure you meet your weekly gym commitment is to inform people you care about that you will be going to the gym every week. Make it a commitment to them, so that if you fail to observe it, you won't be just letting yourself down – you'll be disappointing people you care about, too. You'll be surprised how much harder you will have to work when you have to meet the expectations of others, not just yourself!
3. Don't Stop the Music
Get yourself the cheapest MP3 player out there and take it to the gym every day. Pump the volume up to the maximum and play a really active and energizing tune. This is a great tip for aerobic exercises, since, no matter how you slice it, jogging on a treadmill for an hour can get dead boring, fast.
4. Let Success Be Your Motivator
This will only happen if you can survive the first few weeks of weight loss, but when you see your body in the mirror and start noticing definite improvements - you'll be amazed by how much more motivated you will be to keep going! Nothing motivates better than the sight of your love handles slowly giving way to hard muscle.
5. Trash the Junk Food
Turn your house into a junk-free zone. Throw away any junk food you have left. Don't ever let anyone else bring it into the house - threaten to shoot on sight those who try (you can tell the police they were trying to break in). Stockpile only healthy foods, such as whole grains and fruits. The objective is to make sure that even if you do get those late night cravings, you only have something healthy to satisfy them with.
In conclusion, a diet or an exercise plan will probably never be on top of your list of the things you enjoy. However, following the five tips above will hopefully make both activities a little bit less annoying (at least you won't be tempted to shoot yourself every time you consider going to the gym, which is a clear sign of improvement!)
Have you ever committed yourself to a fabulous new diet or a daily exercise routine – only to give up on it weeks later? Losing weight seems deceptively easy during the first week – it's the week after that you first start thinking that you're just too tired to go to the gym today, or that maybe, just maybe, that little piece of cake can't make that big a difference.
Staying motivated is always hard, but it's twice as difficult when you have to get yourself to a gym every other day or watch every last bite you eat. Fortunately, in this article, you will discover five tried-and-true ways to make weight loss a little bit less painful – and maybe even fun!
1. Set a Goal
The first thing to do to stay motivated is to set a clear goal of how much weight you want to lose, in what period of time, and how you're going to accomplish it. Commit yourself to exercising a fixed number of days every week. Don't accept any excuse you make up not to go – there's rarely such a thing as being too tired for a 30 minute workout session.
2. Share Your Plan With Others
If you're not sure that you can stick to the promises you made to yourself, what about keeping promises given to others? A great way to make sure you meet your weekly gym commitment is to inform people you care about that you will be going to the gym every week. Make it a commitment to them, so that if you fail to observe it, you won't be just letting yourself down – you'll be disappointing people you care about, too. You'll be surprised how much harder you will have to work when you have to meet the expectations of others, not just yourself!
3. Don't Stop the Music
Get yourself the cheapest MP3 player out there and take it to the gym every day. Pump the volume up to the maximum and play a really active and energizing tune. This is a great tip for aerobic exercises, since, no matter how you slice it, jogging on a treadmill for an hour can get dead boring, fast.
4. Let Success Be Your Motivator
This will only happen if you can survive the first few weeks of weight loss, but when you see your body in the mirror and start noticing definite improvements - you'll be amazed by how much more motivated you will be to keep going! Nothing motivates better than the sight of your love handles slowly giving way to hard muscle.
5. Trash the Junk Food
Turn your house into a junk-free zone. Throw away any junk food you have left. Don't ever let anyone else bring it into the house - threaten to shoot on sight those who try (you can tell the police they were trying to break in). Stockpile only healthy foods, such as whole grains and fruits. The objective is to make sure that even if you do get those late night cravings, you only have something healthy to satisfy them with.
In conclusion, a diet or an exercise plan will probably never be on top of your list of the things you enjoy. However, following the five tips above will hopefully make both activities a little bit less annoying (at least you won't be tempted to shoot yourself every time you consider going to the gym, which is a clear sign of improvement!)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
External Forces Trump Inner Balance
You may be thinking if your body is so good at defending your set point, how did your set point become too high? Ultimately, your behavior—how you respond to the environment—trumps your physiology, or your body’s inner workings. Eating is complex behavior that is affected by many different factors, including genetics. How food tastes, how hungry we feel, and even how we respond to social cues around food (for example, whether we eat more at a party or while alone) are all affected by our genes. And these genetic differences affect how we respond to our environment. Over the past few decades, changes in our society have altered our environment dramatically. Oversized portions of high-calorie (and often inexpensive) foods are readily available, day and night. And modern conveniences—everything from electric toothbrushes to leaf blowers to cars—mean we don’t have as many opportunities to exercise. These and other factors, which are detailed in the next chapter, are the driving forces behind our rising set points.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
On a fundamental level, we eat to survive. Leptin and other hormones regulate this unconscious drive. But we also have a conscious desire to eat, which is clearly affected by the smell, taste, and appearance of foods. Your emotional state also comes into play. Some people eat more (or less) when they’re upset, angry, or depressed (For more on breaking these patterns, see Chapter 9). We also eat out of habit, simply because it’s time for lunch (or a snack or dinner) or because people around us are eating. As in most cultures, Americans often plan their work and social schedules around eating rituals.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Vermont Prison Overfeeding Study
Whereas the Keys study explored the body’s response to a minimal number of calories, another intriguing study looked at the opposite end of the spectrum: calorie overload. In 1964, researchers at the Vermont College of Medicine asked volunteers to gain 15% to 25% of their body weight in less than three months.
The impetus for this study was to better understand exactly what happens to the body during weight gain. For instance, do fat cells increase in number or simply grow larger? At first, the scientists sought volunteers from a usually reliable source of guinea pigs: graduate and medical students at the college. But the study design, which required the volunteers to eat four large meals a day at the nutrition lab, proved far too time-consuming for busy students. So the researchers turned to a more captive crowd: inmates at the Vermont State Prison. They hired a cook to prepare the meals and served the food on china plates instead of tin. The prisoner’s ample diets included standard American fare: cereal, eggs, and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and dinners of meat, potatoes, and vegetables. The fourth meal, which the men ate just before bedtime, was similar to breakfast.
The volunteers started out at normal weights, which ranged from about 135 to 185 pounds. During the ten-week-long study, the men managed to gain between 15% and 25% of their body weight, which amounted to an average of nearly 36 pounds. To do so, they had to eat 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day—more than three times the normal number of calories they would have needed to maintain their weight. The weight changes were largely due to gains in body fat. By taking small samples of fat from the men’s bellies, thighs, and arms before and after the overfeeding, the researchers demonstrated that this excess fat didn’t create new fat cells but rather expanded the existing ones.
This study and similar ones on the prisoners revealed other interesting phenomena related to body weight and the set point. Researchers found that the prisoner’s metabolic rates went into overdrive after the overfeeding period. These changes provide further evidence of the body’s drive to restore balance and return to its set point. When the experiment ended and the men went back to eating regular amounts of food, they lost weight quite quickly—not just because they were eating less but because their metabolic rates were still racing. Note that the prisoners did not remain at the new, higher weights for very long, so they did not reset their set points to new, higher levels. That contrasts with people who have been overweight for long periods of time.
In recent years, many studies have reaffirmed the observations from these historic reports. One pivotal 1995 study, by Jules Hirsch and colleagues at the Rockefeller University in New York City, used sophisticated techniques to carefully measure the metabolic rates of forty-one obese and nonobese volunteers who followed strict diets that caused them to either lose or gain 10% of their body weight. The researchers found that when people gained 10% of their usual weight, their bodies focused less on conserving energy and more on wasting it. But when people lost more than 10% of their usual weight, the opposite occurred: their bodies fought to save energy rather than expend it. This explains why it’s so difficult to lose more than 10% of your weight at a time.
So no matter where you start (overweight, thin, or somewhere in between) and no matter how you manipulate your diet (eating too much or too little), your metabolic rate will automatically adjust in an effort to keep you at the same set point.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
The impetus for this study was to better understand exactly what happens to the body during weight gain. For instance, do fat cells increase in number or simply grow larger? At first, the scientists sought volunteers from a usually reliable source of guinea pigs: graduate and medical students at the college. But the study design, which required the volunteers to eat four large meals a day at the nutrition lab, proved far too time-consuming for busy students. So the researchers turned to a more captive crowd: inmates at the Vermont State Prison. They hired a cook to prepare the meals and served the food on china plates instead of tin. The prisoner’s ample diets included standard American fare: cereal, eggs, and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and dinners of meat, potatoes, and vegetables. The fourth meal, which the men ate just before bedtime, was similar to breakfast.
The volunteers started out at normal weights, which ranged from about 135 to 185 pounds. During the ten-week-long study, the men managed to gain between 15% and 25% of their body weight, which amounted to an average of nearly 36 pounds. To do so, they had to eat 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day—more than three times the normal number of calories they would have needed to maintain their weight. The weight changes were largely due to gains in body fat. By taking small samples of fat from the men’s bellies, thighs, and arms before and after the overfeeding, the researchers demonstrated that this excess fat didn’t create new fat cells but rather expanded the existing ones.
This study and similar ones on the prisoners revealed other interesting phenomena related to body weight and the set point. Researchers found that the prisoner’s metabolic rates went into overdrive after the overfeeding period. These changes provide further evidence of the body’s drive to restore balance and return to its set point. When the experiment ended and the men went back to eating regular amounts of food, they lost weight quite quickly—not just because they were eating less but because their metabolic rates were still racing. Note that the prisoners did not remain at the new, higher weights for very long, so they did not reset their set points to new, higher levels. That contrasts with people who have been overweight for long periods of time.
The rapid weight loss these prisoners experienced is the mirror image of what happens when overweight people try to lose weight. If your set point is too high and you try to lose weight quickly, your body will fight to defend that weight and slow down your metabolism. But if your set point is within a normal range, your metabolism will speed up when you gain weight quickly.
In recent years, many studies have reaffirmed the observations from these historic reports. One pivotal 1995 study, by Jules Hirsch and colleagues at the Rockefeller University in New York City, used sophisticated techniques to carefully measure the metabolic rates of forty-one obese and nonobese volunteers who followed strict diets that caused them to either lose or gain 10% of their body weight. The researchers found that when people gained 10% of their usual weight, their bodies focused less on conserving energy and more on wasting it. But when people lost more than 10% of their usual weight, the opposite occurred: their bodies fought to save energy rather than expend it. This explains why it’s so difficult to lose more than 10% of your weight at a time.
So no matter where you start (overweight, thin, or somewhere in between) and no matter how you manipulate your diet (eating too much or too little), your metabolic rate will automatically adjust in an effort to keep you at the same set point.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Minnesota Starvation Study
Just a few years before the Framingham study began, a very different type of experiment was already underway in Minnesota, led by Ancel Keys. Dr. Keys is known for his pioneering work on the link between saturated fat and heart disease and for the development of K-rations, the balanced, portable meals given to soldiers during World War II. But his study involving a group of thirty-six conscientious objectors who volunteered to starve for the sake of science ranks as his most intriguing yet controversial work. Today, ethical regulations would never allow this type of study to take place.
The purpose of the study was to understand the physical and mental effects of starvation, anticipating the need to learn the best ways to re-feed people who had experienced extreme starvation (namely, civilians throughout Europe after World War II). The men endured six months of semistarvation, eating a diet similar to that in war-torn Europe—lots of potatoes and turnips and very little meat or dairy products. During the study, the men had to continue exercising, walking at least 22 miles a week, or about 3 miles a day. They were rationed about 1,600 calories per day—approximately three quarters of what these healthy young men needed to stay at their previously normal weight levels.
The men lost an average of about 25% of their body weight over six months, which caused them to resemble the concentration camp survivors they were hoping to help. They became sluggish, uncoordinated, depressed, and irritable. Keys documented the study in a two-volume tome, The Biology of Human Starvation, which includes this description penned by one volunteer:
I’m hungry. I’m always hungry—not the hunger that comes when you miss lunch but a continual cry from the body for food. At times I can almost forget about it but there is nothing that can hold my interest for long.
These feelings may be familiar to veteran dieters who’ve tried very low-calorie diets. Even among people who are overweight or obese (unlike these normal-weight volunteers), the very same mechanisms kick in during the self-imposed starvation of a diet. Faced with the physical and emotional strain, the body fights back to stay alive. Keys calculated that the men’s metabolic rates had decreased by about 40% by the end of the starvation period. One volunteer said it was as if his "body flame [was] burning as low as possible to conserve precious fuel and still maintain [the] life process."
After six months of starvation, the men entered a rehabilitation phase, during which they gradually received increasing amounts of food over a three-month period. Perhaps not surprisingly, the men’s response to this relative abundance provoked some unusual behaviors. Some ate until they vomited and then asked for more. Others ate until they weren’t physically capable of eating another bite of food, yet they still claimed they were hungry. Again, these behaviors may sound familiar to people who’ve tried so-called crash diets designed for rapid weight loss.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
The purpose of the study was to understand the physical and mental effects of starvation, anticipating the need to learn the best ways to re-feed people who had experienced extreme starvation (namely, civilians throughout Europe after World War II). The men endured six months of semistarvation, eating a diet similar to that in war-torn Europe—lots of potatoes and turnips and very little meat or dairy products. During the study, the men had to continue exercising, walking at least 22 miles a week, or about 3 miles a day. They were rationed about 1,600 calories per day—approximately three quarters of what these healthy young men needed to stay at their previously normal weight levels.
The men lost an average of about 25% of their body weight over six months, which caused them to resemble the concentration camp survivors they were hoping to help. They became sluggish, uncoordinated, depressed, and irritable. Keys documented the study in a two-volume tome, The Biology of Human Starvation, which includes this description penned by one volunteer:
I’m hungry. I’m always hungry—not the hunger that comes when you miss lunch but a continual cry from the body for food. At times I can almost forget about it but there is nothing that can hold my interest for long.
These feelings may be familiar to veteran dieters who’ve tried very low-calorie diets. Even among people who are overweight or obese (unlike these normal-weight volunteers), the very same mechanisms kick in during the self-imposed starvation of a diet. Faced with the physical and emotional strain, the body fights back to stay alive. Keys calculated that the men’s metabolic rates had decreased by about 40% by the end of the starvation period. One volunteer said it was as if his "body flame [was] burning as low as possible to conserve precious fuel and still maintain [the] life process."
After six months of starvation, the men entered a rehabilitation phase, during which they gradually received increasing amounts of food over a three-month period. Perhaps not surprisingly, the men’s response to this relative abundance provoked some unusual behaviors. Some ate until they vomited and then asked for more. Others ate until they weren’t physically capable of eating another bite of food, yet they still claimed they were hungry. Again, these behaviors may sound familiar to people who’ve tried so-called crash diets designed for rapid weight loss.
The take-home lesson is that it’s extremely challenging to try to lose a lot of weight over a short time period. Your body will rebel against these efforts, helping you regain the weight you’ve lost and possibly triggering strange (and potentially unhealthy) eating behaviors.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
The Framingham Heart Study
One line of evidence comes from people involved in the Framingham Heart Study, which dates back to the 1940s. Back then, very little was known about why people had heart attacks. This landmark study, which continues to this day, sought to answer that question. In 1948, researchers recruited more than fifty-two hundred men and women between the ages of 30 and 62 who were living in the Boston suburb of Framingham, Massachusetts. They recorded their height, weight, family health history, and gave them a physical exam every other year.
Over the years, scientists began collecting more data from the participants, such as measuring their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and asking them about their eating, exercise, and smoking habits. In 1971, the Offspring Study, which includes the children (and their spouses) of the original group, was launched. And researchers began recruiting the third generation in 2002. Among the most important discoveries from the study was that cigarette smoking and obesity increase the risk of heart disease, and physical activity could lower that risk.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
Over the years, scientists began collecting more data from the participants, such as measuring their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and asking them about their eating, exercise, and smoking habits. In 1971, the Offspring Study, which includes the children (and their spouses) of the original group, was launched. And researchers began recruiting the third generation in 2002. Among the most important discoveries from the study was that cigarette smoking and obesity increase the risk of heart disease, and physical activity could lower that risk.
Researchers also found that over about a thirty-year period, the average participant gained about 20 pounds. This typical, slow gain is healthy and normal. The number of calories these participants ate balanced the number of calories they burned within a tiny percent during those years. If you figure that the average person eats about one million calories per year and you calculate the energy cost of those 20 pounds (that is, how many extra calories would a person have to eat each day, on average), it comes out to about 10 additional calories per day. That’s less than The amount of calories in a single jelly bean! The body’s internal control system is very is precise.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
Monday, August 24, 2009
Obesity as a Metabolic Disease
The reason weight-loss medications can’t provide any real results is that we have a complex, overlapping system of checks and balances that help "defend" our body-weight set point. Many different genes contribute to your body weight, and thus it’s impossible to manipulate it by focusing on just one hormone (or other substance). Others will jump in to compensate. The brief explanation of leptin and the other major players in this defensive strategy barely skims the surface of this intricate system. The take-home message is that these factors are beyond your conscious control. Our broader understanding of these factors has dramatically changed the framework of how we view the problem of weight gain and obesity. Instead of thinking of obesity as the consequence of a lack of restraint or willpower, it’s now increasingly recognized as a disease that results from a breakdown in the body’s normal system of checks and balances.
Source: George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., "Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off," 2008
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