I'll Keep Saying It Until You Get It, Cardio Is Not The Answer

I really thought the word was getting out that cardio is not the key to fat loss.

There's definitely been progress. I've seen mentions of interval training in many mainstream magazines. Even an article in the recent issue of Prevention mentioned how many women complained of not losing weight on their walking problem. No surprise to me; check out Walking Is Great Exercise - Another Myth Exploded

So, there has been progress but not enough. I still see way too many Twitter and Facebook comments about doing cardio to lose weight. Even some gym members have convinced themselves that cardio is the key.

Sorry, the research just doesn't back that up. It doesn't matter that you sweat more doing the elliptical than when you're strength training or that your heart rate is higher running on the treadmill. Those activities will not help you discard unwanted pounds better than resistance training.

Intervals are definitely better than steady state cardio but even intervals are not the best type of exercise to get rid of excess pounds and inches.

I've posted a link to the article below before but it obviously needs to be posted again. It's long but it's worth it. Print it out and read it when you really have time to absorb the information.

It's written by Alwyn Cosgrove, a highly respected trainer and fitness author. His methods are based on studying the research and years of results with real world clients.

Even though Alwyn was involved himself in MMA and has trained many athletes, the vast majority of his clients come to lose fat. By his own admission, he has "made more money from the fat loss market than any other single client group." Alwyn's (and wife Rachel's) Results Fitness gym was listed as one of Men Health's 10 Best Gyms in America. This guy knows his stuff. If you're silly enough not to believe me, that's one thing ;-) but give this guy a serious read.

Here's a short excerpt but don't get scared off, the entire article is not full of research jargon...

Both groups lost weight. The resistance training group lost significantly more fat and didn’t lose any LBM, even at only 800 calories per day. (The reason the calories were so low was to really take any dietary variables completely out of the equation and compare the effects of the exercise regime on LBM and metabolism.)


** Mickey's note: In case you didn't figure it out, LBM = lean body mass. **


The resistance training group actually increased metabolism compared to the aerobic group, which decreased metabolism. It seems that resistance training is a more significant stress to the body than a starvation diet.


In my experience, full body training in a superset, tri-set, or circuit format (with non-competing exercises) in a rep range that generates lactic acid (and pushes the lactic acid threshold or LAT) seems to create the biggest metabolic demand. It makes sense: training legs, back, and chest will burn more calories and elevate metabolism more than an isolated approach training one of them.

If you are interested in slimming down, do yourself a favor and read the entire article here. The Hierarchy of Fat Loss It tells you the most effective type of exercise to do depending on how much time you have to spend per week.

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Are you 5% towards your goals?

Excellent blog post from Alwyn Cosgrove...


2009: 5% down, 95% to go...

Today is January 22nd.

That means 21 days (3 weeks) have already passed in 2009. That's a little over 5% of the year gone already.

So let's do a quick "goal review" or a Resolution recall.

Are you 5% towards your goals?

If your goal was to lose 50lbs of fat - you should be down 2.5lbs right now if you're on track. If your goal was to increase your income by $10,000 this year - you should already have made an extra $500.

Read the rest here.

The Problem with Weight Loss: Your Body Will Do The Opposite by Alwyn Cosgrove

Today I have a terrific article for you from the great Alwyn Cosgrove.


The Problem with Weight Loss: Your Body Will Do The Opposite
Alwyn Cosgrove

Homeostasis is the property of a living organism, that regulates its internal environment so as to maintain a stable, constant condition.

When you don’t drink enough water in the short term — often the body retains water. It attempts to maintain homeostasis by counteracting the stresses we put on it.

When you drink a lot of extra water - your body excretes more water to maintain balance.

When we weight train — we actually break down muscle tissue. And the body responds by building new muscle. It attempts to maintain homeostasis by doing the reverse of the stimulus we placed on it.

When a male takes supplemental testosterone — the body shuts down its own production in a bid to maintain homeostasis.

When we immunize children against disease — we actually inject them with a small dose of that disease. The immune system recognizes the vaccine as foreign, destroys it, and ‘remembers’ it. When the virulent version of an agent comes along, the immune system is thus prepared to respond. In order to prepare the body to defend against a disease - we expose it to the disease - and it responds by doing the opposite - it destroys the disease.

In almost every situation I can think of, the body tries to maintain homeostasis by “doing the opposite” of the stimulus.

How does this apply to weight loss?

Now we know that while you are doing it — low intensity exercise burns primarily fat.

Higher intensity exercise actually burns more carb stores than fat.

But in every head to head comparison, high intensity exercise results in more fat loss than low intensity exercise - even though the more intense work may burn a lesser percentage of fat during the exercise session.

Burning glycogen results in a larger amount of fat lost than burning fat directly.

The body responds by “doing the opposite”…

Break down muscle to grow more muscle. Burn glycogen to lose more fat.

I designed Warp Speed Fat Loss training program to specifically take advantage of this ‘law’ of nature so that when your body “does the opposite” you’ll end up with faster and greater fat loss.

Warp Speed Fat Loss is a complete 28 day diet and training system crafted to help you lose 10,15, or 20lbs of body fat in just 28 day. To start losing weight fast visit www.warpspeedfatloss.com .

About the Author:

Alwyn Cosgrove, M.S., C.S.C.S. is a nationally renown fat loss expert whose work has appeared in magazines such as Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Men’s Journal, Self, Oxygen, and Muscle & Fitness HERS. His Warp Speed Fat Loss system is a complete Done-for-You A-Z Fat Loss Blueprint that gives you exactly everything you need to eat and exactly what to do for exercise to lose weight in record time.

The Hierarchy of Fat Loss by Alwyn Cosgrove

If you are interested in dropping fat and have never read Alwyn Cosgrove's The Hierarchy of Fat Loss, do yourself a favor and do so.

The Hierarchy of Fat Loss

The Fat Sucking Machine by Alwyn Cosgrove

Alwyn's posted this on his blog again recently, which is great, because it definitely bears repeating. It's the perfect response to people who get hung up on the number registering on the scale.


The Fat sucking machine...

Q: This weekend I got on a scale at a friend's house (I don't own one) and much to my disappointment, the numbers haven't budged all that much since my last weigh in several months ago. Now, my clothes fit better, I'm in better shape than I've perhaps EVER been in, I know muscle weighs more than fat, I look GREAT, etc...but those numbers scream overweight to me. They make me feel like I've made no progress at all.

A: First off - your clothes "fit better", you're "in better shape than you've ever been in" and you "look GREAT"... but you're disappointed solely because the bathroom scale didn't go down "All that much"

Here's something we tell clients (thanks to Chris Shugart for the inspiration):

If we had a magic fat loss machine -- that you stepped in and pushed a button and you came out looking EXACTLY how you've always dreamed of looking and feeling - the exact dress or pant size you wanted, with the definition and muscle tone you want, at the bodyfat percentage you want - you can see your abs (if that's what you want) etc etc.

Would you be interested? Of course you would!!

But what if the side effect of the fat loss machine is that it increased bone density and muscle density by 100%. So while you looked and felt better than you've ever felt before -- the scale is 50lbs higher than it's ever been. So for example a 150lb-er would come out looking amazing, but weighing 200lbs...

Would that number on the scale make you not want the other results?

Now what if the machine did the reverse - you look exactly the same as you've always done, but you'd weigh 50lbs less? Would you be happy with that? Probably not right?

Just understand that how you look and feel, and how much you weigh are not necessarily related at all.

The picture on the left shows the difference in size between five pounds of fat (top) and five pounds of muscle (bottom). You can see that it's a pretty big size difference.

If you add ten pounds of muscle and lose ten pounds of fat -- you're going to look like you lost at least 20lbs.

But the scale won't move.

AC
http://AlwynCosgrove.com

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