Posts Tagged ‘stress’

The Great Nutrient Debate!

07 Nov

Tags: absorption, acai berry, Activity, America, apple, Association, bioavailability, Biotest, Calorie, Corn Syrup, Diabetes, diet, Exercise, fiber, Fructose, fruit, Inflammation, juice or whole foods, lyle mcdonald, Metabolic, Nutritional, oxygen, processing, Research, smoothies better than juicing, stress, structure, sugar, supplement, Supplements., time, variety
Posted in antioxidents, juicing, nutrients | 9 Comments »

Originally published by FA

Sure, fruits and veggies are nature’s potent pharmacy, right?

You bet your sculpted ass they are!

But what’s the best way to get at that goodness? Should we juice it, mash it, or supplement it?

Silence.

Fruits and veggies offer a variety of nourishing vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are hard to find anywhere else in their purest form, but their preparation can have an impact on their nutrient make-up. Some berries when microwaved, for example, have their antioxidant potency increased. Other types of fruits and veggies, however, lose a large amount of their nutrients when cooked.

It’s best to keep them in the purest form possible so you don’t lose any of that precious cargo — specifically, antioxidants.

What are Antioxidants and Why Do I Need Them?

Everywhere you go nowadays, people are talking about antioxidants. Whether they’re your reason for eating dark chocolate, or why you’re spending hundreds of dollars on berries from a remote island that you have to charter a plane from someone named Fernando to get to.

First, let’s just talk a little about antioxidants and the basics of what they do.

Antioxidants fight off free radicals in the body that cause oxidative stress. Free radicals are chemically active atoms or molecular fragments that have a charge due to an abnormal number of electrons. They can cause damage in your cells, proteins, and even DNA.

It’s not possible to avoid free radicals forming in the body because they’re sourced from so many things. From pollution to exercise, we’re affected by them daily.

Antioxidants help stop the process of oxidation in our bodies by neutralizing the free radicals. Vitamins A, C, and E, beta-carotene, selenium, and lycopene are the most recognized items found in food with antioxidant activity.

Research keeps showing us that we benefit from natural sources of antioxidants, and time and time again, supplemental antioxidants don’t live up to their hype. Could it be that the acai berry juice filled to the brim with sugar isn’t going to save us after all, and that in fact it’s just the berry itself we need to be eating?

Marion Franz, MS, RD, CDE, a nutrition consultant and contributing author of nutritional guidelines for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), had this to say, “Supplements focus on suspected benefits from individual nutrients, when the benefits of a particular food may come not just from an individual nutrient, but from a combination of nutrients in the food.”

Also, it’s been shown that you need a variety of different fruits and veggies daily to get the full spectrum of necessary nutrients. If you’re just getting your daily servings from apples and broccoli, you need to branch out to the other isles in the produce section.

But it isn’t just antioxidants that like to float the route of whole foods.

Lyle McDonald has done extensive research on the issue and has stated that, “I have this hunch that nutrients in food are not only absorbed better (bioavailability), but utilized better by the body. In some cases, this is clearly due to the structure of the nutrient, for example heme vs. non-heme iron, with heme iron (found in red meat) having something like a ten times better absorption rate than non-heme (found in veggies).”

He also theorized that taking food supplements alongside foods that have similar nutrient content (i.e. taking your vitamin C while eating an orange) could even improve the absorption rate of the supplement. Meaning that if you want to get a super bang for your buck, try eating your fruits and veggies with a refreshing glass of Biotest’s Superfood.

Timing Your Antioxidants

Exercising increases oxidation in our bodies because we’re exerting more energy, causing us to need more oxygen. So, to a degree, we’re inflaming our body when we lift.

Inflammation is a highly controversial thing not only in weight lifting, but in health and disease conversations all over the world.

Remember that antioxidants fight oxidative stress, but it’s that very stress that causes our muscles to break down and grow again. If we hinder the recovery process too much, then we may be victims of our own overreaction.

While the overall goal is to decrease inflammation, we do benefit from some inflammation post-workout.

The best fix? Leave a good three to four hour window for antioxidant consumption pre- and post-workout to be on the safe side.

Squeeze More, Get More?

Now that we’ve crowned whole foods as king, especially for antioxidants, let’s talk about your other options and if they’re even worth your effort.

First, let’s just go ahead and get this out there: If you’re getting your veggies, fruits, or vitamins from processed, pre-made juices — then you need to change up your diet.

I know you’ve seen one of the various V8 commercials. The three I’m most familiar with feature an attractive young mom eating fries; a fit, handsome husband opting for meat and bread; and a chubby, balding man ordering food from a drive-thru. None of them are having vegetables with their meal, so they get hit in the head by a loved one or an overly judgmental drive-thru lady.

I’m sorry, but holding the lettuce, tomato, and onion at McDonald’s might not be such a bad idea.

When I get my serving of veggies, I want them fresh, clean, and tasty, not overly processed, covered in sodium, and “enriched” with vitamins. So, if you think that getting your serving of veggies from V8 is cutting it, you’re dead wrong!

The same goes for all of those fruit-based juices filled with antioxidants. You’re losing so much getting it in that form, and most of the time you aren’t even getting an amount that comes close to what the labels says.

Luckily, by law, “fruit juice” is only to be used to describe a beverage that’s 100% fruit juice. However, fruit juices combined with other ingredients, like high-fructose corn syrup, are called a “juice cocktail” or “juice drink.”(1) Also, according to the FDA, the use of the word “nectar” when describing a beverage is acceptable for a diluted juice that contains fruit juice or puree, water, and sweeteners.(2)

So, if you’re going to drink a processed juice, make sure you read the label and aren’t getting something that’s complete crap.

I’d also like to note that fruit juice labels may be misleading because of companies actively hiding their actual content. This will continue to get worse as more and more people are trying to have a healthier diet, thinking that juice will make up for the three large pizzas they ate the night before.

Phrases like “no added sugar” are placed on labels, and normally the products are made from “reconstituted concentrate,” which is naturally occurring fructose in the fruit. This has a similar effect to sugar, and the jury is still out on how good this may be for you.(3)

Food distributors do shady things like this often, like saying “no trans fat” and actuality meaning “no trans fat per serving because if it’s less than one gram in a serving, that means there’s none.” Sure, trans fat may or may not be the ultimate evil, but funny they’re trying to hide it so hard, isn’t it?

In short, it’s best if you know where your juice is coming from, or that it’s just coming from fruit in the first place.

Time for a Smoothie

Now, juicing at home is definitely a much better option than getting processed juice, but it’s still lacking.

You lose so much natural fiber, which we all need more of, and a lot of fruits and veggies are robbed of their nutrients when exposed to air for any length of time. Studies have shown that once the fruit has been juiced, its antioxidants start to react with oxygen free radicals, losing their health benefits.

So, if you’re going to juice, make sure to drink it up quickly so you lose as few of those precious nutrients as possible.

The perception of fruit juice as being equal to the consumption of fresh fruit has been questioned mainly due to the lack of fiber and the processing they endure. The high amounts of fructose in fruit juice when not consumed with fiber have been suggested as a contributor to the growing diabetes epidemic.

While it seems that pill popping is a roll of the dice, and juicing is a squeeze and tease, what are we to do?

Try smoothies!

Now, just like with juicing, you want to drink this fresh, so no making it the night before and then having it in the morning.

There’s a small breed of “researchers” that talk about the need to utilize enzyme function to break down food, and that removing this process from the stomach can decrease metabolic burn. I haven’t seen a study on this, but I’ve seen a lot of anecdotal claims.

For those who are looking for a drink fix, skip the juicing and go with the smoothies instead. This is such a better option because you’re getting more nutrients than if you juiced, and you’re getting all of the needed fiber. They’re also just really yummy!

Here are a few recipes to enjoy:

Strawberry Sunrise

1 orange (around 160 grams)
1.5 cups of frozen strawberries (around 200 grams)
Half a frozen banana (around 60 grams)
Half a cup of pineapple (around 60 grams)
Half a cup of frozen spinach (around 60 grams)
4 ounces of milk (or liquid of your choice)
1 scoop of Biotest Superfood

Berry Breeze

1 cup of frozen blueberries (around 140 grams)
1 cup of frozen raspberries (around 140 grams)
1.5 cups of frozen peaches (around 200 grams)
3-4 slices of watermelon (around 200 grams)
Half a cup of frozen spinach (around 60 grams)
4 ounces of milk
1 scoop Biotest Superfood

For both recipes, add water or milk to taste, and add Metabolic Drive to create a super shake.
protein shake

If needed, you can also add a low or no-calorie sweetener.

With the fruit, you can buy it fresh and then freeze, or just buy frozen. This way you don’t have to add ice and water down the smoothie.

Whole Foods for a Whole You

A strong argument has been made for whole foods, or at least properly pairing your supplement intake with them.

Next time you think about passing on some of the best the nutrition world has to offer, think about all the things you’re denying yourself.

–
About the Author

Kathleen Nemargut is a certified personal trainer that now works for Avidity Fitness. You can find out more information or contact Kathleen through trainerkatie @ avidityfitness.net.
Kathleen Nemargut

–

References

1. http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov

2. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/juiceqa2.html

3. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/labeti/nutrition/sugsuce.shtml

Breaking the Dogma of Meal Timing: The Quiz

21 Oct

Tags: 1 meal a day, 2 meals a day, 3 meals a day, 5-6 meals a day myth, body recomposition, Calorie, calories, deficit, diet, dieting down and meals, eating styles and habits, fasting, fasting myths, fat loss quiz, Fit, good meal amounts, health, healthy, how many meals should I eat a day, hunger, is 3 meals a day bad, meal timing, meal timing and you, nutriton habits, obese, problem, pwo eating for dieting, quiz for meal timing, science, snack and shake for pwo, stress, weight, weight loss quiz, what meal type are you?, wrong
Posted in Fat Loss, meal timing, quiz for fat loss, quiz for weight loss | 23 Comments »

In yesterdays post “Breaking the Dogma of Meal Timing” I touched on the brief history behind meal timing. Before I jump into helping you determine what might be a better fit for you, it should be clear that there isn’t evidence to support for everyone eating in a specific way. If you were to ask me what I support, I would say it depends. I happen to lean a little bit more towards multiple meals when dealing with dieting down. That being said, there are so many cases I can make against it for certain groups of people that I seldom feel comfortable providing that as a guideline. Alternative fasting methods or the good ole fashion “3 squares a day” have their place. When it is all said and done, as far as science and the field is concerned there still isn’t a clear winner for everyone. I will say though that stuffing yourself silly seems to fit with yours truly but enough about me, on with the quiz.

1. When younger you ate ( ) meals a day?

a) 1 big meal/maybe a snack
b) 2 meals/maybe a snack
c) 3 meals/maybe a snack
d) 4 or more meals/snacks

2. When younger your parents ate ( ) meals a day?

a) 1 big meal/maybe a snack
b) 2 meals/maybe a snack
c) 3 meals/maybe a snack
d) 4 or more meals/snacks

3. In the morning time you are hungry…

a)never
b)rarely
c)often
d)always

4. You naturally/intuitively will or would start eating…

a) many hours after awake, maybe 7-8.
b) a while after I am awake, maybe 4-5
c) a litte time after awake, maybe 2-3
d) as soon as possible when I wake up

5. You seem to train best…

a) at night
b) in the late afternoon
c) few hours after I am awake
d) first thing in the morning

6. You feel hunger the most at…

a) at night
b) in the late afternoon
c) few hours after I am awake
d) first thing in the morning

7. When you exercise you could eat…

a) a house filled with oatmeal pies
b) just the house
c) hungry, but not starving
d) not hungry at all, even sometime loss of appetite

8. When stressed out you could eat…

a) a house filled with oatmeal pies
b) just the house
c) hungry, but not starving
d) not hungry at all, even sometime loss of appetite

9. You sleep best on a…

a) Thanksgiving full stomach
b) full but not stuffed
c) maybe light hunger or fullness
d) hungry

10. You are currently eating…

a) 1 big meal/snack
b) 2 meals/snack
c) 3 meals/2snacks
4) 5 or more meals/snack

Yout Score:

Mostly A’s-MT1-Meal Type 1

You are the “feels so good but it is so wrong” type of eater. You are easily worked up or stressed. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. If you are a hardcore trainee then you likely have one of the best bodies of everyone you know because you naturally load your body at its highest point of stress, recovery with sleep, and start the day all over again. However, if you aren’t an aggressive trainee, then you likely have the hardest time out of everyone you know because you load up on a bunch of food, didn’t do anything with it, and just let the sleep store it away. Sure, eating before bed isn’t going to get you fat, but eating everything for your whole day before bed isn’t exactly good for your nutrient partitioning. If not doing anything with that energy internally then also look out for insomnia and general restless sleep. This will cause worse sleep, more stress, and the cycle repeats. You also are likely to have sensitive blood sugar levels and respond to the highs and lows from the food loads.

What to do? If you are an aggressive trainee and your body is coming out the way you want then no need to worry about it right now. If you don’t need to drop a lot of body fat and/or have good discipline with the little you need to then enjoy your stuff.

If you are try to lose fat, and usually it is a good amount of it, then you need to a) train to help with partitioning and b) eat 2 meals a day instead of one huge one and a solid Post WO shake. Too small of meals for you might not be enough to keep you on track due to the signals of “full” you are use to receiving. While you are a prime physical candidate for small multiple meals, your mental will likely never survive. Split the difference at 2 meals and a huge PWO shake.

Mostly B’s-MT2-Meal Type 2

By nature you are likely a eat for pleasure and have in the past, or present, enjoyed restaurant eating and getting a nice big meal in at night with perhaps a small lunch and snacking during the day. You don’t over do it on a massive scale, but you still over do it. You likely creep and crawled your way up to being overweight (or muscled if you train) rather than just “woke” up in a bad state 50 pounds heavier (or stacked). You are the average overweight or obese in the country in which that slowly bad caloric intake over time built the fat up. If you train you likely have a great muscle base but still have a harder time with lower body fat. You might have some general stress and blood sugar problems but nothing that finding that right motivation tape can’t fix, the bookstores just seem to be out.

What to do? You are the perfect candidate for 2 meals/2 shakes. What this means is you have two larger meals in your day, perhaps around lunch and dinner time. However the catch is to make sure that you place a proper Pre and Post workout shake around your training to aid in recovery and love the stress on the body and the feeling of blood sugar crashed that could lead to more eating at night time. At the same time you will still have the room and enjoy have a few more calories to have a larger meal that you are primarily used to and your body enjoys.

Mostly C’s-MT3-Meal Type 3

Generally you always just fall in the middle. Not really that fat, not really that buff. Average is what you feel and to some degree you are right. You likely don’t get big hunger spikes. You aren’t that likely to crash, burn, and binge. You are not usually the one has to back up from the table to unbutton that top button. So what is the problem? Why can’t you hit your goals? Because you are likely a nibbler. Just as the deficit is about to take its hold you naturally kick into its defense and provide your body with what it needs to keep where it is at. Your set point is a bitch to fight because in truth you are likely pretty healthy and strong you just can’t shake that last bit of fat. The worry is that your stress and frustration about it will drive you to moving to a different category.

What to do? You need to back off on the snacking and stick to just meals. Let the hunger hit you a little, don’t fear it, just don’t make it be to aggressive. Try 3 meals a day and no snacks but on lifting days a Post WO shake. So for the boring and average answer.

Mostly D’s-MT4-Meal Type 4

You are likely the “skinny fat” and have a hard timing achieving fat loss because it isn’t fat loss you really need but Body Recomposition. You likely are pretty lean as it is, fear getting fat, and are more likely to not eat when depressed rather than let Ben and Jerry ease your pain. Catabolic is more the name of your game. While you have low hunger spikes this isn’t always a good thing and could be from undereating do to too much stress in the body that has shut down certain signals in the body. You will carry higher levels of body fat even at lower weights and are set up for just as many health issues as the A’s.

What to do? Eat! Since eating and hunger might be a problem for you though you would best be served by giving your body time to process everything. Try all day snacking but don’t avoid protein. Turkey and cheese can be a snack and you need the protein. Basically get in as many meals and snack as you can through out the say, keep caloric dense items with you, and make your training more strength based than aerobic.

Pass it around and Break the Dogma of Meal Timing and remember, your body is ruler and usually knows more than you think.

Are You a Fat Writer?

09 Oct

Tags: 100 calories, Activity, Activity Level, amount, Bad, blog, blogger diet, burn, Calorie, calories, calories burned in a day, calories burned sitting, carbohydrate, change, computer, cortisol, deficit, desk training, difference, Fat Loss, fat writers, fight, healthy, HIIT, how to burn calories easy, how to burn fat at a desk, how to lose fat while sitting, increase, level, Men, Min Burpees, Min Fast, Min Jumping, Min Planks, Min Speed, movement, office exercise, office training, person, plan, Rate, reading, REST, stress, study, sweet, Timer, tips, Training, training for writers, war, weight, why cant office workers lose fat, workout, writers fat
Posted in Fat Loss | 16 Comments »

When I was writing my books one of the biggest problems I faced when trying to control my weight and maintain the body I wanted was dealing with the harsh change of my activity level. I went from training people in person all day long to spending a large chunk of time stuck at a computer. Sure I was producing a masterpiece, but I was also producing an ass.

In a day we burn X amount of calories. Everyday it changes. If you have a day you lay in bed and do nothing, you burn very few calories. If you have a day where you shovel snow so that you can go to the store and shop for two hours and then return home to make food for another hour and then you try to get in that HIIT workout before bed, then you burn a lot of calories.

To put it simply, you move more, you burn more.

The drag is that if you move less, you burn less.

During that period of time as I was finishing up my books I went from a daily caloric burn of 2500-2800 calories on average to 1600-1900 on average (the days I was really caught up in writing).

That is a decrease of roughly 1000 calories. That is a huge difference, HUGE.

What if I would have been trying to lose fat?

Some days, even eating 1200 calories, I wouldn’t even land in a 500 deficit. That is a harsh truth to face. Recently I have had a lot of arguments come my way about the fact that the calories you take in don’t matter. Just don’t eat “x” amount of “these kinds” of foods and you will be fine. However, the majority of my clients that come to me come because even with doing those “things” right, even with restricting carbs, even with avoiding those “bad” foods like a plague, they still couldn’t budge the fat. They still could not obtain the bodies they wanted.

You can blame carbs or fats all you want but at the end of the day, a fat free salad can still cause you to be stuck in your fat loss efforts.

Quick Fact: If you weigh roughly 130-160 pounds, are a generally healthy person, then every hour you sit and write you burn the amount of 1 egg or less.

Try and wrap your head around that. The average large egg is roughly 70 calories. At that weight, you hardly burn an egg. The average writer/blogger/forum poster can spend hours at a time writing, ranting, and working up one heck of a cortisol filled appetite.

Have you ever noticed how when in the middle of a back and forth conflict you turn to food? Have you ever noticed that while in the midst of what should be your Pulitzer Prize winning smack down, that all you want to do is grab a ciggy or glazed doughnut? That is writers stress at its peak! The intensity and passion of your emotions in that given situation need to be fueled! But guess what, on average you barely deserve a hard boiled egg. Is what your grabbing even close to what you are burning?

Why do you lunge for the carbs?

The only thing that suppress that stress and feeds the angry rage or blissful muse is insulin spiking, sugar bearing, sweet carbohydrates. Your body is smart, it will grave what it needs, and if it is around, you are going to go for it. You either fix or you feed the stress, which will it be?

How do you fix the stress?

Getting up and moving in interval sets of time is a big help towards…

Keep caloric burn up so that you can eat more
Lower stress levels by reducing cortisol
Upping serotonin levels so that you aren’t in such a bad mood and wont fight on the interwbz

Beyond that knowing that your nutrient intake is on point and that your calories are under control is the next. If you don’t know how to do those things then I suggest reading those books I gained an ass for.

>>Click Here<<

If you can’t do that I am not going to leave you hanging. Here is the best tips to up your calories while still writing your master pieces and being able to stuff your face with hot pockets.

Tip #1-Timer Training

I did a study on 3 people just this past month who sit all day. The difference in caloric burn in timing training was an average of 340 calories a day per person. That is huge and with little effort. Timer training is very simple, all you do is set out specific intervals of time where you can fit in as much aggressive movement as possible in the shortest amount of time. I recommend every hour doing 5 min rounds of the following…

1 Min Jumping Jacks
1 Min Speed Crunches
1 Min Burpees
1 Min Fast Body Weight Squats (Advance to Pistols if need)
1 Min Planks

If you hit at that every hour for 8 hours that is a 30 mins workout that will lead you to getting ripped in no time.

EDIT: For the Skirt Ladies (or men cause you know, equal fat loss rights here). Kick off heels though okay ladies/gents.

1 min Jog in Place
1 min Push Ups (if bent knee throw a proposal under there;) )
2 Min Plank Variations (Standard, One Arm Switch, One Leg Switch, Side)
1 Static Lunges

Enjoy!

Tip #2- Pace Yourself

Every time you take a call you stand up and start pacing. Pacing during a phone call can increase your caloric burn 200% over sitting. Meaning in 20 mins instead of burning 20 calories you can burn 60.

Tip #3- The Unstable Air Chair

I did another study around 5-6 months ago know with 4 people and monitored their burn while sitting on a Swiss exercise ball while working. Posture and caloric burn improved on average of a little over 100 calories. Please note that some did experience hemorrhoid increase, so get the H if need.

Overall if you combine just these three things you can increase your daily burn, without going to the gym, and without losing writing time on large levels, by upwards to 500-600 calories a day. You can still write your award winning piece, and looking hot doing it.

How many hours a day do you normally sit? Should you just be eating eggs every hour on the hour?

Spiders, Stress, and Your Fat Ass

06 Oct

Tags: Bad, body, diet, doubt, fat and no sleep, Fat Loss, healing stress, hours of sleep, laugh, pounds, sleep and weight loss, stress, stress fat, stress water retention, stress weight loss, time
Posted in Fat Loss, stress, stress fat | 19 Comments »

Can you even guess what this blog post is about? I doubt it.

This is not the regularly scheduled blog post of the day. I had to take a moment to embrace the fact that I have a public platform in which to announce that I hate spiders. It wasn’t nearly as bad until I saw that freaking Jeff Daniels movie, I was totally fine before that. Now, now I am a baby, a shell of my former cool self when they are are around. Sure I play it off and try and act like “Hey, I’m cool, no flies on me.” Yeah, no flies on me because there are F**KING spiders everywhere catching them with their freaky spider webs.

Last night, was like any other night. I was getting ready to get into bed, sporting a sexy top and bottoms* with hair done all cute (*see paint stained pants, monster slippers, and facial mask) and I travel into the bathroom to brush my teeth when I see them. Surrounding me on all sides are tiny, quick moving, baby spiders. Apparently a hatch had just took place. What I didn’t realize is some had gotten on me and bit my back. I soon had puffed up, freaked out, and vowed to become OCD to the largest extreme as to never possibly face the chance of this happening again. The horror, oh, the horror.

Long after the incident I was still a blowfish of stress, I got no sleep last night, and discovered that their was spider visitor in the bed, the BED. COME ON! I have holes, a lot of them, that I just don’t want things crawling into people. Get your minds out of the gutters.

Question: “Leigh, we love you, but what the hell does this have to do with fat loss?”

I am getting to it.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am generally pretty chill. Getting me worked up into a state of physical distress is a pretty hard thing to achieve. However, once achieved, it is like explosion of the body reacting frantically to protect me. Remember, our system of stress response is for protection. It has not though evolved to understand the difference between “big bear coming to get me” and “Fred losing the latest account you just worked 2 weeks trying to land.”

What most don’t realize is that stress can cause you to look like ass. Right now I weigh 6 pounds more than normal, my body hurts, my eyes are puffy, I have bumps, itch, and am weak all to hell with lifting. I didn’t get any sleep, I am hungry, tired, thirsty and the last thing I want to do right now is stick to my current “diet”, no what I want to do is find the closest peanut butter and jelly sandwich and go to town. Great, now I am hungrier. Here is the thing, tomorrow I will be fine after good sleep and I am going to treat myself really good today. Nice bath coming up later, good eats instead of bad, I am going to laugh off the bad, work with the good, and get back to it.

Does this sound like you, daily? Are you having a hard time doing that 2nd part? Could it be that you have just as much stress to lose as you do fat? Could it be that your Achilles Heel isn’t exactly that doughnut but fact that you didn’t get but 5 hours of sleep before you saw it?

The body has a stress response that is there to protect you. If you don’t help shut off the alarm though, you aren’t ever going to get out of its hold. We are going to talk about that more again. In the meantime…

Sleep.Love.Eat.Laugh.

Sleep, eat, and screw…yourself over?

25 Aug

Tags: Asia, belt, Calorie, carbohydrate, cortisol, damage, decline, deficit, Fat Loss, ghrelin, hormone, hours of sleep, leptin, metabolism, Rate, REST, sleep, sleep fat loss, sleep hunger, sleep study, sleep weight loss, stress, study
Posted in rest and diet, sleep and hunger, sleep for weight loss | 8 Comments »

In 2004 a study was done (1) that showed that lack of sleep for a short period of time saw an 18 percent decrease in leptin, a hormone that helps regulate the brains signaling for need of food, and a 28 percent increase in ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. What this means is that in a very brief amount of time lack of sleep can do a big damage on fat loss efforts. Sleep loss seems to alter the ability of leptin and ghrelin to accurately signal caloric need and could lead to excessive calorie intake when food is all around. Add the chance of being hungry already due to a deficit and we get a final result that is not exactly optimal.

For the record, if you think just one night of no sleep is okay, think again. This recent 2008 study shows just one night of sleep affects hunger levels. (2)

To throw a different kind of log on the fire you have to look at the average decline of sleep in general over the past century. On average now adults are getting roughly 6 hours of sleep a night. We are seeing a decline in sleep and an increase in belt lines. While it is important to put so much of a focus on food this isn’t always the main issue at hand. Yes, overall calories do matter when it comes to fat loss. Sleep or no sleep, if you are eating in an excess little will matter. That being said, if you are set up to fail from get go, it is going to make this process that much harder.

One might want to argue that, again, the reason that the obesity problems are so out of control is due to the increase of carbohydrate intake over that same period of time. To this I want to point back to the original study (2004) in which that the 4 hr sleep folks wanted more candy and cookies and less dairy and meats. Why? When we lose sleep we increase hunger and decrease feeling of fullness and feed. However, we also increase cortisol and stress stimulation in the body. The main thing that blunts this in the body is carbohydrates. Since your body is pretty good, on average, of craving what it wants then it is going to lead you more to doughnuts and less towards the egg whites. The worst part is that lack of sleep decreases carbohydrate metabolism so you, again, are set up to fail. To point to a interesting side note it makes you wonder and think why Asia is starting to hop on board so fast with the obesity issues, being that a recent study showed there sleep has decreased by 2 hours a night on average. A country with already a very high carbohydrate diet is now suffering a worse fate. Could it be all that stress and lack of sleep isn’t helping?

I still blame Starbucks and McDonald’s myself.

My assignment to you:

1 week of sleep charting and accounting of your sleep habits.

I see so often people worrying about how many grams of starch carbs they are getting in a day, but neglect sleep. The goal is to try and get at least 7 hours of sleep at night (more is better) for 1 week. By the end of this I want you to share how you did putting an extra focus on how it affected your fat loss. Next Monday I am going to re-visit with you to see how it unfolds.

I am providing you with a PDF download I totally stole from some site off of goggle. I have no idea what they are selling or if they are. This is not a promotion for their product. I googled “sleep journal”, looked at a few, and thought this one was simple enough. I urge you to log even more than what this asks but I figured worst case you can print this off right now, and get going this evening.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/sleepjj.pdf

Nite, nite.

1-http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/141/11/846.pdf
2-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18564298

Queen Latifah’s Weight Loss Says More Than You Think

11 Aug

Tags: denial, F-word blog, Fat Loss, health, Hollywood, Jenny Craig, obese, pressure, pro fat, Queen Latifah, Research, science, stress, truth, unhealthy being overweight, WALL-E, weight loss
Posted in Queen Latifah, pro fat, weight loss truth | 15 Comments »

Now this one might…rub you a little. Let me preface this post by saying, whatever you want to be, you can be, and I don’t care. If you want to be 500 lbs and fork lift your way to the grocery store, seriously, it’s none of my business. I almost look at someone’s size the same I consider their sexual orientation…what you do in bed at night is your business, not mine. ;)

If any of you have seen those Jenny Craig commercials you might have caught Queen Latifah’s new one where she has now lost 20 lbs.

I have a feeling for her that it’s the just the beginning and “Lean Latifah” may be a new nickname, but that’s just a hunch. I think overall she looks great and will continue to care about her health and well being.

Now it should be known as a little one I was quite a big fan of the Queen. We won’t talk about my pale ass dancing to U.N.I.T.Y when I was a ghetto young one…that might have been too much to share…let’s just say that be it “Just another day” or “Last Holiday,” I have always been a Latifah fan.

The only thing I was never a fan of, and in general I am not a fan of, is the notion of being proud of obesity as if there was something noble to it. The Queen had a little bit of that going on, and SHE has noted it and said it was wrong, that she was “uninformed.”

I’m a fan of moderation; just as I see that there is nothing noble in deprivation, I don’t see anything noble in excess. This isn’t about peer pressure or conforming to Hollywood, this is about understanding what 50 extra pounds of fat CAN do to the body.

I come to deliver you a message of truth. IF you are proud of being obese and think that there is nobility or some sort of “freedom” in it, then you are uneducated, period. I will add too that, if you are proud of being underweight or bulimic/anorexic that is just as ridiculous. See? I am a equal-stupidity hater.

This message is NOT to those who are trying to better their lives and are stumbling or just having a hard time. I applaud you, you are who I am doing this for.

No, this is not for you.

Instead, this post is for people like this http://the-f-word.org/blog/ who seem to think that striving for a healthier, lean physique is an unhealthy thing. If you read that blog you will find just utter… well, “uneducated thought” is the nicest way I can put it.

I am all about loving oneself and being proud of who you are. However, you “pro fattys” aren’t getting the science behind things and are merely looking for a place to blame and throw your anger and denial. If you want to be obese, fine, go right ahead! But don’t tell me I am wrong for wanting to help others and myself maintain a healthier lifestyle.

I have met and worked with roughly every fat loss problem that has existed. I have taken a recovering cancer patient with NO thyroid and graves disease down to 100 pounds AND in a pretty fast amount of time with the aid of proper medication for their illness and the right training program.

There are no excuses; if you want to be overweight that is your choice. However, I don’t celebrate it, I will watch WALL-E (and laugh), and will continue to use research and trial as my guide (not fear and emotional distress). And in doing so, I will support the facts best I can.

This isn’t about anti-fat/pro-thin. This is about anti-uneducated/pro-informed.

If any of you F-Word people end up here>>>> go get informed