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Get More Fiber
You don’t
have to eat a bag of Grandma’s prunes. Leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, and
beans are all good for keeping away the fat that stays deep in your belly.
That’s called visceral fat, and it’s the most dangerous kind because it can
wrap around major organs, including your liver, pancreas, and kidneys.
Forget These Two Things
There are
no “super foods” that burn off visceral fat. And you can’t tone it away with
specific moves like crunches. Instead, look for ways to upgrade your eating
habits and add activity every day. Think about your average week. Where might
you be able to make some changes?
The Best Thing You Can Do
While
anyone can have too much visceral fat ( the deadly fat), it’s more likely if
you’ve got a lot of weight to lose. As you start to take those pounds off, it
will help your whole body, including belly fat that’s hidden out of your sight.
Be Choosy About Fat
You can
still have some! But limit the “saturated” kind that’s in animal foods, coconut
and palm oils, and full-fat dairy. Keep the portions of those foods smaller
than you might normally do, for instance. And check nutrition labels to see how many calories and how much fat is in
a serving. Look for fats that are better for you, too, like those from plant
foods or fish such as salmon, tuna, and mackerel that are rich in omega-3s.
Stop Trying to Outrun It
Still
trying to “burn off” that belly fat by pounding the pavement for hour upon
hour? You cannot out train a bad diet. Research shows that a few quick bursts
of high-intensity exercise -- such as a 30-second sprint or intense pullup set
-- may be more effective, and easier to fit into your schedule. You can add
bursts of higher intensity to any workout. Just speed up or work harder for a
brief time, then drop back to a more mellow pace, and repeat.
Sleep: the Goldilocks Formula
When it
comes to weight gain, shut-eye is a bit like porridge: Too little -- less than
5 hours -- may mean more belly fat. But too much -- more than 8 hours -- can do
that, too. “Just right” seems to be around 6-8 hours. If you don’t sleep that
much now, or if you tend to toss and turn, try to go to bed a little earlier,
relax before bedtime, keep your bedroom cool, and try not to text and email
right before you turn in.
Forget a ‘Quick Fix’
Sorry, but
cosmetic surgery isn’t the solution here. Liposuction doesn’t reach inside the
abdominal wall. So it can’t get rid of visceral belly fat( the deadly fat).
Likewise, crash diets aren’t the solution, either. You’re too likely to go off
them. The slower, steadier option -- lifestyle changes that you can commit to
for a long time -- really is the best bet.
Keep Calm
Are you
stressed out? That can make you eat more fat and sugar, and unleash the “stress
hormone” cortisol, which can boost belly fat. Stress also can make you sleep
less, exercise less, and drink more alcohol -- which can add belly fat, too.
It’s a great reason to take up meditation, work out, listen to music you love,
or find other healthy ways to unwind and relax.
Rethink Your Drink
Whether
it’s a latte, a regular soda, a mug of beer, or a glass of wine, it’s got
calories. And when you’re trying to unwind the numbers on the scale, water (or
a smaller glass of your favorite beverage) might be a better choice. If you
drink alcohol, remember that it just might make you throw your willpower out
the window when you order your meal, too. Try to drink a litre of water daily.
Don’t Smoke
As if you
need another reason to quit. Smoking makes you more likely to store fat in your
belly, rather than your hips and thighs. And that’s bad. Oh, and it’s also a
cause of diabetes. And cancer. And heart disease. And lung disease. And … you
get the idea. If you’ve tried before, try again. Tell your doctor, so you can
get pointers on what might help you quit for good.
Don’t Rely on Clothing Sizes
One
company’s size 14 could be another’s size 12. A better method is to measure
your waist. If you’re a woman, you want that number to be 35 inches or less.
Men get up to 40 inches. The reason? You may lower your chance of having a
heart attack, a stroke, or possibly certain types of cancer. A tape measure
can’t check on visceral fat. But along with the scale, it can help you track
your weight loss.
Lift Weights
Think
about hitting the gym instead of the trail. In one study, healthy middle-aged
men who did 20 minutes of daily weight training gained less abdominal fat than
men who spent the same time doing aerobic exercises, such as biking. Strength
training is also good for women -- and it won’t make you bulky. You still need to do some cardio, but make
sure strength training is in the mix.
H A B I T S
“Habits are like cobwebs at first, cables at last” — Proverb
With the New Year come and gone, I thought I’d explore the
relationship between our habits and the outcomes we experience in training and
in life. The concept of “New Year’s resolutions” has always been interesting to
me, primarily because so few people manage to keep them. Since the conventional
route rarely works, let’s explore a less conventional approach...
What Are Habits?
Habits are consistent patterns that reveal our character and
determine our effectiveness in life. Steven Covey describes habits as “the
intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.” In Covey’s representation,
knowledge represents the paradigm we apply to a situation, or the “how to do.
“Skill is the “how to do,” and desire is the motivation or the “want to do.”
Benefits & Costs
Anthony Robbins has suggested that we do not change “bad”
habits until the negative consequences of those habits begin to outweigh the
perceived benefits. For example, you might find yourself in the habit of eating
a pint of ice cream every night before going to bed. You enjoy the experience
of eating that ice cream, and, at least for the short term, that enjoyment
greatly outweighs the negative outcomes of your habit, since it takes time for
those extra calories to cause weight gain. After several weeks however, it
becomes evident that your ice cream habit has caused you to gain15 pounds. At
this point, the negative outcome of the habit is quite tangible, and because
you have been eating that ice cream every day for weeks, you don’t get the same
enjoyment from it that you used to. Because the negatives are now outweighing
the positives, you’re now much more likely to change your ice cream habit.
Changing Unproductive
Habits
Knowledge .In some cases, we are unaware of the negative
consequences of our habits. For example, excessive intake of processed
carbohydrates can promote inflammatory responses in the joints. You may assume
that your painful joints are simply part of life, or the outcome of old
athletic injuries. It isn’t until you reduce your intake of processed carbs
that you realize the negative consequences of your former habit. On a similar
note, we often do not realize the benefits of our good habits until we discontinue
them for a period of time. We commonly assume that it takes discipline to
change bad habits. It’s interesting to note that the word “discipline” evolved
from the root word “disciple” which means “one who learns.” And in fact, when
you encounter a highly disciplined person, you’re not looking at someone who
gets his/her kicks from self-denial, but instead, someone who has learned that
the negative outcomes of certain behaviours is not worth the benefits
associated with them. It really comes down to self-awareness.
Skill
The skills required to change undesirable habits can be
learned by anyone and are widely available to those who seek it. The primary
skill involved is the simply decision to take action. I recently saw a great sketch
on a television show, where Bob Newhart played a psychologist who billed
himself as being able to cure anyone’s problems in 5 minutes. A female patient
comes in whereupon he asks “How may I help you?” She proceeds to explain that
she has a terrible eating disorder where sheets copious amounts of food, only
to purge the meal shortly thereafter. “Is that all?” Newhart asks? “No” she
replies, and begins to describe her terrible drug and alcohol problems. “Anything
else? “Newhart inquires. “Yes,” the patient continued, explaining that she also
has Obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and can’t manage to leave her house
without making sure that the stove if off dozens of times.
Finally, the patient had fully detailed her numerous
psychological problems. Newhart reflects for a
Moment, and then simply says “OK, here’s what you need to
do: STOP IT!”
“Huh?”
“STOP IT!”
“But...”
“Just STOP IT!”
“I also pull my eyelashes out”
“Stop that too”
Substitution
Unfortunately, simply stopping your bad habits, in and of
itself, is an insufficient strategy. A much more effective plan is to
substitute a new, more productive habit in place of the one you’ve decided to
end. For example: Sitting in front of the television at night is the enemy of
good eating habits. You’re being bombarded with tremendously effective food
commercials, and you’re in close proximity to the fridge. If you find that
you’re most vulnerable to making poor eating choices at night, this could be the
reason why. If you can terminate the night-time TV habit and substitute it with
(for example), a bike ride, a lot of good things start to happen:
1. You’re away from the pervasive food commercials and the
access to the fridge
2. You’re burning calories while you exercise
3. Exercise tends to blunt your appetite
4. When you exercise, you’re more likely to eat right, as a
way of further leveraging the good effects of the exercise
Motivation
The motivation required to change bad habits comes from the
realization that the benefits you experience from your habits are not worth the
negative outcomes of those habits. The following is an exercise to help you
become more aware of the benefit/cost ratio of your habits.
Spend a few minutes on this exercise right now:
My 3 most effective/empowering training/nutritional habits
are:
1.
2.
3.
My 3 most destructive training/nutritional habits are:
1.
2.
3.
Now take a moment to identify the benefits or rewards you
experience from each habit, and also the negative outcomes (if any) of each
habit.
Example: Under the effective habit list, you may have listed
that you eat 5 times a day (as opposed to 2 or 3). The benefits of this habit
are that your energy levels are more stable, your cravings for sugary foods has
diminished, you can eat more without gaining weight, and that your body
composition has improved. The negative aspects of this habit are that itis
occasionally inconvenient to eat so often, and that you need to give more
thought to meal preparation than you used to. Are the benefits worth the cost?
Momentum
The nice thing about establishing new habits is that most of
the hard work takes place in the first3-4 weeks...after that initial period of
time, the amount of effort required to sustain the new habit diminishes considerably.
The bottom line is that whatever strategy you choose to change undesirable
habits, at some point, you simply need to take action; you need to interrupt
the pattern. You might find it helpful to recall a positive experience from
your past as you managed to stop a bad habit. How did you do it?
Was it worth the effort? Was it really as hard as you had
anticipated?
The great
physicist and one of my personal heroes Albert Einstein once remarked "The
measure of intelligence is the ability to change".
What he meant was that being able to
adapt to your situation and changing surroundings is a key part of
intelligence. Resisting change is futile because life is always changing and
this ability to adapt largely explains why the human race has made it this far
as we have. The ability to constantly
change and improve how you train and compete is also a key requirement in
sport, and with 2018 dawning, Einstein's quote got me thinking about the
changes I made last year to my training, lifestyle and nutrition Did I simply plough on regardless or did I -
on the basis of new scientific evidence - change my approach for the better?
As a
Professional Personal Trainer and founder of LA Success Fitness Training, I am
very fortunate. I get to read about the very latest scientific findings from
the world of nutrition and performance and how to practically apply this knowledge
to boost performance and help my clients reach their goals efficiently and
safely. And yes, thanks to this
knowledge, I was able to make positive changees.
In 2017
alone, some of the key findings that we reported on and which helped me
personally included:
What still doesn't work and what still does.
Specific resistance exercises that can cause you serious harm
Improved
swimming performance thanks to new findings on hand positioning during
freestyle and optimum breathing patterns to develop a smooth stroke and
increase endurance.
Better
pacing strategies during run events and the role of the mind in executing them.
A
new approach to strength training that enhance endurance while being quick to
perform and easy to integrate into an endurance programme.
How
to use hot-weather training as a substitute for altitude training in order to
boost endurance.
Why
the traditional approach to carbohydrate nutrition (i.e. plenty at all times)
might not work for endurance athletes seeking the fastest race times rather
than just good training times!
How
to use new theories on muscle and tendon function to maximise running
efficiency while minimising effort.
The
hazards of high volume endurance training to long-term bone health, and how
athletes can make dietary changes to keep themselves in tip-top condition
·
How
to utilise resistance training more effectively to enhance fat loss and
increase muscle tone
These
findings are just a few from dozens and dozens of published articles and
papers I researched during 2017. Importantly, all articles and paers are based on peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
Not "my mate reckons this" or
"I read somewhere that" but based on recent science and our
best understanding of the truth at current time.
Looking Forward !
Applying
these findings doesn't make me especially intelligent - the credit lies with
the scientists who diligently carry out this research so that we can all
benefit. But I am a firm believer in the old adage: "If you do what you've
always done, you'll get what you've always had".
The good
news is that if you're someone who strives to be the best you can be, you too
can reach new heights in 2018.
Here at LA
Success Fitness Training my goal is to continue to provide my clients with the latest thinking and best practice to
get ahead of the pack. And in the year ahead, I will be there for you every
step of the way. You don't have to be Einstein to see what the potential
benefits could be! Let me help you separate the training myths from the science
based facts
Training prepares
you, Education sustains you !
Eric Hartzell
LA Success
Fitness Training
MNSCA CIIS MACSM
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