Mark’s Daily Apple

More Chronic Cardio Talk26

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This guy can’t be stopped!

A few weeks back my Chronic Cardio post got a lot of response and initiated some great discussion. Since it’s one of the cornerstones of the Primal Blueprint philosophy (and an obviously popular one at that), I thought it was worth more time and tender loving attention.

And why wouldn’t anyone want to hear that real exercise doesn’t mean endless hours on that torturously boring treadmill? News like this is like sunlight bursting in, choirs of children singing, shackles collapsing open and crashing to the ground. Hordes of celebratory folk parade through the gym, penny whistles and fiddles playing, ale mugs in hand, goats and cows in the merry mix. Get off that treadmill and join us, for the love!

Truly, how many people give you great news like this on a random Tuesday– permission to leave the life of chronic cardio for the promise of less time, more muscle, better health? Of course, I’m certainly not advocating giving up all training – just that certain problematic, unnecessary type. I’d encourage you to reread all of the discussion and great comments offered up. Here’s a sampling of my contribution to that post conversation.

It all comes down to this: fat loss depends 80% on what and how you eat. Retrain your energy systems to burn fat and not glucose. Cutting out all simple carbs is the key. It’s about insulin management. If you can readjust the diet to encourage the body to burn fats, you won’t need to replenish lost glycogen every day. You’ll always burn fats and you’ll always have energy. The low level aerobic stuff becomes “filler”…so you only do it if it’s fun, like a hike or walk with friends or golf or mountain biking. The real muscle growth will come from the short anaerobic bursts like sprints, intervals or weight-training. I’ll do a piece on this later, but check out my friends at http://www.crossfit.com . They get more done in 20-30 minutes than most of the gym rats doing 90 minute weight sessions. And because it’s a “circuit training” concept, they get plenty of heart-training (cardio) as well. And growth hormone release and insulin sensitivity, and….you get the point.

In our cardio addicted culture, it can sound too good – too simple – to be true. But the science and the research is there, folks. Short “interval� exercise, like sprints or strength training, can offer the same fitness benefits (and then some) compared with traditional endurance training. Take this study via Science Daily via McMaster University. In the context of six training sessions during a two week study period, half of the college aged subjects did 90-120 minutes per session of a continuous moderate-intensity cycling routine while the other half did between four and six 30-second intensive cycling bursts. At the end of the two week study period, the endurance cycling subjects had each invested 10.5 hours. The intensive interval subjects had invested just 2.5 hours. Yet, the improvements in fitness performance and muscle parameters were the same.

Interested in hearing more?

A study (PDF) from the University of New South Wales followed the fitness and body composition changes in 45 overweight women in a 15-week period. The women were divided into two groups and assigned interval or continuous cycling routines. The interval “sprint� cycling group performed twenty minutes of exercise, which repeated eight seconds of “all out� cycling and then twelve seconds of light exercise. The continuous group exercised for 40 minutes at a consistent rate. At the end of the study, the women in the interval group had lost three times the body fat as the women in the continuous exercise group. (An interesting note: the interval group’s loss in body fat came mostly from the legs and buttocks area.)

The study’s organizers, in their presentations to the Heart Foundation and American College of Sports Medicine, discussed the role of sprinting in metabolic response. Intense interval training, they said, results in higher levels of catecholamines, a compound related to fat oxidation.

More yet?

Another collaborative study organized by universities and health institutes in Denmark and Japan highlighted the same distinction in fat oxidation between prolonged, continuous exercise and shorter, intense interval routines. In addition to additional fat oxidation, the study’s results linked interval exercise with lower plasma glucose, increased epinephrine response, lower insulin concentration and increased fat oxidation during the recovery period.

Don’t you just love this stuff?? Folks, this is ground breaking stuff. Now I just scratch my head at why we keep running ourselves ragged? The message is out there, but it’s not reaching people.

We’d love to hear your experiences with interval training as well as your questions/impressions of this less prescribed (but highly effective) approach. Thanks for reading!

Abraaj, Kazze, Rosh PR, Atari, Gracinha & Marco Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

A Case Against Cardio

CrossFit: Your New Workout Routine

Interactive Health: High Intensity Interval Training

Sponsor note:
This post was brought to you by the Damage Control Master Formula, independently proven as the most comprehensive high-potency antioxidant multivitamin available anywhere. With the highest antioxidant per dollar value and a complete anti-aging, stress, and cognition profile, the Master Formula is truly the only multivitamin supplement you will ever need. Toss out the drawers full of dozens of different supplements with questionable potency and efficacy and experience the proven Damage Control difference!

Technorati Tags: interval training, anaerobic, aerobic, chronic cardio, Primal Blueprint, CrossFit

Posted: Fitness, Health, Men's Health, Personal Improvement, Primal Health, Sisson Said What?, Weight loss, Women's Health

Magnificent Muscle2

Smart Cat

A research study out this week indicates type II muscle mass associated with strength training not only helps reduce body fat but alters overall metabolism.

Researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated that in mice, the use of barbells may be as important to losing weight and improving health as the use of running shoes. The discovery builds upon the fact that skeletal muscle consists of two types of fibers. Endurance training such as running increases the amount of type I muscle fibers, while resistance training such as weightlifting increases type II muscle fibers. Using a mouse genetic model, BUSM researchers demonstrated that an increase in type II muscle mass can reduce body fat which in turn reduces overall body mass and improves metabolic parameters such as insulin resistance. These studies indicate that weight bearing exercise, in addition to endurance training, may benefit overweight people.

via Science Daily

Researchers engineered a genetic “switch” in the mice that caused them to grow type II muscle fibers. The muscle mice, when compared with their regular cohorts, were stronger and faster but lacked the endurance of the regular mice. With the muscle building gene deactivated, the mice were then fed a high sugar and high fat diet. Not surprisingly, the mice became obese and developed insulin resistance. When the gene was reactivated and the same diet continued, the mice lost body fat and demonstrated better metabolic function as they gained muscle fiber. The researchers connected the ability of the mice to lose fat with “changes in the physiology and gene expression of their fat and liver cells.” They also noted the suggestion that type II muscle fiber “orchestrates changes in the body through its ability to communicate with…other tissues.”

Crazy picture of mice (or cats for that matter) and barbells aside, we love it when these types of studies hit the news sites. We’ve been hashing out several of these points over the last few weeks: the role of strength training in optimum fitness, the relationship between muscle mass and organ reserve, and the impact of lifestyle on both disease risk and gene expression. How do you like that for serendipity?

The study underscores the importance of resistance training for overall health and particularly emphasizes strength in relation to the aging, which primarily depletes type II muscle fibers. Too many people assume that aging and disease go hand in hand. This study, in addition to many others, indicates once again that our choices can significantly influence our health in later years. Commentators for Cell Metabolism, the journal that published the study results, suggest that efforts to build muscle mass can serve as “critical weapons in the fight against obesity and obesity-related comorbidities including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and cancer.”

A quick curmudgeonly aside: don’t you wish summaries of these studies received as much air time as Big Pharma ads? We just need to add some light hearted music, fun graphics or picturesque settings, and a few attractive people. Any volunteers?

In all seriousness, consider the news a little extra motivation to hit the weight room this week. And be sure to check out what Mark and several of our readers suggested yesterday about the role of recovery in weight training.

Rooey202 Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

Anaerobic Exercise HGH Link

Skinny Doesn’t Equal Fit

LA Times: Extreme Muscle Soreness a Warning

Sponsor note:
This post was brought to you by the Damage Control Master Formula, independently proven as the most comprehensive high-potency antioxidant multivitamin available anywhere. With the highest antioxidant per dollar value and a complete anti-aging, stress, and cognition profile, the Master Formula is truly the only multivitamin supplement you will ever need. Toss out the drawers full of dozens of different supplements with questionable potency and efficacy and experience the proven Damage Control difference!

Technorati Tags: strength training, weightlifting, muscle, gene expression, resistance

Posted: Aging, Fitness, Health, Weight loss

Law Would Prohibit Restaurants from Serving Obese Patrons4

Denied

Last week, the Mississippi legislature introduced a controversial bill that would have prohibited eateries from serving food to “any person who is obese based on criteria prescribed by the state health department.”

Under the bill, which was struck down before even making it to the House, the responsibility of denying larger customers would have fallen squarely on the shoulders of restaurant wait staff, with the state health department charged with monitoring compliance and revoking permits to those eateries that failed to comply.

Seem unreasonable? Well, that was kind of the idea! Supported by Republican Rep. John Read and W. T. Mayhall, Jr, the bill was never really expected to pass and was instead proposed to “shed a little light on the number one health problem in Mississippi.” Mississippi, you see, leads the nation in obesity, with 30% of the state’s adult population classified as obese, according to a 2007 study by the Washington, DC-based research group Trust for America’s Health.

And debate it did stir! After news broke of the controversial proposal, people - both thin and fat alike - turned out in droves to protest what they perceived to be a violation of their civil rights! Members of the Coalition of Fat Rights Activists blasted the bill for being discriminatory against larger people, calling the measure an “extension [of] our country’s uneasy relationship with fat people.” Restaurant owners, meanwhile, were up in arms, but even consumer advocacy groups got in on the act, with a senior research analyst at The Center for Consumer Freedom calling the bill “the latest example of food cops run amok”

What was perhaps most disconcerting, however, is that even physicians agreed that the bill was preposterous! But wait, it’s not all bad, because the guys in the white coats did have a point. Their concern rested mainly on the fact that simply denying overweight people access to the foods that, one could argue, could lead to their demise, wasn’t actually going to prevent them from eating it. We’ve all seen the Burger King Whopper commercials - denying people food leads to nothing but ill will towards the restaurant (and let’s not forget, those poor waiters and waitresses too!)

Indeed, critics of the bill agree, the state’s obesity problem is not likely to be fixed by denying hungry people the foods they crave. They argue that what the state needs is programs directed at the core of the problem….but failed to say what the core of the problem was or propose strategies to address them!

In our minds, the solution is relatively simple: Rather than a whopper or Big Mac, Americans should be craving information on nutrition. Public health programs should focus on educating consumers - be it through more informative food packaging, supermarket campaigns or even community education classes - about the benefits of “clean” eating and simple strategies and tips that they can use to guide their food choices.

Or would this just be another example of a “you can lead a horse to water” type of situation? Would the nutrition information fall on deaf ears and not deter the people who need it most from eating the type of food their body’s need?

via Scientific American

vasta Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

Weight of the Evidence: PETA Weighs in with an Equally Crazy Idea

Technorati Tags: overweight, obese, Mississippi, legislation, restaurants

Posted: Weight loss, Worker Bees' Weekly Bites

Diet Soda Might Increase Risk of Metabolic Syndrome4

Sure, they may look innocent…

A study in the Jan. 22 edition of Circulation suggests that drinking diet soda may increase your chance of developing metabolic syndrome.

To evaluate the link between nutrition and metabolic syndrome, researchers from the University of Minnesota analyzed the daily diets of more than 9,514 men and women between the ages of 45 and 64 enrolled in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study.

After following the health of these individuals for nine years, there were 3,782 reports of metabolic syndrome, a condition diagnosed by physicians based on the presence of several risk factors thought to increase an individual’s risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke such as abdominal adiposity, elevated blood pressure, high blood triglyceride levels, unhealthy cholesterol levels and elevated blood sugar.

According to the researchers, a “Western” diet rich in refined grains, fried food and red-meat was associated with an 18% increased risk of metabolic syndrome. Ok, fine. We’ve been shouting it from the rooftops that a diet rich in grains should, under no circumstances, be considered a healthy diet (and don’t even get us started on the USDA food pyramid - 6-11 servings of grain per day? Are they kidding??)

However, what is sort of surprising was the finding that drinking diet soda was associated with a 34% higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Calling the link between diet soda and increased metabolic syndrome risk “interesting,” a co-author of the study says that the association warrants more research. She hypothesizes that it could be due to a chemical additive in the soda (and we here at Mark’s Daily Apple have long said that if you can’t say it, you probably shouldn’t be consuming it!), but also suggests that it may be due to “something about the behavior of diet soda drinkers.”

Previous research has suggested that some diet soda drinkers actually eat more because they feel like they are “saving” calories by opting for a diet drink instead of a full-sugar beverage (you know the sorts, the ones who supersize their fast food meal but go for a diet Coke because they’re cutting back!) but surely, that can’t be the case for everyone?

The real lesson here? Just because diet soda is marketed as a healthier alternative to its sugar-laden regular soda peers, doesn’t necessarily mean it is good for you. In fact, if you’re judging food based on the amount of nutrients it provides, diet soda should never even factor in as something that should be included in your diet! But you all know that already…

via New York Times

Roadsidepicture Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

Poor People and Obesity

HealthBolt: Now Diet Soda is Bad for You Too?!?

SugarShock: Can Diet Soda Make You Fat?

Technorati Tags: diet soda, Western diet, obesity, fat, overweight, metabolic syndrome

Posted: Diet, Health, Nutrition, Weight loss, Worker Bees' Weekly Bites

Weight Gained During Exercise Hiatus Tough to Lose, Study Finds14

Don’t miss a step.

Yesterday, Mark, in the comment section of Dear Mark: Chronic Cardio, said “It all comes down to this: fat loss depends 80% on what and how you eat.” As part of the Primal Blueprint the most important aspect of weight management is your diet - what you consume. But we are still left with the other 20%, and it shouldn’t go overlooked. Here is a prime example of what happens if you neglect physical activity.

A study in this month’s Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise suggests that fitness enthusiasts that abruptly halt their exercise plans not only gain more weight, but also have a harder time taking it off once exercise resumes.

Using data collected from the National Runners’ Health Study, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory compared the weight fluctuations of 17,280 men and 5,970 women who decreased their running distance with 4,632 men and 1,953 women who increased their running distance over a roughly seven year period.

Among the male participants running 20 or more miles per week and females running 10 miles or more per week, the pounds gained when distance was decreased was equal to the pounds lost when distance was increased. The researchers also noted that for these individuals, the weight gain associated with an exercise hiatus was generally easy to reverse once exercise was resumed.

However, among those that ran less, the weight gain associated with an interruption in exercise was far harder to take off. Specifically, runners who decreased their mileage from five to zero miles per week gained about four times as much weight as those who decreased their mileage from 25 to 20 miles per week. In addition, when exercise resumed, weight loss didn’t occur until mileage exceeded 20 miles per week in men and 10 miles per week in women.

Commenting on these findings, study author Paul Williams noted that “at lower mileages, there is asymmetric weight gain and loss from increasing and decreasing exercise, leading to an expected weight gain from an exercise hiatus.” However, he notes that “if you stop exercising, you don’t get to resume where you left off if you want to lose weight.”

He notes that the findings underscore the importance of avoiding irregular exercise patterns and suggests that future public health strategies focus on “getting people to exercise before they think they need it, and to stick with it,” adding that this study proves that an “ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure.”

Note that even the group involved in extended periods of running every week were better off than those doing none at all. We’re not advocating high-mileage running here, but this study highlights the importance of some level of consistent physical activity to effectively manage body weight.

I’d like to know what they were eating, too. If the diet was high in carbs (in order to replace the carbs burned during running) and they kept the high carb diet when not exercising, it makes sense that muscle would be lost, fat gained and the net impact would be a metabolic setback, making it harder to lose the newly stored fat.

So tell us, what are your tips for staying active year-round and what do you do to stop yourself falling off the fitness wagon?

via Science Daily

Peter Emmett Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

10 Ways to Stay Active During the Cold Winter Months

Mr. Sun Gives You Vitamin D

diet blog: Walking Off the Pounds Just Got Harder

Technorati Tags: weight gain, weight loss

Posted: Fitness, Health, Weight loss, Worker Bees' Weekly Bites