Follow up

So as I promised, I would write a followup. In my last post, I highlighted the problematic misconceptions and habits of your typical Pottruck member. In this followup, I aim to highlight what changes that one can make to his or her life that might better aid his or her fitness and nutritional goals.
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Note, I am writing this completely from a fat loss standpoint; for those of you with anabolic minds such as myself, don't bother reading this and I'm sure you probably know all of this stuff.

As review, I basically stated that manipulating one's metabolism is the best way to permanently stay lean. A person's metabolism is controlled by several components. There are uncontrollable factors such as genetics, age.

There also are (if you isolate these components as single variables ):


1. Body Mass

The heavier you are the more energy you require and burn compared to a lighter version of yourself)

2. Body Composition

The more MUSCLE you contain in ratio to your nonlean flesh, the more energy you require, resulting in a faster metabolism. If you through nutrition and fitness can maintain your muscles, you are bound to have a blazing fast metabolism. By no means do I have a muscle mass that is impressive by any body builder's standards; however, from my own experience, this metabolism boost is very noticeable in my daily life. I experience constant energy and alertness (even after repeat 4 hour sleeps), a hunger every 2-3 hours, the capacity to eat unhealthily without much consequence (because my metabolism burns it away fairly easily), and an ability to lose weight very rapidly (I really have to try to eat enough food to maintain weight). Currently, I estimate that I need to eat 2600-2700 calories a day to maintain my body weight (if I factor in the energy consumption due to exercise).

3. Eating habits

A good way to increase your metabolism is to eat protein and healthy fats [such as those from peanuts, legumes, almonds, vegetables, and grass fed beefs] as well as fibrous carbohydrates. These nutrients are harder to digest for your body and thus expend more energy to digest than with fast digesting carbohydrates [starches & simple sugars].

Eating more meals a day in smaller quantities helps you gain a metabolism boost due to 2 major reasons:
a. You are more likely to avoid a blood sugar spike which tells your parasympathetic nervous system to signal your cells to take up sugars into your cells to lower your blood sugar, essentially ceasing fat metabolism (which promotes the storage of body fat) and building up glycogen stores (which provides a energy buffer zone before fat burning starts again)
b. Your body is constantly digesting its food, which is an activity that burns calories (drinking water helps stimulate renal activity which also helps burn calories as well as helps keep your stomach full which sends neuronal/hormonal signals that you are full). c. Your body avoids going into starvation. When you body goes into starvation mode, it automatically lowers its metabolism and ceases fat metabolism in order to conserve resources.

In summary, you can generally group metabolism into 2 components

1. Basal Metabolism (determined by body mass/composition/genetics)

2. Metabolism due to Activity (Comprised of your daily activities such as working out, digesting etc)

(Naturally while cutting you will notice a decrease in metabolism simply due to decreased body weight, however this will not result in lower energy b/c although your total metabolism has fallen, your normalized metabolism (calories burned/mass) should actually go up if you are losing weight correctly).

In my last post I discussed the fallacies of eating salads w/o meat, eating very little amounts, doing long periods of cardio. These activities all serve to reduce your metabolism.

That being said, the ONLY way to permanently lose fat and become leaner is to raise your metabolism. Females and males alike are often horrified when I tell them they need to increase the muscles in their body to increase their metabolism in order to achieve permanent fat loss. They automatically think : 1. I will look too muscular and disgusting like Arnold 2. Female and males need different methods of working out to achieve their fitness goals. These reasonings while seemingly valid, are quite erroneous in science. I have a friend who was a personal trainer at NYSC (specifically at the one that Justin Timberlake and Alessandra Ambrosio are members of) and he's discussed fitness with Alessandra too. This man can verify everything I say here. I am not trying to offend anyone but here is the truth:

1. Hormonally, men and women are very different. Our contrasting hormonal landscapes prevent women from naturally acquiring very large muscles that men have. Unless women have a hormonal imbalance and somehow are taking in or producing male hormones, they cannot possibly get "butch" and remotely come close to developing a male musculature. To be honest, no matter how good my genetics and how hard anyone trains by natural means, is it possible to develop Arnold's musculature without taking anabolic steroids (Yes Arnold used steroids). It's simply not easy to gain muscle for anyone. When females tend to look bigger, its actually an illusion. They aren't muscular, its simply because they have fat that the muscle might be pushing outwards. Yes I've seen females who without steroids do have noticeable muscle; however, they work extremely hard and consume loads of protein and dedicate their lives to bodybuilding. Nothing but the most intense training and nutritional regimen can lead to that result for females.

2. Out side of the hormonal landscape, male and female muscle physiology is quite similar. In short, muscle is muscle. Muscle is stimulated by activity. The more muscle you have, the more you need to stimulate it for further growth. Low reps @ high intensity builds strong compact muscle, whereas higher reps (~15) results in enlargement of muscle cells, a term physiologists coin hypertrophy. Most females who do feel like they notice that 15 or more reps does not result in enlargement and hence are content to do high rep weight workouts. I've noticed that these people are also the same people who tend to do curls and tricep work with 5 lb dumbbells. Even for them, 5 lb dumbbells @ 20 reps will not really result in muscle stimulation. In short, I am saying that while its true that they will not experience muscle hypertrophy, they are not anywhere near fatiguing themselves with that weight and hence will also not experience any gains in strength OR muscle tone. In short, doing weights at that intensity is much more similar to doing cardio than actual weight lifting. You will not TONE up at all. When I say 15 or more reps resulting in hypertrophy, I mean 15 reps till failure (failure as in you cannot physically lift more than 15 reps). At this point of muscle failure you will experience hypertrophy at 15 reps. At a higher weight, 5 reps till failure will result in toning and strength gain. Females typically are reluctant to lift heavier weights because at high weights & low reps, it is much easier to reach failure than low weights & high reps.

Another very important contributor to a healthy metabolism is a post workout meal (and ideally a preworkout meal if you have time). This does not matter whether the exerciser is engaging in active cardio or weightlifting. The body needs to recharge and will risk protein catabolism (resulting in muscle loss & a lower metabolism) if you do not eat after a workout. During a workout your body generally derives energy huge amounts of highly liquid energy sources such as stored carbohydrates. When your body is depleted of nutrition from an intense workout, you need to replenish by eating fast absorbing nutrients such as simple carbs and protein. A 2:1 ratio of carbs to protein by mass is generally recommended for weightlifting. For cardio, I would say a 1:1 ratio will properly replenish yourself. Remember, without proper rest and recovery, your metabolism WILL fall.