HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss Tip No.7– Exercise; Part 2

Despite all the elaborate charts that show that one particular exercise or class uses more calories than another, it’s all an overly simplified and irrelevant nonsense, fat loss has little to do with the calories used during the exercise session. The right exercise (see the previous tip) raises your metabolic rate not only while you are doing it, but also at a highly elevated rate up to 18 hours afterwards, and at a slightly lower, but still elevated rate for 48 hours. This is known as Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

Aerobic exercise stimulates only a transient and small rise in EPOC, whereas resistance training stimulates an enduring and substantial rise.

However, even if you do the right exercise, if it’s done in the evenings close to bedtime, the effect is dramatically reduced. Sleep causes your metabolic rate to drop like a sack of potatoes. If you do the wrong exercise, at the wrong time, as most people do, in respect to fat loss, it’s as much use as a chocolate teapot or a Toblerone toast rack.

To get the biggest fat loss effect from exercise, perform it in the mornings and the earlier the better.

‘Morning is when the wick is lit.  A flame ignited, the day delighted with heat and light, we start the fight for something more than before.’  ~Jeb Dickerson

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.4 - Eat Low Glycemic Carbohydrates.

I have shown in previous articles how carbohydrates are classified in terms of their capacity to raise blood sugar. 

For a lean body for life, stick to those with a low glycemic index. 

The most misguided mistake seen with the average dieter is the use of foods such as rice cakes or low fat cereals and cereal bars, akin to cardboard in my mind. Foods such as these generally have a glycemic index about the same as, or higher than, table sugar. They are all rapidly converted to sugar in the blood which usually causes insulin to go wild. 

The high level of insulin helps to turn the sugar into triglycerides which is stored as fat. The excess insulin is also converted into triglycerides, and also subsequently stored as fat. Add to this the fact that high levels of blood triglycerides cause temporary insulin resistance and promote the development of chronic insulin resistance which eventually leads on to diabetes.

It’s wise to heed the wisdom of Ben Franklin when he said ‘The honey is sweet but the bee has a sting.’

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.3 - Eat The Right Fats

The only fats you need are the essential fats linoleic acid (omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3). Essential fats in amounts that you need will not put on bodyfat, in fact quite the opposite. With the right fats, you’ll get leaner than ever, easier than ever.

Essential fats regulate or play a part in pretty much all of your of bodily processes, a number of which I’ve described in my articles. But suffice to say without essential fats in your diet, your body will never be in an optimal condition to function or stay lean for life.

Other than essential fats, try to limit the fat in your diet, especially hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and their progeny trans- fats which usually come via processed foods. Don’t become too meticulous here though, just simple things like trimming the excess fat off of cuts of meat. Aim to keep total fats to 15-20% of your daily intake of food, you’ll get more indirectly in your diet, from unseen sources.

To make sure your body is functioning properly don’t forget to ‘Grease the Groove’.

HPC-UK Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.2 - Stabilise Your Insulin

‘Dieting’, skipping meals, low/ no-fat foods, snacking on bars instead of eating, and the sundry other usual methods of the weight loss industry, all trigger a disruption in your insulin metabolism.

Simplified, all of the above methods destabilise your insulin. When you do eat, you get a big insulin burst. Insulin is a storage hormone. It causes your body to store everything. Not only do you store any extra food, but your liver converts all the excess insulin into triglycerides – fat, - and stores that too. So you can cut calories by skipping meals, yet still increase your bodyfat. Keeping a stable balance between the storage action of insulin and the catabolic action of its opposing hormone glucagon is crucial for being lean.

Aim for insulin stability and insulin efficiency. It’s the main way to affect your fat loss ability.

First, eat five to six small meals per day, each containing some low-glycemic carbohydrates, good quality protein and essential fats. HPC-UK clients are advised to eat every three or so hours using a schedule such as 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm, and 10 pm. They never suffer low blood sugar. Nor do they suffer insulin bursts. Their blood shows a stable balance between insulin and its catabolic partner, glucagon.

As the old saying goes ‘The continuous drip polishes the stone.’

Lies to Adults

One of the biggest barriers I have when discussing training and nutrition is that of Calories.

In fact, let’s start out differently by laying it on the line. Calories, at least in the common usage, are a myth. This (the Calorie concept) is principally used by the weight-loss industry to keep customers locked in to a vicious cycle that only serves the bottom line; profit.

If you want to achieve any appreciable result with your body, you need to discard the concept almost entirely. Interested? read on.

To understand how the Calorie myth became accepted ‘common knowledge’, we need to quickly take a look at the way it, and other ‘not quite right’ concepts, are perpetuated.

The (common) Calorie concept is what we call a ‘Lie to Children’. ‘Lies to Children’ also go by the name of a ‘Wittgenstein’s Ladder’. A ‘Lie to Children’ is a teaching tool that simplifies a complex concept to make it easier to access and understand. However, as the name ‘Wittgenstein’s Ladder’ implies it is then meant to lead on to another step. The following steps then reveal the ‘lie’ and provide more accurate explanations of the concept(s).

The problem is most people are given a ladder with only one step. Hence ‘Lies to Children’ easily become ‘Lies to Adults’.

So the fact that we are surrounded by adults that (through no fault of their own) believe in this distorted Calorie concept, the continual ignorant usage of Calories in popular media and the food industry, and the deceitful use of it in the weight loss industry, it’s no surprise that we are in this current state of confusion.

To help you see clearly, let’s dig a little deeper. Not too deep though, as it can be a pretty deep hole.

Calories are simply the measure of heat produced by the burning (combustion) of food in a fairly basic piece of equipment called a bomb calorimeter. Now here’s the problem, the instrument cannot distinguish whether a potato is being burnt, or poo. They both give off Calorific measurements, but do you think a poo would nourish as well as a potato? I’m not sure how many WW points a poo is worth? But if the request is made, I’ll work it out.

That’s only the first step. Foods in a bomb calorimeter are burnt. We are neither a bomb calorimeter, nor do we ‘burn’ anything. The human body and the way it processes energy is only vaguely associated with the concept of Calories. This disconnect is most easily demonstrated by hospitalised obese patients who despite being fed a Calorie controlled diet (usually 1,200 Calories per day) continue to gain fat. How is this possible, when common Caloric concept says that it is quite impossible? Well, since the indisputable evidence is clearly in front of your eyes, maybe it’s time you questioned the concept.

If the human body doesn’t burn (combust) fuel, how is it able to derive energy? Well, combustion is fairly crude and inefficient means of liberating stored energy, and Nature, being the mother of efficiency, gave us a much cleaner and effective system. This system is able to harness the amazing boundless force of the Universe; light.

Our body, processes food in a number of steps which eventually, via our mitochondria, extracts the light energy from food and transfers it to a chemical called Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (ATP).

ATP, and the Solar energy it contains, powers your life.

I’m going to curtail this article here, but will show in upcoming articles, how this (essentially) processing of nuclear power can be optimised, or as has happened due to the continual and misapplied emphasis on Calories, go very, very wrong.