After the article I wrote last week entitled The Skinny Bastard Solution, I received a few emails from a bunch of guys who were inspired and wanted some additional help with their training and diet.
But after a couple emails back and forth, and after looking at some pics they sent, I noticed something that I think it's important to clarify.
If you USED to be a skinny guy, and you USED to have a hard time building muscle, and no matter what you ate you USED to never gain bodyfat, but now, in your late twenties or early thirties, you find yourself STILL having a tough time building muscle but you NOW have a little belly and some love handles... then you're now a Skinny Fat Bastard.
And the Skinny Fat Bastard Solution is different from The Skinny Bastard Solution.
The training program doesn't need much changing, but the diet definitely needs to be different.
Once you've gained a belly and love handles, your insulin sensitivity is reduced, forcing your body to secrete more insulin to handle sharp rises in blood sugar than the Skinny Bastards.
As a Skinny Bastard, you can pretty much eat anything and not gain any weight, but once you've gained some body fat, you can't just plow back the calories in effort to gain muscle without also increasing your body fat.
If you're a Skinny Fat Bastard, you'll have to target your calories more closely to the meals before and after your weight training, and you'll have to avoid eating until you're stuffed, as well as making sure you limit your starches to mornings, and meals before and after your weights.
As a Skinny Fat Bastard, if you decide to follow the Skinny Bastard Solution, while you'll definitely build some muscle, you're also likely to gain as much or more body fat as muscle.
If you're unsure of which category you fit into, fire me off an email with a short description of how you find your metabolism, a little about your training history, and a pic of yourself wearing shorts and no shirt, or for you girls with sports bra and tight-ish shorts and I'll respond to each of you individually and help you know where you are.
Please leave any other comments below.
Showing posts with label lose belly fat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lose belly fat. Show all posts
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Fat Loss Supplements Are Dangerous
Hydroxycut fat loss supplements are dangerous! There I've said it! I've been hesitant to outwardly state it, but now there's finally proof. The company that makes the Hydroxycut products has removed 11 products from the shelves of stores in Canada plus an additional three products not sold in Canada after 23 reports of serious liver damage and one death of a 19 year old boy after use of the Hydroxycut products in the US.
PRODUCTS RECALLED IN CANADA:
I get no satisfaction from saying so, but "I TOLD YOU SO!!". If you've known me for any time, you'll know that I have never promoted fat loss supplements to my clients or to anyone asking for my advice on how to lost fat.
Whatever small advantage supplements can give is largely negated by the horde of nutritional mistakes most people who seek out these products are making anyway, so to me it's a complete waste of money.
It works something like this. If you choose to continue to skip breakfast (my number one most important fat loss rule is to have a good breakfast), then you will undoubtedly make poorer food choices all day long including over-eating at dinner and in the evening. So yes, you could take some fat loss supplement like Hydroxycut that costs you $5 a day and maybe, just maybe, it might help counteract this nutritional mistake, but folks, this is a $5/day band-aid for poor eating habits. It doesn't even begin to help you actually lose fat, it's just possibly reducing how much fat you are gaining by how poor your nutritional choices are.
This is presuming that Hydroxycut or any other fat loss supplement actually works. A few years ago legislation passed that made ephedrine illegal in the U.S. Ephedrine is probably the only substance that actually has a half decent fat burning effect that in small enough doses in relatively healthy individuals won't cause any health problems. But of course, marketed to everyone, including severely obese people who have cardiac issues in the first place, ephedrine can be problematic, hence the legislation against it.
So with ephedrine largely off the market, any fat loss supplement that you're spending your money on likely doesn't do anything other than burn a hole in your pocket book. And if you haven't checked, some of these fat loss supplements like Hydroxycut are ridiculously expensive!
If you are serious about fat loss, here are some important rules that you must adhere to. If you can't manage to stick to these rules, then fat loss just isn't in your life trajectory!
1. MOVEMENT
If you aren't moving, you aren't going to lose fat PERIOD! And you don't have to spend hours on end on boring cardio machines to make it happen. But you do have to work hard enough to generate a serious sweat. Two to three 20-30 minute high intensity fat loss intervals a week is enough.
2. INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM
Strength training, whether using weights, or bodyweight exercises like pushups, chin-ups, and lunges can all help you to build muscle. Muscle uses more calories than any other tissue in your body (except the brain) so the more muscle you have the more calories you burn 24 hours a day!
3. BREAKFAST
Have a sensible breakfast that includes a protein, fat, and carbohydrates from healthy sources. For example:
2 eggs (whole... yes including the yolk!!!)
1/3 cup oats
1/2 cup milk
1/2 banana
2 tsp Udo's oil or a few walnut pieces
4. BALANCED SNACKS
Research has shown that to maintain energy levels throughout the day and to prevent overeating at main meals, having a small nutritionally balance snack, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon is the key. Snacks should consist of fruit, vegetables, and dairy products, although the limit is your imagination.
Healthy examples for mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks are:
Handful almonds
1 apple
1 oz 2% cheddar cheese
or
Handful walnuts
1/2 cup organic plain yogurt
1/3 cup blueberries
How much you eat at your snacks depends on your activity level and your bodyweight. Smaller people generally need to eat less and if you're nursing a desk all day long, then opt for vegetables instead of fruit if possible.
Example:
Chicken salad with spinach, pine nuts, tomato, and a low fat dressing
4. HEALTHY MAIN MEALS
I already covered breakfast, but the same principle applies for lunch and dinner. Start with a protein choice, add a healthy fat choice, add unlimited vegetables, and finish with appropriate carbohydrates depending on your energy requirements.
If you're going out to play hockey in the evening, then eating chicken and spinach isn't going to provide you with much energy to play. So be sure to have a serving of brown rice or sweet potato. You could even have a mixed bean salad with dinner which would provide you with enough carbohydrate energy to last you through your hockey game.
If your evening activities are limited to helping the kids with homework and making their lunches, then your dinner can skip the starchy carbs (if fat loss is your main goal) and focus solely on a variety of vegetable sources.
5. DESSERT
It seems for some that dessert is just part of the day. Some people eat dessert every single night. I think it starts as a kid, and depending on whether or not your parents gave you dessert every night, many people carry this throughout their lives.
Folks... you don't HAVE to have dessert every night! Yes, it's nice.. I enjoy it too. But if you have fat to lose, daily dessert is guaranteed to keep your bodyfat right where it is, and possibly even increase it. Think of it this way. Eating a dessert is like not doing 30 minutes of exercise. So if you want to eat a dessert each day, you'll need 30 minutes of exercise daily to counter it so that you don't gain any bodyfat. So if you actually want to lose bodyfat then you need to do even more.
It's much easier to skip the dessert 4 or 5 nights of the weekk, enjoy it the other two or three nights, get your 2-3 sessions of cardio in, and lose the bodyfat!
6. ELIMINATE LIQUID CALORIES FROM YOUR DIET
Other than milk, if you drink soft drinks or juices (sugar free or not) you can forget about losing body fat. It's just that simple. Liquid calories are one of the main causes of increased body fat. Diet soft drinks in very small quantities are ok, but if you're putting back more than one can of diet soft drinks a day, then you will also have a hard time losing body fat. Your brain recognizes the sweetness of the artificial sweeteners in these products and releases insulin in much the same way as it does in response to actual sugars! Can't trick your brain!
7. WATER
I can almost guarantee that everyone who has too much bodyfat drinks too little water. Get your water consumption up and you'll be surprised what it can do for your fat loss efforts. Starting with reducing your cravings for junk, much of the time people confuse the early signals for thirst with hunger.
One to two hours after each meal, drink 250-500ml of water and notice a reduction in cravings for junk food. It's a free, no brainer! Mess this one up.. and well.. stay as you are! Your choice!
8. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Alcoholic beverages like wine have a somewhat culturistic place in our society it seems, and some people feel like it is an afront to their righs and dignity to suggest that they shoudn't have their wine with dinner. And while for folks who are lean, and who exercise and eat a generally healthy diet, their wine consumption isn't a problem. But if you aren't doing everything else right (diet & exercise), then wine is just like dessert... extra calories!
Beer, mixed drinks, and wine all contribute to increasing calories. Don't fool yourself into justifying yourself out of getting the fat loss results you seek. Trust me, once you get rid of the body fat, you can re-introduce these pleasures with little effect, but until then... their consumption is your choice to not change your body!
I know.... I'm mean!
Well I hope this information helps give you some concrete steps you can take towards getting rid of any unwanted body fat without the use of harmful (and mostly useless) fat loss supplements!
Please remember, my job is to help you, so if there's anything I can do to help you, please comment below or send me an email at shane@spectrumfitness.ca
While I can't personally reply to every email I get, I will take all your questions and answer them in a future Frequently Asked Questions post.
Have a great week!
:)
Shane Miller, CPT, CSN
PRODUCTS RECALLED IN CANADA:
- Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
- Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets
- Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Capsules
- Hydroxycut Max Liquid Capsules
- Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix)
- Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets
- Hydroxycut Liquid Shots
- Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed Capsules
- Hydroxycut 24 Caplets
I get no satisfaction from saying so, but "I TOLD YOU SO!!". If you've known me for any time, you'll know that I have never promoted fat loss supplements to my clients or to anyone asking for my advice on how to lost fat.
Whatever small advantage supplements can give is largely negated by the horde of nutritional mistakes most people who seek out these products are making anyway, so to me it's a complete waste of money.
It works something like this. If you choose to continue to skip breakfast (my number one most important fat loss rule is to have a good breakfast), then you will undoubtedly make poorer food choices all day long including over-eating at dinner and in the evening. So yes, you could take some fat loss supplement like Hydroxycut that costs you $5 a day and maybe, just maybe, it might help counteract this nutritional mistake, but folks, this is a $5/day band-aid for poor eating habits. It doesn't even begin to help you actually lose fat, it's just possibly reducing how much fat you are gaining by how poor your nutritional choices are.
This is presuming that Hydroxycut or any other fat loss supplement actually works. A few years ago legislation passed that made ephedrine illegal in the U.S. Ephedrine is probably the only substance that actually has a half decent fat burning effect that in small enough doses in relatively healthy individuals won't cause any health problems. But of course, marketed to everyone, including severely obese people who have cardiac issues in the first place, ephedrine can be problematic, hence the legislation against it.
So with ephedrine largely off the market, any fat loss supplement that you're spending your money on likely doesn't do anything other than burn a hole in your pocket book. And if you haven't checked, some of these fat loss supplements like Hydroxycut are ridiculously expensive!
If you are serious about fat loss, here are some important rules that you must adhere to. If you can't manage to stick to these rules, then fat loss just isn't in your life trajectory!
1. MOVEMENT
If you aren't moving, you aren't going to lose fat PERIOD! And you don't have to spend hours on end on boring cardio machines to make it happen. But you do have to work hard enough to generate a serious sweat. Two to three 20-30 minute high intensity fat loss intervals a week is enough.
2. INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM
Strength training, whether using weights, or bodyweight exercises like pushups, chin-ups, and lunges can all help you to build muscle. Muscle uses more calories than any other tissue in your body (except the brain) so the more muscle you have the more calories you burn 24 hours a day!
3. BREAKFAST
Have a sensible breakfast that includes a protein, fat, and carbohydrates from healthy sources. For example:
2 eggs (whole... yes including the yolk!!!)
1/3 cup oats
1/2 cup milk
1/2 banana
2 tsp Udo's oil or a few walnut pieces
4. BALANCED SNACKS
Research has shown that to maintain energy levels throughout the day and to prevent overeating at main meals, having a small nutritionally balance snack, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon is the key. Snacks should consist of fruit, vegetables, and dairy products, although the limit is your imagination.
Healthy examples for mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks are:
Handful almonds
1 apple
1 oz 2% cheddar cheese
or
Handful walnuts
1/2 cup organic plain yogurt
1/3 cup blueberries
How much you eat at your snacks depends on your activity level and your bodyweight. Smaller people generally need to eat less and if you're nursing a desk all day long, then opt for vegetables instead of fruit if possible.
Example:
Chicken salad with spinach, pine nuts, tomato, and a low fat dressing
4. HEALTHY MAIN MEALS
I already covered breakfast, but the same principle applies for lunch and dinner. Start with a protein choice, add a healthy fat choice, add unlimited vegetables, and finish with appropriate carbohydrates depending on your energy requirements.
If you're going out to play hockey in the evening, then eating chicken and spinach isn't going to provide you with much energy to play. So be sure to have a serving of brown rice or sweet potato. You could even have a mixed bean salad with dinner which would provide you with enough carbohydrate energy to last you through your hockey game.
If your evening activities are limited to helping the kids with homework and making their lunches, then your dinner can skip the starchy carbs (if fat loss is your main goal) and focus solely on a variety of vegetable sources.
5. DESSERT
It seems for some that dessert is just part of the day. Some people eat dessert every single night. I think it starts as a kid, and depending on whether or not your parents gave you dessert every night, many people carry this throughout their lives.
Folks... you don't HAVE to have dessert every night! Yes, it's nice.. I enjoy it too. But if you have fat to lose, daily dessert is guaranteed to keep your bodyfat right where it is, and possibly even increase it. Think of it this way. Eating a dessert is like not doing 30 minutes of exercise. So if you want to eat a dessert each day, you'll need 30 minutes of exercise daily to counter it so that you don't gain any bodyfat. So if you actually want to lose bodyfat then you need to do even more.
It's much easier to skip the dessert 4 or 5 nights of the weekk, enjoy it the other two or three nights, get your 2-3 sessions of cardio in, and lose the bodyfat!
6. ELIMINATE LIQUID CALORIES FROM YOUR DIET
Other than milk, if you drink soft drinks or juices (sugar free or not) you can forget about losing body fat. It's just that simple. Liquid calories are one of the main causes of increased body fat. Diet soft drinks in very small quantities are ok, but if you're putting back more than one can of diet soft drinks a day, then you will also have a hard time losing body fat. Your brain recognizes the sweetness of the artificial sweeteners in these products and releases insulin in much the same way as it does in response to actual sugars! Can't trick your brain!
FAT LOSS NIGHTMARE
7. WATER
I can almost guarantee that everyone who has too much bodyfat drinks too little water. Get your water consumption up and you'll be surprised what it can do for your fat loss efforts. Starting with reducing your cravings for junk, much of the time people confuse the early signals for thirst with hunger.
One to two hours after each meal, drink 250-500ml of water and notice a reduction in cravings for junk food. It's a free, no brainer! Mess this one up.. and well.. stay as you are! Your choice!
8. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
Alcoholic beverages like wine have a somewhat culturistic place in our society it seems, and some people feel like it is an afront to their righs and dignity to suggest that they shoudn't have their wine with dinner. And while for folks who are lean, and who exercise and eat a generally healthy diet, their wine consumption isn't a problem. But if you aren't doing everything else right (diet & exercise), then wine is just like dessert... extra calories!
Beer, mixed drinks, and wine all contribute to increasing calories. Don't fool yourself into justifying yourself out of getting the fat loss results you seek. Trust me, once you get rid of the body fat, you can re-introduce these pleasures with little effect, but until then... their consumption is your choice to not change your body!
I know.... I'm mean!
Well I hope this information helps give you some concrete steps you can take towards getting rid of any unwanted body fat without the use of harmful (and mostly useless) fat loss supplements!
Please remember, my job is to help you, so if there's anything I can do to help you, please comment below or send me an email at shane@spectrumfitness.ca
While I can't personally reply to every email I get, I will take all your questions and answer them in a future Frequently Asked Questions post.
Have a great week!
:)
Shane Miller, CPT, CSN
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