If this is your experience, you are not alone.

A study published this month in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that some people, no matter how much they exercise, just cannot improve their stamina and endurance.

Twenty percent of the test subjects in the study improved their maximum aerobic capacity by less than five percent--even with a workout plan customized by specialists.

The European and American researchers studied three groups of subjects, including 500 people who trained for twenty weeks, to determine what role genetics played in a person’s ability to increase their aerobic capacity.

They found that a sequence of 11 DNA markers is able to predict a person’s ability, or inability, to make improvements.

If the study’s parameters are a representative enough sample, that means there are a lot of frustrated exercisers out there wondering why they never make much improvement in performance.

They key word in all of this is performance, as in VO2 Max.  Just because you are ill suited to win a road race does not mean you cannot get the other benefits, like fat loss, from a sound cardio vascular exercise program.

For the VO2 Max impaired, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a great alternative to pounding along at a steady state as it does not demand endurance or stamina or liters of oxygen exchange for fat loss.

High intensity interval training, like the kind Nita Marquez and I describe in our book Fit for Combat, also burns significantly more body fat than pounding along at a steady rate.  (For a demonstration of an HIIT workout, watch the clip at the end of this article.)

How much more body fat does interval training burn than regular old fashioned cardio?  According this study, nine times more.

You may not be born to run, and if you aren’t there is no reason to pound your head against the wall by pounding the pavement and wondering why things aren’t working as advertised.  Switch to a training program that is more suited to your genetics and proven in the lab to burn more fat.

If you are one of the 20%, you may never be much of a road racer, but by training a little smarter, you can fit into the pants hanging in the back of closet.

The report will feature a quote by some doctor or professor saying that a person only really needs 60 grams of protein a day.

The template of the TV report will be a less nuanced version of this Live Science column and like the column, will not feature an informed counter point because, “hey, the science is settled right?”

Wrong.  As researchers from McMaster University pointed in a paper published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, the science of protein in people who exercise, especially those who lift weights, is as about as settled as man-made global warming.

PROTEIN IS DANGEROUS!?!

The news media loves the ‘Health Risk’ story, especially local TV news.  If it wasn’t for the ‘Health Risk’ story local affiliates would never be able to fill the 10-minute-news hole of the modern Eye Witness News format.

The Live Science column dutifully cites the health risk:

“No studies have identified definitively short-term health problems from excess protein, but this has been associated with kidney failure, osteoporosis and heart disease.”

The problem is high-protein diets have been found in other studies to reduce the risks of renal failure and heart disease.

“In establishing the RDA, the IOM report reviewed the impact of high protein intake on renal disease and concluded that levels of dietary protein are not related to progressive decline in kidney function with age. Other studies examining protein intake and renal function support this conclusion…in fact, preliminary studies show a positive effect of higher protein diets on risk factors for kidney disease, including obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.”  (Phillips, et.al, McMaster University)

The Canadian and Alaskan Inuit populations have incredibly high protein intake throughout their lives without any negative health effects.

But those facts get in the way of a good story.

If the health risks of a high-protein diet are overblown, how does the claim of added protein being a waste of money stack up?

MEASURING THE PROTEIN BENEFIT

Compared to the seemingly omni-present high fructose corn syrup, protein is not cheap.  The wholesale price of HCF is about 32 cents per pound compared to wholesale box beef cut-out of $1.40 per pound.  Whey protein concentrate wholesales for about 93 cents per pound.

Switching from carbs to protein will affect your waist and your wallet.

In our book Fit for Combat, Nita and I advise men to eat 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight once they get into the more intense weight lifting workouts.  The professors and health pundits recommend half a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight for athletes.

The protein consumption we advise is based on consensus among trainers of competitve physique athletes and what a normal person can reasonably shove down their throat in a day.

That may not seem incredibly scientific, but trainers like Tim Sparkes of Die Hard Gym in Phoenix prepare dozens male bodybuilding and women figure competitors for competitions every year have a large data set on what works.

The practitioners of building muscle and strength all agree–it takes a lot of protein to build muslce.

Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, a medical doctor and former professor, advises 2 grams of protein per pound to maximize muscle gains.

Some huge bodybuilders on massive quantities of steroids will eat up to 4 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight.  They can eat that much because they have so much muscle to begin with and are taking massive doses of drugs that enhance muscle protein synthesis.

Obviously there is a divide between the practitioners and the professors.  Part of the divide is in how they view the role and purpose of protein.

Phillips et.al point out the recommended daily allowance for protein was arrived at in a curious fashion–measures of nitrogen balance.

The goal of the recommended daily allowace is to prevent a protein deficiency.  That is to balance protein intake with protein use.  The commonly cited flaw in nitrogen balance measures is that body will adapt to a lower protein intake by down-regulating nitrogen loss.

Because the RDA is based on nitrogen equillibrium in prevention of deficiency, the studies in athletes also focus on the minimum required for balance in protein consumption compared to protein used.  For weight lifters who want to increase muscle tone and size the goal is not mere equillibrium.

“Although attaining nitrogen balance per se is likely a healthful and adequate endpoint for sedentary individuals, it is questionable whether the same can be said for athletes. For those wishing to gain lean mass, for example, positive nitrogen balance is the desired goal. This is presumably because of the periodic stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, which, if it is to support the net gain of new proteins, would require net extra amino acids.”  (Phillips, et.al)

Which is exactly what the practitioners like Tim Sparkes and Glenn Krog are saying.

“Ninety grams of protein a day may be fine if you just want to survive, but if you want supraphysiological health and body conditioning, then more protein is a prerequisite,” Krog said referring to the Live Science column.

The goal of the professors is maintenance, nitrogen balance.  The goal of the practitioners is body recomposition to a lean, muscular physique.  Krog offers this simple explanation of the RDA divide using the same numbers provided by the Live Science columnist.

“Ninety grams of protein is 360 calories, assuming the the average male eats a measly 1700 calories a day, and 15%(255calories – 28g) comes from fat, then the balance is carbohydrate -1085 calories or 271g of carbs, I want to see an average man eat 271 grams of carbs a day and lose fat.”

The McMaster University researchers even pointed to a volume of studies showing that a low carbohydrate, high protein diet resulted in the subjects losing fat while retaining muscle.  But they stopped well short of endorsing the larger quantities of protein advocated by the practitioners.

“Quite simply, in the absence of evidence suggesting that higher intakes are beneficial, it is not yet possible to say that they will be beneficial.”

It is also not possible to say they are a waste of money as there are no controlled studies comparing high protein intake to moderate protein intake during a strength training exercise program.

To the professors, anything beyond balance is a waste, to the practitioners the added protein beyond balance the goal–making the expense worth it.

This would make the whole debate seem like a wash, but there is actually a lot of common ground that the professors and practitioners agree on, especially when protein consumption can maximize benefits and how find out for yourself if extra protein works for you.

SYNTHESIS SYNERGY

Of all the quirks and contours of the debate, one aspect of protein is often overlooked, an aspect that lends support to what the practioners and bodybuilders are saying–just eating protein increases muscle protein synthesis.

In an article in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, researchers from McMaster University report on the effects of protein after it is ingested.

They found through a large body of research that protein consumption stimulates muscle protein synthesis stating, “stimulation of MPS is driven almost exclusively by the hyperaminoacidemia.”  Hyperaminoacidemia being an abundance of amino acids in the blood stream.

The mere ingestion of protein leads to protein synthesis in the muscles and halts muscle breakdown.

There is also a synergy between exercising Type II muscle fibers, eating protein and protein synthesis.

Type II fibers, also known as fast twitch fibers, are the ones used in weight lifting and sprinting.  They are also the ones that increase in size and tone in response to weight training.

After reviewing a long list of peer reviewed studies Phillips concludes working the fast twitch fibers is most likely a “prerequisite condition to maximize the anabolic effect of resistance exercise.”

When protein is consumed before and after weight training that activates the Type II Fibers, the accrual of muscle protein spikes.  The optimal timing is one hour before and immediately after training.  The optimal dosage is ~20 grams of protein before and ~20 grams after, which would get a person almost halfway to the 90 grams cited by the Live Science columnist.

But if you look at the chart again, the protein utilization rate that spikes at around 20 grams does not stop.  Test subjects who consumed up 40 grams were still showing synthesis.

The extra synthesis between 20 grams and 40 grams is something that could add up over the course of weeks and months and be the difference between a plateau on consistent progress.

The synergistic effect of weight training and protein consumption is not disputed–only the optimal amount of protein is.  Professors see the reduced “rate of return” and say 20 grams is enough after working out.  The practioners see the trend line still going up and ask, “why stop at 20?”

Muscle protein synthesis caused by just eating protein backs of the practitioner’s strategy of frequent consumption of protein rich meals.  If everytime a person eats protein MPS is induced, why just consume protein three or four times a day?

But none of this answers the most pressing question:  Will increased protein yield results specifically for you?

To answer the question you need to move beyond the thinking of TV News reporter or columnist and think the way a research scientists should, but usually fail to.

AN IN-ELEGANT EXPERIMENT

The heart and soul of our book Fit for Combat and the Fit for Combat System is a simple thesis–people need to find the workout and eating plan that works for them.

Because everyone has different genetics, Nita and I take people through a series of steps that are actually mini-experiments to get them dialed in on a workout plan that works for them.

To determine the amount of protein that yields results for you, you need to experiment.

Take a look at the chart below.

Much of human physiology conforms to the standard bell curve.  In fact the bell curve was created to display human physical characteristics.

In this curve, each dot represents a person.  The people on the left have less natural ability to synthesize protein, the people on the right are protein synthesizing machines.

If you are on the left hand side, increased protein consumption will not benefit your efforts to increase msucle tone or size.  If you are on the right, your body will gladly turn massive amounts of protein into muscle tissue.

But if you are somewhere in the middle, how do you figure out what amount of protein will work for you?

By conducting your own personal experiment.  Like all experiments you need to control and manage some of the variables–like your workout and caloric intake.  Keep your workout the same and do not decrease your total caloric intake.

If you are consuming less than 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, increase the protein.

If you are consuming a lot of protein, ratchet it down the the RDA for athletes of .5 grams per pound of body weight.

Run the experiment for say eight to 16 weeks and see what happens.

Now, this proposed self experiment seems pretty simple and straight forward, but for all the back and forth between the professors and the practitioners, I have yet to find a university study that actually compares the results of protein intake on weight training test subjects.

You would think for all the certainty stated by some researchers and journalists, a study like the one described above could be cited.  But as McMaster University’s Phillips stated just a year ago, “It is clear that we are beginning to understand how feeding and exercise influence changes in MPS and, ultimately, muscle mass.”

At least the practioners have strong anecdotal data sets.

The science of increased protein intake on muscle mass is far from settled, but there is one statement by the Live Science columnist that I and other serious practitioners agree with — “Supplements, usually sold as a powder with testosterone-fueled names like Muscle Max 500 or Mega Monster Mass” are a waste of money.  The best sources of protein are real food like eggs, steak, chicken, fish and good old fashioned generic whey protein.

Coach Ron Lee, a firm believer in the Option Offense, wind sprints and polyester coach shorts was citing what was then–and still is–a conventional wisdom in weight lifting.

But the conventional wisdom is coming into doubt from a recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

BIG LIFTS, BIG MUSCLES

It is well established and beyond dispute that big lifts, compound joint movements like squats, deadlifts, etc. will cause the body to rapidly increase the production of the anabolic hormone testosterone as well as human growth hormone and insulin like growth factor.

For bodybuilders testosterone, HGH and IGF are the holy trinity of muscle growth.

The conventional, and seemingly sensible wisdom was that because the big lifts caused a spike in the amount of those hormones in the blood stream, big lifts should form the foundation of a weight training program.  Taken a step further, big lifts should be paired with working smaller muscle groups so they too would get the benefit of the extra hormones.

This idea was repeated again and again until it became ingrained into the conventional wisdom of weight training.  No one questioned it because it just seemed so logical–more anabolic hormones will lead to muscle growth.  To get big biceps, you need to work your legs too, hence Coach Lee’s refrain about the collateral benefits of squats and deadlifts.

That conventional wisdom was put to the test by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

INDUCING THE ANABOLIC SPIKE

Repeated studies have shown, “Protocols high in volume, moderate to high in intensity, using short rest intervals and stressing a large muscle mass, tend to produce the greatest acute hormonal elevations (e.g. testosterone, GH and the catabolic hormone cortisol) compared with low-volume, high-intensity protocols using long rest intervals.”

The experiment conducted by the McMaster University researchers used two test groups over the course of 15 weeks.  One group performed only bicep exercises which would not increase anabolic hormones, the other performed bicep and leg exercises which would induce the anabolic spike.

The group that performed bicep and leg exercises did experience the hormonal spike, the most significant being in growth hormone which increased almost 10 fold for the group that trained legs and biceps.  Testosterone more than doubled in the leg training group as well.

The blood tests alone give support to what my football coach was saying all those years ago–there is a massive spike in muscle building hormones.

But when the researchers tested to see if it resulted in actual muscle growth, the conventional wisdom of Coach Lee and many others went out the window.

PROOF IS IN THE MEASUREMENTS

There are many things that seem so sensible, things that one would automatically assume A led to B.

The spike in testosterone, HGH and IGF brought on by intense weight training should increase muscle size compared to a type training that did not spike the hormones.  But after 15 weeks, the difference between the high hormone group and low hormone group was insignificant.

Each group made gains, but the high hormone group did not beat the low hormone group by a relevant margin.

How could a 100% increase in testosterone and nearly 10 fold increase in HGH not lead to muscle growth?  The answer is revealed in the blood test charts.

The high hormone group that trained legs and biceps did indeed experience a massive spike in testosterone, HGH and IGF, but 60 minutes after the workout ended, their hormone levels were the same as group that just trained biceps.

The process of muscle repair and hypertrophy after weight training lasts hours and days, not minutes.  The exercise induced spike just does not last long enough have a major impact on hypertrophy–especially in the way supraphysiologic doses of anabolic hormones do.

The effects of the spike of anabolic hormones from intense exercise can have numerous benefits to the body, but increased hypertrophy is not one of them–at least not over the course of 15 weeks under the protocols of this study.  A study lasting 52 weeks or several years–the real amount of time it takes for humans to build significant musle–may yield different results.   

But this study sheds some light on another conventional wisdom–like cardio always leading to fat loss–that makes sense, but doesn’t produce measurable results.  

We were wrapping up another day of work conducting a low-key data collection mission in Salah ad Din province, Iraq and the soldiers were planning on getting a bite to eat then hitting the gym at thier small outpost.

The soldiers of Battle Company of 1-28 Infantry were very competitive in the gym posting their best lifts on a marker board.

“What do you bench Mr. Johannes?” one of them asked.

I honestly do not know my maximum single repetition on any lift, but I told them I had bench pressed 300 pounds for 10 reps.

There was a moment of silence, then came the comment about Old Man Strength.

I had never heard the term before.  “Dude, I’m only 37.  What is ‘Old Man Strength’?”

As he explained it, Old Man Strength is the “ability to put your mind into it.”

A couple other soldiers chuckled, but the young man was actually right on target.

THE STRENGTH CURVE

In his book Extreme Fear, Jeff Wise discusses the effect of the brain’s reaction to stimuli on strength and athletic performance.

Wise cites the research by Vladimir Zatsiorsky on three different types of strength--Absolute, Maximal and Competitive Maximum.

Absolute Strength is the total mechanical strength of a person, the force a person should be able to apply.

According to Zatsiorsky’s research humans can rarely apply all that force.  A novice weight lifter can apply 65%, an experience athlete can apply 80%.  This lesser number is called Maximal Strength.

But, in competitive situations Maximal Strength can be increased by as much as 12%--hence the term Competitive Maximum.

The increase in competition is thought to be related to the Yerkes-Dodson Curve.

The increased mental arousal by a competition produces increased physical performance in some people and only to a point.

If the pressure of competition is too much, the arousal goes to far along the curve and performance decreases.  But if a person is at or near the top of the curve, they can approach the force of Absolute Strength.

As I spent more time around the soldiers of Battle Company I learned that the term Old Man Strength made its first appearance while practicing Army Combatives, a form of mixed martial arts.

Everytime the soldiers sparred, an older Platoon Sergeant, when matched against younger soldiers of equal size and skill, always won.  This Sergeant smoked, didn’t do much PT but could summon a reserve of power--Old Man Strength.

His experience in the Army and in multiple combat tours put him in the sweet spot of the Yerkes-Dodson Curve in a competitive situation.  Just being older and more experienced gave him an edge.

But there is another component to increased Maximal Strength that gives the old man the edge.

AUTOMATIC MUSCLES

Deep in the brain is an area that works behind the scenes called the ventral striatum.

The ventral striatum is a part of the brain that works at the subconscious level and plays a role in muscle memory--the firing of the muscles in the correct sequence to execute a task.

As I type this I am totally unaware of the need to find individual keys--the complex actions taking place are so well rehearsed from years of typing that they work on auto-pilot.

The same thing applies to weight lifting in the gym.

Two weeks ago I moved up to 140 pound dumbbells for incline bench press.  My first attempts at handling those huge dumbbells must have looked absurd--it sure felt absurd.

Lifting 140 pound dumbbells is an athletic movement that requires a lot of balance and coordination as well as raw strength.

Now on my second week with them, I look much smoother.

Over the course of the two weeks I may have an ounce or two of extra muscle to help move the weight, but mostly the ventral striatum and other parts of my brain had been at work refining how my muscles will work in sequence.

I did not have to consciously think about how I was going to balance the weight--in fact it felt very smooth and easier than I expected.  Well, not EASY, the struggle was with the weight of the dumbbells not their awkward size.

Over the years I have performed thousands of repetitions in the gym involving the muscles used in an incline bench press--pecs, delts, triceps.  Every repetition has helped refine the performance leading to an improved Maximal Strength.  The more repetitions, the more powerful the effort of the muscles--giving the old man the advantage again.

Combine the the fact that I was being recorded on a Flip camera for a little boost on the Yerkes-Dodson Curve and I beat my effort from the previous week handily.

The old Platoon Sergeant sparring with younger soldiers may have only been at a certain level of combatives skill according to the Army, but over the years had more practice grappling so his reactions were more automatic.

In your own exercise regime you are probably not contemplating 140 pound dumbbells or mixed martial arts sparring with young soldiers--but the performance advantages of Old Man Strength can be engineered to your advantage.

A slightly competitive environment can improve your performance and long term progress.  For strength trainers the exrta boost along the curve could add extra intensity to a workout which can speed up progress in increasing muscle tone and size.

The extra repetitions induced by the curve give the ventral striatum more to work with further enhancing your training.

And that is the secret of Old Man Strength.

The most recent from an article in the New York Times showing how strength training improves the cognitive performance of older women.

A quick sampling of the studies like this, this and this are adding to the growing body of evidence that exercise has benefits beyond the heart and waist line.

The most interesting study I have read found that acute cardio vascular exercise can improve immediate cognitive function.

The study compared weight-lifting to intense running on a treadmill.  Those who ran on the treadmill showed improvement in immediate cognitive performance.  Those in the study who performed the strength training showed no immediate improvement in cognitive performance.

In reading the exercise descriptions it was obvious that the weight training was not nearly as intense as the treadmill–which is a common flaw in studies.

It is easy to force and control intensity on a treadmill, but not so much with the weight lifting.

The intensity factor has been the common theme in the studies showing cognitive performance benefits of exercise.  In the study of older women, the ones lifting weights were performing a more intense regime–thus the ones who showed improvement.

This intensity factor–especially intensity that really gets the heart rate elevated for a period of time–is the key for the immediate benefits.

Here again, from an NYT article:

“It appears that various growth factors must be carried from the periphery of the body into the brain to start a molecular cascade there,” creating new neurons and brain connections, says Henriette van Praag, an investigator in the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. For that to happen, “you need a fairly dramatic change in blood flow,” like the one that occurs when you run or cycle or swim. Weight lifting, on the other hand, stimulates the production of “growth factors in the muscles that stay in the muscles and aren’t transported to the brain,” van Praag says.

Does this mean that weight lifting will have no cognitive benefit?  Not at all.  Studies have shown long-term cognitive benefits from even brisk walking.  And the weight training worked in the study of older women.

The take away from all of this is that exercise has the added benefit of improving cognitive abilities, the more intense the exercise the better the results and exercise that really gets the heart rate up can improve immediate cognitive performance.

It was meant to be a sarcastic comment to a personal training client of my co-author, Nita Marquez–but new research shows it was great diet advice.

Nita’s client, a woman of a certain age with an affinity for younger men, wanted to enhance her prowess as a social Cougar.  The fastest way to get there–a low carbohydrate diet just like a real cougar would eat.

The advice is good not just because low carbohydrate diets are a good way for many people to lose fat.  The advice was great because the rules of the Cougar Diet are simple and people are more likely to stick to diets with simple rules.

“Even if you believe you can succeed, thinking that the diet is cognitively complex can undermine your efforts,” said Jutta Mata a professor of psychology at Stanford University.

Mata recently published a report in the journal Appetite showing that the more complex the rules of a diet are, more likely people are to quit the diet.

The study, conducted in Germany, compared Weight Watchers to the popular German diet Brigitte.

The Weight Watchers diet in the study required dieters to tabulate points for the foods and portions consumed.  The Brigitte diet is based on recipes with lists of food to be purchased and prepared.

The Brigitte diet is perceived as being less complex and more test subjects stuck with it than the Weight Watchers diet.

“For people on a more complex diet that involves keeping track of quantities and items eaten, their subjective impression of the difficulty of the diet can lead them to give up on it,” said Peter Todd a co-author of the study and professor in Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

In keeping with the study’s findings The Cougar Diet is easy to follow–eat meat, only meat.

That means chicken, beef, pork, fish, eggs.

In our book Fit For Combat, Nita and I give a version of The Cougar Diet used by physique athletes to prepare for a contest. It is also useful for regular people when they are ’stuck’ on a diet and want to get the last 10 pounds off.

When humans consume only meat–or more precisely only protein and fat–it is often referred to as a ketogenic diet because the body will convert fat to into betahydroxybutyric acids and acetoacetic acids, also known as ketones.

When a person is ketogenic they are burning fat and only fat for energy.

A ketogenic diet is not for everyone but the rules are very simple–eat like a cougar.

Nita’s remark may have been half in jest, but the idea of a simple diet being a successful one is backed by serious research.

Professor Mata advises people to look at the complexity of a diet.  A diet with a lot of variety and flexibility could be more attractive, but dieters should, “evaluate how difficult they find doing the calculations and monitoring their consumption.  If they find it very difficult, the likelihood that they will prematurely give up the diet is higher and they should try to find a different plan.”

And what could be less complex than eating like a cougar?

Their goal is simple--get in better shape, lose a few pounds and fit into a pair of pants hanging in the back of the closet.

Cardiovascular exercise would seem to be the most straight-forward way to achieve that goal.  Burn more calories, lose fat.  It works for everyone for about two or three weeks, then something happens--the simple logic breaks down, fat loss stops and in many cases people begin to gain the fat back.

The resolutioneer quits in frustration.

By mid February the traffic in the gym in back to normal, the pants still hang in the back of the closet.

How can something so logical as burning more calories through cardiovascular exercise not result in sustained fat loss?  The answer is in your body’s ability to adapt to exercise and the complex functions of the hormone cortisol.

NOT SO SIMPLE MATH

The conventional wisdom of cardio is the energy in vs. energy out formula.  Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight.

But for many people, probably the majority or people, the simple math never delivers on the promise over the long haul.

“If the energy in, energy out concept actually worked, you could cardio yourself out of existence,” said Lisa Krog, a trainer of elite physique athletes in South Africa.

Lisa and her husband Glen give the following example when talking about while the simple math does not work.

“If you did enough cardio every day to burn 500 more calories than you ate, after a few years you would simply not exist. But all those people putting in hours on the cardio machines for years still exist.”

Of course that assumes they are on a controlled eating plan to ensure they are eating less than the burn.  But the simple fact remains that even if you did create a 500 calorie deficit every day through exercise you will not be able to exercise yourself out of existence.  Your body will adapt to the workload.

The simple conventional wisdom does not take into account that your body will adapt to the new normal.  To stay one step ahead of you body you need to apply the Rosenfield Rule and gradually increase the duration or intensity of the cardio.

This increase in exercise will extend the weight loss benefits of cardio a little longer, but ultimately becomes counter productive to fat loss because of how the body adapts to cardio vascular exercise and complex actions of the hormone cortisol.

FLABBY RUNNERS

Cortisol is produced in the adrenal cortex of the brain as a response to stress--just about any kind of stress--including exercise which is what we will focus on here.

Exercise stresses the body.  When the exercise load exceeds a critical level, which is different for each person, the adrenal cortex secrets a massive amount of cortisol.  It is not a one-shot secretion.  The longer the level is sustained, the more cortisol is released.

According the University of New Mexico’s Len Kravitz the critical level that results in excess cortisol secretion occurs after about 45 minutes of exercise--some people hit the critical level earlier, others later depending on variety of genetic and other variables.

Two of the effects of excess cortisol are fat retention, it makes your body want to hold on to fat instead of burn it, and muscle catabolism, it makes you body use skeletal muscle for energy.

The muscle catabolism is most pernicious effect of cortisol for people trying to lose fat.

A pound of muscle burns about five to ten calories a day even if it is not worked.  While that may not seem like much, in one day, it can add up to 3,650 calories a year or about on pound of fat.  Four pounds of muscle can burn four pounds of fat.  A loss of four pounds of muscle could result in a gain of four pounds of fat.

When cortisol puts the body in a catabolic mode while doing cardio vascular exercise the muscle is burned instead of fat.  For every pound of muscle that is burned, your resting metabolism slows down a little bit.

If your energy intake from food is not adjusted to the loss of muscle, you have a calorie surplus and will gain fat while doing lots of cardio.

This it what causes the flabby runner effect.

In every decent sized city there are a few running clubs whose members log 30 or more miles a week.  Some of the members have lean physiques, some look remarkably average and some are just plain flabby.

The flabby runners kick out a lot of cortisol, do not have much muscle and do not eat a controlled diet.  All that cardio has made them very fit, but it has also made them fat.

The few who are lean have bodies that, for a variety of reasons, respond well to long-term cardio vascular training.

If cortisol’s burning off of muscle tissue wasn’t bad enough, cardio vascular exercise also changes the way your muscles repair themselves which inhibits gaining muscle tone and can have a less than desirable effect on your appearance.

MITOCHONDRIAL MESSAGES

When a person engages in overload weight training, especially higher intenstity training, the body is sent a signal to increase contractile protein synthesis.  This signal is part of muscle hypertrophy and leads to increased muscle tone, size and strength.  Contractile proteins are what make person’s arms look good.

Overload weight training is the time-tested way to increase contractile protein that increases the muscle tone and size that leads to a firm physique.

The extra muscle also speeds up the metabolism just a little bit.

Cardio vascular exercise sends a different signal.

Rather than increasing the tone and size of the muscle cells, it sends a signal to the mitochondrial mass to enhance energy production.  The signal to the cells is to switch from contractile muscle to the smaller mitochondria.  This results in less muscle tone, size and shape.

Glen Krog sums up the various unintended ill effects of cardio vascular training like this:

First, cardiovascular activity is very efficient at chewing up muscle tissue, the steps are as follows:

1. Conversion from fast twitch muscle fiber to slow twitch muscle fiber, by acquiring mitochondria and relinquishing contractile protein. Smaller fiber, less RMR.

2. Excessive Cortisol released in response to the damage to the fiber as a result of the exercise. Cortisol acts as a natural analgesic, but severely hampers protein synthesis and muscle repair.

3 . It has been shown, that high volume cardiovascular exercise can completely deplete satellite cells in muscle fiber, which means no new fiber can grow or existing fiber be repaired.

4 . Growth Hormone levels decline with high volume cardiovascular exercise, which also hampers the repair process. Low growth hormone also accelerates aging.

5. To sum it up, you can’t train all day, and you can’t eat no food, but you can always build a bit more muscle, so quit the cardio and concentrate on the weight lifting.

The question on a person’s mind right now is, if cardio only works for a few weeks until the work load must be increased, then you get to a point that the body produces excess cortisol that burns up muscle,  and cario shrinks muscle size--what kind of cardio can be done?

The answer is good old fashioned sprints.

HIIT

The modern term for sprints is High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT.  This type of training can be done on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stepper, stationary bike or outdoors anywhere there is a flat surface for 100 meters.

I prefer to run my sprints outdoors in a parking lot down the block.

In HIIT you alternate between periods of high intensity and low intensity.  A person does not need to go as hard and as fast as they can during the high intensity--they just need to go hard and fast enough to get the heart and lungs working.  The low intensity periods can be like a power walk, or a nice medium pace.

The time intervals are flexible.  Most people do not go past two minutes during a high intensity period.

A two minute period of low intensity is generally the longest most people go before cranking it up again.

Here’s an example of me running sprints so you can get the basic idea.

The Rosenfield Rule can be applied to HIIT in a variety of ways.  A person could add one more high intensity interval each week.  The speed/difficulty of the high intensity interval could be increased.  The time of the low intensity intervals can even be decreased.

http://www.fitforcombatsystem.com/resolutioneers-project-rosenfield-rule/

In the video above, my goal was to do the same amount of work in less time than the previous week.  The time period would be shorter, but with a greater intensity which keeps my body from adapting to the work load and one step ahead in the energy in vs. engergy out equation.

The advantage of HIIT, especially old fashioned sprints, when compared with traditional cardio is that it minimizes some of the ill effects of cortisol and how the muscles adapt to the work.

Cortisol will still be released during HIIT, but the low intensity periods moderate the release.  In traditional cardio, once the critical level is reached, the body pumps out massive quantities of cortisol while a person is exercising.  HIIT workouts tend to be shorter which also minimizes the amount of cortisol secreted by the adrenal cortex.  A person can do a killer HIIT workout on a machine in 15 minutes.  It is not the time the counts, but the intensity of HIIT that burns the calories.

The primary advantage of HIIT, especially short sprints outdoors, is the recovery/repair signal sent to the muscles.  A sprint is almost like a weight lifting set--a short burst of maximal effort involving the fast twitch muscle fibers--followed by a period of rest.  The repair/recovery signal is hopefully to build more contractile protein rather than mitochondria.

Losing fat through cardio is lot more complex than the simple energy in vs. energy out formula--which is why so many people who just do cardio never achieve their fat loss goals.

Cardio is great for the heart, lungs and overall health, but for fat loss, a person has to keep in mind the body’s ability to adapt and the side effects of cardio like cortisol and loss of muscle tone and size.

If a Resolutioneer trains a little smarter, and a little harder each week using the principles of HIIT, the results can be amazing.

I first heard this rule as a teenager, but spent years violating it.  When I finally complied with it, my strength and muscle mass exploded.

The rule?  Do more this week than you did last week, and then do more next week than you did this week.

It was first explained to me in my high school’s locker room by Coach Gene Rosenfield.

OLD SCHOOL

If you were a movie producer looking for the epitome of what an old fashioned football coach should look like--Rosenfield was your man.

From the thick mane of gray hair, bent nose, scars of cauliflower ear, and barrel chest, all the way to the tattoos on his forearms from when he served in the military.

But Rosenfield wasn’t just some knuckle dragging task master.  He played the commodities markets, managed an active investment portfolio and always carried with him a sheaf of papers from research journals.

And one of the things he understood very well was human biology.

“You have to lift more this week than you did last week and lift more next week than you did this week,” Rosenfield would tell me.

He could have, and on occasion did, go into the science of it, but being a teenager I tuned it out.

The sad part is, I did not follow the Rosenfield principle for years until I started hearing it again and again from powerlifters and bodybuilders.

What Coach Rosenfield was telling me was one of the secrets hiding in plain sight--the secret to success when training with weights, resistance machines or any exercise program.  By doing more each week, you will force your body to adapt to the “more”.  When your body no longer has to adapt, it will seek stasis.

ADAPT & OVERCOME

The Rosenfield Rule is a straight forward statement of the time tested principle of over load training over the course of time.

The human body is a durable, adaptive, precision machine.  It will adapt to the level of exercise you do and will adapt to overcome whatever you throw at it.

In resistance training with weights or machines, the body will adapt to the workout through muscle hypertrophy--which is the fancy term for how the body increases muscle tone and size.  When you train with weights, the body will repair itself and adapt to the amount of weight and repetitions you are using.

If you do not increase the weight or the number of repetitions, the muscles will not be triggered to increase tone, size or strength.

The same rule applies to walking, jogging or cycling.

Exercise guidelines from the Federal Government recommend healthy adults in engage in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week.

But what the people who brought you Fannie Mae failed to take into account is how the body will adapt to that 150 minutes of moderate-intensity.  The guidelines are good, for overall health, but if you want to lose weight and look better, you will have to stay one step ahead of your body’s ability to adapt.

The Rosenfield Rule provides an open architecture way to stay ahead of the adaption--do more this week than you did last week, do more next week than you did this week.

OVERLOAD OVER TIME

The Rosenfield Rule’s “more” can be anything.

In cardio vascular exercise it can be one more minute or a half mile per hour faster.

In training with weights or machines it is one more repetition or a few more pounds.

The real key to making the Rosenfield Rule work for you is to do it not just this week and next week, but every week.  To overload the muscles over the course of time, meaning months.

Let me illustrate this with an exercise I am doing right now--incline dumbbell bench press.  See if you can spot the overload over time Rosenfield Rule at work.

Workout 1

90 Lbs. x  12 repetitions  (listing first set only for brevity)

Workout 2

95 Lbs. x  10 repetitions

Workout 3

100 Lbs. x  9 repetitions

Workout 4

105 Lbs. x  7 repetitions

Workout 5

105 Lbs. x 11 repetitions

Workout 6

110 Lbs. x   8 repetitions

Workout 7

110 Lbs. x 12 repetitions

Workout 8

120 Lbs. x  9 repetitions

Did you spot the Rosenfield Rule?  The first thing people notice is that I do not do the same amount of repetitions every week.  But the number of repetitions is not important as long as I was doing more--as in more weight.

Every week I was doing something more.  I didn’t just work the muscle.  I didn’t just exhaust the muscle.  I overloaded it more than I had the previous week.

In a few days I will do dumbbell incline bench press again with 130 pound dumbbells.  I will do each set to maximum failure.  I will probably get fewer repetitions, but that does not matter because I am doing more weight and increasing the overload on the muscles.

At some point though one of two things will happen; (a.) I will not be able to do more reps, or (b.) I will outgrow the dumbbells since the only go up to 150 pounders.

Hey, outgrowing the 150 pounders is a GOOD problem to have.

When one of those things happens how is the Rosenfield Rule applied?  By changing up to a new exercise.

I could do flat barbell bench press, incline barbell press, or any other exercise that works those same muscle groups.

To do the same weight for the same number of reps week in and week out is the opposite of the Rosenfield Rule of doing more this week than you did last week, more next week than you did this week.

Doing more reps is easy to understand, but how do you know when to increase the weight?

For that we need a to just set consistent standard--a number and just about any number will do.

MAGIC NUMBER

Many people get stuck on the idea that they should do three sets of ten repetitions on a weight training exercise.  When and how this conventional wisdom became ingrained in exercise culture I have no idea, but it really makes no sense.

As I noted in the previous article on finding the workout plan that works for you, there is no perfect workout for everyone, just a perfect workout for you.

The three sets of ten reps is so standardized it cannot possibly be a good idea for very many people--but everyone still does it because it was they have been told for years.

I am now going to tell you to throw that idea out the window.  It does not matter how many repetitions you do.  What matters is that you follow the Rosenfield Rule.

In the example of my incline dumbbell bench press I only listed the the first set for the sake of brevity.  Here is what is I actually did a few days ago.

Workout 8

120 Lbs. x  9 repetitions

120 Lbs. x  5 repetitions

120 Lbs. x  3 repetitions

17 Total repetitions

I did fewer repetitions each set because I took each set to maximum failure.  This video clip will show you what I mean by maximum failure.

Notice how I did as many reps as I could, to the point of struggling to even move the weight.  When you work to maximum failure, and really overload the muscle you will stimulate hypertrophy which results in increased muscle tone and size.

Also, did you notice how I did fewer reps in each set?  When you take a set to maximum failure it will be nearly impossible to get the same amount of reps on the subsequent set.

The question is though, how does a person know when to increase the weight on a machine?

The answer is, you decide.  You pick your Magic Number.

Ready?  Pick a number, any number between 12 and 30.

Got your number?  OK, good.  That is now your Magic Number.  When the TOTAL repetitions you perform over three sets equals the magic number, increase the weight.

People often think the Magic Number is the total number of reps they should get in each set.  No.

Look again:

Workout 8

120 Lbs. x  9 repetitions

120 Lbs. x  5 repetitions

120 Lbs. x  3 repetitions

17 Total repetitions

My magic number is 15 total repetitions.  In workout 8 I did 17 total repetitions.  So, the next time I do dumbbell incline bench I will follow the Rosenfield Rule and increase the weight to 130 pound dumbbells.

The Magic Number is an easy way to to keep you on track overloading the muscle over time, to keep you constantly staying one step ahead of your body.

If you get to a point you cannot increase the reps, to where you are stuck at the same number of reps on a given exercise for two or three weeks, move on to another exercise that works the same muscle(s).  For a handy guide to exercises and their corresponding muscle groups, check out fitnessdirectives.com.

The Rosenfield Rule works everytime for every body.  It is the foundation of every successful workout program and can be adapted to any level of strength and fitness.

The rule can be applied by fitness walkers, joggers, at-home-exercisers…anyone who wants to make improvements in their level of fitness, lose weight or imrpove muscle tone.

In the final installment of the Resolutioneers Project I will dig into cardio.  Cardio is is a complicated subject for people looking to lose weight and improve their apperance because contrary to popular belief cardio doesn’t always burn fat--sometimes it can make you fat.

Diets do not work, everyone knows it, but that does not stop people from trying to diet.  And yet, somehow, if diets do not work, some people do lose weight and manage to keep it off for years or forever.  How do they do it?  First, lets take a look at a what a diet is.

Merriam-Websters defines diet as a noun as:  a: food and drink regularly provided or consumed   b: habitual nourishment.

That is what a diet is and you already have a diet.  The first, and biggest mistake people make is to not realize they already have a diet.  What you are eating right now is your diet.

But, most people do not realize they already have a diet.  They assume a diet is something else.

Here is the other definition of diet, this time as a verb, an action, something you do:  a:  to cause to eat and drink sparingly or according to prescribed rules.

Most people go on a diet without ever contemplating that they already have a diet and that is the first reason why diets fail.

You are already eating.  You are already consuming carbs, sugars, protein and fat.  You are already eating within a range of calories.  Your body is used to eating your current diet—whatever it is.  To lose fat, you need to eat less calories than you are already eating.

For example, if you eat a big bowl of ice cream every night while watching TV, that is equal to about two full measuring cups of ice cream.  That is about 580 calories and a whopping 61 grams of sugar.

If you cut that in half, to just one full measuring cup, you have cut out 290 calories.  A pound of body fat has about 3,500 calories.  So, over the course of 12-13 days, you will lose one pound of fat.

Even a minor adjustment, like going from a big bowl of ice cream to just half a bowl can result in fat loss.  Pretty cool.

But most people don’t think like that.  They don’t realize the ice cream is part of their current diet, in fact, they never even contemplate their current diet.

To avoid the biggest dieting mistake you must know what your current diet is.  Most people eat a variety of foods throughout the week, but there are still some basic patterns.  We humans are creatures of habit.  We tend to eat a lot of the same things at the same time of day.

To determine our current diet, all we need is a pencil and some paper.

Before you even begin to think about going on a diet, you need to know what your current diet is.  That means you need to write down what you eat and drink.  The more precise you are, the better the results will be once you start your anti-diet.

You will want to write down everything you eat and drink for a week.  And you must be honest with your pencil and paper.  Really.  The worse you are eating now, the easier it is to lose weight.  Just like in the ice cream example, going from a big bowl to half a bowl every day will result in fat loss.  So, if you eat a bowl of ice cream every day, write it down.

Once you have gone through a week of writing down what you eat on your current diet, you are ready to take the next step, which nearly ever dieter fails to do—be consistent on your current diet.

Take a look at what you wrote down for the week.  There will be some things you eat every day.  There will be some things you only ate once.

If you were to take the time to calculate all the grams of carbs, sugars, fat and protein you ate on each of the days, odds are each day would be different.  Some days you ate more, some days you ate less.  Some days had more calories, some days had less.

What you want to do now is avoid the second most common reason diets fail—inconsistency.

Remember in the example where if a person cuts back on their ice cream they could lose one pound of fat in 12 to 13 days?  It only works if they cut back the ice cream for 12 to 13 days.

At this stage, to avoid the inconsistency trap, don’t start your diet or cut anything out.  Still eat all the foods you normally eat, but try to eat the same things every day.  Try to eat the same portion sizes of the same things every day.

If you have fast food for lunch, pick one thing you normally eat and eat that every day.

For example, if you have a burger, fries and a soda, eat the same burger, fries and soda every day.

This consistency of your current diet provides a baseline and the baseline is very, very important.

The human body is a durable, precision machine that will also adapt.  The body’s metabolism will adapt to the amount of calories, carbs, sugars, fat and protein you eat.  By being consistent as you can be with your current diet, your body will adapt, it will treat that as the baseline.  Any reductions from the baseline, over the course of 10 to 12 days can result in fat loss.

If your body is used to eating 3,000 calories a day, even a reduction of 300 calories a day, or just a 1% reduction over the course of 12 days will result in the loss of one pound of fat.  And as we saw in the ice cream example, you can start to lose fat, by just cutting back a little.

So, once you have spent a week or two on your consistent, current diet it is time to start the anti-diet eating plan and it starts very gradually.  By starting gradually, you will avoid the third reason diets don’t work—metabolic adjustment.

As we explained above, the body will adapt to the amount of calories, carbs, sugars, fat and protein it is eating.  Most diets and dieters do not take the body’s natural adaptation into account.  The biggest mistake a person can make on a diet is going ‘all in’ from the start.

Most people do not know what their current diet is.  Their current diet is not consistent.  They will cut out all the ‘bad’ foods all at once.  They will lose weight for a week or two or even four.  But then, the body adapts.  The metabolism adjusts to the amount of calories, carbs, sugar and fat a person eats.  When it adapts, the fat loss stops.  Even worse, the person may begin to gain back fat even when still on the diet!

Yep, this is why diets don’t work.

But how do we keep the metabolism from adjusting to what we eat?  By making gradual changes.

In the ice cream example, a person could lose one pound of fat by cutting back from two full measuring cups of ice cream to just one full measuring cup in 12 to 13 days.  Does this mean that you could lose 30 pounds a year by just cutting back on the ice cream?  No.  The body will adapt to the reduction of even just 290 calories a day.  It will adapt in 10 to 14 days.  Which means the fat loss from eating less ice cream will stop.  Even worse, after the metabolism adjusts, you could start gaining weight again!

So, what do you do?  How do you stay one step ahead of your body’s metabolic adjustments?  By making gradual adjustments every week.

When a person goes ‘all in’ on a diet, cuts out all the so-called ‘bad’ food and eats nothing but tuna and lettuce, the body will adapt within a few weeks.  The bigger the change, the harder it is for the body to adjust, but once the adjustment is made, the fat loss slows down or stops.

But the person who goes ‘all in’ cannot make any more changes.  There is nothing left to cut out to keep losing fat.  This is why so many people find it difficult or impossible to lose those last five, ten or twenty pounds and keep them off.

To stay one step ahead of your metabolism, you need to consistently eat the same things every day, and gradually eliminate carbs and sugars.  In the first week, our evening ice cream eater would cut back from two full measuring cups to just one full cup.  In the second week, they would cut it down to just half a cup and in the third week, they would cut out the ice cream altogether.

Notice the gradual reduction over the course of three weeks.  More importantly, what time of day did our new anti-dieter reduce calories, carbs and sugars?  In the evening.

Carbs and sugars eaten close to bed time are not used for energy.  If they body does not use them for energy they are turned into fat.

The easiest way to lose fat is to gradually reduce carbs and sugars eaten at the end of the day.  Start with any carby or sugary snacks or foods you eat before bed, gradually eliminate them, then gradually eliminate the carbs and sugars you eat with your last meal of the day.

Some of you are scratching your heads.  Sugars in the evening meal?  Yes.  If you have pasta or white rice with your evening meal, you are having a lot of sugars.  There are more sugars hiding in food than you would imagine and if you eat them at the end of the day, odds are you will not use them and they will be converted to fat.

Targeting carbs and sugars eaten at the end of the day works for a couple reasons.  It eliminates the excess carbs from being converted to fat while you sleep, and at the end of the day most people are less active and less likely to need the sugars to power their brain.

If you cut out carbs and sugars eaten in the morning or during the day you feel grouchy and sluggish.  It is difficult to think.  A lot of people who cut out carbs or sugars in the morning quit their diet because they feel terrible or have a carb/sugar deprivation headache.  If you cut out the carbs/sugars at the end of the day and get a headache, it will not affect your productivity during the day and because sleep is only a few hours away, the headache will be over soon.

The gradual elimination of carbs and sugars will prevent the headaches and crash.  The brain loves sugar.  Sugar is the brain’s preferred fuel and it adapts to the amount of sugar eaten.  It doesn’t really need that much to keep functioning, but will get very angry if it is used to a lot of sugar and suddenly doesn’t have very much.  So, gradually eliminate the carbs and sugars starting at the end of the day.

The gradual elimination of sugars from the last meal of the day is done just like the ice cream.

Lets say a person eats a chicken breast, lettuce and macaroni and cheese for dinner.  They have already eliminated their ice cream dessert, but to keep ahead of the body’s metabolism and to keep losing weight, they need to keep reducing calories, carbs and sugars.

The average mac & cheese has 259 calories, 48 grams of carbohydrates and 7 grams of sugars in a one cup serving.  If the mac & cheese is reduced by half the first week, our anti-dieter will be able to stay ahead of the body’s adjustment.  Then, if the macaroni is cut down again to just ¼ cup, the anti-dieter is still staying ahead of the metabolic adjustment.  The final elimination of the macaroni will be rather easy after that and the fat loss is still staying ahead of the body’s metabolic adaptation.

This process is repeated slowly throughout the day.  The next target will be any carbs and sugars eaten in the afternoon, then lunch, then mid morning and finally breakfast.  At breakfast the carbs will not be eliminated, just the sugars.  A bowl of corn based cereal would be replaced with oatmeal or something else that has carbs, but very few sugars.

The substitution of foods with a lot of carbs and a lot of sugars with lower carb and low or no sugars foods is something a lot of dieters don’t think about.  And failing to use substitutes is another reason diets don’t work.

When people don’t eat they get hungry.  Being hungry sucks.  It makes people cranky.  It makes them quit their diet.    Dieters often just cut back on food when they should be substituting foods.

A person crashes and gets cranky when the available calories and blood sugar drops.  To maintain a steady level of calories a person should eat five to six times a day.

A lot of people have a snack in the afternoon.  But, often it is loaded with sugar and carbs.  If they are cut out, and you are at work, the last few hours of your work day will be worse than usual.  So, instead of cutting out the muffin, start with just eating half the muffin.  Then, instead of totally eliminating the afternoon snack, have some protein like some whey protein with water, a small can of tuna, some lunch meat, anything with protein, but not sugars or carbs.

The same idea can be applied to our evening ice cream eater.  For a lot of people it is difficult for them to fall asleep on an empty stomach.  But the ice cream can be substituted with some whey protein with cinnamon and a no-calorie sweetener or any type of protein.

Notice the substitute examples are always protein.  A lot of people make the mistake of swapping a muffin for fruit or a soda with a fruit juice or sports drink.  The problem is fruit, fruit juice and sports drinks have a lot of sugar in them.

For example, a typical pre-packaged blueberry muffin has 38 grams of sugar in it.  An apple has 13 grams of the sugar in it.  The swap of an apple for a muffin is good for a week or two, but then those sugars will have to be eliminated to keep the fat loss going and stay ahead of the metabolic adjustment.

The average soda pop has 33 grams of sugar.  A glass of orange juice has 21 grams of sugar.  A sports drink will have 32 grams of sugar.  Even some vegetables have a lot of sugar.  A couple baby carrots will get you up to 15 grams of sugar pretty fast.

The best substitute is almost always going to be protein.  Whey protein or meat.

Substituting protein for carbs and sugars creates a smaller calorie reduction than outright elimination, but most dieters don’t understand that not all calories are created equal and that when reducing calories, protein is vital to losing fat.

The body will adapt to a reduction in calories by adjusting the metabolism.  But before the metabolism adjusts, it makes up for the reduction in calories by using something else for fuel.  When you diet, you hope it is fat.  But, the body will gladly use muscle for fuel.  Some of the weight you lose while dieting may not be fat, it may be muscle.  Which means you could lose five, ten or twenty pounds but not much flab.

Whether you know it or not, your body is constantly rebuilding muscle tissue.  It takes protein to rebuild the muscle.  When you reduce calories, the body will convert fat and muscle for energy.  If you are not eating enough protein, the muscle repair slows and the conversion of muscle for energy can accelerate.  So, instead of losing fat, you are losing muscle.

This is a double whammy of another reason why diets don’t work.  Losing muscle instead of fat does not improve your appearance and, the loss of muscle slows down your metabolism even more.  So, not only is the metabolism adjusting to the reduction in calories, is burns fewer calories because there is less muscle.  Remember, muscle burns fat.

To keep the muscle and lose the fat you must eat protein.  The protein you eat is also less likely to be converted to sugars and then body fat.  Which is why not all calories are created equal.

Substituting protein for carbs and sugars also prevents another thing that plagues the ‘all in’ dieter—starvation signal.

When there are too few calories, or after a sharp reduction in calories, the body can go into starvation mode.  In starvation mode, the metabolism slows way down and prefers to use muscle as energy saving the fat for later.  Fat loss and weight loss will slow down or stop and a further reduction in calories only drives the body deeper into starvation mode.

Of course, once a person gives up on the ‘all in’ near starvation diet and goes back to their old diet, guess what happens?  Because the metabolism is slowed down, and the calories are increased they gain fat but not any of the muscle that was used by the body.

Substituting protein for sugars and carbs prevents the starvation mode, provides a steady energy supply, helps preserve muscle which keeps the metabolism going and allows you to lose fat.

But, there comes a point when nearly all sugars are gone and replaced with protein and the only carbs eaten are clean carbs like oatmeal for breakfast.  Any further reduction in carbs is impractical.  A reduction in calories could be counter productive.

How do you stay ahead of the metabolism and keep it from adjusting in this situation?

By doing a metabolic reset.

Because the body adjusts to what is eaten it can be tricked and the trick can be rather enjoyable.  The metabolism only knows what is happening now, and what has happened recently, therefore, it can be tricked into resetting itself by increasing the calories, sugars and carbs for a short period of time.  A person trying to lose fat can reset the metabolism to a higher level by pigging out for a few hours once a week.

On Saturday night feel free to go crazy.  Have the ice cream, have some pizza or whatever strikes your fancy.  This is not a license to go crazy the whole day, but have something you really like for a meal and something sweet for dessert.

This does two things, it keeps the body’s metabolism off balance and gives you a psychological break from the monotony of the diet.

Your body will read the signal that this increase in calories, carbs and sugars is the new normal and will try to adapt.  As it tries to adapt it will work overtime.  When you resume your normal lower calorie/carb/sugar eating plan, it will still be in overtime mode and then have to adapt.

The metabolism is slightly reset which is why it is called a metabolic reset.  The weekly metabolic reset also gives you another way to gradually reduce calories, carbs and sugars.  Over time, the metabolic reset can be reduced from a crazy four-course pig out to just an extra bowl of oatmeal.

Keeping the metabolism from adjusting to a set point can also be applied daily by varying the gradual reduction in carbs.

For example, lets say a person is consistently eating 100 grams of carbs per day.  Instead of reducing it to eating 80 grams the next week, they could fluctuate the carbs they eat, gradually bringing to total down.  Here’s an example:

Sunday: 90 grams

Monday: 85 grams

Tuesday: 80 grams

Wednesday: 70 grams

Thursday: 75 grams

Friday: 70 grams

Saturday: 200 grams (metabolic reset)

Sunday: 90 grams

Monday: 80 grams

Tuesday: 70 grams

Wednesday: 75 grams

Thursday: 70 grams

Friday: 70 grams

Saturday: 180 grams (metabolic reset)

Sunday: 85 grams

Monday: 75 grams

Tuesday: 70 grams

Wednesday: 70 grams

Thursday: 65 grams

Friday: 65 grams

Saturday: 160 grams (metabolic reset)

In this example you see why knowing what you eat is very important, because minor gradual adjustments yield results over time.  Every week the total amount of carbs goes down, but it is done slowly, daily, to stay ahead of the metabolism.

Eventually though, even the ‘anti-diet’ reaches a point where a person just cannot practically go any lower on carbs and sugars.  This is usually around 30 grams of carbs a day.  When people eat less than 30 grams of carbs a day, they tend to get flaky and cranky and are unproductive in their work and family life.

If a person hits that point, and keeps eating that same diet, the body will adapt and they could start gaining fat again.  Yes, the metabolism destroys every diet.  But, it can be manipulated again with a longer metabolic reset.

The longer metabolic reset is pretty straight forward.  Have big Saturday pig out and start over again, with 50 to 100% more carbs than where you bottomed out.  Gradually reduce the carbs again over the course of weeks and repeat the cycle again and again and again.

So far we have discussed the physiological reasons why diets don’t work.  But the leading cause of why diets fail is the person.

People always bemoan how hard it is to eat right.  But the trick is not in the dieting, it is in the purchasing.  With the exception of self-sustaining farmer, gardeners, we tend to buy our food.  If you don’t buy sugary, carby foods, you can’t eat sugary carby foods.  Don’t buy sugary, carb laden foods at the grocery store and you can’t eat them at home.  Don’t order sugary, carb laden foods at a restaurant and you can’t eat them.

The only place left to overcome the temptation is the office, where people are always bringing sugary foods and social events.  Overcoming the temptation takes will power to make a decision.

Losing fat is a series of daily decisions, a dozen or more decisions each day.  There are lots of sugar pushers out there, but the decision is yours.  You are the one who decides whether or not to put the food in your mouth.

For a person trying to lose fat, the one meal at a time, one day at a time, one decision at a time works the same way.  You have to own the decisions.  You can eat the ice cream anytime you want, but you choose not to.  You could have a doughnut at work, but you choose not to.

“I think the one thing that people have realize is that small changes can lead to big results,” says Dr. Helen Smith, a Knoxville, TN psychologist and exercise enthusiast.  “A person should set goals having to do with action.”

Smith says it is better to break it down into individual actions.  Small steps, small daily decisions like eating a grilled chicken breast instead of a breaded, fried chicken breast, as noted above, can make a significant difference.

“It is better to break it down and then check off that you did it,” Smith says.

And if you slip once, do not let it snowball.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Don’t throw it all away.  A few hours later you will have another decision and try to get it right that time.

Diets don’t work because people make one mistake and decide to quit.  Diets don’t work because some people keep making the wrong decisions.

At this point some of you are thinking “it can’t be this straight forward.”  Yes, it is.  And that is another reason why diets don’t work.

For some reason people have become convinced that there is some secret, some trick, to losing fat.  There isn’t.

Nita has been helping people lose fat and get in shape for a decade.  She has helped working moms get washboard abs, single career girls get the body they have always wanted and middle aged men to get in better shape than they were in high school.

Many of them say the same thing, “I can’t believe it is so straight forward.”  They expected Nita, as a professional fitness athlete, to give them all kinds of secret tricks like a pill or potion.  But there is no secret.  They all do the ‘anti-diet’.

I encountered this not long ago.  A friend of mine wanted to do a bikini fitness contest and needed to lose body fat.  I put her on the anti-diet.  She didn’t believe it would work, so she went to a retired professional fitness competitor and asked what kind of diet she should do.

The retired competitor explained to her what to do.  It was the same as the ‘anti-diet’.

The ‘anti-diet’ is the secret trick used by bodybuilders and bikini fitness competitors to lose fat.

Now you too know the secret tricks and why diets don’t work.

The ‘anti-diet’ works for the working mom, the busy dad, the single career girl, college students, former jocks and even people who have always been heavy.  It works because it is adaptable to each individual, does not require drastic changes in lifestyle and prevents the body’s metabolism from adjusting.

Compared to most other diets and gimmicks, it really is a secret hiding in plain sight.

Professional football players, top ranked MMA fighters and Navy SEALs are not like you and me.  They are far superior to us in athletic abilities, durability and how quickly they can recover from exercise.  Training like them is a recipe for frustration and eventual failure but people try to all the time.

Why do the workouts of professional athletes fail for mere mortals?  Because the workouts of the pros are designed for their sport and--this is the key--they are a workout for that pro athlete not normal people like you and I.

If a workout is not customized for your genetic predispositions and your resolution you will not achieve your goals and likely quit in frustration.

In the first installment of this series Nita and I advised people to think about picking the right fitness resolution.  In the second article Nita said 80% of achieving your goals is in your head.  Finding and customizing a workout that is perfect for you and your goals is a matter of some simple math and logic.

Fit vs. Firm

“I want to be in shape, I want to be healthy, blah, blah, blah.  It gets so annoying that people cannot be honest,” said Lisa Krog, an elite personal trainer who specializes in training men and women physique athletes.

Too many people too often confuse being in shape with looking good.  A person can be very in-shape, in terms of how much and how hard they can exercise, resting heart rate, endurance but still look flabby and be over-fat.

This results in people joining a gym, getting a ’starter’ package with a trainer, telling the trainer they want to be ‘in-shape’ and doing an intense workout that improves their cardio-vascular conditioning and muscle endurance but has little to no effect on their appearance.

This situation can be cured with the trainer asking a few questions or a little self examination on the part of the resolutioneer (what do you really want?)

What is more pernicious is the large segment of resolutioneers who really want to look better and improve their appearance but won’t admit it.

“Self deception is why so many people fail.  They insist they are exercising for function, but what they really want is form and then they fail,” Lisa said.

Lisa Krog and her husband Glen run a high-end personal training gym in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Before opening their business Glen was in the South African military and Lisa was an accountant.  This has lead to a very focused, direct, quantifiable program for their clients.

It invariably works--but only if the client knows what they want, states it directly then works toward that goal.

“I’ve had clients complain that they weren’t losing any body fat and didn’t look any better.  I then go back to their goal statement and show them that nowhere, at no time, did they state a goal that involved lower body fat, or looking better in a bikini,” Lisa said.  “Then I have to ask them point blank:  Do you want to be ‘fit’ or look hot?”

The fit vs. firm body conundrum is one that baffles many novice exercisers.  It would seem that frequent bouts of intense exercise should lead to a fat loss and a better physique, but that is not true.

The reverse can also throw a person off--a firm body does not mean a person is actually very fit in terms of cardio vascular endurance.  This is especially true in people who are genetically predisposed to being lean and muscular.  People who are not so genetically blessed who have a lean muscular physique tend to be way above average in terms of fitness.

The idea of fit equating to firm is akin to the error of an average person doing the workout of a professional athlete or Navy SEAL.  Fit would logically seem to lead to firm, but Lisa says that very few people can change their physique with a workout geared toward cardio vascular conditioning.

“If you want to be fit, power walk or go jogging,” Lisa says, “if you want to be firm, lift weights.”  And be honest and open that your goal is to be firm and look better and actually think about what you want your workout to accomplish.

WHY SOME WORKOUTS NEVER WORK

Several times a year I find myself working out large corporate chain gyms.  I treat these as an opportunity to watch personal trainers.  Invariably I see overweight men and women being thrashed in the most bizarre ways imaginable by the corporate trainers.

Then, over in the free weight area, I see men and women doing conventional weight lifting.  There are also many who are slaving away on cardio machines.

Some of the weightlifters look good, some do not.  Some of the cardio crew look good, some do not.  Invariably there are more weightlifters than cardio types with firm bodies.  The poor souls getting thrashed by the trainers look the worst.

But what is more important is to understand that those who look good have found the workout that works for them.

A work out is not an end in and of itself, it is the means to the end.  To reach the end you want, the resolution to be achieved, you have to use the proper means--a workout that works specifically for you.  Not the workout of professional athlete, not something you saw in a magazine or on TV--you need to find the workout that is specifically for you.

Take a look at the bell curve below.

It is amazing how much of human physiology conforms to the standard distribution of the bell curve--in fact the curve was created to analyze human physical and biological traits like hypertrophy, the ability to increase muscle tone and size.

In the curve above each dot represents a person.  The ones on the left have less ability to increase muscle tone and size.  The ones on the far right are naturally muscular and can build muscle doing any workout.

The people in the middle though are not all the same, their ability to recover from a workout, for the muscle fibers to repair is a little less or more by degrees.

The standard advice given to novice exercisers falls somewhere in the middle and does not address the degrees of difference.  Your workout has to match where your genetic predispositions or it will not work.

The people on the right can do insane, long hard workouts thrashing their muscles because their bodies repair quickly.  If a person on the left or middle does that type of workout they will make very little progress.

Professional football players and Navy SEALS tend to be on the far right side of curve.

The people who are successful in getting a firm body have found the workout system that works for them through trial and error, dumb luck or they are on the right side of the curve.

The people who never make progress are doing a workout that does not match where they are in the bell curve--they are working out too much or too little or too often.

All workouts are good--but they only work if they match your genetic predisposition.  A workout plan that doesn’t work is any that does not match your genetics.  To find the workout plan that works for your genetics you need to understand what a workout plan is--just a means to and end--made up of three basic elements.

ELEMENTS OF A WORKOUT PLAN

When people resolve to begin exercising or achieve a specific fitness goal they err in thinking about workouts, the individual exercises and activities but rarely think about a workout plan.

I am constantly being asked “what exercises should I do?”  But the individual exercises, as long as a person is exercising every muscle group frequently, are not important.  (For a quick guide to muscle groups and correlating exercises, stop by fitnessdirectives.com.)

What is more important, for finding a finding the workout that works for you is understanding the three elements of a workout plan--Volume, Intensity and Frequency.

Volume is how many exercises, sets and repetitions you do.  Intensity is how hard you are working.  Frequency is how often you work a muscle group.

Volume and Intensity work together as it is the exercises themselves that cause micro-trauma to the muscle fibers.  The repair of the micro-trauma is what leads to muscle tone and increased muscle size.

More volume generally equals more micro-trauma.  Higher intensity also generally leads to more micro-trauma.  One set of an exercise with heavy weight, to maximum failure can lead to more micro trauma than several sets with a lighter weight that do not end in complete failure.

What do I mean by maximum failure?  I think it is easier to show than explain.

Three to five sets of biceps curls once a week with this level of intensity works well for me.  In our book Fit for Combat, Nita and I recommend people start out with only two sets once a week at that level of intensity.

As illustrated in the bell curve chart, everyone is a little different.  Some people get more results by doing less, some get more results from doing more.

After years of training competitive physique athletes Nita is has found that maximum failure training works best when the volume and frequency are dialed in.

Whenever you train with weights or machines you inflict micro-trauma on the muscles.  These are itty bitty little pulls and tears on the muscle.  Your body then repairs the micro-trauma making the muscle firmer and a little larger.  The fancy word for this is muscular hypertrophy.

The time it takes to repair is different for everyone.  Some people, like those on the right side of the curve, repair faster, some repair slower.  If you work the muscle before it is fully repaired, you could actually lose muscle tone and size!

People who make progress in the gym do so because they are in their hypertrophy zone.  Their workout plan has the volume and intensity that inflicts enough micro-trauma to stimulate muscle growth and tone and the right amount of frequency to repair properly.

Everyone’s optimal hypertrophy zone is a little different.  Some people do better with less micro-trauma and working the muscle more frequently.  Others get results with more micro-trauma and less frequent workouts.

When thinking about your workout plan, don’t just think about exercises think about volume, intensity and frequency.  Finding the right mix of the three is not very complex it only requires a little math, a few measuring tools and a few minutes ever two weeks.

FINDING YOUR HYPERTROPHY ZONE

The hypertrophy zone is the combination of volume, intensity and frequency in a workout plan that allows you overload a muscle, inflict some mirco-trauma and be repaired before the next time the muscle is worked.

If your muscles are not fully repaired before you work them again, you are over training.  If they are fully repaired then have to wait around a few days before they are worked again you are under training.

The simplest way to know whether or not you are in your hypertrophy zone is muscle strength.  If you are able to lift heavier weights in the gym you are probably on the right track.  But strength gains do not always correlate to appearance, they can be just like the fit versus firm conundrum.

A lot of a person’s strength has to do with myelin tissue, the sheath around nerves that allows for muscle memory.  The more you do a motion or action, the better your muscles become at firing in sequence.

You can get stronger but not be building any muscle tone or size.  People who are under or over training can also get stronger.

To find your hypertrophy zone you want to measure muscle.  To measure muscle accurately you have to control for a few variables like fat and bone.

The best way to gauge muscle mass is with a full body DXA scan combined with hydrostatic body fat testing and a gas exchange measure of metabolic rate.

Or, you can use a cloth tape measure, body fat calipers and the mathematical constant of pi.

With a pair of spring loaded body fat calipers, pinch the fat on the front of your bicep.  This will give you a measure of the fat thickness in millimeters.  Next, measure the circumference of your flexed bicep in millimeters.

For me, right now this is:

Fat thickness 2mm

Circumference 452mm

Divide the circumference by Pi (3.14) to get the diameter:  452/3.14=143.94mm

This is the diameter of your bicep.

Subtract the fat thickness which for me is 2mm:  143.94-2=141.94

I refer to this number as the Lean Tissue Diameter.

Now, we all know the bicep is not a circle, it is an odd oval or bean shaped on many people, but this measure, as rough as it is, can keep you on track to determine if you are in your hypertrophy zone.

The changes in lean tissue diameter are slow.  Do not expect immediate results.  But if your lean tissue diameter is decreasing, you are doing something wrong.  If it is increasing you are doing something right.

If it stays the same, you need to adjust the volume, intensity or frequency of your program slightly.  Flip a coin and either increase or decrease the volume or frequency or intensity.  Adjust only one of them so you can dial in on what works with precision.  If you adjust more than one, you will know it was the combination that failed or succeeded, which is fine, but the more precise the better the better the dialing in over the long-term.

The people who have successfully reshaped their bodies may not have used a precise system like this.  Many people, by dumb luck, find a workout that works for them.  And the genetically blessed--well, everything works for them.  For the rest of us, a systematic approach works best.

The best way to find the workout that works for you is to keep track of measures like lean tissue diameter and make minor adjustments to volume, intensity or frequency until you have dialed in on the workout program that is perfect for you to achieve your goals.

In the next installment of the series, Nita and I will explain why diets don’t work and how you can become a successful anti-dieter.