Monday, June 30, 2014

Possible Weight Gain

don't give up
 
Here at FLX we know first hand how living a healthy lifestyle can be a challenge at times, especially when life seems to get very busy with vacations, friends, family events and, well just stuff!  That's why when we got the following information in our inbox this week from Tony at caloriecount.com it resonated with us.  So, we wanted to share the information and wisdom with you in hopes that it would be the reminder you might need that this healthy journey we are on comes with hills AND valleys, and we just have to get through one, before we can reach the other.



I want to address a very common problem many people experience when they start a weight
loss program. The problem? Weight gain.

It seems to go against common sense. You start eating better and exercising, but instead of
losing weight, you actually gain 2-5 pounds.

That weight gain is enough to cause even the most motivated of people to give up. After all,
why would anybody want to put forth all that effort and not only NOT lose any weight, but
actually gain some!

Here's the thing though - some weight gain or stagnation is to be expected when you start a
new exercise program, and I want to explain why this happens so that you don't get
discouraged the next time you're confronted with the issue.

You see, within our muscles we store energy. This energy comes in the form of fat and
muscle glycogen. It's this muscle glycogen, specifically the increase in its storage capacity,
that causes the weight gain.

When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks them down into glucose and forms glycogen.
From there, it combines the glycogen with water and stores it in your muscle to be used for
energy when you do high-intensity exercise.

Here's the kicker - for every 1 gram of glycogen, your body stores with it about 3-4 grams of
water. Since the average person can store over 500 grams of glycogen, that can equal up to
5lbs or more of water retention within the muscle.

This is important to understand because this is good weight. It is not fat. It is not the "bad"
water retention you see under the skin. It is fuel for exercise. It makes your muscles look
full.

When you go from a sedentary lifestyle to one where you're suddenly exercising several
times a week, your body increases its capacity to store muscle glycogen so it can fuel more
activity.

This brings along some extra weight. It's entirely possible to simultaneously lose 5 pounds of
fat and gain 5 pounds of muscle glycogen and not have your weight change at all.

Obviously, you made some amazing progress, but the scale isn't going to show you that.

Remember, body composition and health are what matter. Weight is misleading. Focus on
how you feel, the progress you make with your healthy habits, and your body composition.

The beginning of your weight loss program is all about letting your body adapt metabolically
to new nutrition and exercise.

Be patient. Be mindful of what is happening to your body. Trust the process. Stay the course.
Have a healthy day!!!
 
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, June 20, 2014

Low fat or low carb

SundayReview | Opinion |​​NYT Now

Always Hungry? Here’s Why

By DAVID S. LUDWIG and MARK I. FRIEDMAN
Inside


    Sarah Illenberger

     
     

    FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored. Surrounded by tempting foods, we overeat, consuming more calories than we can burn off, and the excess is deposited as fat. The simple solution is to exert willpower and eat less.
    The problem is that this advice doesn’t work, at least not for most people over the long term. In other words, your New Year’s resolution to lose weight probably won’t last through the spring, let alone affect how you look in a swimsuit in July. More of us than ever are obese, despite an incessant focus on calorie balance by the government, nutrition organizations and the food industry.

    But what if we’ve confused cause and effect? What if it’s not overeating that causes us to get fat, but the process of getting fatter that causes us to overeat?
    The more calories we lock away in fat tissue, the fewer there are circulating in the bloodstream to satisfy the body’s requirements. If we look at it this way, it’s a distribution problem: We have an abundance of calories, but they’re in the wrong place. As a result, the body needs to increase its intake. We get hungrier because we’re getting fatter.
    It’s like edema, a common medical condition in which fluid leaks from blood vessels into surrounding tissues. No matter how much water they drink, people with edema may experience unquenchable thirst because the fluid doesn’t stay in the blood, where it’s needed. Similarly, when fat cells suck up too much fuel, calories from food promote the growth of fat tissue instead of serving the energy needs of the body, provoking overeating in all but the most disciplined individuals.
    We discuss this hypothesis in an article just published in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. According to this alternative view, factors in the environment have triggered fat cells in our bodies to take in and store excessive amounts of glucose and other calorie-rich compounds. Since fewer calories are available to fuel metabolism, the brain tells the body to increase calorie intake (we feel hungry) and save energy (our metabolism slows down). Eating more solves this problem temporarily but also accelerates weight gain. Cutting calories reverses the weight gain for a short while, making us think we have control over our body weight, but predictably increases hunger and slows metabolism even more.
    Consider fever as another analogy. A cold bath will lower body temperature temporarily, but also set off biological responses — like shivering and constriction of blood vessels — that work to heat the body up again. In a sense, the conventional view of obesity as a problem of calorie balance is like conceptualizing fever as a problem of heat balance; technically not wrong, but not very helpful, because it ignores the apparent underlying biological driver of weight gain. This is why diets that rely on consciously reducing calories don’t usually work. Only one in six overweight and obese adults in a nationwide survey reports ever having maintained a 10 percent weight loss for at least a year. (Even this relatively modest accomplishment may be exaggerated, because people tend to overestimate their successes in self-reported surveys.) In studies by Dr. Rudolph L. Leibel of Columbia and colleagues, when lean and obese research subjects were underfed in order to make them lose 10 to 20 percent of their weight, their hunger increased and metabolism plummeted. Conversely, overfeeding sped up metabolism.
    For both over- and under-eating, these responses tend to push weight back to where it started — prompting some obesity researchers to think in terms of a body weight “set point” that seems to be predetermined by our genes.
    But if basic biological responses push back against changes in body weight, and our set points are predetermined, then why have obesity rates — which, for adults, are almost three times what they were in the 1960s — increased so much? Most important, what can we do about it?
    As it turns out, many biological factors affect the storage of calories in fat cells, including genetics, levels of physical activity, sleep and stress. But one has an indisputably dominant role: the hormone insulin. We know that excess insulin treatment for diabetes causes weight gain, and insulin deficiency causes weight loss. And of everything we eat, highly refined and rapidly digestible carbohydrates produce the most insulin.

    By this way of thinking, the increasing amount and processing of carbohydrates in the American diet has increased insulin levels, put fat cells into storage overdrive and elicited obesity-promoting biological responses in a large number of people. Like an infection that raises the body temperature set point, high consumption of refined carbohydrates — chips, crackers, cakes, soft drinks, sugary breakfast cereals and even white rice and bread — has increased body weights throughout the population.
    One reason we consume so many refined carbohydrates today is because they have been added to processed foods in place of fats — which have been the main target of calorie reduction efforts since the 1970s. Fat has about twice the calories of carbohydrates, but low-fat diets are the least effective of comparable interventions, according to several analyses, including one presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association this year.

    Sarah Illenberger

    A recent study by one of us, Dr. Ludwig, and his colleagues published in JAMA examined 21 overweight and obese young adults after they had lost 10 to 15 percent of their body weight, on diets ranging from low fat to low carbohydrate. Despite consuming the same number of calories on each diet, subjects burned about 325 more calories per day on the low carbohydrate than on the low fat diet — amounting to the energy expended in an hour of moderately intense physical activity.

    Another study published by Dr. Ludwig and colleagues in The Lancet in 2004 suggested that a poor-quality diet could result in obesity even when it was low in calories. Rats fed a diet with rapidly digesting (called high “glycemic index”) carbohydrate gained 71 percent more fat than their counterparts, who ate more calories over all, though in the form of slowly digesting carbohydrate.

     
    Posted by at No comments:

    Thursday, June 19, 2014

    Gillian practicing


    Posted by at No comments:
    SundayReview | Opinion |​​NYT Now

    Always Hungry? Here’s Why

    By DAVID S. LUDWIG and MARK I. FRIEDMAN
    Inside

      Sarah Illenberger
      This story is included with an NYT Opinion subscription.
      Learn more »

      FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored. Surrounded by tempting foods, we overeat, consuming more calories than we can burn off, and the excess is deposited as fat. The simple solution is to exert willpower and eat less.
      The problem is that this advice doesn’t work, at least not for most people over the long term. In other words, your New Year’s resolution to lose weight probably won’t last through the spring, let alone affect how you look in a swimsuit in July. More of us than ever are obese, despite an incessant focus on calorie balance by the government, nutrition organizations and the food industry.
      But what if we’ve confused cause and effect? What if it’s not overeating that causes us to get fat, but the process of getting fatter that causes us to overeat?
      The more calories we lock away in fat tissue, the fewer there are circulating in the bloodstream to satisfy the body’s requirements. If we look at it this way, it’s a distribution problem: We have an abundance of calories, but they’re in the wrong place. As a result, the body needs to increase its intake. We get hungrier because we’re getting fatter.
      It’s like edema, a common medical condition in which fluid leaks from blood vessels into surrounding tissues. No matter how much water they drink, people with edema may experience unquenchable thirst because the fluid doesn’t stay in the blood, where it’s needed. Similarly, when fat cells suck up too much fuel, calories from food promote the growth of fat tissue instead of serving the energy needs of the body, provoking overeating in all but the most disciplined individuals.
      We discuss this hypothesis in an article just published in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. According to this alternative view, factors in the environment have triggered fat cells in our bodies to take in and store excessive amounts of glucose and other calorie-rich compounds. Since fewer calories are available to fuel metabolism, the brain tells the body to increase calorie intake (we feel hungry) and save energy (our metabolism slows down). Eating more solves this problem temporarily but also accelerates weight gain. Cutting calories reverses the weight gain for a short while, making us think we have control over our body weight, but predictably increases hunger and slows metabolism even more.
      Consider fever as another analogy. A cold bath will lower body temperature temporarily, but also set off biological responses — like shivering and constriction of blood vessels — that work to heat the body up again. In a sense, the conventional view of obesity as a problem of calorie balance is like conceptualizing fever as a problem of heat balance; technically not wrong, but not very helpful, because it ignores the apparent underlying biological driver of weight gain.
      This is why diets that rely on consciously reducing calories don’t usually work. Only one in six overweight and obese adults in a nationwide survey reports ever having maintained a 10 percent weight loss for at least a year. (Even this relatively modest accomplishment may be exaggerated, because people tend to overestimate their successes in self-reported surveys.) In studies by Dr. Rudolph L. Leibel of Columbia and colleagues, when lean and obese research subjects were underfed in order to make them lose 10 to 20 percent of their weight, their hunger increased and metabolism plummeted. Conversely, overfeeding sped up metabolism.
      For both over- and under-eating, these responses tend to push weight back to where it started — prompting some obesity researchers to think in terms of a body weight “set point” that seems to be predetermined by our genes.
      But if basic biological responses push back against changes in body weight, and our set points are predetermined, then why have obesity rates — which, for adults, are almost three times what they were in the 1960s — increased so much? Most important, what can we do about it?
      As it turns out, many biological factors affect the storage of calories in fat cells, including genetics, levels of physical activity, sleep and stress. But one has an indisputably dominant role: the hormone insulin. We know that excess insulin treatment for diabetes causes weight gain, and insulin deficiency causes weight loss. And of everything we eat, highly refined and rapidly digestible carbohydrates produce the most insulin.
      By this way of thinking, the increasing amount and processing of carbohydrates in the American diet has increased insulin levels, put fat cells into storage overdrive and elicited obesity-promoting biological responses in a large number of people. Like an infection that raises the body temperature set point, high consumption of refined carbohydrates — chips, crackers, cakes, soft drinks, sugary breakfast cereals and even white rice and bread — has increased body weights throughout the population.
      One reason we consume so many refined carbohydrates today is because they have been added to processed foods in place of fats — which have been the main target of calorie reduction efforts since the 1970s. Fat has about twice the calories of carbohydrates, but low-fat diets are the least effective of comparable interventions, according to several analyses, including one presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association this year.
      Sarah Illenberger
      A recent study by one of us, Dr. Ludwig, and his colleagues published in JAMA examined 21 overweight and obese young adults after they had lost 10 to 15 percent of their body weight, on diets ranging from low fat to low carbohydrate. Despite consuming the same number of calories on each diet, subjects burned about 325 more calories per day on the low carbohydrate than on the low fat diet — amounting to the energy expended in an hour of moderately intense physical activity.
      Another study published by Dr. Ludwig and colleagues in The Lancet in 2004 suggested that a poor-quality diet could result in obesity even when it was low in calories. Rats fed a diet with rapidly digesting (called high “glycemic index”) carbohydrate gained 71 percent more fat than their counterparts, who ate more calories over all, though in the form of slowly digesting carbohydrate.
      These ideas aren’t entirely new. The notion that we overeat because we’re getting fat has been around for at least a century, as described by Gary Taubes in his book “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” In 1908, for example, a German internist named Gustav von Bergmann dismissed the energy-balance view of obesity, and hypothesized that it was instead caused by a metabolic disorder that he called “lipophilia,” or “love of fat.”
      But such theories have been generally ignored, perhaps because they challenge entrenched cultural attitudes. The popular emphasis on calorie balance reinforces the belief that we have conscious control over our weight, and that obesity represents a personal failure because of ignorance or inadequate willpower.
      In addition, the food industry — which makes enormous profits from highly processed products derived from corn, wheat and rice — invokes calorie balance as its first line of defense. If all calories are the same, then there are no bad foods, and sugary beverages, junk foods and the like are fine in moderation. It’s simply a question of portion control. The fact that this rarely works is taken as evidence that obese people lack willpower, not that the idea itself might be wrong.
      UNFORTUNATELY, existing research cannot provide a definitive test of our hypothesis. Several prominent clinical trials reported no difference in weight loss when comparing diets purportedly differing in protein, carbohydrate and fat. However, these trials had major limitations; at the end, subjects reported that they had not met the targets for complying with the prescribed diets. We wouldn’t discard a potentially lifesaving cancer treatment based on negative findings, if the research subjects didn’t take the drug as intended.

      There are better ways to do this research. Studies should provide participants with at least some of their food, to make it easier for them to stick to the diets. Two studies that did this — one by the Direct Group in 2008 and the other by the Diogenes Project in 2010 — reported substantial benefits associated with the reduction of rapidly digestible carbohydrate compared with conventional diets. We need to invest much more in this research. With the annual economic burden of diabetes — just one obesity-related complication — predicted to approach half a trillion dollars by 2020, a few billion dollars for state-of-the-art nutrition research would make a good investment.
      If this hypothesis turns out to be correct, it will have immediate implications for public health. It would mean that the decades-long focus on calorie restriction was destined to fail for most people. Information about calorie content would remain relevant, not as a strategy for weight loss, but rather to help people avoid eating too much highly processed food loaded with rapidly digesting carbohydrates. But obesity treatment would more appropriately focus on diet quality rather than calorie quantity.
      People in the modern food environment seem to have greater control over what they eat than how much. With reduced consumption of refined grains, concentrated sugar and potato products and a few other sensible lifestyle choices, our internal body weight control system should be able to do the rest. Eventually, we could bring the body weight set point back to pre-epidemic levels. Addressing the underlying biological drive to overeat may make for a far more practical and effective solution to obesity than counting calories.
      Posted by at No comments:

      Monday, June 2, 2014

      NerdFitness.com

      A wonderful friend of FLX, Kelly, sent me this link to  NerdFitness.com 

      It has a great article about a one week, no excuses challenge.


      The “One Week, No Excuses” Challenge

      By Steve on 3   
      The “One Week, No Excuses” Challenge
      “Well I would have, but __________.”
      “If it wasn’t for ______________, I woulda made it!”
      “I’m sorry, but it wasn’t my fault, because of _____________.”
      We all do it.
      Things go wrong in our day-to-day life. We look back on what could have been, and it’s very easy for us to blame outside forces for those setbacks.
      Everything was going great except for that one thing that we never expected to happen. And we get pissed, rightfully so. 
      We all have that friend or coworker who always has everything go wrong for him or her; they’ll loudly complain to anybody that will listen about how the world is out to get them…that they’d be supreme high chancellor of the world if it wasn’t for those damn outside forces. 
      Unfortunately, this excuses-first mindset is holding us back in our fitness, our health, and oftentimes our lives.

      My stories of excuse

      My Excuse
      I used to be the same way.
      It was my Junior year of High School; I was prepped and ready to join the High School Varsity Basketball Team. My older brother was a starter and team captain, I had been called up the year before to travel with the team during the playoffs… And then a new kid moved to town.
      After tryouts, I anxiously walked up to the roster to find out what position I’d be playing…except it wasn’t there. I didn’t make the team. In my mind, the new kid took my spot.
      I remember for MONTHS holding a grudge and thinking of all the things that had gone wrong:
      • “If he hadn’t moved to town, I woulda made the team for sure.”
      • “That’s not fair, I had been called up the year before.”
      • “My brother is the captain, how could they cut me?”
      Long story short: I acted like an entitled ass. 
      Although it was difficult for me to eventually admit (years later), the new kid wasn’t the reason I got cut. I got cut because I wasn’t good enough. I hadn’t practiced hard enough. 
      And who cares that my brother was the captain! He earned his own accolades. 
      Getting cut from that team ended up being one of the best things that happened to me, but at the time all I could do was come up with excuses.

      What else are we rationalizing?

      Duck

      It’s amazing what we can rationalize or explain away, rather than telling ourselves the cold truth.
      Relationships: think about the last time you asked somebody out on a date (and they said no or bailed) or a relationship ended. All of your friends console you with words of encouragement like:
      • Screw them! You’re perfect and they didn’t see that.
      • Psssh, you’re better off without them.
      • They’re stupid and dumb and you’re awesome.
      We then tell ourselves the same thing: “I’m the man/woman and if they can’t see it, then it’s their fault.”
      But what if we didn’t look to external reasons and instead looked at ourselves?
      • Maybe I made a horrible first impression. I bet I can work on that.
      • Maybe I wasn’t that funny. I can work on my storytelling.
      • I wasn’t attentive enough. I can be a better listener.
      Sure, maybe that person did suck, and maybe it wasn’t a good match, but it’s still a chance to look at every situation as a learning experience.
      I remember receiving an email years ago from a NF reader who had recently been divorced and lost his job. Rather than blaming his wife for not loving him anymore and his boss for firing him, he looked at his situation and said to himself:
      “She’s right. I haven’t exercised a day since we’ve been married, and I really let myself go. That carried over to my work where I didn’t care. It’s time to get back to taking care of me.”
      A few months later, he emailed me to say he had lost a bunch of weight, reignited his love for acting, and won the lead role in a Shakespeare production! How cool is that?
      It’s like making excuses is part of our DNA if we’re not careful about it.  Think about all of the excuses we tell ourselves when it comes to getting healthy:
      • I have horrible genetics and that’s why I’m overweight/unhealthy.
      • I would have no problem eating better if I didn’t have this sweet tooth.
      • I’m really busy all the time and I don’t have time to exercise, must be nice for the rest of you.
      These excuses aren’t just limited to our health either – think about the excuses we make when things go wrong at work:
      • I would have had the presentation done in time but the server crashed.
      • I would have completed the report but the copier ran out of ink.
      • I would have showed up to the meeting on time but I was stuck in traffic.
      This is what our bosses really hear:
      • I didn’t get my work done.
      • I waited until the last minute to finish my work and now I’m blaming technology.
      • I was running late this morning so I’m blaming traffic.
      Yup, in each of the situations above, things went wrong.  However, in each of the situations above, we’re quick to point out the final issue rather than the personal decisions that lead to trouble too.
      It’s hard to admit to ourselves we could be doing something better, but it’s the first step to a more fulfilling and leveled-up life.

      No Excuses

      Bruce Lee Quote
      Bruce teaches us that excuses are defeating, and defeat is just a state of mind.
      Once we accept this, we can start changing our reality and take back control of our lives. The only thing standing between you and leveled up self is your belief in your own excuses.
      Here are a few men and women who took this mindset to heart, and overcame their “excuse” when so often we are derailed by something much smaller:
      Are you in space? No excuses!


      Space Workout
      Only have one leg? Watch Ali McWeeney compete in a powerlifting competition: 

       

      Ali McWeeney 
      What’s that? You’re too old to change? This grandfather begs to differ:



      Grandfather
      And so does this powerlifting great-grandmother:



      Grandmother
      How did these people overcome so much and max out their character?  By using a game-changing philosophy.
      The Game Changing Philosophy
      Victory Mountain I’ve been running Nerd Fitness now for over 5 years, and have been doing this full time now for four years.
      In that time I’ve personally transformed and helped thousands of people go from thinking “why me?” to empowered “why NOT me?”.
      How?
      By brainwashing ourselves!
      I STOPPED allowing myself to use excuses as to why I wasn’t able to complete something, and I stopped feeling sorry for myself when things didn’t go my way.
      A good friend recently shared with me a phrase that I’ll never forget, that perfectly embodies the attitude I want Nerd Fitness Rebels to have:
      “You can make excuses, or you can get what you want, but not both.”
      Once you stop allowing excuses to dictate why things didn’t go right, every moment suddenly becomes an opportunity for growth and improvement.
      Yeah, I realize that sounds all hippy and new age and cliche, but it’s so freaking true. When you make excuses, you blame the outside world for things that are happening to you that you don’t like.
      You make those forces the villain without accepting any personal responsibility or giving yourself the power to fix it.
      As I’ve said before: “it might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.” Once you adopt this mindset, things change. Suddenly, the world isn’t out to get you, but doors open when others close.

      The No Excuses, Play Like a Champion Challenge

      Challenge
      Today, I am issuing a challenge.
      I want to see if you can go one week without making a single excuse. 
      If you have friends, family members, or co-workers you can trust, ask them to call you out if you make one (“sounds like an excuse to me!”).
      We’ve created a Shed Your Excuses google doc so you can drop in whatever excuse you WANTED to use today but have since decided to abandon.  Feel free to vent and type out your excuse, no matter how ridiculous it is, and then get back to being awesome:
      If something goes wrong at work: ask yourself – “what can I learn from this so it doesn’t happen again?”
      If your relationship or a date goes poorly, ask yourself – “how can I improve my relationship/dating game so that I be a better partner?”
      If you keep coming up with excuses as to why you can’t eat better or exercise more, ask yourself: “how can I prepare ahead of time for the “unexpected things” that keep coming up? Can I prepare meals in advance? Get up before my family does to exercise without distraction? Can I block it off in your calendar so it’s a priority?
      Remember, at the end of the day: “nobody believes your excuses except for you.”
      We all have shit that we’re dealing with. And we all have things that go wrong to us.
      Those that get ahead in life take crappy situations, accept that it’s their job to fix them, and take action and FIX THE PROBLEM. All I wanna know is…who’s comin with me?
      I’d love for you to leave a comment and share a story (like I did above):
      What’s one instance in your past when you’ve used an excuse to pass the blame, and now that you’re older and wiser…what’s a lesson you SHOULD have learned from that situation? 
      Remember, “No excuses, play like a champion!”

      Posted by at No comments:

      Cancellation Policy

      After some confusion this past weekend regarding class cancellations, we thought it would be good to let you all know that we do have a cancellation policy. 

      To be able to keep class costs down and to be able to continue offering specials and discounts for our clients, we have to start following the policy...unless we have two or more students signed up for a class, two hours before class, we will be cancelling that class.

      We know that this can sometimes be a hassle but if you call us, email us or text us we can usually help you either schedule or unscheduled a class, depending on the situation. 

      We thank you for your understanding and your help!!! See you soon!!!
      Posted by at No comments:
      Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)