Nutrition Myth: Coconut Oil is the Next Best Thing

Scrolling through my daily fitness news I came across several articles talking about the health benefits of Coconut Oil.  As a nutrition student this makes me cringe!  Just today I have read two articles claiming Coconut Oil is the next best thing since kale.  So why does this make me cringe?  The TRUTH about Coconut Oil is that it’s filled with saturated fat!  Yes, saturated fat is not good for you I don't care what you heard from the latest "guru".  Coconut Oil is in fact over 95% saturated FAT!  That is more saturated fat then BUTTER.  I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to use Coconut oil as a "healthy" substitution for cooking.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  The only reason I could see Coconut as being a healthy option is if you were stranded on an island and had to eat it because you were starving.  So please stick to canola oil or olive oil.  These two oils are the lowest in saturated fats by far.  Coconut oil on the other hand is dead last.  Always research a new health claim or food product before believing it....or just read my blog!  

Maxamize your Workout with your Heart

Heart rate training is the BEST way to have the BEST workout.  It is a simple device with complex interactions that gives you the ultimate result.  I don't work for a heart rate monitor company or do I get commissions off selling heart rate monitors, but as a personal trainer, I HIGHLY recommend them to all my clients for MAXINUM results.  How else would you know how to push yourself a little harder?  How else would you know to rest 30 seconds longer?  Without knowing what your heart rate is after each exercise you can’t. 

What heart rate monitor should I buy?  There are thousands of heart rate monitors on the Internet.  Just like any other product some are very high quality and some are very bad.  The company that makes the best heart rate monitors for a relatively economical price is Polar.  For a beginner, I would recommend their FT 7 heart rate monitor watch, which you can buy on Amazon for only 65$.  Here is the link FT 7 Polar. The FT 7 will give you your heart rate and how many calories you burn from each workout you track.  Some of the more expensive model will tell you which ZONE you are in and for the amount of time spent in each zone.  This is a very cool perk, but don't worry I am going to show you how to calculate this on your own using the FT 7 so you can save your money!  

How does a heart rate monitor work?  The monitor works by putting a strap around your chest that is going to pick up your heart rate with the device connected to the center of the strap.  MAKE SURE BEFORE YOU PUT THE STRAP ON YOU GET THE METAL BOLTS ON THE BLACK DEVICE WET OR ELSE IT WILL NOT PICK UP YOUR HEART RATE.  Once the strap picks up your heart rate it will send it to your watch and tell you what your heart rate is throughout your workout.  There is more detail on how to use the buttons on the watch that you can find in the instructions manual once you get your watch. 

How do you use your heart rate monitor?  Ok so this is the practical section of this article.  To use your monitor you first need to know what your heart rate max is.  This is a very simple calculation (220-AGE).  So for me my max is 220-24= 196.  Now that you know your max so you can figure out your training zones.  Zone 1 is 60-70% your max heart rate so for me it would be 196 x.6= 118 196x .7 137.  So when my watch is from 118-137 I am in zone 1.  Zone 1 you burn the most calories from fat but you also burn the least amount of calories.  It is the zone I like to use for recovery after going into zone 2 and 3 for a short period of time it is always good to come back down to zone 1 and the faster your heart rate comes back to zone 1 the better shape you are in.   Zone 2 is 70-80% and Zone 3 is 80%+.  So for me zone 2 would be anywhere from 137-157 and zone 3 would be 157+.  This is also easy to calculate, just take your max heart rate and times it by the percent of each zone like I did for zone 1 above.  Zone 3 you will be burning the most calories and really pushing your heart to the max.  It is good to only stay in zone 3 a couple minutes at the MOST at one time.  After an intense moment in zone 3 come back down to zone 1 to recover.  Training like this will not only burn 700+ calories per workout it will increase your aerobic capacity very fast and significantly.  If you are not doing zone training I suggest you buy a heart rate monitor and start today.  It literally is your own personal trainer.  If you are working out and can't get out of zone 1 it will push you to work out harder and it will also give you the appropriate amount of rest that otherwise would not be possible.  

MyFitnessPal:How Many Calories do you Eat????

One of the first questions I ask someone interested in either LOSING weight or GAINING weight is how many calories do you eat a day?  Almost 100% of the time the answer is "uh I don't know" or "I have no idea but I try to eat HEALTHY".  The latter is my favorite response because even if you’re eating "healthy" you can still gain weight by eating a surplus amount of calories. (E.g. 1,000 calories "salads")  That is one of the biggest problems in the food industry today- no matter where you go to eat healthy or not it’s going to be calorie packed unless you get the skinny portion.

I could go on and on with all the science behind it but you would probably flip to the next website because your head will be hurting.  

So to save time just think of this simple question: HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT KNOWING HOW MUCH YOU EAT?  This is where the app MyFitnessPal comes in.  (There are many other apps that count calories out there I just find this one the best and oh yeah its FREE)  If you have a Smartphone or a computer that downloads apps please download MyFitnessPal and start counting your calories today.  It will even have you break down the macro and micronutrients throughout your day as well (WHICH I FIND THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!).  This is a great first step and I would say CRITICAL step to losing or gaining weight or even MAINTAING weight.  

It is very simple to use and has almost every food you can think of either take out or dining on there, and if it's not you can simply make a new food item for that meal.  The app will calculate how many calories you should be consuming a day based of your activity, age, weight, height, and gender.  Keep in mind this is an ESTIMATE and may need correcting.  I hope you take this first step to a healthier you and start keeping track of your calories today!!! I am going to be posting my next article on HEART RATE MONITORS soon so check back in a couple of weeks !!!! Any questions please comment below!

LINK: http://www.myfitnesspal.com

"Fad" Diets Exposed

I am posting another video from Dr. Layne Norton or BioLayne.  In this video he explains how silly some of the "fad" diets out there really are.  He explains the paleo diet and how caveman were never really trying to get "jacked" or "shredded" but survive.  He goes in depth by looking at studies and the science behind some of the extremism's of the fitness industry.  This will really give you an open-minded view on some of the hottest topics in the fitness world today.  Please check out this video it is one of my favorites!
*Research over "gurus"! I think that should be Biolayne's motto if he has one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=34mViApQiyE

"Clean" Eating Vs. If It Fits Your Macros

Let me introduce you to Dr. Layne Norton, PhD Nutritional Sciences from University of Illinois, who is a natural bodybuilder and a firm believer of eating your macronutrients. (Carbohydrates, fat, and protein)  In a video log from his website he discusses popular 'guru' theories and debunks them with real science.  One of the “FADS” that has been floating around the web is this idea of "clean" eating.  In this video Dr. Norton discusses "clean" eating and his approach "If it fits Your Macros".  I really encourage anyone who is interested in getting results from all their hard work in and outside of the gym to watch this video.  Knowledge is power in almost any trade of life, especially so in the fitness world.  He has tons of great videos that are free to watch on his website.  If your into the real science of how things work and not popular 'guru' theories you will love his website.  

Warning: you might be shocked to learn some of the things taught to you were total BS!   

link: Dr. Layne Norton video on "clean" eating

Eat 5-6 Meals a Day for Results!

Everyone who is looking to lose weight gets approached with a million different diets.  Either they are suggested to them or they find them on the Internet.  A lot of these diets are "FAD" diets that are designed to lose weight quickly.  The problem with these diets is you lose weight the wrong way.  These diets do usually work because what they do is limit your calorie intake in some way.  Either lo-carb by decreasing your calories from carbohydrates, or from paleo diet, eliminating calories from grains. Because after all if you want to lose weight you need to limit your calories intake and increase your calorie outtake.  Which is true to the most basic sense.  There are other equations that you have to worry about if you want to maintain your weight loss.  The biggest variable is you Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR).  This is the biggest key to keeping weight lost.  "FAD" diets will typically destroy your RMR, which will then make it that much harder to keep the weight off.  The way to lose weight while keeping your RMR high is to lose it SLOWLY.  Ah!! I said it SLOWLY.  No one wants to lose weight slowly, in fact people would take a magic pill and lose weight in an hour if it existed.  That is why "FAD" diets are soooooo popular because they work quickly.  The only problem is if you want to keep the weight off and remain healthy for your life you have to do it slowly.  By doing it slowly you will not completely crash your RMR and you will maintain the calories you burn at rest.  So now that I got you convinced to lose weight slowly....which has been a key message from good health enthusiast (not gurus) for years.  I am going to discuss to importance of eating 5-6 meals a day.

Eating 5-6 meals a day keeps your RMR at a high level thorough the day.  When your body digests food its core temperature goes up because it needs to work to utilize the food for energy.  When you eat only 1-2 times a day, which is the average for an American, you don't raise your core temperature and you lower you RMR.  So if you want to burn the most calories while sitting on your butt, eat every three hours.  PLEASE don't try FAD diets.  Although they may have worked in the pass or you have heard of these great results from friends, see how they are doing now and if they have kept the weight off.  Usually the answer is NO.  

This is your insulin which goes up after you eat and your glucagon which goes down when you havent ate for a long time.  Fed and Fasted states.  This is similar to when you eat your RMR goes up and when you dont eat it goes down.

Artificial Sweetners a Mystery, better than sugar.

I found an article that concisely highlights the debate over artificail sweetners. Which ones are OK and which are risky to long term health.  The one conclusion is that while all of the research is inconclusive that the artificial swettners are deemed to be "safe" by the FDA and that all scientists agree that they are better than sugar when it comes to leading a healthy life.

Also, Aspartame is two amino acids with a methanol group.  It is not some dangerous "chemical" people make it out to be.  According to my medical nutrition textbook you would have to drink 25 2 liter diet soda's to experience side effects!!!!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/which-sweetener-should-you-choose/

ABS ABS ABS

That is the number one thing I hear from clients when they come to me.  "I want to get rid of the fat in my middle section."  To address this question I first have to address a couple different myths about FAT.  First myth is that you need to burn fat first to gain the muscle* Fat and muscle are two separate components to the human body.  If you lose all your fat you will look like a stick.  Just by losing fat by doing cardio for 60 minutes a day will gain you ZERO muscle.  You don't need to lose the fat first to start putting on muscle.  It's actually quite the opposite.  You need to gain muscle to help speed up your metabolism to lose the fat.  Losing just fat alone will actually slow down your metabolism and you will end up gaining back the fat, which is what you worked so hard to lose in the first place.  So please if you are trying to lose weight don't just do cardio to burn the fat first that couldn't be more wrong.  Second myth is that you can transform your fat into muscle.  This isn’t transformers.  That would be really nice if you could do that, but it is not true.  Gaining muscle comes from increasing your muscle cells not by transforming fat.

Back to ABS ABS ABS.  Your body doesn't simply take fat away from the area where there is the most fat.  It takes away fat throughout your entire body.  So in order to get those dream ABS and lose the middle section it is going to take A LOT of hard work.  This hard work consist of years of dieting with healthy high nutrient dense foods, and lots of exercise both lifting and cardio.  It is going to take time to get your total body fat percentage down in order to start seeing abs.  Ideally a male will see ABS around 8-12 percent body fat or lower, and a female from 12-18 percent or lower.  So next time you want to know how you get ABS and a "trainer" makes you do a thousand silly abdominal exercises PLEASE stop!  This is a waste of time.  Unless your body fat percentage is low you are not going to see anything.  You might even have the strongest abs on the planet, but if you eat like crap it doesn't matter how many sit-ups you do a day.  TO RECAP: the best way to get ABS is to eat healthy, lift weights, do high-intensity cardio (sprints) and low-intensity cardio (walking) and if you want to throw some ab exercises after your workout it won’t hurt.  All of the above will lower your total body fat percentage.  Make sure to measure you body fat percentage and see if it is decreasing every month by half to 1 percent.  This is a slow process so be patients and the only real way to see results is by HARD WORK.  

"The Paleo Way" (Menu from School Project)

Reference: "Everyday Paleo" by Sarah Fragoso Victory Belt Publishing Las Vegas

6,400 calories crazy right?

Before you read this post you must read http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/eat-to-burn-fat-and-calorie-loading-to-torch-body-fat.html article by Cory Gregory.  I found this article very interesting for a couple different reasons.  First off I have hard of calorie splurging before, but this one was different because of the foods Cory listed compared to foods I have seen from other sources.  Usually the high calorie day would consist of whatever you could get your hands on such as, high sugary snacks and "cheat meals".  Ok so heres the difference, in Cory's whopping 6,400 calorie day he was eating only eggs, cashews, beef, and cheese! That is it.  Albeit that comes out to being over 24 whole eggs in one single day!  Now this caught my eye because I have read books talking bout its not so much the calories you eat, but what you eat.  The article goes into talking about hormonal responses from food.  As we all know the more sugar and carbohydrates we eat the more we build up a insulin insensitivity, which can cause a rise in blood glucose levels.
Ok so what the hell am I saying???? Basically I am going to personally give something similar to this high calorie day from clean foods a try.  Clean I mean low sugar and carbohydrates.  I think Cory might be on to something.  He also talks about low-fat days as well, maybe to balance out all the fat from the calorie day?  I am going to post what I ate and how I felt from my personal experience with this later.  Until then folks :)

Exerising on an empty stomach not any better than a full stomach

I will put this in the Category of a "myth buster".  I recommend taking supplements prior to working out and so this is support for that recommendation. That said, I know many folks think that exercising on an empty stomach is good for weight loss. Turns out, through the data,to be a wrong assumption. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/does-exercising-on-an-empty-stomach-burn-more-fat/

8 Reasons to Sprint to Greater Success

Charles Poliquin 8 reasons why everyone should sprint

Chalres Poliquin's editorial staff highlights 8 reasons why everyone should "sprint".  The article notes that a sprint doesn't have to be moving at your fastest possible speed, but can be a high-intensity training using alternating components of very intense activity with rest periods.  If you only have a half hour or so to workout in the morning before workout using sprints will not only work best for a shorter time period, but will give you just as much if not greater benefits then long periods of lower-intensity exercise, such as jogging.  

Back to the science.  The first reason highlighted in this article is to lose fat.  A group of steady aerobic exercise and a group of 15 sprints for 30 seconds participated in a 1994 study.  The group who did the sprints lost 9 times more body fat!  You didn't read this wrong I said NINE times more body fat!  The article highlights a couple other studies that showed similar results as this one.  

Second reason highlighted was to build muscle.  If you have been reading some of my blogs you should already know the importance of muscle.  Muscle improves your resting metabolic rate, aka your metabolism, and improves insulin sensitivity among other things as well.  Another huge benefit for women is an increase in bone density, which greatly reduces after age 50. 

I am not going to go over the 6 other reasons because frankly the article linked above does an amazing job of doing so already.  I just want to stress the importance of SPRINTING.  Whenever I walk into the gym I see people walking on the treadmill, using the elliptical, doing the bike, jogging, and lifting.  It is only on a rare occasion that I see someone spiriting; in fact I hardly ever see it.  I am not sure why because sprinting not only shows better results, but also is shorter time duration to complete a full workout.  Maybe it is because the general population at the gym isn't educated enough to know the importance of sprinting?  Well then I hope this article will give you that knowledge to start a sprinting program in your gym today.  

Sample sprinting program for beginner

Make sure you warm-up for at least 5 minutes before your workout

Sprint (85%-95% effort) 20-30 yards 15 times rest 45-60 seconds in between 

Advanced sprinting programs (each one is a separate workout)  

Sprint 400 yards x 6 rest 2:00 minutes 

Sprint 200 yards x 12 rest 1:15 seconds 

Sprint 100 yards x  16 rest 45 seconds take a break after 8 for 2 minutes 

Sprint 50 yards x 30 rest 30 seconds take a break after 15 for 2 minutes 

5 Reasons to Take Fish Oil

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/964/Five_Reasons_Fish_Oil_Will_Make_You_Stronger_Leane.aspx

If you are not taking fish oil you need to read the above article by Charles Poliquin.  There are numerous ways fish oil can help benefit your life immediately.  Like building muscle, enhancing body composition, losing body fat, and improving insulin sensitivity and metabolism.  For me fish oil has helped raise my HDL levels and lower my LDL levels.  (HDL the good cholesterol and LDL the bad)  Although I don't know this to be 100% true it is a good theory because I started taking fish oil pills that I got prescribed by my doctor (2-4 grams a day) and I didn't change any of my life patterns from eating to exercising.  I took my yearly blood tests and my cholesterol levels improved greatly.  The first thing I thought was it had to of been the fish oil because I couldn't think of anything else I have changed.  Fish oil is composed of omega-3 fatty acids, which Americans are greatly depleted in.  Unless you are eating a ton of fish (something I don’t do) you will not be able to get your omega-3 fatty acids because your body cannot make them.  If you are not taking fish oil I strongly encourage you to do so it will not only make you healthier, but it will give you more energy throughout the day to do the things you love doing!  

High Protein Breakfast Rules All!

More and more research is coming out that a high protein breakfast is key to weight loss.  A study from the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, took 20 overweight or obese subjects and had them eat three different breakfasts, either skipping breakfast (like 60% of most americans), eating 35 g protein breakfast, and a normal breakfast.  The high protein breakfast led to increased fullness and reductions in brain activity that is associated with food cravings.  Also, the high-protein breakfast reduced high-fat and high-sugar foods consumed later that evening.  If you are one of the many people who skip breakfast in the morning try and eat breakfast for at least three days in a row because most habits take that long to develop and get use to.  I am also posting the reference to Charles Poliquin's meat and nut breakfast which has gotten very high prasises from NFL athletes to the average joe.  I myself eat a high protein breakfast every morning and I find that it helps curb my appetite, keeps me energized throughout the day, and makes me crave "junk food" a whole lot less.  It is also the first meal of the day so you want to start out with the best meal for your body that you can to set yourself up for success.

Study found from: 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326151127.htm

Meat and Nut breakfast:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/270/The_Meat_and_Nut_Breakfast