Posted by Tejiri Orugbo on January 16, 2010 at 3:12am
If I got a penny for every time I've heard someone say I want to lose some weight before engaging in weight training, I would be living happily in some exotic island with no financial worries in the world. Some of the people that say these are those that still believe that muscle can turn into fat. Let me clarify this, that is complete rubbish! Muscle can never turn into fat. That is like saying, "water can turn in to oil". There are several reasons why people say this;1. They have probably noticed an increase in weight after a few weeks of training or2. They are concerned that they will look like Ronnie Coleman (much respect for Ronnie by the way)Clearly, some of these people do not realize the time, effort, dedication, etc that people like Ronnie put in to their workouts. Some even think (and this is very common with women) that, they will get huge just by touching weights.First of all, what is wrong with building muscle? I submit that not everyone wants to look like a body builder. Some people are happy just to look toned, which is great. However, to look really toned, you need some resistance training, which means that you will gain or at the very least, maintain muscle mass.Secondly, we all know that muscle weighs more than fat. This is why your body weight "might" increase when you start a resistance training routine. The reason I used the word "might", is that your weight could stay the same, if you lost some body fat while gaining the same amount of weight you lost in muscle (which is great if all you want is to lose some fat). On the other hand, you could be gaining more muscle while losing fat (which is also great). The scary scenario is where you not only gain muscle but also gain fat (which is what a lot of us do not really want).The bottom line is, if you eat too much while engaging in resistance training, you will gain both fat and muscle. Look at it this way. If you get tank and drilled a hole at the bottom so that as you pour water in to it, the water drains out; the rate at which you pour water in to the tank will determine how much water you will have in the tank.1. If the amount of water going in to the tank was more than that coming out, the tank will eventually overflow.2. On the other hand, if the tank is losing water faster than it is being filled, it will eventually get empty (at least almost empty)3. If an equilibrium is established where "water-in = water-out" then the water level clearly stays the same.The key to fat loss is therefore, to give off slightly more calories than you ingest and once you are happy with how you look, you can balance it out so you maintain muscle and fat mass.The reason your weight goes up when you start a resistance training routine is that your body stores more glycogen in your cells. Take a car with only one fuel tank for example. When you fill it up while preparing for a long road trip, it gets heavier. Does your car get fat? The body works in a similar way. When you engage in resistance training, your body stores fuel both to keep you going and for your next workout. This fuel is in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is simply a bunch of glucose molecules bound together. In fact, glycogen is so thick that, for your body to store 1 molecule of glycogen, it needs 3 molecules of water.Now, unlike your car that has only one tank, your body has millions of little tanks called cells. When these cells fill up with glycogen, depending on how much you are eating, your weight will increase, but are you fatter?I don't care what your body weight is and neither should you, because your weight will increase/decrease based on you hydration level and at what point you weigh yourself. For instance, if I weighed you now and then have you drink a pint of water (bearing in mind that a pint of water weighs a pound) and then weighed you again, you would be a pound heavier. This is similar to weighing you before and after a meal (in some cases that could be a ten pound difference). The bottom-line being, you would clearly be heavier the second time around. Are you fatter though? The answer is a resounding NO. What is really important is your body fat percentageNot to sway too far off the subject, the point I want to make is that, muscle is your friend. Look at muscle as the furnace with which your body burns fat and that being the case, why should anyone be scared to build muscle? Having an extra pound of muscle means your body will burn about 50 calories while you are at rest! For those of you who believe you should lose weight before engaging in resistance training, that is the longer route to take! Also, for those of you who think that they have to get fitter first; who said you cannot get fit through resistance training? Of course you can get fit while training with weights but that is another article on its own.Oghenetejiri Orugbohttp://www.gymhawk.comFor those of you who believe that you should lose some weight before building muscle, that is the longer route to take. Building muscle will not only increase your metabolism it will also make you a stronger athlete. It will also make you more attractive as you will have an enviable physique. Let's imagine someone who is 90kg and a body fat percentage of 25. This individual would look great at the same weight but with 10% or even 12% body fat. To sum it all up, it is best to maintain muscle mass (at the very least) or gain some while getting rid of excess fat. The best way to do this is by engaging in some type of resistance training. The trick is to find out what your present muscle mass is and how to maintain it while ridding yourself of excess fat. A personal trainer, preferably one who is also a certified nutritionist, can help you with that. My Name is Oghenetejiri Orugbo. I am a certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Nutritionist with 20 years of experience. My aim is simply to demistify the often confusing world of Health and Fitness. You can view my web page at http://www.gymhawk.com I believe that exercise is and always should be a way of life. It does not start and end in the gym. You are never too old to start.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Oghenetejiri_OrugboRead more…
Posted by Tejiri Orugbo on January 16, 2010 at 1:24am
I love our staple food, and I am lucky enough to eat it on a daily basis. How healthy are they though?In Nigeria, our staple food consists of a variety of yam, cassava and brown rice. These can be prepared in any number of ways. They however, all have one thing in common. Since it makes sense to classify foods based on their highest nutritional content, the one thing they have in common is that Cassava, Yam and Brown rice are all carbohydrates.Carbohydrates however, are the main culprit where weight gain is concerned. This is because; the final break down of carbohydrate in the body is simple sugar. I want to point out that when the supply of ingested glucose (glucose is the only usable form of simple sugar) is too high, the blood sugar level gets too high and the excess glucose must be eliminated from the bloodstream. This increased level of blood sugar triggers the release of insulin (the hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar levels) to transport or make the excess glucose available to the body tissues.Especially after exercise, when energy stores are low, the muscle tissue is the first point of call of the insulin-carried glucose. Glucose however can only be taken up by the muscle tissues at a gradual rate. If too much insulin-carried glucose is present at one time, the liver is the next stop.The liver like the muscle tissue, also takes up glucose at a gradual rate and when the liver stores are full and there is still an excess supply of insulin-carried glucose in the bloodstream, the next stop is the adipose tissue where it is stored as fat. Unlike the muscle and liver, the adipose tissues take up glucose quite rapidly.The rate at which glucose is released into the blood is an important issue as, if the ingested carbohydrates are already simple sugars or low in fibre, the digestion process will be shorter and they will be absorbed too quickly. This causes the pancreatic tissue to release an excess amount of insulin into the blood. Since the liver and muscle tissues only take up glucose gradually, the excess insulin-carried-glucose will by-pass the muscle and liver and be deposited in the adipose tissue where it is rapidly stored as fat.This is where the quality and quantity of carbohydrates we eat comes in. I believe that by now you can see the danger in eating too much simple sugars or food low in fibre. The flip side to the coin is to eat complex carbohydrates as this will result in an intermittent release of glucose into the bloodstream which means that the pancreas will not release excess insulin into the bloodstream; which also means that most of the glucose will be stored in the liver and muscle tissues as opposed to being deposited as fat in the adipose tissue.Our staple foods tend to be complex carbohydrates and that is great news but we definitely do not eat them on their own. Irrespective of how healthy they are, we cannot survive on carbohydrates alone. There are a number of ways in which we eat our staple food. For example, yam can be boiled and eaten with palm oil and pepper soup or yam when cooked, will be beaten to a paste to make pounded yam and eaten with ogbono soup (my favourite) or egusi soup, etc. Cassava can be used to make garri and eaten in a similar way. Brown rice can be eaten with stew, or made into jollof rice, or fried rice.I mentioned above that the glucose we get from complex carbohydrates is slowly released into our blood stream. This is because it takes longer for our body to fully digest them (up to an hour). Well, it takes even longer when these complex carbohydrates are mixed with proteins and fat. In fact, when you eat carbohydrates with proteins, it takes about 3 to 4 hours for digestion to be completed.The Nigerian staple food is clearly healthy to eat as they are complex carbohydrates. However, what we eat them with and how much we eat at any given time, also plays an important role in our weight management and overall well-being.Look out for my future article on THE RIGHT WAY TO EAT TO BURN FAT! Until then, here are a few tips to follow:• Eat moderately, not like there is no tomorrow. It does not matter how healthy the food is, if you eat too much, you will gain weight.• When using Palm oil, choose that with little or no cholesterol and use it sparingly. Avoid palm oil or any other oil that is solid at room temperature.• Eat at regular intervals – 3 to 4 hours and do not skip meals.• Engage in a regular sporting routine so that you can balance out your input versus your output (depending on what your goal is).Tejiri OrugboCertified Fitness NutritionistCertified Personal TrainerFounder - http://wwwgymhawk.comRead more…
