valshealthblog.com

A Fitness Twist

Hi,

Here is a simple twist to your fitness routine that will help you burn more body fat and improve your body fat.

Most people just go through exercise routines willy-nilly. 

That means they have no purpose.  They might work on chest and arms one day.  The next day they work on chest and back.  The next day arms and shoulders. 

Some people actually work on legs also.

You see these types at the gym all the time.  They have big arms and a big chest, but weak legs and no endurance at all.

Fitness is much more than just having big arms. 

It is about being strong with little body fat.  It is about having endurance to accomplish anything you want.

To do this you need to do something for all facets of fitness and for your whole body.

So try this at your next workout. 

You are going to do three sets of every exercise.

The first exercise will be for the upper body.  The next exercise will be for the lower body.

The third exercise will be a combination of upper and lower body.

Here is an example.  Do one one set of chest presses (or it you are doing this at home do one set of pushups).  Do as many as you can. 

The next set will be lunges.  You can hold weights in your hands if you have them.  Step forward with one leg and do as many lunges as you can.  Then do the other leg until you can’t do any more.

The third set will be a forgotten exercise.  Squat down and put your hands on the ground.  Thrust your legs out behind you until you are in a push up position. 

Do 1 pushup and return to the squat position, stand up.  That is one rep.  Do as many as you can.   

These are called burpees or squat thrusts. 

Those are your three exercises.  Now repeat the whole process for 2 more sets.  Take each set to momentary failure.

Momentary failure is when you can’t do one more full rep of the exercise.  (Total failure is when you can’t budge the weight or even lift any body part.)

If you are not in very good shape it doesn’t matter.  You are going to your momentary failure, not someone else’s. 

Do as many as you can.  The key is to not rest between exercises or sets. 

If you are in better shape, then you can add three more exercises and go with the same protocols. 

Now if you really want to torch the body fat, then don’t rest between the various groups of exercises.

Instead go ahead and do some fast cardio.  Get on an exercise bike and pedal for as fast as you can for 30-60 seconds. 

If you are exercising at home, run in place with your knees high for the same time. 

Try this fitness twist to your routine and notice the differences almost immediately.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Is Spot Reduction a Myth?

Hi,

Everyone knows you can’t spot reduce, right?

After all, all the research for years and years has “proven” that it is not possible.

So, me and my fitness buddies from my college days wondered why it was so easy to gain fat around the waist and not on the arms.

I said, well you are always moving your arms constantly all day long.  And even though we were all active, we realized that we did not exercise our mid sections like we did our arms. 

Was it possible to do thousands of situps a day and burn off that fat around the middle?

Well, back then there weren’t any answers – except that spot reduction did not work.

Move to today and maybe we were on to something back then. 

Some research done in 2007 showed that it might be possible to do a little spot reduction for subcutaneous fat only. 

This study showed that spot lipolysis can occur with an “acute” bout of exercise.

This means that you can burn adjacent fat with intense exercise of a specific muscle. 

Now this is different from what I had guessed in my college days.

This says that you have to have intense exercise for that muscle in order to effect subcutaneous fat around that muscle.

I guessed that constant exercise would do the same.  Who knows maybe a later study will show this to be true also.

The problem of course is that most people won’t do continuous exercise.  After all who wants to do 1000 sit ups a day?  Not many.

And the intense exercise is also a problem.  Who wants to put a 100 pound dumbbell on their chest and then do sit ups until they can’t budge?  Not many.

I think there is a way to combine both in order to get the best of both worlds.  But, that will remain a secret until my program comes out, sometime in 2011.

In the meantime, if you have too much fat around a specific area, continue with your fat burning routines (read previous posts to find out more) to burn more fat overall.

Then take a few minutes and concentrate on your specific area. 
Do those two things and you will have a fat burning routine that lasts all day.  You will get overall fat burning and spot reduction at the same time.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Lose Weight VS Nicer Body

Hi,

Would you rather just lose weight or have a nicer body?

Now you might think that just losing weight will automatically make you have a nicer body.  And this is true for some people.

It is usually true for those that already have a more active lifestyle.

But, for most people, losing weight doesn’t really change their appearance too much.  Except they are a smaller version of theirselves.

This is because if you just lose weight you are losing weight from not only body fat, but also from muscle tissue.

If is muscle tissue that will help you have a nicer body. 

Now some people are born with a naturally nice looking body.  Others aren’t.  That has to do with genetics.

While you can’t change genetics, you can help it.

Having a muscular body will help determine your shape.  Now that does not mean you have to have huge muscles. 

But, having firm, strong and shapely muscles is something that is considered appealing in most societies.  This is whether you are male or female.

Just losing weight does nothing for your shape.  To change your shape you have to do something for your muscles.

That means moving more.  Maybe it is just walking, maybe just jogging, maybe a fitness class, or maybe weight training. 

You know how much you are moving and exercising now.  If your body isn’t in the shape you want it to be in, then you will have to do more of the moving and exercising part.

And while you are doing that you will be raising your metabolism which means that you will be burning more body fat. 

Ergo, you will be losing weight from body fat and not from muscle tissue.  That way you will be able to transform your body, not just make it smaller. 

I think that in the losing weight vs having a nicer body, that having a nicer body is actually the way to go.

So get out there and start moving and exercising more. 

Thanks,

Mike Val 

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Hi,

Can you gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

Many people don’t think so.  And I think that this is a case of getting too much information and not seeing the whole picture. 

There is a new ebook out called The Holy Grail Body Transformation book.  In it Tom Venuto talks about losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. 

Now Tom is a body builder and he looks the part.  But, more than that he is a pretty smart guy and has written a lot on the topic.

Body builders are obsessed with building muscle and losing fat.  Their normal way of doing things is to gain a lot of weight and muscle in the off season.  Some of this weight is fat.

Then they go on an extended diet to lose the body fat while keeping the muscle during the competition season. 

If they could find a way to build muscle while losing fat at the same time, then indeed that would be the holy grail for body builders.

However, I am assuming you are not a body builder and probably don’t have any desires to look like one.  At least not like the giants (male and female) that are in the sport today.

So does this gaining muscle while losing fat work for the average person. 

Bottom line is yes. 

Look anytime you start an exercise routine you are going to be affecting your muscles.  If you lift a weight you will get stronger and the muscle will grow. 

While you are doing the exercise you will also be raising your metabolism.  This will help burn body fat. 

So as you are doing this one exercise you are indeed building muscle and losing fat at the same time. 

But, as you get in better shape this dual action becomes harder to do.  That is because your body gets used to it. 

So doing the same exercise will become routine and you have to add more weight or do more reps or change the tempo. 

Now this is a good thing and it is a sign you are making progress.

But, it only works up great up to a certain point. 

That is why body builders have learned to focus on building muscle part of the time and burning fat the other time.

So Tom’s book is really making waves in the fitness world. 

I think it is a great book for anyone looking to find out more information on gaining some muscle and losing some fat at the same time. 

As I said Tom is a pretty smart guy and I enjoy his writing style.  If you want more information check out his book here:

Hope you enjoyed this gain muscle and lose fat review.  I plan on doing more of these.  Let me know if you have an interest. 

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Can growth hormone (GH) help with fat loss?

The short answer is yes. 

A study done back in 2008 showed that growth hormone helps build muscle and helps raise the body’s metabolism. 

In this study the metabolism of a group of middle aged men was raised by an average of 172 calories per day. 

Now that might not seem like much, but think about it over a years period of time.  That 172 calories per day becomes 62780 calories in 1 year. 

Divide that by 3500 calories in a pound and you would lose almost 18 pounds in a year. 

Yes, I know that doesn’t really compare to the marketing hype surrounding diet pills, exercise programs, diet programs and all the other scams out there.

But, 18 pounds in a year is a good goal to shoot for.   And you get this just by taking some GH.

These figures are pretty close to what actually happened.  The men were given GH (by injection) for 6 months and gained 5.5 pounds of muscle and lost 8.8% of body fat. 

Now, here is the problem.  The injections. 

The injections work.  The problem is, other methods of administering GH have not shown the same results. 

Fortunately, there are ways to raise your GH levels without injections or taking it orally. 

This is through good old exercise. 

Now regular exercise will raise it a bit, but by doing specific exercises and with specific intensities, you can amplify the results. 

A typical GH enhancing exercise would be the squat.  The squat has always been a great exercise for building overall strength and muscle and one of the reasons is because of its GH boosting properties.

I loved doing the squat.  But, after back surgery it is no longer an option.  So lunges and leg presses are what works for me. 

Any exercise where you are using as many muscles in the body as possible at the same time are GH boosting exercises. 

To get the most you have to use weights.  So just a body weight squat will not give you the same GH boost that squating with 315 pounds across your back will. 

To use lots of weight most people will have to go to a gym.  But, there is another way.

That is to do pretty much non-stop exercises.  This is a type of high intensity exercise that can also work and you only need your body.

Let’s use leg exercises as an example. 

Start out with doing squats for 36 seconds non – stop.  Rest for 10 seconds.  Do another set and rest for 10 seconds.

Then do side to side squats.  (I will put a video of these up soon).   Start in your normal squat position and do a full squat.  While in the down position, step out to the right side with your right foot.  Bring your left foot to the right as you stand up. 

Reverse this by going to the left.  Do this exercise for 36 seconds.  Rest 10 seconds and repeat 1 more time. 

On to lunges.  Do around the world lunges.  This is done like so:

Do a forward lunge and step back.  With the same leg, step to a side lunge and step back.  Follow up with a rear lunge and step back.  Now do the same thing with the other leg. 

Do this for as many reps as you can.  Make sure you do proper lunges.  Form is more important than speed. 

When you can’t do any more, rest 10 seconds.  The finish with stationary forward lunges.  Just step forward into a lunge position with one leg.  Stay there and do as many lunges as possible or 36 seconds, whichever comes first. 

Rest 10 seconds and repeat with the other leg.

Then collapse. 

This group of exercises uses almost every muscle in the body.  And the intensity factor will make your GH skyrocket. 

Not only that, but this exercise session will ignite your EPOC to accelerate your fat burning from another angle. 

Try this and your growth hormone will surge and your fat loss accelerate.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Do you want great arms and burn body fat at the same time?

If so then you need to be negative. 

That means you have to increase the amount of time you spend returning the weight to the starting position.

So for biceps curls, you lift the weight upwards. 

When you have the weight up, tighten the muscle as hard as you can for a split second.  

Then, and this is the important part, lower the weight back to the starting position very slowly.  Take 4 to 6 seconds to do this.

The upward lifting is called the positive part of the rep and the lowering is called the negative.  The more scientific terms are concentric and eccentric.

The slow lowering is much more damaging to the muscle tissue. 

All exercise damages your muscles somewhat, but lowering the weight slowly damages it the most.

And this is what you want if you want to burn body fat. 

After you do any weight training, your body has to recover.  The recovery does two things. 

It takes more energy to repair your muscle tissue.  You will have many tiny tears in the muscle and this is what needs to be repaired.  This takes energy and your body gets it from raising your metabolism and burning body fat.

The other thing your body does is to realize that it needs a bigger muscle to handle what you just did to it. 

So it repairs the muscle and adds a little bit of size to it.  Again, lowering the weight slowly causes this repair process and growth process to accelerate. 

A word of caution.  You can’t do this at every workout.  Even if you are only 20 and full of energy.

Add your negatives about once a month for a particular body part.  That will be plenty to get the growth and raised metabolism you desire.

Add these to your routine and watch your arms grow while you burn more fat in the process.

Thanks,

Mike Val 

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Hi,

Many people use and think that cardio is the only real way to lose body fat.  But, is your cardio working for you?

Turns out that cardio obviously does have fat burning properties.  However, it is not the most efficient way to burn body fat. 

First off, you have to do a lot of cardio to burn a lot of fat.  And you will almost never get any kind of after burn effect. 

However, some people seem to do quite fine with just cardio, while others can do cardio for several hours a week and not lose any fat.

What gives?  Well that is exactly what some British researches wanted to find out.

So they designed a study where 35 overweight men and women (non exercisers) did the same cardio protocol 5 times per week for 12 weeks.

The average weight loss was 8.2 pounds.  But, that is only part of the story. 

One person lost 32.3 pounds and one gained 3.74 pounds.  That is just over 36 pounds in difference. 

Why did this happen?  Turns out that there was a diffence in the participants that lost a good bit of weight and in the participants that didn’t lose so much weight.

This is a compensation mechanism.  And it is something a lot of people are guilty of.

The over compensators actually raised their calorie intake by around 250 calories a day.   The cardio sessions were making these people extra hungry.

Those that lost the most weight did not experience an increase in hunger from doing the cardio.

Many people have a tendency to think that if they exercise a certain amount they are entitled to an extra treat. 

This is a sure fire way to sabotage your fat burning.  I think this is the single biggest reason that many people don’t get the full benefits of their exercise program. 

To make sure your cardio is working for you, make sure you are not an over compensator. 

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend.  Now, what about your first post holiday workout?

If you are like most people you probably ate a little bit more food than normal over the holiday.

I know I did.  I also had a lot more carbs than normal.

So what can you do about that excess energy.  Make your first workout that you do after your holiday extra hard.

That could mean you spend more time and add a few exercises or that you increase the intensity by trying to get through it faster.

Sometimes the latter is harder to do, so increasing the time is probably the easiest.

But, you can do something else to help burn off those excess calories pretty quickly.

Use more weight and/or more time per rep.

When you are doing weight lifting, you might not really be pushing yourself all the time to improve the weight you are using.

Your body adapts and you are not getting the same benefit of training as you did when you first started out.

When you lift weights, you damage your muscles.  I am talking about minor tears in the myofibrils, not actually tearing or ripping the muscle.

 The repair of the muscles takes a lot of energy.  This raises your metabolism and burns calories and body fat. 

That is one of the reasons you can really change your body shape and lose a lot of fat with weight lifting over just using body weight. 

So in your first workout lift heavier than you normally do and you will get this extra repair benefit.  Also just concentrate on multi joint exercises. 

These would include squats, chest presses, deadlifts and rows.

You can also get it by increasing the time of the repetition.  Especially on the eccentric or lowering phase of the exercise. 

For example, with chest presses, pressing up is the concentric phase.  The lowering of the bar is the ecentric phase.  Try lowering the bar over a count of 6 seconds before doing the next rep.

Do not do your whole workout this way.  Eccentric contractions are harder and actually cause more myofibril damage than concentric contractions. 

Just pick 1 exercise and concentrate on the concentric portion. 

Try this post holiday workout and you will burn away all of those excess calories very quickly.

Thanks,

Mike Val 

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Hi,

There was an article featured on Yahoo News titled “Can You be Fat and Fat”?  It was originally published in Prevention this month by David Katz.

In it he states that some people can indeed be fit and heavy.  That is a subtle change and one that most people might not pick up on.

I can cite numerous examples of heavy people that are fit.  Start with most athletes. 

They have bigger muscles and weigh more because of it.  Yet, they are very fit individuals.

Some  heavy weight bodybuilders weigh over 300 pounds, yet have less than 10% body fat.  But, they are over weight by most health standardized charts.

But, what about the average Joe or Jane? 

Here is where what you do and what you eat is more important than what you weigh.

If you move a lot and exercise then you are going to have bigger muscles.  If you also eat a lot, then more than likely you will weigh more than is recommended. 

But, if you are active then your internal organs are probably functioning properly.  Your blood levels are probably okay.  And if you feel great and can function then being a little overweight isn’t going to hurt you.

If the food you eat is mostly junk foods and you are overweight, then you are going to have health issues somewhere down the road.  

This is true even if you are not overweight now. 

The type of fat you have stored over the years will also make a difference to your health.  If most of the fat is near the surface or skin of your body, this is not as bad for your health.

The fat that is stored deeper and next to your organs is called visceral fat.  This is possibly the worst kind of fat you can have. 

It is harder to get rid of and has more health consequences than surface fat. 

Possibly the worst kind of fat you can have is the kind you lose and regain – time after time after time.

This losing and regaining weight is very harmful to your body. 

It would be much better for you to maintain a higher weight and keep it there than to lose and regain it again and again.

Being leaner is usually considered healthier and I would agree with it.  But, there are plenty of lean people that are not as healthy as some heavier people.

It has to do more with your lifestyle and the choices you make that will determine if you can be fit and fat.

We’ll look into this further in future posts.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

The last post on fasting for weight loss we saw how just

fasting will work – like dieting – in the short run. 

But, over a longer period of time you will gain the weight

back.

In Dr. Levitsky’s study this weight gain came back within 1

week. 

However, Levitsky also found out that that while the

fasters regained all their weight they did not regain all

of their body tissue. 

Body tissue includes your fat, bones, organs, muscles, body

water, gastrointestinal tract contents, glycogen content

and more. 

Unfortunately, Levistsky did not measure exactly what was

lost.  He did estimate that it would take 10 days for

everything to get back to pre-fasting levels.

What all this means is that just using body weight is maybe

not the best way to measure what is happening with your

body.

You all know that you have daily weight fluctuations. 

Women notice it more than men, because of their monthly

cycle. 

But, everyone has weight fluctuations depending on what

they eat, when they eat and when they get rid of it. 

If the weight loss that was measured came from body fat,

then if you did a weekly one day fast maybe over a longer

period of time you could extend the benefits of your weight

loss. 

If the weight loss came from muscle loss, then you will

definitely be on the wrong track.  Muscle actually helps

your keep your metabolism raised.

If fasting causes muscle loss then you get a double whammy.
You get a lower metabolism from fasting and from muscle

loss. 

Obviously more studies are needed to determine where this

weight loss comes from. 

The next post will draw on my personal experiences with

fasting for weight loss and some recommendations. 

Thanks,

Mike Val