Wednesday fitness fun fact
1) First, I see people worrying too much about calorie intake and not enough about calorie expenditure. If you’re one of these folks, you barely get the minimum amount of exercise while trying to accomplish your fat loss and body composition goals with nutrition alone. The reality is that humans seem to have a body weight regulation switch that kicks on only when we do enough exercise. If we don’t do enough exercise, that switch stays off. And no matter how hard we try to keep calories in check, the body still finds ways to outsmart our efforts.
2) Next, I see too many people taking an overly simplistic view of food. They separate food into “good” and “bad” categories and avoid the “bad” foods while eating only “good” ones. It’s just as easy to get fat overeating “good” foods as it as is to get fat overeating “bad” foods. The trick lies in the amount of food that you’re eating!
3) Finally, I see people, even the health conscious, eating too much like the typical North American – cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and processed snacks in between. The problem with this type of eating is that it makes it very difficult to get enough fruits, veggies, proteins, and healthy fats each day.
Most people eat foods that are too carb-rich for breakfast, lunch, and for their snacks, leaving the rest of the healthy nutrients to appear at one meal only – dinner. And it’s just too tough to get enough protein, fruits and veggies, and good fats in one single meal.Precision Nutrition by John Berardi
I guess I'm on a weird diet, one that strives to keep bodyfat low. In effect, it's a low to moderate carb diet max 60-70 grams per day for maintenance (30-50 for weight loss) and then carb loading two evenings a week, where you ideally eat the foods you want so you 1) don't feel deprived and 2) replenish glycogen stores.
The main tenet of the diet is reduction of baseline insulin levels: Keeping your overall insulin secretion down, which is said to prevent calories from being stored as fat.
One of insulin's functions is to store fat.
This is the Natural Hormonal Enhancement diet by Rob Faigin.
What he says is "Don'****ch calories." Eat protein and healthy fats when you're hungry, limit carbs and this will limit insulin production and thus limit fat storage.
Of course, he's got a whole 'nuther book on Exercise:
Hormonally Intelligent Exercise
Basically, it tells you to lift weights very very intensely for no more than 45 minutes a day. He says high lactate during these workouts = high growth hormone release.
Best Wishes,
Dave
Now that we have that point settled, I agree that controlling insulin levels is a key to losing weight and or maintaining. Makes sense about the baseline insulin point. Put another way, I think the key function of insulin is to process high blood sugar levels. If you eat a bunch of simple carbs (e.g. sugar), your blood sugar spikes and insulin is produced to help process the excess sugar. So, next thing which happens is your blood sugar goes way down and you feel hungry again. And so the cycle goes and goes and...... Great post, Dave. Hi Boner,
Yes, I love to screw around with some pretty eccentric ideas in diet and exercise. I just love to **ck around with it all.
Here's my latest. This doc in the UK critiques my running technique for free. Check these evalutation pages:
http://www.geocities.com/dwhaatever/
http://www.geocities.com/dwhaatever/CT33008.htm
http://www.geocities.com/dwhaatever/CT41008.htm
This is my favorite string of stills:
According to Pose Running, I'm supposed to stay in the corridor to make cadence, reflexes and gravity all work in my favor. You can see by the last one it's not happening.Best Wishes,Dave
