What’s the Biggest Myth in all of Fitness? Part II
26 June 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
How best to melt the fat that lies atop the abdomen muscles? First understand that fat and muscle are vastly different and distinct. Think of stored body fat as reserve fuel stored in expandable and contractible fuel storage tanks. These fat storage tanks dot your physical landscape. If a person eats too much the excess is shuttled off to fat storage depots. These fat depot storage tanks tend to cluster on frontal abs, external oblique muscles, butt, upper thigh, triceps in women, lower pecs on men….Some foods are easily converted into body fat while other foods are resistant to being broken down and then transformed into stored fat. Junk food, processed foods, foods loaded with fat and sugar are foods easily transformed into body fat. Lean protein and fibrous carbohydrates are difficult for the body to morph into fat. Ergo we eat lots of the later and avoid the former. Calories in excess of what is needed to power the body in its day to day activities (or not secreted in the urine or feces) are stored in fat-storage depots. The body is arbitrary about where among the available depots an incoming batch of excess calories is stored. The body is equally arbitrary about which fat storage depot it will draw down first when the energy balance equation is tipped negative and the body signals to call upon stored fat to supply energy to power the soft machine. All glycogen must first be exhausted; glycogen, emulsified carbs, are the body’s favorite form of fuel and drawn down preferentially. No one can predict with any degree of certainty from which fat reserves the body will pick first. When the athlete successfully pulls all the right physiological triggers, then and only then will the body mobilize stored body fat. The fat-burning prerequisites need be recognized and attended to, i.e., negative energy balance, glycogen stores depleted, intense exercise done persistently and properly, excellent food quality and excellent food selections (eaten in multiple meals) – calories ingested need be roughly equivalent to calories burned off during the course of the day.
How much caloric cost do you suppose is attributable to 25 half-ass crunch reps? Using exercise to tip the energy balance equation is brutal work: the sheer number of calories needed to produce a significant caloric total requires intense, prolonged effort. Burning off 1000-calories in an hour requires Herculean effort – yet a single ice cream sundae could quite easily contain 1,000 calories. The best way to start melting off excess body fat is to stop eating ice cream sundaes, far easier to not eat 1,000 calories than try and burn it off through intense, prolonged exercise. Toss the obvious junk and find the t caloric tipping point: find the narrow zone or range where food intake equals energy expenditure. How to tell? If you are able to lose a few pounds, keep it off for a week or two, then, by adding just a few calories, if your bodyweight tips up a few pounds and holds – you found the tipping point. Once you arrive, use serious exercise, i.e., weight training and cardio, to create a slight caloric deficit. Elite bodybuilders whittle fat down slow, steady and consistent; no crash dieting for them, they would lose precious muscle mass. They’ve developed a procedural consensus, a fat-burning template that can and should be used to tremendous benefit by normal individual seeking the sleek physique. Use a patient, protracted, cyclical, periodized approach: take 12 to 16 weeks and reduce body weight downward on a slow, slight glide-path, par away 1 to 3 pounds a week, depending on your size. Slow-melt body fat in a systematic fashion, downward but slowly and carefully, over a three month time span thereby preserving muscle tissue in the process. Normal individuals serious about fitness and progress and transformation can and should expropriate core bodybuilder methodology. Their procedures work but require precision, discipline, patience and Zen focus. Hold the course and undergo an utter and complete physical transformation in three months time.
Clean up the food selections. That’s the first order of business. Break the day’s calories into ‘cleaner,’ smaller lumps spread out over the entire day: better to eat 4,000 calories in six 650-calories meals than 3,000 calories in two 1,500 calorie chunks. Smaller meals make for easier digestion and quicker distribution of nutrients. Consuming refined carbs, saturated fat, sugar and other quick-release foods cause insulin to secrete. Insulin is a hormonal passenger train that carries free-fatty acids. When the train isn’t running, nothing bad can happen. Generally speaking, we avoid insulin spiking foods. The finest exercise session can easily be undone with piss-poor eating habits. Exercise done correctly strengthens and hardens the target muscle, be it abs or arms, pecs or calves, delts or hamstrings. The body fat that lies atop a muscle is unaffected by the amount of exercise done for that muscle. Sure, theoretically if you were at or beneath the caloric breakeven point and did five sets of 100-reps in various ab work, yes the ab work would cause stored body fat to be mobilized – but will that fat mobilized come from an ab storage site? No one can say. It’s a hell of a lot easier and more sensible to not eat 1,000 calories of insulin-spiking junk food or sweets than it is to attempt to burn off 1,000 calories via exercise. The caloric coast of exercise is vastly over-rated. A killer weight training session done by a 180-pound man using 80% max poundage for 60-75 minutes might burn 600 calories, an amount easily checkmated by downing a single Big Mac, 640 calories. God forbid you ordered the large fries, chocolate shake and hot apple pie! Then we’re talking in excess of 1,000 calories! I know many a man who’ll order the above PLUS a second Big Mac or a fish sandwich.
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