Surprising Slimming Truths: Part III

The last installment of this topic continues debunking some common myths about nutrition and exercise as they relate to weight loss. Thanks for reading along! If any of these posts leave you with specific questions or general thoughts, please leave a comment and we'll keep the dialogue rolling. I'll do my best to field any questions you might have and point you in the right direction. I just love being able to engage people in these kind of conversations because, as I've said before, this blog and what I do is all about quality of life, not just weight loss. We have the chance to improve our lives for the better, to live stronger, healthier, and more balanced daily, and in doing so to be happy with who we are and enjoy those around us to the fullest. So jump into the last discussion on this topic with me and we'll keep the motivation up to live well!

#9. Weight Lifting Will Only Bulk You Up
The Truth: Lifting weights makes you stronger, builds endurance, and burns calories - it's a great way to shed those extra pounds (contrary to the idea that you'll just gain weight from muscle and "bulk up"). Many people ignore resistance training in favor of cardio, but lifting weights actually burns more calories than a cardio session and boosts your metabolism by 11%! Remember, muscle is metabolically active than fat at rest, as it takes extra calories just to keep muscle. So pump that iron, keep squatting, try some push ups, and see the fat melt off faster than on cardio alone!

#10. Running on Empty is a Smart Way to Burn Extra Fat
The Truth: Beware of falling prey to this weight-loss temptation! Exercising on an empty stomach is like trying to drive your car without gas; we need carbs in our system to start that engine up and to keep it going strong to keep burning more total calories. Plus, your brain runs on carbs, and trying to perform a hard workout with your mind in a fog reduces intensity and increases risk of injury. About 30 minutes before a morning workout, try some easily digestible carbs (like yogurt, dried fruit, or a piece of toast with peanut butter). In the long run, your workouts are more effective, allowing you to train harder and helping to curb overeating post-workout.

#11. You Can Spot-Reduce Fat
The Truth: If only we could! You can do crunches until you're blue in the face if you want to lose your extra stomach fat and you still won't see that weight disappear. The only way you can spot-reduce is with liposuction! When you exercise, your body taps into energy stores from everywhere, not just one place. To lose unwanted fat in on etrouble area, you have to work your entire body. That's why functional, total body moves (like a squat press-up with weights or a burpee) are the most effective calories burning, muscle using exercises around.

#12. Longer Exercise Sessions Equal Better Results
The Truth: It's actually possible to accrue more fitness and fat loss by occassionally breaking your normal cardio pattern of 30 minutes at a steady pace on the ellipitcal trainer or your usual 45 minute trail run into two half-hour or twenty minute sessions. You can run faster and harder if you're tackling two shorter runs instead of a single long one. The same is true of weight training: high-intensity workouts can be much shorter (think: 18-30 minutes of hard exercise) because they are tougher than a drawn-out session in the gym. Try bursts of cardio sprints, or going fast on a treadmill up a hill and then bringing your intensity and incline down to an easy pace, 30 seconds hard, one minute resting; 30 seconds hard, one minute resting; etc. Or, squeeze in a high-intensity morning run and hit the weights later on in the evening - exercise is cumulative, so every little bit counts! It doesn't all have to be in one long go.

#13. You Can't Overcome Your Genes
The Truth: While it is true that some people are moe predisposed to have a slower metabolism and others put weight on in certain areas like their family members before them, staying trim is not a hopeless war. You can actually outsmart your genes and maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. A study in Finalnd in 2009 published in the International Journal of Obesity tracked 16 sets of same-sex twins for decades and discovered that the twin who was more active over a 32-year time frame had 50% less belly fat than the twin who didn't exercise. That's a huge difference! So stay motivated and encouraged: regular exercise and healthy eating puts you a step ahead in winning the battle against the bulge.

#14. Keeping It Off Is the Easy Part
The Truth: Maintaining your healthy weight isn't a one-time deal; as if getting there isn't hard enough, it's almost tougher yet to stay the course and do what needs to be done to maintain. This is exaclty why quick-fix "solutions" to weight-loss don't work: the weight comes back and comes back hard, normally leading to more weight-gain in the long run. Stay motivated with others, do what you love, enjoy, and can incorporate into your lifestyle, or spend a bit of money on a trainer who can help refresh a stale program and keep you excited about fitness. You can do it!

Thanks for tuning in for this fun series and again, all credit to the April 2010 issue of Runner's World magazine for their great article putting some of these myths about weight-loss to rest. If you have your own tips, write in and share them! Any struggles or current successes? Share those too! Keep it up everyone, and let's keep getting strong together. Live well,

-Bonnie

Surprising Slimming Truths Part II

Well, it's been a week of fun travels in California visiting family and enjoying the sun, reconnecting with friends, and taking some TRX courses at the Fitness Anywhere corporate offices in downtown San Francisco.

Tons of fun, lots of laughter, several glasses of wine over good meals, and lots of good workouts and runs later, I'm back home, grateful for the trip and a subsequent nutrition course taken over the weekend. Come the end of May, I'll be a certified nutritionist, and I'm excited to offer new tips and services to my clients when that time comes. So, continuing with my ode to April's issue of Runner's World and their great article exposing weight-loss myths, here are some more truths to keep you motivated and encouraged as you stay consistent and keep moving towards your goals:

#4. Lift Less Weight with More Reps to Get Toned
The Truth: The bottom line is, if you're not working hard enough, you won't really see results. Most of us (yes, even those of you who think you're in "bad" shape) could lift 5 lbs from now until tomorrow afternoon without much burn - my clients know how I feel about going too easy on weights! To get toned, you need larger muscles and less fat, and challenging your muscles through heavier lifting is a way to do just that. Many people, women especially, are worried that they will bulk up if they lift too heavy of weight, but we're just talking about going heavy enough to feel it - the weight needs to be challenging in order to see results. You don't need to give up lighter weights - they do a better job at improving muscular endurance. A solid resistance program should include periods of both high and low reps, and you can change up your program every four to six weeks. This continues to challenge your muscles and keeps shocking your body so you don't get too used to the movements you're taking your muscles through. Muscle responds to resistance, so if it's too light, you simply won't see results.

#5. You Can "Make Up" Weekend Splurges
The Truth: When you break it down, Saturday and Sunday represent about 30% of the week, so if your weekends continually consist of "giving in" and using the "it's the weekend" excuse, your lifestyle and habits will catch up with you soon enough. Unfortunately, mindless eating and indulgence can counteract your good eating habits from the weekdays before the weekend. Again, consistency is key. Live in balance and stay consistent across the board.

#6. You Have to Ban "Bad Foods"
The Truth: More often than not, those who stick to restrictive diets usually experience a backfiring effect: they go overboard on their vices. Before making strict changes, ask yourself, "Can I live without peanut butter cheesecake (or licorice or wine or ice cream) for the rest of my life?" The answer is probably no...and not many people can leave the foods they love cold turkey! Try following the 80:20 Rule: eat well, exercise regularly, and make healthy choices 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time live a little - sleep in, miss a workout, enjoy that glass of wine or slice of chocolate cake. Don't let your 20% turn to 30 or 40% and stockpile on the weekends; spread it out and keep those weekends healthy. As long as you're reducing your overall intake, you don't need to nix any one food from your diet.

#7. Eating At Night Causes Weight Gain
The Truth: A calorie is a calorie no matter when you eat it. As long as your total caloric intake for the day is the same, it doesn't matter when you're actually ingesting those calories. Although you may have a slightly higher metabolism during the day (your metabolism literally sleeps while you do!), evening eating and its effect on weight loss is likely quite trivial. Just be sensible of eating mindless calories at night that you don't actually need. If, however, you work out at night, your muscles need refuelling (think: protein! complex carbs!) and you shouldn't be afraid to give it to them. Eating smaller meals throughout the day and pre-planning your evening meals instead of grabbing whatever's on hand in the kitchen while you're thinking of what to make will help ward off night eating and unwanted calories, but sensible snacks in the scope of the whole day are okay.

#8. Low-Fat Foods Are a Healthy Choice
The Truth: Look around your grocery store on your next visit at the labels, the advertising, the phraseology, and the commercials on TV and you'll be bombarded with low-cal, low-fat foods right and left. Then look at our nation's obesity problem. There seems to be a disconnect between these low-fat foods on the market and what they are doing to our bodies when we think we are making healthy choices. Low-fat foods may have the same (and sometimes more!) calories than their "regular fat" food counterparts because of added sugar to make up for the lack of taste without the fat. Moreover, low-fat foods can still contain trans and saturated fats which both increase your risks of heart disease. Ironic, no? You're more likely to indulge in more handfuls of low-fat trail mix or several more low-fat cookies as compared to the full-fat versions, leading you to eat more calories in the long run. And over-consuming calories leads to, unsurprisingly, weight gain. Sometimes the "real deal" in smaller amounts is better than a lesser version of your favourite foods; read your labels, check out the sugar contents, and be wise about what exactly you're putting into your body.

Thanks to Runner's World (and a bit of personal insight from my nutrition course this last weekend), you now have 4 more weight-loss myths exposed. Tune back in later this week for the last instalment of Surprising Slimming Truths. Feel free to post your thoughts, comments, or questions below! Dialogue is a beautiful thing. :) Until then, keep moving, eat thoughtfully, and be well!

-Bonnie

The Surprising Truth About Slimming Down

Thanks to a much-anticipated package that arrived in the mail today, I am re-inspired to get back on the fitness-bloggin-wagon! Every couple of months my mom mails me my copies of Runner's World (my favourite magazine) that I still receive at my hometown California address, and finally April's issue arrived and I am devouring it like the fitness-hungry trainer that I am. I thought I'd help expose some weight loss myths that this recent issue highlights in several posts. Since spring is nearly upon us (although here in Calgary it feels as if winter's here for round two!) and we are all coming out of hibernation mode, I thought some tips towards slimming down would be useful to start implementing now. Follow along as I take bits and pieces of the article by Matthew Kadey, M.C., R.D. and shed some light on 14 popular diet strategies that just don't work while finding out the ones that will actually help you take the next step towards slimming down and maintaining a healthy weight.

#1: To Lose Weight, Cut Carbs or Fat
The Truth: The bottom line is that to loser weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn, regardless of what percentage of carbs, protein, or fat you're eating. Calories in general are the most important factor for weight loss. All those get-thin-fast gimmicky diets put the focus on restricting fat or carbs and too easily distract us from this truth. So how can you learn to reduce your total caloric intake to kick start your own wright loss while sustaining energy to make it through your workouts and days?

• Find Your Calorie Burn: To estimate the number of calories you use during daily living and exercise, click here. Plug in the necessary info to get the result!
• Start Subtracting: Trim just 10 to 15% off of that calorie total - but no more than 500 calories a day. Record what you eat and tally your calorie intake with the huge data base found at http://nutritiondata.com
• Keep Up the Exercise: Although it's true that if you cut calories or cut calories and exercise you'll use the same amount of weight, the diet-and-exercise together helps improve your aerobic capacity, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol, and blood pressure - without going into starvation mode!
• Be Patient: Oh, how we love to skip this step in any weight-loss process! But a healthy weight-loss goal for those overweight is one to two pounds a week. Dropping more than this eats away at your muscle, leaves you fatigued after workouts, and slows your metabolism, actually making weight-loss harder at the end of the day. So wait it out - it will come.

#2: Exercise in the Fat-Burning Zone

The Truth: If you've been in a gym or have your own treadmill at home, you've probably seen the little sticker that shows how many calories someone who weighs 150 lbs. burns during exercise depending on which "zone" they're working out in. That sticker leads the average person to believe that exercise in this zone (or 50 - 70% of your maximum heart rate) leads to fat versus carbs being burned. This means exercising at a lower intensity (which is why the body draws energy from fat). As your heart rate climbs, more energy comes from carbs, so it's no wonder that it makes sense that to loser fat you should keep your heart rate down. However, that's not the case. Working out at higher intensities causes you to burn a lower percentage of fat calories in favour of carbs, but you use more total calories…and that's the key to slimming down! Moreover, since you're burning more total calories, the absolute amount of fat burned increases, too. Remember that long, slow runs and workouts do help build aerobic fitness and endurance. But if your focus is on weight-loss and jumping starting a slow metabolism, you need intensity.

#3: Mini-Meals Are Better Than Three Hearty Ones

The Truth: Frequent eating really only works if you choose nutritious foods and control your portion sizes. I think we all know how easily we can turn six small meals into six hearty ones! But once again, it comes back to calories: you can eat three times or ten times a day as long as you have the same caloric intake that will promote weight loss. A 2009 study in Australia with more than 10,000 subjects reported that  between-meal nibblers were 69% more likely to pack on pounds over five years. But remember - as long as you choose the right foods, snacking is okay, especially if you're running and working out regularly. Something small prerun/workout (think: dried fruit or yogurt) followed by a postrun/workout snack (think: carbs and protein mix like a turkey sandwich) can improve your performance and recovery. And as I've said before, keep in mind the good rule of thumb of eating when you're hungry. Tune into your body, listen, and respond - just with a healthy choice.

I hope this helps shed some light on all the confusing messages out there concerning weight-loss. Check back in soon for more myths about trimming down and stay motivated! Thanks again to Runner's World's April issue for the insight and facts that help put the rumours to rest. 

Eat well, move well, and be well! 

-Bonnie