Exercise - the eight-letter word

Courtesy of  www.hopkins-arthritis.org

Ask me to live without sugar and starchy veg, and I don't hesitate. Ask me to forego, because of my Lap-band, rice, pasta, bread, tortillas, and potatoes, and I hardly blink. Ask me to get my lazy butt into the gym, and I sigh. I roll my eyes. I come up with every excuse under the sun (Too tired, too busy, too too). Unfortunately for me, one fact has become quite clear: Exercise is not an option.


 Let's look at some facts:


1. The average person loses 6 pounds of muscle between the ages of 30 and 50. The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn, even at rest.


2. Fat cells secrete chemicals that actually break down muscle tissue. 


3. Between 25 and 40, the average person gains a pound of body weight every year.


The answer is NOT to throw ourselves like lunatics onto a cardio machine at the gym. The harder we exercise, the less carb (glycogen) we burn. In a minute, I'll talk about why that is a problem.


Let's look at a few basics:  Glycogen/sugar/carb is stored in muscle. This enables us to react to situations, such as "fight or flight." When someone sneaks up behind us and yells "Boo!," our muscles tense and we are poised to sprint away.  This is a primal response and made possible by the instantly ready fuel stored in our muscles. If early humans had had to wait for their bodies to break down fuel to prep the muscles for that response, none of us would be here to read this blog. We would have been dinosaur-farts eons ago.


When our muscles are full of glycogen, we don't burn fat. When we hop onto a bike, treadmill, stair-stepper, or elliptical, and pound our brains out for 30 to 60 minutes, we are burning a small amount of fat instead of glycogen. Sounds great, right? The problem is, that's all the benefit we get. End of story. 


Now, let's look at the person who does resistance training. When we lift weights, the glycogen/carb/sugar is depleted in the muscles. The body must replace that energy source, so it does that by continuing, hours after the exercise session, to convert fat into glycogen and putting that back into our muscles. Because of this, the weight lifter loses more fat than the jogger. Period.


One caveat: If a person doesn't consume enough protein to enable the muscle growth and the glycogen replacement, the body will break down muscle tissue to convert into glycogen/carb/sugar to put back into the muscles. Guess what this type of cannibalism does to our blood sugar? You guessed it. As the muscle tissue is broken down to make glucose (sugar), insulin is released, which starts the fat-storage process. Very low-calorie diets (VLC) and low-fat diets aggravate this process. Your best bet? A high-fat, medium protein diet, which, when combined with resistance training, has proven to result in more fat loss, while sparing the muscle.


Note: Look at the upper bodies of avid runners and bicyclists. They have terribly skinny arms and chests, because they have broken down that muscle to use for energy. Not attractive.


The kicker: Since I am at that "certain age," instead of my insulin receptors being attached to muscle tissue (they feed glucose from the bloodstream into muscle tissue to be burned), my receptors are attached to fat cells, causing my fat cells to pork up at a constant rate. Hence, even though I am eating a very low-carb diet, I have slowly gained weight over the last four years. Without gaining more muscle mass, this process will continue, and the fat I burn for energy will be from dietary fat. What I need to do is build muscle, which will refuel by drawing from my fat storage. With little dietary carb, insulin will remain low so that my body can access the stored fat. That results in "Belly Be Gone." Without adding muscle tissue, I'm screwed. 


For those of you more interested in the topic, TNT Diet: Targeted Nutrition Tactics, by Jeff Volek and Adam Campbell, is a fabulous resource and guide.


The Bionic Broad out...at the gym.