Addiction to Food

There's a new study out that talks about how an addiction to food, specifically the high calorie, high bad fat, high sugar ones, can be very similar to an addiction to cocaine.

I think everyone pretty much knew that about junk food. Those that really get a first hand look at it are people that have essentially lived off junk food and decide to cut it out cold turkey and go through the same withdrawal symptoms that people go through when they cut off a drug, alcohol, coffee, soda, etc.

This study used rats as the subjects for 40 days and they broke the rats into three groups:

1. One group was fed healthy rat food (I guess whatever "healthy" means to a rat..)
2. A second group was fed healthy rat food, but also given junk food that they could munch on for only an hour a day.
3. The third group could eat as much junk food that they wanted, 23 hours a day.

Shockingly, the third group that could eat all the junk food that they wanted, became obese fairly quickly.



But the interesting part is how their brains changed.

By monitoring implanted brain electrodes, the researchers found that the rats in the third group gradually developed a tolerance to the pleasure the food gave them and had to eat more to experience a high.

The researchers also added a little pain into each of the groups when food was present. When that pain was administered, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating, while the rats in the third group didn't care, they were solely focused on eating that junk food.

This relates fairly closes to studies done on rats involving cocaine and heroin:

In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.

When relating this to humans:

The ingredients in purified modern food cause people to "eat unconsciously and unnecessarily," and will also prompt an animal to "eat like a drug abuser [uses drugs]," says Wang.

It appears that the main culprit in all of this is the neurotransmitter, dopamine that rats (and humans) have:

The neurotransmitter dopamine appears to be responsible for the behavior of the overeating rats, according to the study. Dopamine is involved in the brain's pleasure (or reward) centers, and it also plays a role in reinforcing behavior. "It tells the brain something has happened and you should learn from what just happened," says Kenny.

Overeating caused the levels of a certain dopamine receptor in the brains of the obese rats to drop, the study found. In humans, low levels of the same receptors have been associated with drug addiction and obesity, and may be genetic, Kenny says.

How do we get past this addiction?

With continued research like this, there's always the possibility that treatments can be developed to stop the decrease of dopamine that is associated with the addiction.

There's also the practical applications of:

1. Slowly cutting bad food out and replacing them with healthier choices or
2. Just cold turkey throwing out all the junk food and going healthy (although this is the more extreme approach and can result in a withdrawal period, I tend to like this one the best. Get it over with).

But we probably need to look a little further into it to determine the "Why?" of the addiction, just like it's necessary when working with someone with a drug or alcohol addiction.

In other words, maybe people are using that junk food as a substitute for something else, and maybe digging deeper into that realm will help with getting away from the addiction of food, permanently.

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A Healthier Michigan

I was contacted last week to start blogging for a new website that is being put on through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan called ahealthiermichigan.org.

The site contains forums, blogs and a whole lot of information out there on how to make yourself, businesses, your community, and the health care system, healthy.

From a health standpoint, Michigan tends to always rank at the bottom of every nationwide study. The economy has been in the crapper for at least the last 5 years in Michigan and there are major changes headed our way when it comes to our health care system.

So I hope this site takes off and starts to throw around a lot of ideas that are "out of the box" to get some new innovative ideas on how to move forward in Michigan.

My blog over there will pretty much be a cut and past job from this site but, you'll see me floating around the Healthier You forums from time to time with some different ideas.

So make sure to go to ahealthiermichigan.org and sign up for an account and come back often.


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Inteval Training Studies

There's some new Interval Training Studies out there that are hopefully going to help with being able to use this type of exercise protocol for the overweight and even the obese population.

I've talked recently in this post that the problem withe the classic interval training of going "all out" for short periods of time can be rather difficult when dealing with people that are quite overweight due to the amount of compression that would result on various joints, particularly the knees.

That's why I was advocating in that post the concept of what I like to call "Metavals" where instead you use a number of exercises in a circuit fashion for a period of time and you'd be getting just as much fat loss benefit as you would with all out sprints.

But this new interval training study that said it's not completely necessary to go "all out" in order to be effective.

As Gibala explained to the press:

"We have shown that interval training does not have to be 'all out' in order to be effective."

"Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously," he added.

So the part about the sprints being just as effective in a short workout compared to a long distance session is something we've known. But the part about not having to go all out and still being effective is something new.

In this new study they used a standard stationary bike and a workout that was still beyond the comfort zone of most people (about 95 per cent of maximal heart rate), but was only half of what might be regarded as an "all out" sprint.

This less extreme form of HIT should work well for people whose doctors might be a little worried about them taking up the "all out" form: that is people who are older, less fit and likely to be overweight.

The subjects in this study had six training sessions over a two week period where they completed 8 to 12 one-minute high intensity bursts (although it still wasn't "all out") followed by 75 seconds of active rest period between the bursts. I'm assuming they had some kind of warm up and cooldown so each workout probably came out to 30 minutes at most.

The results:

The results showed that the training significantly increased exercise capacity in two cycling time trials (one for 50kJ and the other for 750kJ).

The researchers also compared biopsy samples of vastus lateralis muscle (the largest part of the quadriceps) taken before the 2 weeks of training with samples taken after, and found that the later samples showed increased maximal activity of mitochondrial capacity and other relevant chemical processes.

The conclusions:

"This study demonstrates that a practical model of low volume HIT is a potent stimulus for increasing skeletal muscle mitochondrial capacity and improving exercise performance."

The researcher also concluded that to get the same results within the same time period (2 weeks) of slow steady state endurance, a person would have had to go for 10 hours, rather than the 3 hours of total work that it took to get these results in this study (at the same time, it would have been interesting if they would have had a separate group of subjects actually doing that in the study so that they could make a better comparison of that).

I like the fact that they used the bike on this and I think if interval programs were to be used for those that are fairly overweight, it's probably the modality to use since there's less jolting of the knees. NOTE: If you're going to use a stationary bike, use the upright one, not a recumbent.

But if that's not available, I still wouldn't recommend running sprints for this particular population since it's a knee injury just waiting to happen. The metavals that I talk about in this post are still your other best option.

It's great to see though that Interval Training studies are still coming out and showing that it's a more efficient and effective workout compared to slow steady state cardio.

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Salt in Processed Food

I hate processed food and I hate the fact that there is so much salt in processed food.

Blunt enough?

Well, it looks like according to this article, the food companies are getting that point as well.



According to the article:

Last week, Kraft Foods Inc. announced it would cut the salt in its North American line by an average of 10 percent in over 1000 products over the next two years. On Monday, PepsiCo unveiled a global nutrition initiative to reduce sodium in food products by an average of 25 percent by 2015. The company also has a 10-year plan to decrease added sugar in beverages by 25 percent and saturated fat in foods by 15 percent. Other companies, such as ConAgra, Sara Lee, and Campbell Soup, already have plans underway to reduce salt in key product categories.

That's great to hear. But this part of the article really blew my mind on how much salt there really is in the food we buy:

Kraft's initiative alone is projected to eliminate more than 10 million pounds of salt from the food supply over the next two years

.

10 million pounds of salt will be eliminated in two years, and that's just from ONE food company? That's pretty amazing.

I worry though that they are just going to find another ingredient to add into their products that is going to be just as harmful as salt.

Trust me, they aren't just going to pull the salt out of all those foods that are big sellers because of craving people have for salty food and watch people stop buying them. These companies wouldn't be taking this initiative for the health benefit of the nation if they thought they were going to see a disastrous decline in their profitable products.

Let me live in my little dream world for a moment though.

I don't add any salt to my food. I don't buy products that have salt in them (if they do, it's very minimal).

I haven't died of starvation or deprivation due to no salt.

If you want to truly stay away from salt, stick with these foods:

1. Meat, fish, chicken, turkey, pork etc.
2. Vegetables
3. Fruits
4. Nuts
5. Oils
6. Non-salt spices like garlic and onion powder and a slew of others for taste

Sure, you might go through a little withdrawal of the lack of salt in those foods but, you'll adapt and you'll be surprised how much better you'll feel when you focus on just eating those kinds of foods listed above, 90% of the time.

There's no need to eat all that salt in processed food. There's many other foods out there that can taste just as good and that are much more healthy for you.

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Ways to Prevent Breast Cancer

There's a new study out that talks about ways to prevent breast cancer.

As some of you may recall, I walked in the Susan G Komen 3-Day for the Cure last year and the fight against breast cancer has kind of become my personal social cause to work with.

This article talks about how we're basically at a decent spot for early detection in order to slow the disease.

"What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more," Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. "It's time to move onto other things."

Just some background stats on the prevalence of breast cancer in western society.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In Europe, there were about 421,000 new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths. A woman's lifetime chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight.

What's interesting is what they think fuels a lot of breast cancer cases:

Many breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue. So experts suspect that the fatter a woman is, the more estrogen she's likely to produce, which could in turn spark breast cancer. Even in slim women, exercise can help reduce the cancer risk by converting more of the body's fat into muscle.

Now granted, this isn't always true. My cousin that I walked for last year is and always has been a slender woman that exercises, eats healthy and just overall lives a healthy lifestyle. But, since the vast majority of the population is overweight or obese, I think for the most part they are right on target.

La Vecchia cited figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which estimated that 25 to 30 percent of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women were thinner and exercised more.

And there we have it. Another reason why we need to exercise more and eat healthier.

There's just simple things that you can do to lose weight by eating healthier and exercising that are simple and at the same time, is one of the ways to prevent breast cancer:

1. Stick with whole foods such as meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and oils.
2. Stay away from processed food (if you can't pronounce the ingredient that is listed on the box, then put it down).
3. Simple (yet intense) exercises that involve the biggest muscles in your body in order to not only burn more calories during the workout, but also after the workout.

The Home Workout Routines that I offer (that'll cost you less than $10 for a 4-week program) is a great exercise program to get you started AND it comes with a Fat Loss Nutritional Guide. Best part is that you can do the workouts right in your own home and you don't need ANY exercise equipment.

If you're trying to find ways to prevent breast cancer, this simple program is a great way to get your exercise in and get your eating in line to help reduce that risk.

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Too Much Exercise

It's great to exercise but sometimes you have to ask yourself the question "How much is too much exercise?"

We get into our fitness routines, and keep doing the same thing over and over again and then we might start feeling some pain in our lower back, maybe even in our knees or ankle joints.

Sometimes it doesn't take long to feel that pain during exercise to know that it's too much exercise.

Take for example the show that I love to hate: The Biggest Loser. You take someone that is 450 pounds and on their first day you send them out to run a mile. That's just flat out stupid and is the wrong kind of exercise for someone that size that is just asking for an injury.

This article tends to state the obvious that too much exercise can lead to overuse injuries.

"People tend to do the same thing over and over again, without varying it, without taking adequate rest, without building slowly, and they end up with an overuse injury," said Geralyn Coopersmith, national manager for the Equinox Fitness Training Institute.

"Tendonitis, bursitis, fasciitis, these kinds of inflammations are pretty much guaranteed if you don't vary your training," said Coopersmith, who oversees the training of 1,400 personal trainers in 48 Equinox clubs nationwide.Yet she concedes that even clients who complain of nagging aches and pains are loath to change their routine.

"People get terrified. They'll say, 'The treadmill made me lose weight.' Well, exercise made you lose weight. The treadmill was the modality. That doesn't mean it's the only way or the best way," she explained.

This makes absolute sense and I think everyone does this (including me). You get into a routine, but then you start to feel a little "pinch" somewhere but tend to rationalize it away. You keep at your fitness routine and then the pain becomes a little stronger, but you still just say that you'll "work through it." Finally it gets so bad that you can't do it anymore and end up having to take a break.

You've done one of two things: Taken on too much exercise too soon or keep doing the same exercise over and over again with no changes so that your body hasn't had time to build up the strength and muscle around the area that you are constantly using.

If you're starting off new to exercise, you need to start at the bottom and work your way up. Try something out a couple times a week, then after a few weeks, add in another day.

For those that have been exercising for awhile and are doing the same thing day in and day out, change what you are doing. If you're running, take some time off from it and do some strength training. If you're strength training and you've been working with heavy weights for awhile, back off and do some lighter lifting for a little bit to let everything recover.

The best option would be to look into getting subscribing to my fitness routines program. If you're a beginner, you'll have programs available where you can start from the very basics to make sure you don't overdo it too quickly.

If you're a more seasoned exerciser, these fitness routines will give you the variety from month to month to make sure you aren't overusing a certain area on your body that could lead to injury.

All the while, the routines are designed to help you get the body that you strive for without prescribing you too much exercise. It only costs $4.95 for the first month so it's well worth a try to see if it's something for you.

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Misleading Food Labels

Misleading Food Labels are...well...misleading.

But we're not talking about the actual nutritional label that lists out the amount of each nutrient and gives you the calories per serving size like this:



We're actually talking about the front of the product. You know, where the producer says things like "Reduced Fat" or "Low Sodium" etc.

According to this article, a lot of manufacturers are pushing the line on how accurate those statements are.

Seems that it all came to a head in September of 2009:

The situation reached something of a head when in September of last year, The New York Times wrote an article about the Smart Choices program — a voluntary labeling program used by several companies in collaboration — and how the label that was supposed to indicate foods that were healthy choices ended up appearing on a box of Fruit Loops, among other less-than-healthy options.

That's actually funny. I wish I would have saw that in the grocery store at the time. I would have bought 5 boxes just to have a record that they were actually pushing Fruit Loops as "healthy" (what I think would have been interesting though is to see if sales of Fruit Loops went up because of the misleading food label).

The overall problem with front of the box food claims is that it doesn't tell the whole story. Okay fine, a product claims that it's "reduced fat." But when you look at the actual food label, you see that it's loaded with sugar, thus not as "healthy" as it would appear from what is listed on the front.

The goal that the FDA is striving for is to find out what information consumers are going to find helpful on the front of the product to make an accurate assessment of whether it's going to be healthy or not:

Various labeling schemes have been used and proposed: Some list just a couple key points of nutrition, such as calories, accompanied by a check mark or other symbol; some are a truncated version of the Nutrition Facts label that show key points, such as calories, fat, sugar and sodium; others include on top of that information a "traffic light" symbol (something that has been used with success in the United Kingdom) by each nutrient that indicates whether that nutrient is in the acceptable range (green) or not (red).

I'll be honest, I don't see this ever happening. There's no way the food manufacturer lobby would ever let this go through. If they all of a sudden put out a "traffic light" symbol on a product, who would ever buy that? You'd see sales and that company fall into an immediate crash.

Besides, the idea of originally putting the current nutritional label on products was to give people a better concept of the ingredients in them so that they can determine whether a product is "healthy" or "not healthy." That was supposed to help people make healthier choices. Well, I'm not sure that worked since our waistlines have gotten larger and larger by the day since they starting requiring that on foods in 1994.

In other words, people have the ability to read the current food label on the side or the back of the product, might even actually look at it, and are STILL buying the unhealthy products. What are the chances that if you put on the front of the product that it's bad for you that people are STILL not going to buy it?

There's a warning on cigarette packages warning against the risks of smoking, but does that seem to stop someone from buying them?

My suggestion? Stay away from foods that are in boxes. Meaning, buy fruits, vegetables, meats and nuts, and that's really all you need.

You don't need to worry about misleading food labels with my fitness routines that I offer that come with a nutritional guide that lays out the very simple process you need to take to lose body fat that doesn't have you worrying about whether a product is healthy or not healthy and it's incredibly affordable to try this program out at just $4.95 for the first month. Give it a shot.

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Baldness and Testosterone

We've known for awhile that baldness and testosterone levels are linked.

I've had a receding hairline for as long as I can remember. Looking back at my senior pictures in high school, it's clear as day. A few years ago, I caught myself in a two-way mirror and saw a nice thinning spot right on the back of my head. So, I just decided to take the plunge and shave it all off instead of trying to do the "comb over" that doesn't really fool anybody.

But there's some good news for us bald guys, especially the ones that can remember if they started going bald before the age of 30.

According to this article, men who go bald earlier in life, tend to show lower levels of prostrate cancer later in life.

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 2,000 men aged between 40 and 47.

They were able to link high levels of the male hormone testosterone in those who lose their hair earlier with a lower risk of tumours.

Researchers compared the rate of tumours in those who said their hair had thinned by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.

Men who had started to develop bald spots on the top of their heads as well as receding hairlines had a 29% to 45% reduction in the risk of prostate cancer.

Just to give some background on what they think causes baldness:

Baldness is caused when hair follicles become exposed to too much dihydrotestosterone (DHT). This is a chemical produced by the male hormone testosterone.

Experts believe that men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to lose their hair, especially if baldness runs in the family.

Seems that normally men who have prostrate cancer are given drugs to REDUCE their testosterone levels but this study is showing that that might not be the best route to take.

I think we all know someone that has or has had prostate cancer and the treatments they have to go through and being a guy, I can say it really makes me uneasy.

So guys, if you start to see that hair starting to thin, don't freak out. It just might be helping you out over the long haul.

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Army Bootcamp

I've never gone through Army Bootcamp and can only base opinions on it when I watch things on television (with one of my all time favorite mini-series being Band of Brothers). You see the other goofy movies like Stripes too and Private Benjamin but, I never took it to show what it's really like.

But one thing that I noticed on more of the serious documentaries and films on going through Army Bootcamp was all the running. Since becoming a Strength a Conditioning Specialist a number of years ago, I always wondered "Why do they make them run so much? When would a soldier ever run in a straight line, at a sub-maximal level, for 10 miles?"

I came across this article that talks about how basic training in the Army is getting it's first major makeover in 30 years. It looks like they're coming up with some good stuff and trying to make what they are training from a physical standpoint more like what a soldier would face in combat.

Adapting to battlefield experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army is revamping its basic training regimen for the first time in three decades by nixing five-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and honing core muscles.

Trainers hope the switch will better prepare soldiers physically for the pace of combat, with its sudden dashes and rolling gun battles. They also want to toughen recruits who are often more familiar with Facebook than fistfights.

I don't mean to criticize our Armed Forces but, makes me wonder why it took so long for them to get to this point. Even before Afghanistan and Iraq, you still didn't see situations in Vietnam or WWII where soldiers were running 5 miles in a straight line.

Seems that when a soldier is out on patrol, there's walking, and walking, and walking (with a lot of extra weight from the gear on you), and then all of a sudden bursts of speed needed, along with zig zag movements. And that would appear to be the rule, not the exception.

The new training also uses "more calisthenics to build core body power, strength and agility," Palkoska said in an office bedecked with 60-year-old black and white photos of World War II-era mass exercise drills. Over the 10 weeks of basic, a strict schedule of exercises is done on a varied sequence of days so muscles rest, recover and strengthen.

Again, this sounds just like how it would be in combat. You're going to have times where you need quick power and speed, but other times where you'll have time to recover (even if that time is very short).

It's also interesting to see that they are taking the fact that Army Bootcamp isn't immune to the obesity epidemic (which I talked about once in this post):

Another aim is to toughen recruits from a more obese and sedentary generation, trainers said.

Many recruits didn't have physical education in elementary, middle or high school and therefore tend to lack bone and muscle strength. When they ditch diets replete with soda and fast food for healthier meals and physical training, they drop excess weight and build stronger muscles and denser bones, Palkoska said.

Continues near the end of the article:

Fleming said those who had some sort of sports in high school can easily pick up on the training, while those who didn't have to be brought along. One hefty soldier in a recent company he trained dropped 45 pounds and learned to blast out 100 push-ups and 70 sit-ups, he said.

"We just have to take the soldier who's used to sitting on the couch playing video games and get them out there to do it," Fleming said.

This is going to be real interesting to see how it all plays out but I think if anything, it makes Army Bootcamp closer to an anaerobic "activity" rather than an aerobic one and that's going to go a long way.

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A Simple Diet Plan

I'm all about simple solutions and finding a simple diet plan for people to follow AND that works.

I came across this article that gives out a eating plan that claims you can lose weight while staying full.

I like the concept because I think for a lot of people, they snack on junk food because they get what they consider "hungry."

But when you look at the diet itself that it has listed out, it's not a very simple diet plan.

Example from Day 2 Breakfast:

5.3 oz 2% Greek yogurt with honey, 1 sliced banana, 1 Tbsp chopped walnuts

So you mean you have to measure that out? Not 5.1 oz, not 5.5 ounces, but 5.3...

Day 2 snacks:

1 cup cantaloupe chunks and 1 cup pineapple chunks, topped with ¼ tsp chopped mint

Are these from a can, or do you have to take the time to cut all that up almost every day(and if it's in a can, that's a lot of sodium to go along with it)?

And probably my favorite snack they listed on the last day:

Two 2¼-in. homemade chocolate chip cookies; 8 oz coffee with 1% milk

2 1/4 inch....HOMEMADE...not store bought...talk about getting technical.

And I'll admit, I had to google what a Babybel was.

The problem is, there's not too many people that are going to last on this diet for long. All the measuring, chopping, eyeballing, and weighing of food is going to make it to complex for people to stick with.

My fitness routines comes with a fat loss nutritional guide that I think is basic a simple diet plan.

You eat twice a day, and you eat all you want of the foods I have listed. The foods are very simple: meats, veggies, fruits, nuts, and various oils.

There's no measuring, there's no weighing, there's no calorie counting. You follow the diet plan and the workouts and you WILL lose weight.

This stuff doesn't have to be complex. A simple diet plan is all you need and the fitness routines that I offer are just what you need to lose that weight and get the body that you want and at just $4.95 for the first month's workout (just 16 cents a day), you can give it a try for a month. You've got nothing to lose.

Fitness Routines

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Muscle Fiber Recruitment

One thing that tends to get lost when it comes to different training techniques is an understanding of muscle fiber recruitment.

I had a client of mine that is in my Fat Loss class come up to me this past week telling me how great she felt when she was out in Colorado and hiking around and how the class really prepared her for the endurance that she was going to need.

My class doesn't focus on slow steady cardio or aerobics. The focus is on fat loss and increasing strength and muscle.

So why did her endurance increase when she wasn't training for endurance?

It's because indirectly she was and it comes down to the types of muscle fibers that are used and recruited.

There are three different kind muscle fibers:

1. Type I muscle fibers (aka slow twitch muscle fibers) – These fibers develop force very slowly and at the same time, relax slowly and can withstand fatigue for long periods of time. These types of muscle fibers have a high capacity for activities such as a marathon, soccer and distance cycling. Basically, you are going at a sub maximal pace for a long period of time. These fibers are used in what is classically called “endurance” exercises and activities.

2. Type IIa muscle fibers (aka fast twitch muscle fibers) – These fibers can develop force faster than the type I fibers but, also get fatigued faster. These fibers involve activities that are a little more quicker and powerful with intensity than the type I fibers, such as an 800 meter run, some strength training workouts like in the Lean Body Fat Loss Training class, interval training, and what I like to call, metaval training.

3. Type IIb muscle fibers (aka fast twitch muscle fibers) – These are the most powerful muscle fibers that we have. These are the fibers that are able to develop force very rapidly, but, at the same time, they fatigue very rapidly. These include activities such as a 100-m sprint, a maximal lift of a weight, or a vertical jump.

No matter what type of activity you are doing (for the most part), your muscles are recruited in a particular order: First the Type I's are recruited, then if needed your Type IIa's are recruited, and finally if necessary your Type IIb's are recruited.

So if you're doing just a normal walk, you'll recruit your Type I muscle fibers but that will be about it. If you are doing some bodyweight squats or lunges, you'll first recruit your Type I muscle fibers, then you'll more than likely recruit your Type II muscle fibers. If you added a barbell full of weights onto your shoulders and completed more squats that was incredibly intense, you would first recruit the type I fibers, then the Type IIa muscle fibers, and finally you'd probably recruit Type IIb muscle fibers.

When you start to increase the maximal strength of your Type IIa and Type IIb muscle fibers, you are also at the same time increasing the strength of your Type I muscle fibers, because those have to be recruited as part of the mix when you are lifting things to strengthen the Type IIa and Type IIb muscle fibers.

So in essence, you are increasing your maximum abilities when training your Type IIa and Type IIb muscle fibers, and also increasing your SUB-MAXIMAL abilities of the Type I muscle fibers.

That's why my client had an easier time out hiking with the strength training she did in Lean Body Fat Loss class then if she simply did low, sub-maximal walking.

You can follow the same type training with the monthly fitness routines that I offer. It's a great way to train not only for gaining strength and building muscle but will also help you build up endurance for a 5K, 10K, a full marathon, as well as a hiking trip.

So don't be afraid to train at a higher intensity level than what you are going to use for. In the end, the order muscle fiber recruitment can be used to cover all increases in strength at all levels.

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Best Workout For Fat Loss

I get asked the question a lot: "What is the best workout for fat loss?"

People are always on the search for the best fitness plans but more times than not they find one listed as such, try it out and then if fails.

but the problem is not that the workout failed, it's that the person failed the fat loss workout.

The beauty of fitness is that it allows all of us to be part of an experiment. The difference is that we are both the tester and the subject.

If we work through a fat loss fitness routine EXACTLY as it's spelled out for us, then after some time we can tell for ourselves whether it worked or not.

The issue arises though in that people won't follow EXACTLY what is prescribed for them to do.

Same goes for diets. People get on diets but then 2 days into them they start making "small modifications" and then in 3 weeks they say the diet didn't work but if you look at what they were actually doing, they weren't following the original diet at all.

The key is to follow exactly what a workout for fat loss says with no modification for a period of time and then you'll be able to make an accurate opinion of whether yo thought it worked or not.

Here's the way I do it:

I found a diet/and or fitness routine and follow it exactly for a month. Before I start, I'll take measurements of my weight, as well as the circumference of my waist. I'll also take pictures of myself to see if any physical changes occurred.

After a month, I'll compare the measurements and pictures of the two time periods and make a decision as to whether I accept or not accept whether the routine/diet succeeded or not.

Then from there, I might start making modifications the routine or diet and continue to track my measurements and pictures.

But, the important part is that in order to get an idea of whether a workout for fat loss succeeds or not, you HAVE to give it some time and at first you HAVE to follow it EXACTLY as it is laid out for you.

Again, back to my experiences with intermittent fasting. I followed it for a month exactly the way it was spelled it out. After a month, I was able to make a subjective opinion on it (which by the way, was that I thought it was a great way to lose weight AND not lose muscle).

Want to make yourself a subject of a workout for fat loss that I have laid out for you?

Every month you can get a workout from me that spells out exactly what to do, when to do it, what to eat, and what not to eat. It's very simple to follow and if you stick with it EXACTLY, you will see results.

And I make it real easy for you to try this out. For the first month's routine, it's only going to cost you $4.95. That's it. Less than $5 to experiment my fitness routine on yourself to see whether it works or not.

Go check out the link below to read more (along with testimonials) on people you did the workouts, followed them exactly the way I wrote them, and got results and are now following one of the best, most affordable workouts for fat loss you can find.

Monthly Fitness Workout Routines

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Stair Training Fat Loss Programs

Tabloid rumors are not the only thing celebrities like Alex Rodriguez & Madonna have in common.

And heart throbs Tom Brady & J-Lo also happen to share in common with A-Rod & the Material Girl.

They all use stairs to improve their conditioning, athletic performance and just plain look amazing.

The NY Daily News reports that A-ROD gets up at 6AM to run stairs and it's been written that Madonna can climb 50 flights of stairs in one clip.

J-Lo hits the stairs with a 20 pound vest, Tom Brady runs stadium stairs and Tom Brokaw uses them when he travels.

So why stairs?

Don't these celebrities have access to anything money can buy?

Of course they do but money has nothing to do with this.

There's one simple truth.

Although a free training tool accessible to most anyone stairs simply deliver the results these super stars are looking for.

Fat loss, speed, six pack, a hot bod, conditioning, flexibility, power

You name it and stairs can help.

Here are 3 reasons why...

The first reason that stairs are so effective is that going uphill (against gravity) will always force your body to work much harder and will increase your strength without even lifting weight. You ever notice how much harder it is to ride a bike or run uphill. Well that's the same reason stairs are so effective and even more because the slope is usually higher with stairs.

The second reason is time saving. Even greater with stairs is that training results are achieved in far less time than traditional training. A tough stair workout can take less than 15 minutes and yield the same results as an hour
long workout. Which would you rather do?

The third reason is that it's super easy to add equipment like a weighted vest (J-Lo does this) or attached some resistance bands to exit doors for upper body or core work. You can also throw in body weight exercises before or after your climbs.

It truly is hard to beat this free training tool and that's why you have the best of the best using them.

Follow suit and you'll reap the benefits too!

For a very limited time Stair Training Expert Virgil Aponte has 3 Free Videos and 1 Free E-Book on Stair Training at

Fat Loss Programs

Go there now before he takes them down:
Fat Loss Programs

Disclaimer: Lean Body Fitness, LLC is an affiliate of The Ultimate Stair Exercises

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Stair Training

Virgil Aponte went from being a gym rat to using very unique stair training exercises after going through some injuries he got from traditional weight training.

Now does that mean you should scrap your training?

Of course not as Virgil put it.

If something is working for you then stick with it but if you think stairs are something for you then learning about and adding it to your training tool box will be a great thing for you.

Virgil learned this first hand when he was left without a training center during the 2002 WNBA Basketball Season.

Virgil was the Strength Coach to the New York Liberty Women's Basketball team but he actually had no place to train his athletes so he turned to using the stairs!

And guess what? They went all the way to the WBNA Finals!

And stairs are not just popular with Virgil and his athletes either.

Athletes and celebrities like A-Rod, Tom Brady, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and many more swear by them.

You will to once you give them a try.

For a limited time Virgil has 3 free videos for you at his web site:

Stair Training

Go there now before he takes them down!

Stair Training

Disclaimer: Lean Body Fitness, LLC is an affiliate of The Ultimate Stair Exercises

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Metavals - The New Interval Training for Burning Body Fat

One of the issues that I always have with clients is that when it comes to interval training for burning body fat they just can't get the intensity that they want on a treadmill or bike due to being overweight.

I still like doing intervals on a treadmill or bike for burning body fat. Especially a treadmill. The feeling of doing an all of sprint just really makes me feel alive.

But, I'm not overweight.

If you're overweight by say 25 pounds or more and do all of sprints, it's just asking for knee problems. What I see in a lot of my clients is that they instinctively know this and don't go all out and thus aren't burning body fat like they could.

But I came across some information from Alywn Cosgrove that makes a lot of sense and they are routines that can give you just as much benefit as intervals on a bike or treadmill but without the vast amounts of pressure that the compressions on your knees and other joints would get hit with: Metabolic Training or as I like to call them, Metavals.

Metavals are essentially exercises that you do in a row over a period of time without stopping and create that same kind of EPOC that you would get had you been doing the classic interval training on a bike or treadmill.

Here's an example of one of my Metavals that is in the current month's fitness routines that I offer:

Ten and Downs
1. There are three exercises involved in this routine: Kneeling Pushup, Bodyweight Squat, and Door Towel Rows.

2. Start by doing 10 repetitions of Kneeling Pushups.

3. With no rest, do 10 repetitions of Bodyweight Squats.

4. With no rest again, do 10 repetitions of Door Towel Rows.

5. Again with no rest, go back and do 9 repetitions of Kneeling Pushups, then 9 repetitions of Bodyweight Squats, then 9 repetitions of Door Towel Rows, with no rest between any of the exercises.

6. Then do a set of each of those exercises again, but only doing 8 repetitions.
7. Continue doing these exercises in this fashion but decreasing the number of repetitions that you do by one after each set.

8. When you get to doing just one repetition, hold the bottom of each of that one repetition of the Kneeling Pushup and Bodyweight Squat position for 30 seconds, and hold the pulling/contracting part of the one repetition of the Door Towel Row for 30 seconds.

This one is a simple one, and really only takes about 10 minutes to do. But it is very very effective and can keep you burning body fat for not only hours but days afterward.

Interested in learning more about these type of fitness routines for burning body fat? Then check out the monthly workout program that you can sign up for and get fitness routines at just $4.95 to start:

Fitness Routines

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Stair Exercise

Not too long ago I chatted with my buddy and Stair Training Expert, Virgil Aponte about what he does to stay in shape.

Now if you know many personal trainers like I do you would probably hear things like I going to the gym a few times a week but Virgil goes a different route.

Instead of the gym he hits the stairs twice a week.

Don't get me wrong Virgil loves the typical gym stuff but back in 1996 he hurt himself in the gym and had to have hernia surgery.

Because of this Virgil could not hit the gym for 3 months!

Imagine giving up something you love for 3 months!

Now you know that must've been torture for Virgil.

He also became very depressed because he's supposed to set an example for his clients and for his students.

So what did Virgil do?

Well the first thing he did was a big mistake.

He went back into the gym only 3 weeks after surgery and pulled an abdominal muscle.

Now he was set back even further

What next?

He tried swimming but no good. Still too painful even for a former New York City Lifeguard!

He used the exercise bike at the gym but it was just way too boring.

You see Virgil was used to lifting weights, playing 3 on 3 basketball, wiffle ball and touch football and now he'd have to use a boring as hell exercise bike!

There had to be something better!

And that is exactly what Virgil found that actually made him famous. (At least when it came to stairs)

He was visiting a friend who happened to live on the 19th floor but one of the elevators was out or service.

Instead of waiting for the second elevator Virgil decides to take the stairs and the rest was history.

By the time he hit the 19th floor he was breathing heavy but more importantly there was no pain from his injuries.

He found a new training tool!

And it simply was walking the stairs in his friends 21 story building.

Yup that is how the stairs guru got started.

Over the next few months while healing from hernia surgery Virgil got up to walking 140 flights of stairs in a workout!

Now something really special started to happen.

Virgil was all healed up and was ready to go back into the gym but he still wanted to keep stairs in his routine.

So he decided to hit the gym 2 times a week and the stairs 2 times a week.

Virgil also came up with most unique stair exercises you will ever find and put them into an ebook and video series called The Ultimate Stair Exercises.

Stair Exercise

And we are not just talking about walking stairs either:

He came up with exercises to

-Improve Aerobic Fitness: Great for Beginners or Recovery Workouts

-Improve Anaerobic Fitness: The Kind of Workouts that Burn Tons of Fat!

-Improve Your Strength: The Kind of Exercises that give you Buns of Steel!

-Improve Your Power: The Kind of Exercises that Help You Perform on the Athletic Field, Burn Fat & Make You Look Amazing!

-Improve Conditioning: The Kind of Exercises that Elite Athletes Use for Incredible Stamina and Give You Tons of Energy!

-Improve Your Flexibility: The Kind of Exercises that Alleviate joint Paint and Make You Feel Great!

-Make Good Use of Your Time: The Best Stair Exercises of All Time. Time Efficient & Super Effective.

Now are stairs the only thing you should be doing I asked Virgil?

Of course not he says. I'd have to be crazy to say that considering I always tell people to keep an open mind and learn as much as you can about other training tools.

The more tools you have the betters: Gyms, Spinning, Yoga, Stairs, Bands, Kettlebells etc... all have their place

In fact when he was the Strength & Conditioning Coach for the New York Liberty back in 2002 they didn't even have access to the New York Knicks training center because it was still under construction.

Can you imagine the best basketball team in the nation not having a place to train.

So actually they were forced to uses stairs and bands for a bulk of our training and that served them just fine as they were the best conditioned team in the league and went to the WNBA Finals!

Can you imagine if Virgil only believed in using a gym?

So I ask you this:

Could stair training help you?

That's something you have to ask yourself

And if the answer is yes for a limited time Virgil has 3 free stair training videos for you just for visiting his site:

Stair Exercise

Go there now before he takes them down!

Stair Exercise

P.S. Make sure to go and check out my blog entry on my experiences
with the Ultimate Stair Exercises:

Lean Body Fitness Blog

Stair Exercise

Disclaimer: Lean Body Fitness, LLC is an affiliate of The Ultimate Stair Exercises

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History of Cooking

Ever wonder about the history of cooking? Ever think about when it might have been that we decided to start throwing our food over a fire and eating it cooked instead of raw?

Since I was in 7th grade, I've always had a fascination of history. It's just really interesting to look backwards and try to piece together things that have happened to see how we got to this point right now.

As you've read in the past on this blog, I'm a big supporter of following diets such as a paleo diet, and on occasion, follow intermittent fasting, and follow simple workouts because I think that's what our body was designed to do.

This is an interesting article that theorizes that when we started cooking our food, we really put ourselves on the fast track to evolving as humans.

First, when we moved from eating a straight vegetarian diet to more meat, that was the starting point of moving from chimp to a form of human:

It is already accepted that the introduction of meat into our ancestors' diet caused their brains to grow and their intelligence to increase.

Meat - a more concentrated form of energy - not only meant bigger brains for our ancestors, but also an end to the need to devote nearly all their time to foraging to maintain energy levels.

As a consequence, more time was available for social structure to develop.

This part of human history just never seems to have changed: we were always looking for ways to simplify things in order to have more time to do other "stuff." We strive to do that every day in our own lives today.

But, it might have been when the history of cooking was born based on an "accident" that really moved us forward:

Harvard Professor Richard Wrangham believes there is more to it than simply discovering meat.

He thinks that it is not so much a change in the ingredients of our diet, but the way in which we prepare them that has caused the radical evolution of our species.

"I think cooking is arguably the biggest increase in the quality of the diet in the whole of the history of life," he says.

"Our ancestors most probably dropped food in fire accidentally. They would have found it was delicious and that set us off on a whole new direction."

How many times have you heard about the history of an invention and you almost always here the start of the story with "Well, it kind of came together by accident."

Think of how many times you've been cooking something and added something that you shouldn't have and you find that it actually enhances the taste of it.

It sends off that little light in your head that says "hey, I just made something new by screwing up."

The most momentous shift however, happened 1.8 million years ago when Homo erectus - our first "truly human" ancestor arrived on the scene.

Homo erectus had an even bigger brain, smaller jaws and teeth.

Erectus also had a similar body shape to us. Shorter arms and longer legs appeared, and gone was the large vegetable-processing gut, meaning that Erectus could not only walk upright, but could also run.

He was cleverer and faster, and - according to Professor Wrangham - he had learned how to cook.

"Cooking made our guts smaller," he says. "Once we cooked our food, we didn't need big guts.

"They're costly in terms of energy. Individuals that were born with small guts were able to save energy, have more babies and survive better."

Professor Peter Wheeler from Liverpool John Moores University and his colleague, Leslie Aiello, think it was this change in our digestive system that specifically allowed our brains to get larger.

Must be the nerd in me but I find this stuff really interesting because it begs the question, what would have happened if this "accident" didn't occur? Or what would have happened if they wouldn't have learned from that food accidentally falling into the fire and they would have continued to eat meat raw? Would it have not mattered and at some point we still would have figured it out?

I guess it comes down to the fact that even millions of years ago, something as simple as a piece of meat falling into the fire could very well have changed how humans developed and probably shows that through all the human forms we have gone through in the millions of years of human evolution, we still have one thing that hasn't changed: the ability to learn and adapt.

Always keep that in mind. You can adapt to situations before you are forced too. If you need to lose weight, then change your behavior and adapt to it. Your body can do it, you just need to convince your will that you can.

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Home Workout Routines

Wouldn't it be great to have home workout routines where it didn't cost you a thing in gym membership fees OR exercise equipment?

The Lean Body Training Home Bodyweight Fat Loss Workouts are home workout routines that gives you exactly that: A workout at home that doesn't require any exercise equipment but at the same time is designed for fat loss.

The best thing about this program is that it's very efficient: It's only going to take you roughly 30 minutes to complete, 3 times a week. So no matter how busy you are, you should be able to find 90 minutes within your week to get one of these home workout routines done.

Another great part of this program? It comes in three different versions: A separate one for beginners, intermediates, and advanced training levels.

So it doesn't matter if you're beginner or a seasoned workout veteran, these home workout routines are perfect for you AND gives you fat loss results.

Maybe the best part: AFFORDABLE. One of these home workout routines is only going to cost you $9.95. That's a very small price to pay for a month long workout that you can do in your home, with no exercise equipment.

Read what one client had to say about it:

I followed the beginner, intermediate and advanced workouts. I was intimidated that I wouldn't be able to complete even the beginner program. Also, because of my skepticism, I took baby steps and held off on starting the eating plan until I felt more confident, which wasn't until a few weeks into the intermediate workout. Initially, after completing the beginner workout, I lost a few pounds and after finishing the advanced workout and having been on the eating plan for approximately two and a half months I lost an additional 25 pounds. Definitely surprised by the results. When I decided to start the program I didn't even have an actual goal in mind as to how much weight I wanted to lose because I never thought it was possible. However, after I started seeing results, I set a goal and stuck to it. I was a carboholic before I started the nutritional plan and was worried that I wouldn't be able to stick with it. After approximately a week and a half the carb cravings were gone and I actually started looking forward to the meals. There are such a wide variety of food choices that even a picky eater like myself had no trouble finding foods I love to eat. Once I made up my mind to follow the eating plan I didn't find it to be very difficult to stick to it, even with a busy lifestyle. I would recommend this program to anyone who is serious about losing weight and who desires a healthy lifestyle.

- Cheri Holland, Plymouth, Michigan

Don't waste anymore time. Get your copy of The Lean Body Training Bodyweight Fat Loss Workout today.

Home Workout Routines

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