Health & Fitness

The Best Introduction To Fitness And Healthy Eating Habits

Anonymous
The best introduction to fitness and healthy eating habits

Spot reducing is a myth, which is working out a specific body part to lose more fat in that same area. Working out a specific area to lose fat in it doesn't make you lose fat in that area faster. You tend to burn fat where you have more of it. The proportion of fat you have when comparing different parts of your body and your whole body shape is geneticly determined. You can shrink fat cells but you'll likely keep your genetic proportions shape wise even though you lost fat in those areas, You usually just won't be as big.



The best way to lose fat is proper eating habits and exercise. You need to find out how many calories, how much carbs, protein, and heart healthy fat you need per day just to stay alive for the base nutrition intake to work from.



From there you add more of those nutrients to your requirement to support your training goals. (Ex: Specific Sports, weight training, body building, building muscle, long distance running, cutting weight for a sport, etc.) You need to find out how much you need for your gender , weight, and goals. If you want to lose weight , find out how many calories you need to maintain your weight, then subtract 250-500 calories from it.



Thats the amount of calories to shoot for, but you have to make sure you're satisfying your carb, protein, fruit & vegetable, healthy fat, vitamin, water, & mineral requirements with that reduced caloric intake. You should only be losing about 1-2 kilos of weight at each week. More than that isn't losing fat, it is water weight and lean body mass(mass that isn't fat).



If you want to gain weight you would eat 500 calories more than that, filling it with heart healthy fats, complex carbs, and protein. But this take isn't about gaining weight. But you would still focus on eating heart healthy fats, complex carbs, and protein. More info about what to eat and how to workout to gain muscle or fat would be in another myTake.



A big marketing ploy is "You need so much protein". The average person who isn't an athlete needs about 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight a day, if you're an athlete, or trying to gain muscle, or keep muscle while losing weight, the requirement changes.Even bodybuilders aren't prescribed more than 2 grams per kilo of bodyweight by "Registered Dietitians", who are the Doctors of nutrition.



Even for bodybuilders trying to gain muscle, eating more than 2 grams per kilo has no more effect than 2.0 grams per kilo of body weight. Most people overdo their protein which will cause organ damage. Also it has to be timed right when trying to build muscle, and the amount consumed each meal is a lot less than whats usually done.



A lot of what you see and hear about Nutrition is BS. There's a lot of fads , marketing trends, and celebrities giving bad advice, especially on the internet. 70% or more of the nutrition info you find online is complete nonsense.



There has even been instances where a well known, prestigious trainer gave completely wrong nutrition advice for his athletes, one of his athletes organs starting failing and went to the hospital because of it.



When the diet prescribed was contradictory to what was taught in Nutrition courses, the he didn't question him because he was so well known and reputable , even though the athlete thought it didn't seem right at all, but he had to know what he was doing with it and had plan for it. He didn't have another plan, that athlete went to the hospital because of it.



There are some instances where someone could be good at "training" but when it comes to nutrition, they could go off trends and give faulty advice. It's more common for people "not" educated in Kinesiology or Exercise Science to give faulty advice. But its a warning that it can happen if they weren't educated in Nutrition.



What you should look out for more is what you see on the internet, whats commonly said around the gym (not personal trainers there but the people who just workout there), or just by people who don't have education nutriton. 70% of what you see and hear from them is BS.



Even on TV, like Doctor Oz, he's a surgeon and was promoting "miracle diets" fitness/nutrition/medical professionals know are BS and don't work, "natural" fitness and dieting products that had no scientific basis or even caused cancer in the subjects it was tested in. When people saw him say "buy this to lose weight" , a huge amount of people bought it. He was on trial and admitted there is no easy miracle weight loss method.



Athlete testimonies aren't trustworthy. Iknow an athlete who did a commercial promoting a product they would never use because its basically a scam or unhealthy because they needed money.



Also for before and after photos of their products results, companies have hired "before" and "after" models for those pictures, it may not be the same person.



That is to show you that you can it can be easy to be misinformed about nutrition.



Excess calories is what makes your body store fat no matter what nutrients are in excess. So cutting out all the fat in your meals won't help you lose fat if you are eating more calories than needed to maintain your weight.



You lose fat a couple different ways when exercise is concerned.



One is burning fat directly, the other is burning "calories" to lower your caloric intake below what you need to maintain your current weight, which in turn leads to your body using the stored fat for daily energy , ( this is assuming your burning enough calories to do this, otherwise that method isn't really getting rid of fat).



A lot of people confuse burning fat with burning calories. They aren't the same. Burning fat is when your body is currently using that stored fat as fuel and getting turned into energy as your exercising. Burning calories is exercising but expending calories during the workout.



To burn fat directly, the average person has to be moderately exercising for 15 minutes straight before fat becomes the dominant fuel source for the workout. Think like cardio , endurance running, bicycling, etc. With no breaks for at least 10-15 minutes is what it usually takes to for the last energy system (theres 3 ) to use fat as the main fuel for the energy system.



THE ENERGY SYSTEMS:


1) Creatine Phosphate System


For simplicity there's 3 types, they are always all active but one usually dominates the activity, the Creatine Phosphate system , which uses creatine as fuel, which is different then the others. It's activated the first 8-12 seconds of activity, its the main energy system used for short high intensity activities like Sprinting (100m), Powerlifting (low reps), etc.



2) Anaerobic / Aerobic Glycolysis


The aneorobic/areobic glycolysis, which is from 15s - 2 minutes of exercise , for its main fuel, it uses "glucose" which is a sugar molecule obtained from eating carbs. Its stored in your muscles as "glycogen" for energy use when not being burned. This (glucose) fuels most of your workout , most of the time (NOT PROTEIN, protein is not the main source of fuel during a workout). The biochemical cycle that uses "glucose" , the "Krebs Cycle" , gives us energy and leads to the next energy system. So weight training with reps about 8-10 or more, circuit training, most sports, mid distance running, etc use this energy system predominantly.



Now for the cycle that burns fat :


3) Phosphorlic Oxidation System:


The third system is Phosphorloic Oxidation system. This is the most energy effiencient but it takes a long time to start. It uses the "Krebs Cycle" using the chemical product of the previous energy system Aneorbic/aerobic glycolosis to start. It uses "glucose" at first and over time starts transitioning to using fat as the main source of fuel.



As long as you continuously exercise when it happens, your directly burning fat during your workout.



Higher intensity workouts burn less fat than longer lower intensity workouts. The main energy system used at rest is the Phosphorlic Oxidation system , so fat is the main fuel source at rest. You're burning more fat just sitting in class then you are doing full out sprints.



Marathon runners who ran marathons at a faster pace burned more (glycogen) of their body's stored "glucose" and less fat then when the runners ran it at a slower pace. (The slower runners burned more fat from the run).



Now burning calories is different.


High intensity exercises burn calories at a higher rate then low intensity exercises. But high intensity exercises can only be sustained for a short amount of time. Low intensity exercises don't burn as many calories for the same time frame as high intensity ones, but if done over a long period of time it adds up. Some of the most efficient ways is to combine them in an interval workout.



That is if you its appropriate for your fitness & progression level.



Interval training is where you have a period of high intensity workouts , then immediately after have a period of low intensity workouts for a rest period, then high intensity again, then repeat.



That way you can maintain high intensity workouts longer and burn more calories.


You could also just do lower intensity workouts for a longer period of time if thats more suitable.



And keep in mind, what ever workout you decide to do, it has to be appropiate for your current fitness level, your progression level for that exercise, and your goals.


Start slow and build up, dont jump straight into high intensity "Just Do It" workouts if you've never really worked out before. You need to progress there.



Cross-Fit is a trend, its only appropiate for a small percentage of the population but its marketed to the general population, much of whom haven't worked out before. Its not appropriate for them, because of that it has high injury and burnout rates because of it.



The same thing with infomercials like "Body Beast" and "P90X" . Those aren't appropiate for the general population, even though there's people that get good results from them, a lot more burn out and don't like exercising again.



If you like it, start slow and build up, keep whats getting you interested in working out. If you have a goal or reason for exercising, think about it when you workout. Use it as your motivation to keep up and keep going, don't lose that spark.


For a recap:


•Spot reducing's a myth, working out the part you want to lose fat in won't make that area lose fat quicker
- you tend to lose fat where you have more of it
-your body shape caused by fat proportions is genetically determined, you will mostly tend to store fat in those proportions even when you lose fat


•The best way to lose fat is good eating habits and exercise


•Find out how much carbs, protein, fat, and calories are needed to stay alive, add more to support training goals if needed
- find out how many calories you need to maintain your wieght and eat 250-500 calories less than that


-to lose fat, you should lose from 1-2 kilos of weight per week


- more than that is losing water weight and mass that isn't fat
-make sure you eat your carb, protein, fat, vitamin & nutrient, fruit & vegetable, and water requirements when you do it
- your meals should consist of complex carbs, protein, and heat healthy fats


•most people overemphasize protein
- the average person who isn't an athlete needs 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of body weight
-bodybuilders aren't even given more than 2 per kilo


•there's a lot of misinformation about nutrition
- most of what you see online about nutrition is the wrong information
- a lot of celebrities, marketing trends, fads give bad nutrition advice


-Athlete testimonies aren't reliable because there's athletes who promote bad products when they need the money


-before and after photos aren't reliable because the company could be using "before" and "after" models for their shots,



•Burning fat and burning calories are different


•high intensity exercise burns more calories at a faster rate but can only be done for a short time
•Low intensity exercise burns calories at a slower rate but can be done over a long period of time and add up
• Can do low/moderate intensity workouts over a long period of time to burn more calories over that time period
•Interval training combines high intensity workouts with low intensity rest periods , then high intensity again the repeats, so high intensity can be performed longer
-only do them if you are physically ready for them, fitness wise and exercise progression wise
-they burn calories, will result in losing fat "if" your daily calorie intake is less than whats needed to maintain your weight


•excess calories and nutrient intake causes more fat storage


•reducing calories reduces fat and weight, regardless of what was eaten


•burning fat directly starts to happen on average of 15 minutes of continuous moderate exercise


•Short bursts of high intensity (1-12 seconds) is Creatine Phospholate system, creatine is fuel


•glycolysis uses "glucose" (carbs) as fuel (main fuel source for most exercise)


•Phosphorlic Oxidation system is the last, uses carbs "glucose" in biochem process "krebs cycle" then eventually uses fat as fuel
-its the primary energy system at rest


• The higher the intensity, the less fat used as fuel, and the more carbs and or creatine is used as fuel


If you have any questions or want to hear more info, let me know.


The Best Introduction To Fitness And Healthy Eating Habits
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