Tag Archives: body fat

Body Fat Be Gone

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Many who want to remove excess body fat and reduce overall body weight will choose a product, service, program or process to achieve the objective.

I assure you, Its not enough to say “Body Fat Be Gone.” Hoping some magic potion or pill will be the answer to an overweight or obese condition. There are mental, physical and environmental realities that must be considered when choosing a weight loss program that will work for you.

Although I do not personally use weight loss supplements, I’ve know many who have decided to give them a try. if you are going to use a weight loss product, I believe the two I’ve posted within this article may be worth consideration. However, sustainable weight loss is highly dependent on healthy lifestyle change habits… which include balanced diet and daily exercise activities.

There are many possible reasons for an overweight condition. However, it has a lot to do with lifestyle choices and a combination of other things out of our control, i.e., genetic and environmental and ill-health factors. In this article, our focus will be on lifestyle choice.

Targeting unhealthy habits and behavior that cause one to become overweight and obese is not an easy task. And when you do target the culprit – it is a challenge to change – because change is hard. Bad habits and behaviors and mental health disorders [obsession, anxiety and depression] often lead to excess weight gain. But can be managed or reversed when you know how. First you must target the weight gain nemisis. Once you do this, it is much easier to build a lifestyle change program to help you lose the weight and keep it off.

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When I speak of weight loss program(s), I am not just talking about diet. I am also talking about daily exercise and recreational activities and interests that keep you motivated to stay the fit healthy lifestyle change course.

Exercising routinely does not mean you have to spend every day in a gym. Why not mix in walking exercise and consider other hobbies of interest that incorporate low impact aerobic activity… i.e., a recreational hobbies that motivate you to walk more often.

For example, gold metal detecting is an exercise activity that burns more fat calories/day. Any low impact aerobics activities like swimming and walking and biking will burn more body fat weight/hour. This is why recreational hobbies are excellent activities to help with overall fitness levels and keeping excess weight off. Metal detecting, like walking along a rivers bank to fish, or kayaking is motivational enough to increase the will power to repeat that aerobic activity of interest. And you just might strike it rich or hook that trophy fish in the process!

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The point is, to be successful in weight loss and sustain healthy body weight, you really need to choose daily and seasonal and annual recreational and body toning exercise activities that incorporate more whole body mobility more often… and slowly decrease an unhealthy food habit. For many, exercising in a gym or at home will not motivate them to stay an exercise routine long term. That is why I emphasis finding a recreational hobby of interest one can get passionate about. Once the mind-body is physically engaged, other exercise interests often ensue.

Too many people now depend on the marketplace for quick weight loss solutions that may/may not include healthy diet and exercise… And many of the manmade products and services also contribute greatly to our national obesity problem. You heard me right, many weight loss products make us fatter in the long run! You ask, how could this be? 

 Shortcuts to weight loss can make you permanently fat!

Too many overweight individuals fall prey to one of hundreds of quick weight loss gimmicks. And to become dependent on unhealthy gimmicks… in time and almost always – breaks the fat burning metabolism. This is because the bad habits and behavior did not change. And deceiving the metabolism to lose weight unnaturally also changes the way the body processes fat to remove or store it and taxes and overworks the system unnaturally. These unnatural chemicals can lead to a premature breakdown in the fat burning metabolism.

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The key to keeping off unhealthy body fat weight permanently is learning “How to make healthy lifestyle change and committing to it.” For instance, try using the “How to Make Working Out a Habit” chart below to support long term exercise habits. Ultimately, it is the changing of bad habits into good ones that can be sustained long term, especially activity changes of interest that motivate and challenge the mind-body to stay the course.

How to determine if you are overweight.

If your clothing choice has become a variety of stretch type pants, shirts and/or dresses which cover body fat layers… OR you notice body weight increasing out of control… My recommendation is to purchase a digital bathroom scale that can analyze body fat % and track your weight loss progress while measuring body fat weight. And/or invest in a smart watch with apps that track, analyze and measure your fitness, sleep patterns and vitals progress and fitness level gains.

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Just because you gain weight does not necessarily mean it is unhealthy body weight. E.g., when you begin an exercise program, muscle mass will increase as body fat% decreases. The key here… pay attention to the body fat% increase/decrease. Muscle weighs more than body fat weight. You must make this part of your weight loss calculation. The benefits of increased muscle mass weight… it burns more body fat throughout the day. And as you get more toned, your clothes fit and you feel better. As this muscle to fat ratio change occurs, you may not lose weight immediately. Consider using technology to motivate your weight loss and exercise activities programs and monitor fitness results to achieve your ideal body weight.

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You Won’t Change Your Habits and Have Decided to Use a Fat Burning Product

As stated earlier, many of you will try all types of weight loss pills and potions to reduce body fat weight. You may chose this revolving path throughout your life… mostly because you do not want to make a change, or want to exercise, or increase daily activity for whatever reason.

If this is the case, you are set on using a product to cut body fat unnaturally… The Hydroxycut product appears to provide decent results with thousands of satisfied bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts… It is a product I’ve considered trying just to see what type of results I could achieve. This is a product I believe would work well for those in good health, not adversly affected by caffiene and already engaged in daily exercise and want to remove, or reduce additional body fat weight.

Then after a 3 month period for example, I’d go off of it for the same period of time and re-evaluate the need to use it again. Why? Because I know through long term repeated use, it would likely harm my fat burning metabolism. Although I can not validate this statement about this particular product, I inherently know from all my studies on man-made products, it is not good to go an unnatural weight loss course for long periods of time. I recommend, if you want to try something, use it short term and do not become dependent on it. Instead, develop natural and sustainable healthy habits known to decrease and remove unhealthy body weight.

If I do decide to try this product, I’ll write an article on it. For now, I’m not considering the use of any weight loss supplements.

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RECALL, Almost all weight loss products mention exercise and balanced diet to optimize weight loss results.

Change Unhealthy Food Cravings to Feel Better and Lose Weight Naturally

Be mindful of food cravings that lead to supersizing food portions and ordering extra appetizers and desserts when dining out… When you do reduce food calories in general and if you do have the following symptoms after eating – may reduce or illiminate upset stomach, heartburn and possibly acid reflux. This change may also resolve a feeling of bloat and irritable bowel-like symptoms: constipation or diarrhea and the need to take medications to relieve symptoms. This in no way suggests you stop taking prescriptions prescribed by your doctor. Always consult with a physician before stopping any prescribed medication.

If you have specific types of unhealthy food cravings, try fortifying your diet with healthy food nutrients to lesson these cravings. If you do this, your total calorie intake and body fat uptake will decrease.

It is far better to be honest about your weight gain and associated health risk and do something about it before illness and disease and pain ensues as a result of an overweight condition.

The sooner you make healthy lifestyle change – the sooner you will be free of excess body fat weight and begin living the lifestyle you need, want and deserve now!

Marc Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET., is a Fit Healthy Lifestyle Consultant with MirrorAthlete Corp., and Former Tigard City Councilor. A strong proponent of City involvement in providing recreational opportunities for its residents. 2021 Copy right. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Inc., “To learn more about MirrorAthlete and free monthly newsletter, visit: www.mirrorathlete.org.

How Exercise and Weight Gain are Connected

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Updated:  2/28/2020, Marc Woodard

Although your favorite fitness guru or celebrity may be the picture of health and you want to look just like them…  Keep this in mind, they make a lot of money selling fitness products and services they don’t necessarily use; and may actually cause you to gain weight rather than lose it. Which may be just the opposite of a desired result you hope to achieve.

Aerobic workouts good for the cardio Muscular endurance
Improve cardio Muscular endurance and fat burning results.

Regardless of exercise equipment and dietary products that guarantees weight loss by these professionals – The odds are not in your favor these programs will work long term for you. Why? Unless you have a customized fitness program relevant and specifically designed for your weight loss expectations, weight gain may be the result.

Relevant fitness programming should include individual lifestyle and cultural assessments that include: behavioral habits, medical condition/history, genetics, body type… fitness goals and expectation. For example, do you want to be body fat lean, increase muscle mass, or strength; improve cardio and/or muscular endurance and flexibility? The aforementioned assessments will help define, relate and apply a fitness program that’s right and will work for you.

For those whose fitness goal is to lose body fat – science shows us how exercise can add on pounds if other lifestyle factors are not considered within the programming process especially as we age. But for this exercise we’ll specifically focus on exercise and fuel source to burn more body fat weight.

It is interesting to note, regardless of the billions of dollars invested within the fitness industry our nations population is becoming fatter. So we are either becoming more sedentary, sick with disease, exercising incorrectly and/or our dietary and addictive habits – which also influence bad behavior.

Which is it? I say a combination of all the above. And this reality has a lot to do with not understanding the human anatomy and physiology and marketplace fitness and diet gimmicks that promise to fix us. In my opinion these health illiteracy issues should be addressed within our K-12 education system. If this occurred, future generations would learn to value a healthier lifestyle – which would help reduce the obesity and connected disease problems now plaguing the nation.

With that being said consider the following statistics.

45 million Americans now belong to health clubs, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. One major study illustrates – The Minnesota Heart Survey found more of us say we exercise. From 1980 to 2000, 47% of respondents exercised regularly and then these figures increased to 57%, ending the 20 year survey. Even with 45 million people today using fitness centers obesity figures increased during this period. The Federal government’s definition of obesity classifies 1/3 of all Americans as obese. Those that participated in the survey admitted after they exercise, their hungrier and eat more. This is not to discount the notion that those who may not participate in gym activities may weigh more otherwise.

Let’s look at a significant study that specifically addresses the compensation effect on body after exercise and what this really means for your weight management program.

In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless, says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University, a prominent exercise researcher. Although exercise does burn calories, it also makes us hungrier. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

The compensation Problem “ The PLoS (Public Library of Science) published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin’s Dr. Timothy Church. Four groups totaling 464 overweight women who didn’t regularly exercise were selected for this study. Women in 3 of the groups worked with a personal trainer for 6 months; Group 1 exercised – 72 minutes/wk, Group 2 exercised- 136 minutes/wk and Group 3 exercised – 194 minutes/week. Although the study did not specify the exercise routines, one gets the notion exercises were balanced between aerobic and anaerobic activity with a personal assigned trainer.

The women in the 4th cluster did not change their lifestyle activities, but did fill out a monthly health questionnaire. The results were surprising. All groups of women lost weight, even the control group. It is most likely the control group through the use of monthly questionnaires learned more about their health and thereby modified their diets by eating fewer donuts, muffins, Starbucks coffee, for example. Some of the women in each group actually gained weight, some up to 10 pounds. Church calls this the compensation effect. Whether exercise made them hungry, or they wanted to reward themselves. Most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment!

Church states, we all need to move toward proper weight control, but stressing and depleting the body’s muscles in short bursts using stressful exercise is not necessarily the best way to loss body weight. Also the brain may feel greater entitlement to eat fast foods after we’ve exerted most of our high intensity energy at the gym. Instead, energy would have been better served by increasing daily activities like walking, healthy food shopping, preparing wholesome meals, gardening, a balanced mix using gym activities, walking, biking, etc.

[Quote excerpts posted above, Published by Time Magazine, August 17, 2009, Why Exercise Won’t Make you Thin, by John Cloud]

Exercise Science shows us anaerobic activity during weight lifting activities increases muscle mass with less stimulation of the fat burning metabolism. Muscle mass increases do occur when muscle bulking exercise out-paces aerobic fat burning exercise. The goal of burning more body fat weight requires a greater commitment to daily aerobic exercise activity within the low-medium intensity effort. So on a scale of 1-10 effort, if you exercise within a perceived physical exertion of ~4-7, you burn more body fat during aerobic exercise.

Optimizing weight loss results while toning the body requires a relevant fitness training program that will work for you. For example, if you find an aerobic exercise program you enjoy participating in daily, the odds are you’ll experience sustainable weight loss success.

Walk Daily with a Buddy

For nearly anyone who wants to lose more body fat weight without experiencing extreme hunger spikes, a low-medium intensity aerobic activity such as daily walking, jogging or biking and hiking will help achieve the objective. This is because our aerobic metabolism prefers burning fat fuel during low-intensity, long duration exercise. During high-intensity exercise, the body prefers burning carbohydrates. The carbohydrates present a limited fuel storage source compared to stored body fat. Once carbohydrate fuel is spent through high-intensity exercise – the body feels hungry.

Regardless of exercise program chosen,

Having a balanced and nutritious diet in place prior to starting an exercise program is important to achieve the weight loss results you desire.

 If your not sure how to custom design a fitness and nutrition program to achieve a natural weight loss objective  – might I suggest investing in a professional fitness trainer or fit healthy lifestyle consultant with a degree in Exercise Science/physiology.

Once the encompassing being [mind, body and spirit] achieves a sustainable fit healthy lifestyle balance of diet and daily exercise… achieving any fitness goal is possible. Including loss of unhealthy body weight that has a direct connection with illness and disease.

Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET. 2018 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Inc., www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.

“FDA Bans Hydrogenated Trans Fats”

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Updated: 14 Nov 2018, Marc Woodard

In order to understand how unhealthy Trans Fats are it is necessary to first define and relate to them and how this unhealthy fat got into our food in the first place. And why the FDA agrees it’s not fit for human consumption.

Hydrogenated Trans fats were invented in the 1890s. What took the FDA so long to put a ban on the hydrogenation of vegetable oils?And even with a ban does this keep Trans Fats out of our diet?

Much of the hydrogenated Trans Fat story has to do with low product cost and hyper palatable fat that addict consumers to purchase those products repeatedly. Which in turn generates huge profits for the food processing companies. These basic facts explain the longevity of Trans Fats in the marketplace.

The FDA ban of trans fats occurred after decades of studying the effects of it on human health.

“Although saturated fat is the main dietary culprit that raises LDL (Low Density LipoProtein), added Trans Fat and dietary cholesterol also contribute significantly to increased LDL’s [which represent unhealthy blood chemistry and related cause to cardiovascular disease]. Trans fat can often be found in processed foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils such as vegetable shortenings, some margarines (especially margarines that are harder), crackers, candies, cookies, snack foods, fried foods, and baked goods (FDA 2017).”

In the past consumers sought low cost, tasty and convenient processed foods and praised the hydrogenation process because of cost and exceptional flavor. But now the FDA agrees with consumer safety advocates – banning this fat completely over the next few years would be best for consumer health and health care industry.

To learn why the FDA is now taking action it is necessary to define Trans Fats, hydrogenation, poly hydrogenated oil and how this man made fat causes disease.

Adding more hydrogen to oil is simply the process of man infusing more hydrogen atoms (hydrogenation) to a vegetable oil(s) mono-poly unsaturated fatty carbon molecule chain. The vegetable oil than becomes a partial or fully hydrogenated (fat saturated) Trans Fat, i.e., Listed on food labels as Partial hydrogenated and/or Trans Fats are the same thing of varying atomic degree. 

But not obvious to most consumers…  through hydrogenation the oil becomes a more solid Trans hard fat that’s very unhealthy for us. That is vegetable oils are artificially hardened to achieve firm convenience soft spreads with long shelf life e.g., margarine, cooking oils and shortening.

To identify Trans Fats in food products, manufacturers list these values on ingredient labels. Note the words Partially Hydrogenated soybean Oil (PHO) on margarine and butter labels below. This is code for Trans Fats. You can find PHO listed as an ingredient in many snack, dessert foods, vegetable oils and even health supplemental products, etc. And when you see 0g Trans Fats on the label, food manufacturers are allowed up to .5grams Trans Fats per serving and can list this value as zero while simultaneously displaying PHO.

The good news for consumers as previously stated, the FDA now requires food manufactures to follow more stringent Trans Fat label laws. For instance if a food product has .5g Trans Fats or more, that value has to be listed on the label (FDA 2017).

This means all Trans Fats in foods must be identified. Even if the words Trans Fat equals 0 grams, the food product is allowed up to .499grams per serving when PHO is listed. Many don’t know Trans Fats are also in organic wholefoods. Ever wonder how they get into animal and vegetable products?

Live stock graze on vegetation which contain a certain amount of poly unsaturated oil in them. Through animal grazing PHO’s (Poly Unsaturated Oil) are digested and some of this oil is stored in saturated fat cells. Hence all products have varying amounts of naturally stored PHO or Trans Fats in them. Just like humans.

Unlike organic dietary fats, hydrogenated Trans fats are not essential to the diet and significantly increase health risk when consuming too many of them.

I know conscientious consumers remove animal fat before eating a steak, or  ladle the fat from broth to reduce fat intake calories. This is easy to do because it is easily seen. However Tran’s fats blend into processed baked and convenience foods and can’t be seen or removed. This is why it’s important to understand where Trans Fats come from and how to identify them in the foods eaten daily. This knowledge becomes even more important if you now suffer from obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

Over consumption of fatty foods in general is bad. But far worse when too many deceptive Trans-fats are mixed into baked goods.

In the past hydrogenation of cooking oils was used excessively by food industries until it was determined Trans fats were worse for you than natural occurring organic fats. Early 2006, companies began removing the Trans fat hydrogenation processes from foods and labeling amounts of Trans Fats as required by the FDA. But as you now know “0” does not mean “0 Trans Fats and theres a connection to organic food PHO chemistry.

In 2015 the “U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized its determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not generally recognized as safe or GRAS for use in human food. Food manufacturers will have three years to remove PHOs from products (FDA 2015).”

Even though the FDA recently determined Trans Fats are not safe for humans the end to man-made Trans Fats won’t end until 2017-18… this will not ban all Trans Fats from all foods because of the natural occurring PHO found in livestock and plants. But food manufacturers will be required to continue listing Trans Fats, mono-poly and saturated fat values.

Is this a win for everyone? I guess it depends on individual and company perspective.

For the health conscious consumer and those suffering from obesity, diabetes and other related illness and disease these changes could be of great dietary health benefit. For those on fixed and low incomes it may cost more and limit choice of healthy foods in the marketplace.  For a manufacturer it may increase the cost of doing business. Unfortunately his increase in cost is usually passed onto the consumer.

There will be winners and losers no matter how you look at this thing.

Reference

US Department of Health and Human Resources. FDA Food and Drug Administration (FDA 2015-2017).

Author:  Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, USA Medical Services Officer, CPT, RET. 2018 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Publishing @: www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.