Exercise as it Relates to Fat Loss

Before I begin, I would like to direct you to this collection of posts on Fat Loss. They are written by Drew Baye, and collectively are an excellent source of (legitimate) information on fat loss- which is important to note because 99.999% of what’s floating around the internet regarding fat loss, exercise, and nutrition, is “complete and utter bullshit”.

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Tim from MoxieLifestyle recently wrote to me

The only thing I’m skeptical about is losing weight from it (edit: regarding Body by Science protocols), I’ve looked around but haven’t found like a case of someone dropping a bunch of weight from it, just people already in good shape adding muscle.

To begin, let’s directly quote the very first paragraph in Body by Science.

Introduction: Whom Can You Trust?

How does an average person sift through today’s information overload of opinions on health, fitness, and exercise to find factual data in the pursuit of valid knowledge? After al, these fields are rife with varied sources of professed authority, folklore, and even outright deception. How do you know who can be trusted?

The Problem With Testimonials

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To be honest, it’s tougher than nails sifting through all the trash floating around the internet. I know first hand as a 3 and a half year veteran of trying to find useful information on the internet- knowledge I hope to release in book format someday.

That said, it isn’t impossible.

I think this blog taking off in popularity over the past few months is a testament to that.

Drew Baye’s blog- which gets up to 3-4x as much traffic as this one- is also a testament to the fact that he finds and discusses practical and factual information regarding exercise and nutrition- unlike so many other thousands of sites that have (heavy) biases and agendas such as vegetarianism/animal rights, product pushing, romanticism, and so on.

As unavoidably arrogant as it sounds, I believe the traffic is a direct result of that type of useful and legitimate information being available for free and open to- often passionate- discussion.

Now that we’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent, let’s get back on track…

Who CAN you trust?And is Tim acting reasonably being skeptical of Body by Science protocols?

1.It’s hard to give a general guideline on “who to trust”.

My best advice- listen to those who use logic and reason to find their conclusions regarding exercise and nutrition. I’m as spiritual as anyone else- not necessarily religious- but as far as I’m concerned eating food for it’s “woo woo” properties is utterly ridiculous- and the same applies for exercise.

Woo Woo properties can be a broad range of things- namely romantic or spiritual notions (for example: eating only raw food for it’s “life force”).

Now, if you listen to someone who eats only raw foods for digestive enzymes that are supposedly beneficial (and destroyed by cooking)- and they do not have a hidden agenda such as animal rights ( knowingly or unknowingly) or wanting to “enlighten” everyone- then it’s a different case all together.

Exercise as previously mentioned, falls into the same boat. People who look at this field with logic and reason often times come to similar conclusions- sooner or later.

People who base their protocols and habits for exercise on Rocky movies and romantic notions about our ancestors are significantly misinformed (this was me at one point).

Now, again, it’s a different case all together if they- let’s say attempt to mimic ancients man’s physical activity- under the light of science (even if the end result is similar to someone who does it for completely unrelated reasons).

Why?

That person has a decent chance of eventually “getting it”- in a long enough time span- because they are performing that activity well intentioned and for the right reasons- even if those reasons aren’t “correct” by another person’s opinion (or, facts sometimes).

They may also find useful information outside of your (often narrow) focus, unlike someone who is just blindly obsessed with XYZ.

In summary, have an open mind to those who do things for the right reasons (even if you don’t agree with those activities/habits), and ignore those on romantic missions of glory (or $$$).

2.Is Tim acting reasonably being skeptical of BBS protocols?

Yes, I believe so. In fact I’ve blogged before about this very subject. Body by Science brings conventional wisdom regarding exercise, fat loss, muscular hypertrophy, and even nutrition to a grinding halt. And it does so with enough citations to choke a horse.

References or not, reading is not believing. I can tell you all day long saturated fat and cholesterol from sources within your natural food matrix have absolutely nothing negative to do with heart disease- but you’ll still be wary of eating a dozen eggs a day. It’s an emotional response to drifting from the crowd, not a logical choice.

YOU, have to make an intellectual connection strong enough to override your own instincts and emotions (the instrinct to “play it safe” and do what everyone else is doing).

Otherwise you’ll end up eating more of what screws up your heart when you inevitably get heart disease eating a SAD- whole grains and a host of other strange foods deemed “good” for your heart by large organizations.

Or even worse, taking all sorts of synthetic and often harmful drugs to alleviate this “dis-ease”, or even worse perform steady state aerobic activity (probably a lot if you are deemed to be in “serious” trouble by your doctor, who you respect highly as an authority figure on things most people have no understanding of).

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Sorry to bore you with all of this psychological mumbo jumbo, but I believe it to be critically important (and urgent) for you to understand if you were ever interested in adopting- and sticking with- a life long dietary and training change.

Life long. Now there’s a scary word.

Well what’s scarier, going into something half ass (99.99% doomed to fail) or going in head strong ready to stick with it?

*Note: This is not the same as being a tunnel visioned mindless idiot. Always be willing to change, just advance when you change, don’t retrogress into old habits.

Specifics (in a nutshell) of Weight Loss, Exercise, and Nutrition

Notice I don’t say diet very often, even though it would often fit nicely. I don’t say diet because- as just mentioned- life long changes are far more useful than temporary “wishful thinking” changes- such as detox diets eating all sorts of weird stuff, or extremely tiring (and ineffective) exercise protocols such as P90x.

Ok so, to answer Tim’s original….question?, let’s dig into the basics of how weight loss actually works. And for the record, Tim has already enjoyed excellent success performing his own training and nutrition plan (in fact he’s trained with me personally a few times as well), only now he’s running into some trouble and is looking to continue his success.

First, the primary role of exercise is muscular hypertrophy. From this, virtually all other benefits stem, directly or indirectly. Everything from rehabilitation of damaged joints and connective tissue, to increases in insulin sensitive, managing hormone levels, even bone density (and as a related note, balance and coordination for the elderly, or competitive athlete).

Literally, there is an endless list of benefits that can be associated with proper exercise (and the result, increased lean tissue). IMO, this is because our bodies are very complex. Everything is interrelated, so when you solidify the foundation, everything above that foundation improves (as Patrick Diver will soon discuss right here on the blog).

Now, how does “weight” (fat) loss tie in?

Fat emphasized because few people actually want weight loss, they want fat loss. Weight loss can result from a number of things, including losses in muscle mass, dehydration, or even losing a limb…

This is a gross oversimplification, but it ties in in two ways.

As mentioned a moment ago, increases in insulin sensitivity (and larger glycogen stores- ie bigger muscles), and a significant increase in basal metabolic rate.

For a more thorough understanding of insulin sensitivity please see this video from Doug Mcguff, MD and co-author of BBS, and more specifically the beginning of this video (or, all of it for that matter).

The problem with conventional/typical exercise programs? (“cardio” more specifically).

They literally work against the two strongest benefits of exercise.

Steady state activity decreases insulin sensitivity, shrinks glycogen stores, and lowers resting metabolism.

The exact adaptions you want to lower body fat levels- regardless of your genetics or any other factor for that matter.

But what about burning calories? Surely that’s important.

Nope.

While properly conducted strength training will burn a sigificant amout of calories, exercising for the sake of burning calories is largely ineffective and unnecessary. High Intensity Interval Training may provide some minimal benefit (or staying active with recreational activities for that matter), but ultimately physical activity makes you hungry.

And guess what? We are a lot more efficient than you have been lead to believe at preserving calories. As Doug mentions in those videos, “cardio” machines flat out lie to you by including your estimated resting metabolism- as Patrick likes to say, the calories you would burn sitting and watching the guy on a treadmill.

Considering how little the calories burnt through physical activity are, getting hungry as a result of this attempt at “burning fat” through exercise sets you back further than you started. You exercise, burn some calories, and then eat more than you burned back- in only a few extra bites (stimulated, by that activity).

In the case of properly conducted strength training, this is not an inherently bad thing since those extra calories will likely go to the production of new, metabolically active, tissue (mostly, muscle).

In the case of “cardio” and related activities, the opposite is true. Hunger is stimulated, and the production of new tissue is not. Now your body has to attempt to rid itself of these excess nutrients, or store them as fat.

Considering the fact that our entire race was starving most of the time for a few million years, we’re pretty good at storing fat for a “rainy day”, especially when insulin levels are spiked from eating so called “health foods” such as whole grains, highly processed sugary protein bars, sugar packed “sports” drinks, and so on.

Now, with all that said, let’s finish by clarifying that proper nutrition is more important than exercise for losing weight. As we’ve discussed above, exercise as a means to burn calories is ridiculous, and not only ineffective, but counter productive. That’s why programs like P90x are so annoying to me- because they promise to get you “ripped”, when they do anything but get you ripped.

Exercise in and of itself is secondary to eating properly in regards to fat loss.

When a (grossly) ineffective exercise program makes a fat loss claim, it just blows my mind. NO exercise program is going to be primarily responsible for significant fat loss- not even properly conducted strength training (which, is by leaps and bounds, your best tool for losing fat, short of eating properly).

Which, speaking of, let’s take a look at one of Drew Baye’s (a high intensity trainer in Central Florida) more notable clients.

Before                                                                       After

Now, should you listen to what I have to say on a whim simply because I provided a person who followed legitimate science and got results? Hardly, because that’s what everyone else is pumping and it’s hard to discern between real applicable knowledge, and some horeshit a hustler is trying to sell you (or, perhaps someone you trust that is well intentioned, is pushing you to try).

I suggest you do your own research by reading Drew Baye’s blog and Body by Science- and better yet, having patience, and trying out the principles yourself- since there’s no understanding like doing.

-Dream