Look Ripped

Being fat a case of eating, more or less!

 

The hardest thing to understand when you are trying too losing weight is that eating is an important mechanism not just for gaining weight but also losing it. Kirsty Alley a perfect example that diets and food restriction don’t work, by diets I mean getting onboard with one of the plethora of quick loss programs in the market place. By restriction I am saying that skipping meals to avoid calories is a recipe for disaster.

Feast or famine

The body is an amazing organism and over the course of our evolution has adapted to feast or famine, during famine our metabolism slows conserving energy and our bodies stores of fat. The priority is that the homeostasis of the body is maintained, that maintenance assures that essential organs like the heart and brain receive adequate energy to function during famine or dieting.

A slow metabolism spells “FAT”

When you eat your body actually increases its metabolic rate to process and package the food into the right parcels for the body to utilize. Carbohydrate (CHO) is converted to glycogen and stored in the liver and a smaller proportion in skeletal muscle and then used for energy. Protein is broken down into amino’s and used to build body tissue; amino acids are the building blocks for protein, and fats an essential component of every cell in our bodies.

Hitting the plateau

Any one that has have ever been on a diet has probably hit the plateau, that plateau is the bodies intrinsic evolutionary mechanism that fights against us when we start losing to much weight and restrict calories. The way to kick start the metabolism and overcome the plateau is by increasing activity and also increasing the proportion of CHO, protein and fats.

Starving yourself fat 

So if you your trying to lose weight and find that the kilos are coming of to slow try increasing not only your activity but also the amount of food your are consuming. Food isn’t necessarily the problem its poor eating habits.

Interval training burns more calories

If you haven’t heard of interval training then you have been missing out on burning calories more efficiently and in a shorter time frame. Interval training has been around for a long time and for the better part has been the realm of elite athletes, but if it works for them then why not apply it too your own training.

Interval training the Fartlek way

Training with weights is one of the best ways to change your body composition, increasing muscle and reducing fat, but a lot of people find they hit a plateau, become discouraged and find themselves becoming bored with their workouts. You can apply the Fartlek principle to weight training! The Fartlek system (Swedish word for fast play) is the name given to a type of aerobic interval training; the basic principle is bursts of intense training with periods of moderate activity. By training in this manner you keep your metabolism and your muscles from becoming accustomed to your workout, which translates to greater muscle density and increased cardiovascular benefit.

Fartleking around with weights

Your next work out try increasing the intensity of your weight by reducing the interval of rest and increasing the intensity of each set (Increasing the number of reps per set) or increasing the amount of weight per set. Either way your body will adapt by recruiting larger muscle fibre (Hypertrophy) and although weight training is predominantly anaerobic, training in this manner will also confer some aerobic benefit.

Keep it interesting and stay on track

No matter what method you adopt the most important thing is to keep your routine from becoming too habitual, your body like your mind can easily become bored so variety is not only the spice of life but also an integral ingredient for progress. Feeling sore the next day, (delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is not a sign that you trained to hard, but that your body is adapting.

Disease from fashion to marketing tool

Is it appropriate to use the suffering of others for the marketing of products? It would seem cancer is a great disease for selling anything from carpets to bottled water. From stuffing yourself with several courses of food and washing it down with the best champagne it would seem nothing is to over the top when it comes to raising funds for terminal illness.

Not so Mchappy

McDonalds uses the hard luck story of thousands of sick and dying kids to sell more burgers to an already over weight population that should be discouraged rather than enticed to eating energy dense, low fiber high fat food. Mchappy day sold over 1 million burgers to well intentioned Australians with the promotional spin that $1 dollar from every burger will go to charity. Ronald McDonald house the charity flag ship gives Macca’s the credibility it needs to continue feeding the overfed, increasing not only waist lines but also McDonalds profits.

Nestle told to stick it!

In 2004 Nestlé’s was politely told by a leading breast cancer charity to stick their $1.5 million dollar charity deal, that doesn’t happen very often. This particular charity declined the lucrative deal based on Nestlé’s continued promotion of baby formula to third world in the face of conclusive evidence that breast feed children do better than their formula fed counterparts.

Profits before health

Cause Related Marketing (CRM), where the business pays to link their products to good causes brings into question the biggest areas of charitable giving.(CRM products are bought every second in the UK to the sum of 50 million pounds in 2003)  “There needs to be integrity, sincerity and transparency on both sides otherwise it can rebound on both parties  ‘Unfortunately in the real world formula fed third world babies with a lack of clean water are suffering from high infection rates and death is rife. Breastfeeding is also shown to decrease the risk of breast cancer by 4.3%; formula feeding has managed to help increase Nestlé’s profits to 8.7 million pounds. It may be better to make the donation direct rather than via a multinationals cash register.

Rambo redefines what’s possible at any age

  John Rambo (AKA Sylvester Stallone) has once again proven that age is not a barrier to looking good and muscling up even at 60! The latest installment to the adventures of John Rambo retired one-man army, has again pushed the limits of societies perception to what is possible for an old guy to achieve. Stallone once again the rising phoenix has not only resurrected his role as Rambo but also dragged his ageing body along to fight another day.

Looking ripped @ any age is feasible

Unfortunately most of us believe what were told that once you hit forty its time to pack up your tight jeans and shirts, sit in a chair, watch TV and act your age, but just what age should you act? Isn’t age really only mater of perception? If Stallone can crack skulls and flex his metal into his 60’s maybe we need to redefine the definition of what being old really is.

  Grueling workouts

There’s only one way to muscle up and get ripped and that is to train hard, although Stallone has recently admitted to taking growth hormone and swears by their efficacy, my personal belief and experience is that training hard will create muscle at any age. Even the elderly have been found to benefit from regular sessions of weight training with reduced incidents of falls, meaning less fractures and translating to fewer hospital visits hence circumventing the possibilities of hospital acquired pneumonia (a major factor in mortality for the elderly)

Stick to basics and grow

There’s any number of ways to increase muscle mass (Hypertrophy) and any number of trainers ready to tell you what will work the quickest, unfortunately there’s no shortcuts and its all hard work. Stick to basic exercises, the bread and butter of weight training Squats, bench press, shoulder press, bicep curls (barbell) and bent over rows. Now obviously not every one is physically capable of doing all the basics that’s where you need to diversify. In today’s gyms you could get lost in the jungle of machines designed for specific muscle group training so there’s no longer an excuse for not training your entire body.

Will Rambo again redefine the next decade?

Sylvester Stallone may be more than just another actor getting buffed for an action role; he could very well the one defining physique that proves that age is only a barrier to a fit buffed bod if you allow it to be.

Johnny go crack some skulls!