Cutting calories will help me lose body fat
Not necessarily. This may cause the opposite effect by increasing fat storing enzymes like lipoprotein lipase. The body does not use stored fat to make up the deficit you have created; it merely burns up muscle to equalize the body by lowering the BMR (basal metabolic rate). There is also a lowering of T3 and T4 (thyroid hormones) as well as a drop in testosterone and sometimes Growth Hormone.
High levels of protein are bad for your kidneys
Only in renal patients. Studies have shown that increased protein is not harmful to the kidneys. Keep in mind that Inuit (Eskimo’s) eat a diet consisting of 60% fat and 40% protein for three quarters of the year. During this time (winter) their staple diet is Caribou (a species of Deer). They also have the lowest heart disease risk of all people.
Eating fat will make me fat
Only in a high insulin or high calorie environment. Fat should compliment any diet. Firstly some vitamins are fat soluble, and require fat. Secondly, if your fat intake drops below 20% of your total calorie intake, your testosterone levels diminish.
Cardio is more beneficial for fat loss than weight training
Without any question, weight training is more beneficial than cardio. If you frequent any gym, you will notice the members who occupy the cardio equipment (bikes, treadmills, rowers, steppers, etc) and the aerobics floor, all have one thing in common-they’re all trying to get into shape. It mystifies me that the concept of aerobics has survived at all. With every passing year there is a new variant, first there was aerobics, then stretch and tone, then step classes, and then came spinning and now Tae-bo. Within a very short time the human body adapts to any training protocol, but more so with cardio than any other.
On a biological level, high volume exercise (cardio) stimulates slow-oxidative muscle (slow twitch), which is characterized by having low levels of contractile protein and having many mitochondria. If one persists with these high volume activities, your muscle tissue will consist primarily of slow twitch fibre, and in the process lose muscle tissue volume, and this will negatively impact you basal metabolic rate.
Lowering your basal metabolic rate, means that at rest your body burns less fuel than it used to. Conversely, weight training increases muscle fibre density, stimulating fast glycolytic muscle. This fibre is characterized by having a lot of contractile protein and has the ability to increase in size, thus increasing the basal metabolic rate, and improving the fat burning capacity of the body.
The more I train the leaner I will be or the more muscle I will gain
Let’s be logical. There are 168 hours in a week, of which most people train no more than 6. Now, do you really think that those 6 hours training really impacts on the remaining 162 hours of the week? It’s in those remaining 162 hours that you really burn fat, in direct relation to the muscle tissue you carry on your frame. The more you train the more cortisol (catabolic-muscle wasting hormone) your body produces, which in turn lowers metabolic rate. Cortisol also increases body fat, and damages your immune system. It doesn’t require high volume training to build muscle; it requires high intensity.
Volume and intensity are mutually exclusive. There’s and old saying, “You can train long or you can train hard, but you can’t train long and hard”. To stimulate muscle tissue growth, one is required to damage the muscle sufficiently to stimulate a growth response. A muscle will be damaged if the exertion is higher than what it is accustomed to.
Pushing a shopping trolley around may be more than you are accustomed to, however it is well within the muscles capacity. You have to push it to the edge. This takes weight and intensity not time. It can be achieved with relatively brief training sessions. Once this is accomplished, rest, and recovery is of paramount importance. Muscle needs nutrients to recover and grow. The need for sleep can never be overemphasized, this is when the body produces it’s highest levels of growth hormone, creating a highly anabolic (muscle building) environment.
As a woman, if I train heavy won't I build too much muscle?
Women will have a hard time building any significant muscle. They do not have the necessary hormonal system for this. They will have to work very hard and be very diligent with their eating to gain even the smallest amounts of muscle. The two main reasons they have more body fat than men, is due to the fact that they have less muscle and more oestrogen.
As we age, our entire endocrine system becomes less and less efficient. So in many cases, the best we can hope for is to retain the muscle we had when we were 20. The main reason we gain weight, as we get older, is because our bodies produce less growth hormone, testosterone and IGF-1.
Women bodybuilders who have a lot of muscle, eat huge quantities of food, and often take hormones to achieve this kind of development. It is impossible to build muscle if it is not supported by sufficient calories. Therefore, if you train at high intensities and are on the correct diet, you will only get smaller and not bigger. I would like to stress the importance of a correct diet. You may train all you like, but without the correct diet, you will never reach your goal.
This is the reason why all our clients have our Unique Nutrition plan.
With all the chicken, eggs, and meat, will it not elevate my cholesterol?
Serum cholesterol is not impacted to any great degree by the intake of dietary cholesterol. The liver produces an enzyme called HMG CoA Reductase, which stimulates the production of cholesterol. This enzyme is triggered by high insulin levels. Therefore a high carbohydrate diet, containing simple sugars, is a much greater risk factor with regards cholesterol. |
