Fat Burning vs Carb Burning

These zones don't matter for fat loss.

At any given moment your body is always burning some fat and some glycogen. The intensity of your state is what determines where this ratio is.

Sleeping is on the low end of the intensity scale and this is when you are burning a very high percentage of fat.

On the other end is an all out max sprint where you are burning stored ATP.

Every other state of intensity is somewhere between these two extremes the ratio of fat vs glycogen/glucose that you are burning changes depending on the state you are in.

This doesn’t mean that sleeping is necessarily the best way to burn fat. What it does mean is that it doesn’t really matter what type of exercise you do or what intensity it is…all of it will still cause you to burn more calories, and that is what matters for fat loss.

Even if you are doing high intensity exercise that burns mostly glycogen, your body will use your bodyfat stores to make up this deficit.

In todays podcast we’ll discuss the difference between burning body fat and glycogen and why this really doesn’t matter if your goal is fat loss.

At the end of the day a caloric deficit is the only goal for fat loss no matter how you arrive at it.

John

Multivitamin vs Food Does it Matter?

Multivitamins have everything you need, but so does food

When you start to categorize food based on it’s nutrient composition instead of the experience of it simply being food you end up in a very strange place.

If you thinking about it enough you’ll end up with this common question:

“why can’t I just take a multivitamin to get all of my essential nutrients and then just eat whatever foods I want”

This is an obvious question and there is no obvious answer.

The essential nutrients like vitamins and minerals have been categorized this way because removing any one of them from your diet for an extended period of time will show a measurable physical deficiency (think Vit C deficiency and scurvy)

There may be other nutrients we don’t know about that could provide some sort of  benefit, but in general we already know which ones you MUST ingest on a regular basis to avoid serious negative effects.

Theoretically there is no reason why you couldn’t just get all of your vitamins and minerals from a multivitamin and eat whatever mix of food you like to go along with it.

It’s likely that you’ll end up eating a mix of food anyway and get even more vitamins and minerals from whichever foods you choose to eat…there are very few food items that have absolutely no vitamins or minerals present in them.

Unless you tried to survive on pure white sugar there is really no way of eating without getting many vitamins and minerals.

Beyond these essentials there are a few other things to consider like fiber and perhaps some essential fats (although there is no scientific consensus on the need for essential fats or a daily dose)

Deconstructing food to it’s constituent parts is a good way to take all the fun out of eating. It makes much more sense to try and just enjoy whatever foods you have available and explore different tastes, flavors and styles.

There is very little chance that you will ever become vitamin or mineral deficient if you live in any sort of industrialized country (and if you’re reading this post that likely means you).

In today’s podcast we’ll talk about the concept of nutrients from multivitamins vs food and why this a false dichotomy simply because all foods have vitamins and minerals.

John

Supplement Recall – Novedex Containing ATD

novedex recall

The real Nolvadex

The FDA recently requested a recall of various muscle building supplements that contained a substance called 3, 17-keto-etiocholetriene which is an anti-aromatase drug…so who cares about anti-aromatase drugs?

Well Aromatase is an enzyme that coverts testosterone to estrogen in a mans body, this conversion is where estrogenic side effects from steroid use comes from (most notably breast tissue growth aka “Bitch tits”)

So why would a natural guy who is not using testosterone want to take an anti aromatase drug/supplement?

Even normal men have a small amount of testosterone aromatizing to estrogen, the theory is that if you block even this conversion you can create a negative feedback loop tricking your body into thinking testosterone is low and thus causing your body to increase testosterone production…so the theory goes.

One of the supplements that has been recalled had a scientific research study done showing that subjects who took the product had increases in free and total testosterone…these results aren’t surprising now that we know there was a legitimate drug in the product all along.

To be fair to the manufacturer there were no adverse event reports associated with the sale of the product for the duration of it’s time on the market.

The point is that you can never really be sure what is in the products you are taking and even the FDA’s line as to what qualifies as a ‘supplement’ vs a drug is often blurry.

This is by no means the only time this has happened. In some cases drugs are knowingly put in supplements to build up the ‘street cred’ of the product, and in other cases the FDA’s definition of what qualifies as a drug is blurry enough that manufacturers just push the limit until the FDA if forced to make a decision.

It has happened with ephedrine, it happened with ‘pro-hormones’ like andro and DHEA, and now with ATD, and it will continue to happen as raw material suppliers discover new classes of compounds that fall between the line of supplment and drug.

In todays podcast we’ll discuss this recall and what goes into making a supplement and how drugs can end up in supplements without you knowing it.

John

Goal Hijacking and the Muscle Index

The Muscle Index

The Muscle Index

The Muscle Index

We talked about the Muscle Index last week and how it’s a better measure of true lean muscle mass gains.

My latest Muscle Index score is 33.4

So this is the relative number that goes with the look and shape I have right now. Anyone with a similar Muscle Index will likely have a similar look as I do (regardless of their height)

If you’re significantly more muscular than I am your number will be higher than this and if you’re less muscular or have significantly more bodyfat your number will be lower than this.

For me the Muscle Index is the best way to measure real progress towards building a lean muscular physique.

The Adonis index ratio is part of the Muscle Index and therefore having a good AI ratio is incorporated right into a good MI (Muscle Index).

The actual measurements of the muscle index are outlined in the manual which is now included in the base Adonis Index Workout system. I suggest reading this manual and following the strength testing procedure as indicated to come up with your true strength measurements.

This way you will have an accurate and comparable baseline to start charting your true lean muscle mass progress. I believe that the Muscle Index is the best way to measure real changes in muscle mass.

Goal Hijacking

If you are the type who regularly exercises you already know that it’s easy to lose track of where you are in the gym or at home. Bouncing from one workout to the next and trying new things is very common and it’s easy to get distracted from what your trying to do.

You’ve got to own your goals in the gym no matter what they are. I don’t care if you want to be bigger or leaner, or both, or want to run a marathon, or a triathlon or bench press 500lbs…you can even have multiple goals, some performance based and some based on the look and shape of your body.

Whatever it is be sure that you’re on target with the real goal as it is very easy to adopt a training idea or style as an identity that completely derails you from the original goal you had in the first place. This can happen with powerlifting, crossfitting, ‘functional training’, and many other styles of exercise. If you’re honest to goodness goal is just to bench press 400lbs no matter what it takes to do that, then that is great, but our program isn’t really going to help you with that…in fact most programs won’t, the real answer for that is years of powerlifting and likely some steroids.

If on the other hand your goal is to build a great looking lean muscular physique without drugs then we got something for you!

In today’s podcast we’ll talk about the Muscle Index and how to apply it and how to recognize when your goals might have become hijacked from you when you weren’t looking.

John

“Stubborn belly fat” – What it really Is

Serge Nubret was RIPPED!

Measuring muscle growth and fat loss isn’t as easy as stepping on the scale although this seems to be the default way most people try to do it.

The look of your body is determined by fat mass, muscle mass and water. But this isn’t as straight forward as you might think.

Body Fat Storage Patterns

Fat mass is not stored uniformly around your body, and there is a storage rate and burn patter to your fat as well. In other words some places store more fat than others (ie: Belly) and some places burn fat slower than others (ie: Belly).

We know that on a mans body, fat tends to store faster and to a higher degree in the abdomen area viscera (underneath your abs around your intestines and organs). The visceral fat actually burns quickly and this is part of the reason why your waist measurement can decrease dramatically without your abs becoming visible right away.

This fat that is above your abs is what most people refer to as ‘stubborn fat’. In reality this fat doesn’t have a bad attitude and is no more ‘stubborn’ than your shoes (I don’t know why people try to give fat a personality like this). The fat covering your abs has a lower blood supply and less fat mobilizing receptors than other fat compartments in your body, this means it takes longer for this fat to be completely burned off compared to other areas…hence the reason why your abs are the last thing to show when you’re dieting down.

This doesn’t mean you can’t get rid of this fat, it just means that it’ll be the last place you’ll finally see definition, and it’s likely not going to correlate with pounds lost on the scale when you get to your leanest look.

Measuring Muscle Growth

For experienced lifters muscle growth is also difficult to measure with a scale. Daily fluctuations in body weight can easily mask any short term change in muscle mass. The size of a muscle is somewhat transient and true changes in it’s size require longer term measurement intervals to truly track changes (6-12 months).

Measuring circumferences is a much better and more accurate way to measure changes in muscle growth compared to the scale, at least this way you have proof of where the size/muscle really is.

Measuring Fat Loss and Muscle Building Progress

Measuring both muscle building and fat loss progress at the same time is virtually impossible on a scale as you can do both with no change in your bodyweight.

Since bodyweight simply cannot tell you much about your short term changes in fat or muscle mass a new and better metric is necessary…enter the Muscle Index.

As we talked about last week the Muscle Index is a way of measuring how muscular your body is withing relying on the scale and correcting for gains in weight due to fat or extracellular water weight.

In other words, if you gain 10lbs, but it’s all from fat, water and thanksgiving dinner the muscle index calculation won’t lie, but the scale will.

In todays podcast I recruit the help of a good friend Bryan Chung. Bryan is a plastic surgeon resident and has his PhD in sports medicine. You can read is critical review of fitness research at his blog: http://www.evidencebasedfitness.blogspot.com/

We discuss how hard it really is for the average person to guess how much bodyfat they have and what they assume their body should weigh when they’re ‘in shape’. We also talk about the uneven fat distribution patterns of men and women and why relying too much on the scale can play mind games with you and derail your progress.

John

The Muscle Index – Measuring Muscle Gains

Arnold had a good Muscle Index

Muscle building is probably one of the most misunderstood things in fitness. This lack of understanding is partly why we can fall for scam products and false claims.

As I’ve said before muscles are much more like water balloons than bricks, and the way we build them is much more like inflating a balloon than laying bricks.

Water accounts for over 80% of your muscle volume, and the amount of water you can fit/force into your muscles plays a major role in determining how big you can make them.

The actual protein ‘scaffolding’ of your muscle fibers/cells are what make up the rest.

Weight Training for Muscle Building:

1) It builds more protein so the scaffolding of your muscles cells is larger

2) It forces more water, glycogen and protein into your cells hydrating and filling them with more fluid (pumping them up)

The Slow Leak Theory of Muscle Growth

Your muscles are in a dynamic state of synthesis and degradation. If you don’t workout your muscles will eventually shrink back to their genetically predetermined original size.

In fact, if you don’t move or use your muscles at all (ie: immobilization in a cast or 100% bed rest) they will shrivel away to almost nothing.

The point is that your muscles function on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis. They will always revert back to a smaller size if you don’t force them to get bigger by lifting weights. As soon as you stop lifting weights they will start shrinking again.

Imagine that your muscles are constantly slowly leaking back to their original smaller size, and constant weight training is the only way to keep them pumped up.

How To Measure Muscle Growth

Most supplement ads and fitness sites will talk about gaining ‘pounds’ of muscle. This however is not an accurate way of measuring true changes in muscle mass. You and I could gain 5-8lbs of lean mass in one day simply from eating more food and drinking water. Our lean body mass would increase, our percentage of fat mass would decrease, but our muscle mass would not have changed.

True changes in muscle mass are harder to detect in experienced lifters and therefore there must be a more precise way to measure these changes. I have come up with a new way to measure changes in muscle mass that account for bodyweight and fat mass. This new measurement is called The Muscle Index.

Toxic Calorie Level

We’ll also talk about the Toxic Calorie level and how eating at this level is what causes fat gain, heart disease, diabetes, and other inflammatory disorders. Eating ‘big’ every once in a while isn’t so bad, but eating at your toxic calorie level on a regular basis will overwhelm your body and cause major problems.

In todays audio lesson we’ll talk about the Muscle Index and how to accurately measure changes in muscle mass.

We will also talk about the slow leak theory of muscle and why you must continue to lift weights in order to keep your muscles growing and even to maintain the size you’ve already built.

John

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