I’m liking this show right now, and I’ll tell you why.

In a society where pills, surgery, and other shortcuts seem to be the norm,  the show’s trainers (Bob and Jillian) emphasize a good diet and hard exercise. And they work their victims to the bone too.

On top of that, they use real exercises for strength training. I don’t think I’ve seen them doing concentration curls or tricep extensions.  They do squats, deadlifts, thrusters, etc.

This season I think I’ve seen kettlebells in each episode. They have also used battling ropes, and the other night they had Danny whacking the tractor tire with a sledgehammer – followed by some tire-flipping.

Plus, call me a softie, but I like seeing people who have struggled with their weight their whole lives finally see some success.

So, maybe you’re skinny and don’t need to lose weight. I don’t really think that matters. The point is; be disciplined in your diet and workouts. I haven’t been lately and I can tell.

However, a good diet and regular exercise will turn your body into what it was meant to be. The problems come with eating too much junk and sitting in front of the TV or computer. This is how these contestants ended up where they are.

But, it’s never too late to turn it around. Some of these folks are way past unhealthy. This season, Shay started at almost 480 pounds at 5′ 8″.

Watch some of these folks work their butts off and see if you don’t get inspired. Grab your trusty kettlebell and a patch of grass and get to work.

The Top 5 Fat Loss Myths

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

There are so many fat loss myths out there in “exercise-land” that I was hired by Men’s Fitness magazine to write about one myth each month.

After all, by now you’ve probably heard that if you don’t do 60-minutes of cardio in your fat burning zone on an empty stomach while Venus is in line with Jupiter, you’ll never burn fat.

The problem with myths is that not only are they wrong and give false hope to millions of people trying to lose weight, but they also waste your time and mental effort.

I have also seen these myths used as justification for cheating on a diet, watching countless men and women justify their “treats” because they believe they are on some type of magical exercise program or nutrition plan.

I could go on for days about fitness myths, but I cut my list from 30 down to the Top 5 Fat Loss Workout Myths today. I’ll save the other 25 for future newsletters.

Myth #1: You have to do cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

Relax. You don’t have to hop on the treadmill at 4:30am every morning. Let’s allow common sense to dictate when and how you exercise.

If you want to work out first thing in the morning, and I know that is the best time for many TT readers, by all means, go ahead and do it. There’s nothing magical about this time – although it is often the only time many of day many people have to themselves.

We need to think “outside of the hour” of exercise and realize that calorie burning and fat burning goes on for 24-hours. Forget about the theories and look at the big picture.

It doesn’t matter when you exercise – as long as you exercise intensely and consistently. Focus on relatively high-intensity workouts to increase your metabolism for as many hours after exercise as possible. That is best done with interval training and resistance training.

Myth #2: You have to do your cardio in your “fat burning zone”.

Again, nonsense.

While you might burn a larger proportion of total calories as fat when you exercise in your fat burning zone, you burn fewer calories overall by exercising at such a low intensity.

When you increase your workout intensity and get out of your so-called “fat burning zone”, you burn more total calories, and as a result, more fat.

In addition, the “fat burning zone” training doesn’t put “turbulence” on your muscles… so you don’t burn many calories in the post-exercise time period. But with interval training, you burn a significant amount of calories for hours after training, and that leads to more fat loss.

I’ve worked with hundreds of people that have avoided the fat burning zone while still managing to lose dozens of pounds of fat. The “fat burning zone” is one of the biggest fitness myths of all time.

Myth #3: You have to do cardio for 20 minutes before you burn fat.

When I hear this, I picture a fat-burning switch in my body that turns on only after I’ve been doing “cardio” for 20 minutes. But what if I only exercise for 19 minutes and 59 seconds? Are you telling me that I won’t have burned any fat? That’s ridiculous.

What if I did it on an empty stomach in the morning and in my target heart rate zone? (read that one sarcastically!)

I’ll say it one last time. We need to be more concerned with our 24-hour metabolism, not how much fat or even how many calories are burned during the workout.

Myth 4: Drinking ice cold water will help you burn calories and lose fat.

Standing in line at the grocery store is a great place to pick up the latest fat loss myths. You’ll also find this one all over the Internet.

This myth often comes along with some calculations showing that by drinking 8 glasses of ice-cold water you can burn 70 calories per day. I don’t believe that actually holds true in real life. Regardless, drinking cold water is not going to burn any more fat off your body than drinking room temperature water.

Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe you should drink 12 glasses of water per day, but the temperature of your water won’t have any effect on your overall fat loss success.

Myth #5: Adding one pound of muscle will burn 50 extra calories each day.

Uh-oh, now I’m cutting down a myth that supports my use of strength training in a fat loss program. But I have an obligation to set the record straight about this extremely prevalent myth (even though I just saw a big name fitness expert perpetuate this myth in a recent article!).

This myth sounds so good. Add a pound ouf muscle, boost your metabolism 50 calories. That doesn’t seem out of line at all.

But do the math for a guy that puts on 30 pounds of muscle. Does his metabolism really increase by 1500 calories? Absolutely not. For an average guy, that would require his resting metabolism to increase from 2500 calories to 4000 calories per day. How would he be able to keep any of that muscle with a metabolism like that? He’d have to eat like a pig forever.

So when you look at the big picture, you can see this little myth start to fall apart.

That’s not to say you should stop your strength training, but just don’t use this myth as an excuse to cheat on your diet.

Bonus Myth: Negative Calorie Foods Cause You to Lose Weight

According to the “experts”, a negative calorie food requires more energy to digest than it provides you when you eat it. And included in the negative calorie food list are apples and bananas.

So by this logic, I would actually starve to death if I had nothing to eat but apples (because I would have a net energy loss from eating a so-called “negative calorie” food).

There is no such thing as a negative calorie food.

It’s a shame that people are out there promoting this stuff, and it’s too bad that so many people fall for it.

Remember the old phrase, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Instead, let the common sense fat loss principles apply. It’s going to take consistent effort, working hard at your workouts and with your nutrition to get the results you want.

I guarantee you that Turbulence Training will successfully guide you to the fat loss you deserve and desire.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com.

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I’m sure we’ve all heard most of these before. Maybe you’ve even believed them at some point. I think the fact is that there is some bit of truth to most of these, which is what helps perpetuate them.

Regarding working out first thing in the morning, I agree that there’s nothing magical about the hour. There’s no reason why working out in the morning would be physiologically better than any other time of day. However, there are some good reasons. Craig mentions that it’s simply a time many of us have to ourselves. Another reason is that there really is something about working out in the morning that can set the tone for the day. It can give you a burst of energy to help start your day off. One more thing is that by getting up earlier and exercising, I believe that you are adding more “calorie burning” time to your day. If you get up an extra 30 minutes, you’re giving yourself 30 more minutes of burning calories rather than lying in bed. In the grand scheme of things it may not amount to much, but it’s a consideration. Overall though again, I don’t think there’s anything particularly special, physiologically.

The “fat burning zone” and “20 minutes” myths have never made much sense to me. I just don’t see how these myths continue.

I believe that the “cold water” and “50 extra calories per pound of muscle” are also half-truths. Well, maybe not quite half. The point is valid, but I don’t believe that the numbers line up. The idea behind the cold water is that your body has to burn calories to bring the water up to body temperature. I can believe this. However, I agree that the number of calories burned here is negligible. And adding muscle to your body certainly does burn more calories. It simply takes more calories to maintain muscle than fat. However, I agree with Craig that the numbers just don’t add up.

I encourage you to take these myths and turn them into positives to add to your success. Think about what the truth is in the half-truth, and use it to your advantage.

Functional strength training is basically using exercises in your workouts that transfer to real life in a practical way. Think about your training program – especially if you’re into bodybuilding. Will tricep extensions carry over to real life? What about chest crossovers? Leg extensions? Leg curls? No, they won’t. Even the ever-popular bench press offers very little in the way of practical use. None of these will be much use to you as you carry bags of mulch from the front yard to the back, help a friend move, or play your sport of choice.

Functional strength is where the rubber meets the road. The main problem with bodybuilding is that the focus is mainly on looks, and not on practical usage. A good functional program will offer real-world strength – with the side-effect of looking like you’re in great shape. Focus on health and strength and the looks will follow (with a good diet, of course). The opposite is not necessarily true. Building functional strength is what will help your body stay healthy and strong as you get older.

One of the major reasons this is true is because functional exercises teach your body to operate as one piece. Bodybuilding routines (which often focus on isolation exercises) break the body up into parts: chest, back, arms, legs, abs, etc. This is the opposite of what needs to happen. Training your body to work as a single unit also works your all-important stabilizer muscles. This ties everything together for strength you can actually use.

So, how do we incorporate functional strength into our workouts? Here are a few ways:

• Use unilateral movements. These are exercises where you move each side independently of the other. Dumbbells and kettlebells are great for this.
• Stay on your feet. Exercises where you stay on your feet are great for building functional strength. Add drills like standing overhead presses and deadlifts to your routine. These two examples will carry over directly to picking things up from the ground, all the way through lifting them overhead. Exercises where you sit or lie down don’t carry over much, if at all.
• Use free weights instead of machines. Machines are unnatural and force your body to move in a fixed plane. This completely removes functionality from the movement, and can even be dangerous if the machine’s plane of movement overly kinks your body’s natural groove.
• Use odd objects. You don’t have to go crazy here, but simply adding a sandbag to your routine can work wonders. Rocks, logs, kegs, bags of chains, a slosh pipe – anything that is unwieldy and hard to handle will work wonders on your stabilizers, and force your body to work as one piece. This is a step beyond free weights.
• Use multi-joint movements. This is almost a no-brainer for this type of program, however it warrants mentioning. Large, full-body movements are in order. Drills like deadlifts, squats, bent-over rows, and standing overhead presses are great for this.

Obviously, using odd object lifting will be one of the most effective ways to bring functionality into your training. After all, in real life you’re rarely having to lift nicely balanced objects like barbells. If you want to learn how to create an effective routine for building real-world functional strength, The Underground Strength Manual looks like a good, complete course. Or, if you just want to focus on sandbag training, check out The Caveman’s Fitness Guide, or Sandbag Strength.

It’s around 2 1/2 hours of no-fluff basics of kettlebell training. From the sample clip, it looks like the video/sound quality and editing is similar to the Boys Are Back in Town Kettlebell Workshop DVD, which I have and recommend.

Right now, he’s got special pricing on it, and you’ll get a free copy of his Kettlebell Workshop Manual. Check it out here.

There have been countless studies performed on the role of protein in the muscle growth process to try and determine exactly how much protein you should consume to build muscle mass. Recently, several studies have looked at the role that dietary protein plays in helping you lose fat, and more importantly, helping you keep it off!

One thing scientists have discovered is that eating lean protein foods is important for regulating body composition because it decreases your appetite.

In a 2003 study reported in the journal, Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition And Metabolic Care (2003; 6(6): 635-638), protein was shown to be more satiating (made you feel fuller) than both carbohydrate and fat both in the short term and the long term.

Eating more lean protein foods has also been proven as an effective strategy to help you burn fat and keep it off because of something called, “dietary thermogenesis” (also known as the thermic effect of food).

In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2005 (93(2): 281-289), researchers followed a group of 113 overweight subjects after 4 weeks of a very low calorie diet, through a 6 month period of weight maintenance. The subjects were divided into a protein group or a control group. The protein group was simply given an extra 30 grams of protein per day on top of their usual diet.

The researchers found that during weight maintenance, the group with the higher protein intake was less likely to regain the lost weight, and any weight gain in the protein group was lean tissue and not fat. The results were attributed to higher thermic effect and a decrease in appetite.

Although calories will always be the bottom line when it comes to fat loss, studies such as these are confirming what bodybuilders have known for a long time: That calories are not the only factor that can influence your body composition. Your protein intake and your ratios of protein relative to carbohydrate and fat can clearly play a key role in helping you lose fat and keep the fat off.

None of this is news to bodybuilders or to anyone who is already familiar with bodybuilding-style nutrition programs such as Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. But it’s interesting that such positive results were achieved in studies where protein was increased so conservatively – as little as 30 additional grams of protein per day or a 20% increase above traditional protein recommendations.

Many bodybuilding-style diets (such as Burn The Fat and Body For Life) call for as much as 30%-40% of the total daily calories from protein and some competitive bodybuilders crank up the protein (temporarily) to as much as 50% before competitions.

I’m curious to see if any research is ever conducted with these more aggressive protein intakes. If so, my guess is that we will find once again, that the bodybuilders are ahead of the science when it comes to the manipulation of diet for improving body composition.

The take home lesson is simple: If you remove some carbs and put in some protein – nothing too radical; even as little as trading 30 grams per day of carbs for 30 grams of lean protein – this small change in your diet may decrease your appetite, decrease your body fat and help you keep the fat off after you lose it.

About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com. To get Tom’s free fitness newsletter, visit: www.tomvenuto.com

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I thought this was an interesting article, and supports research I’ve seen elsewhere that protein can increase your metabolism. The more complicated molecular strands of protein take more work for your body to break down. More work here means that the simple act of digestion itself burns more calories. I don’t buy into the whole “negative calorie” idea per se, but research does show that some foods use more energy to digest than others.