Breaking down research- How does lifting weights help weight loss?

On Sunday I attended a full day conference put on by Can Fit Pro.  Each year I always come away with so many new tips, tricks, ideas, motivation, as well as new research to put into action.

One of the sessions I attended was by one of my favourite researchers, Dr. Len Kravitz.  He has a way of making science interesting, fun, and applicable!

Today I chose to share one of the articles he used in his session on THE EFFECT OF STRENGTH TRAINING IN WEIGHT LOSS.

Here is the article information:   Avila et al. (2010). Effect of moderate intensity resistance training during weight loss on body composition and physical performance in overweight adults. Euro J Appl Phys 109, 517-525.  To view the article copy and paste the title into googlescholar.com

As Dr. Kravitz broke down the article for us, it became more and more clear that strength training is essential and needed for weight loss.

–>  There were  27 male and female subjects (BMI=32kg/m2 ): 67 yr

~  This tell us that the group was an older population, highlighting the fact that resistance training was important for an older population!

–>  Previously sedentary people were included.

–>  It was a 10-week study of two groups.   One group followed the DASH diet only; the 2nd group followed the dash diet and did resistance training.

–>  The researchers measured weight loss, body composition, and muscle

–>  All subjects were on individualized diet (10% caloric restrict) based on estimated metabolic rate

–>  The weight lifting group did 40  minutes of resistance training on 3 non consecutive days.  Their program consisted of 6 upper and lower body exercises including a warm up set. They did 8-12 reps per set, and 4 rounds of each exercise.

–>  The Results?  The  DASH group lost 2% of their body weight at the end of the 10 week study; the diet only group also lost .2 % body fat and 2.7 % muscle.

–>  The group who followed the DASH diet and did resistance training lost 3.6 % of their body weight, 11.2 % body fat, and gained 1.3 % muscle.

What can we take away from this study?

#1:  People who went on a calorie restricted healthy diet lost 2 % of their body weight in a 10 week study.  We can therefore conclude that if you eat less than you need you will lose weight!  It’s a scientific equation.  (Keep in mind the average age of people was 67, harder to lose weight as you age).  *  Please also note that 2 % is a small number.  With diet changes only a 200 pound person would lose 4 pounds.  Weight loss done in a healthy way is slow and long term.  Stay focussed on the habit changes.

#2:  If you only follow a strict diet to lose weight you will not lose as much weight overall at the end of the diet, you will not lose very much body fat, and you will lose a lot of muscle.

#3:  If you diet and work out with weights 3 times a week for 40 minutes you will lose almost double the amount of weight, 11 % more body fat, and gain some muscle.  Muscle is good for a million different reasons, and you especially want it as you are aging to maintain balance, independence, appearance, and health/vitality. 

There you have it folks, weight training is essential for preventing falls, preventing injury, maintaining functional independence, and maintaining our muscle mass, and now we see that it will double our weight loss, help us to lose fat, and give us some healthy and appealing muscle.  Don’t fight the science.  We know that if you eat less then you need you will lose weight, and we also know that the more you move, and the more strength training you do as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle you will lose more weight and fat.

 

On a final note- I will be travelling across New Zealand for the next 4 weeks!  Yahoo!  It will be such an awesome adventure and I am very much looking forward to it.  I will most likely send out a few blogs while I am gone, but maybe not 😛  I am mostly looking to really enjoy my time away.  If you want to follow my adventure be sure to add me to twitter, instagram, or facebook.

3 Things I wish I knew about health and Fitness 10 years ago.

In case you are just starting your health and fitness journey- I hope this blog can help direct you on the right path.

3 things I wish I knew about health and fitness 10 years ago:

1. Cardio is not the be all end all for being fit, healthy, and a good weight.

Throughout high school and University I used to ensure I did cardio on a regular basis (usually 5 days a week) in order to maintain my weight, be fit, and keep good health. Little did I know there were A LOT of other variables to factor in to make being fit, healthy, and maintaining my weight easier. If I could go back 10 years and add something to my routine I would add 2-3 days of strength training. Lifting weights is an incredible way to look and feel fit and strong, improve your health, boost your metabolism, make it easier to maintain your weight, build a solid foundation to work out on and prevent injuries.

Here’s an example:

In 2^nd year University I went on an overnight hiking/camping trip through Tobermory park in Ontario. I had been exercising on the treadmill and elliptical steadily for months, and thought I would do fine to keep up. I was also in the Kinesiology program at school where I would take sport courses regularly, so I thought I was pretty fit. Little did I know I was going to be the LAST person to arrive at camp that night. I arrived so late that the sun was down, and everyone had eaten dinner! I was so exhausted I just jumped in my tent, changed to warm clothes and passed out. It didn’t make sense to me! I was so good at my one hour on the elliptical daily- why did none of it carry over to the hike? Well let’s see, I WAS WEAK! I had no lower body strength, or core strength, or back strength. Sure, I could have kept up on flat ground with no huge bag on my back, but that’s not hiking. If I could go back now I would start strength training regularly, as well as I would start training in different more effective and transferable forms of ‘cardio’.

 

Here’s another example:

I used to eat 1200-1500 calories a day and kill myself doing cardio daily to maintain my weight. I was always hungry, had no energy for anything, and constantly told myself I can’t have treats.

Now I have no clue how much I eat in a day (maybe 3000 calories?), but I eat 3-5 meals/snacks. I eat until I am full. I choose to indulge when I feel like indulging. I exercise regularly in all types of activities including strength training/yoga/pilates etc. I appear smaller and fit into a smaller size then I did before.

Let’s see…which one seems like the better option??

I once read a fact that said that a person who is of the same weight, yet significantly more muscular, will burn up to 1000 more calories a day than the less muscular person- this is equivalent to running a 10 km race that they didn’t run that day!!

2. The hardest things to do, are not necessarily the best things for your body.

I’ve spent years (and still find myself doing this) chasing challenging forms of exercise- CrossFit, power lifting, Olympic lifting, running marathons etc. I always thought the more of these activities I did that I was doing the best and most right thing for my body to be healthy, fit and strong. I have come to realize that the body needs some less intense, more focused, and corrective exercise. For example, lighter strength training focusing on my posture, weaknesses, and dysfunctional movement patterns, and pilates to focus on my core strength and hip stabilizers. Since I’ve stopped chasing so many intense forms of exercise, and balancing them with corrective forms of exercise I am overall stronger, more overall athletic, have less aches and pains, am more flexible, and am fitter/faster in all the activities I do. Listen to your body- and correct it’s weaknesses.

 

Here’s an example: I remember during the time of my life I did a lot of running and Crossfit and elliptical. I would wake up in the morning, start getting ready, and couldn’t bend forward to put my ankle into my pant leg easily because my muscles were too tight! Does this sound like a healthy body to you? No-this was a back injury waiting to happen!

3. NEVER EVER LOOK AROUND IN THE GYM AND COPY WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING.

I spend 30-40 hours a weak in the gym and am constantly watching the CRAZIEST THINGS HAPPENING. People choose the wildest exercises, use awful form, choose useless exercises, lift weights way to heavy for them, and blindly follow programs they’ve downloaded form the internet. Is it all inherently bad? No. Are people sending themselves to doctors, physios, and chiros unnecessarily, I think so. Could they be spending less time in the gym, getting better individualized results, YES. So instead of blindly following what you see someone else doing in the gym, take note of their exercise, look it up online, figure out why they are doing it, how to do it properly, and if it is a good exercise for you given your posture/current abilities/body mechanics etc.

 

Here’s an example: I see people with severely rounded posture doing overhead presses everyday. The anatomy of the shoulder is set up so that with good posture you could perform this exercise safely, but with poor posture doing an overhead press is almost guaranteeing an issue in the shoulder. Pick the right exercises for youJ

 

So in the end, if you are looking to maintain your weight easier, build a stronger, more athletic, fitter looking body, and prevent potential injuries then get yourself designed an individualized workout program including strength training. And I you can’t do it yourself- you know where to find me 🙂

 

PS-  The photo is from Elk Mountain in Chilliwack- great hike if you are looking for a shorter hike that’s a workout!

A critical Look at the Word Toning (via Katy Bowman)

I’ve been on a kick lately in terms of promoting Katy Bowman’s work as a biomechanist. She has a great podcast called Katy Says “You Are How you Move”. The other day I was listening to her episode on “The Skinny on Fat”. This episode literally blew my mind in terms of thinking of the words “toning” and “spot reducing”. Every week I get new people asking me how to “tone” a certain area of their body, and I always struggled with an answer- because I never had a simple way of explaining how “toning” wasn’t an effective way to talk about what these people were looking for (losing fat in the area, and seeing a bit of muscle). I always knew that simply performing one isolated exercise for a certain area wasn’t going to help them achieve the ‘toned’ look they were after, especially because most people’s endeavours to exercise average about 1-3 times a were just not enough to truly blast fat and build muscle. I also knew that without overall fat loss from cardio and nutrition they weren’t going to get the ‘toned’ look they were looking for, because most people have a layer of fat over their muscles, and without dietary and cardio changes they most often won’t lose that layer of fat. I never quite knew how to explain that just exercising one certain muscle over and over a few days a week at the gym isn’t going to give you the result you want.

This specific podcast with Katy Bowman helped me to find a good explanation to why ‘toning’ exercises technically don’t work. Within this podcast episode were many gems of information, but most of all I liked how she broke down a variety of research findings in journals to explain how we CAN in fact TONE our muscles- or “spot reduce” areas, but it is an extremely ineffective approach to trying to decrease fat and increase muscle mass in a certain area.  Katy refers to spot reducing as “localized fat loss as a result of exercising a particular part of the body” The way she explains it:

• Spot reducing means working a muscle in a certain area, and causing that one particular area to burn more fat at a cellular level.
• Katy explains that toning is in fact possible if we did thousands and thousands and thousands of reps in a day/week.
• When studied in research when people do these exercises to spot reduce (aka a tricep exercise as an example) a couple of times per week for even a relatively high number of reps (100’s of reps), people still didn’t see a change in muscle/fat in the area they were looking to spot reduce- AKA we need a tremendous amount of volume of one specific muscle to see a change in body fat in that specific area.

As a conclusion what these studies showed was the spot reducing as a concept is biologically sound (Aka the muscle will burn fat in the area you work), but when put into practice is ineffective as the movements are often not done enough to see a result. Even people who worked those muscles 2-3 times a week for 12 weeks saw NO RESULTS in terms of “Toning”.

What to do instead? Instead of focusing on spot reducing one area (abs, arms, legs etc.) focus on big movements that work all the muscles at once. This way if you have overall fat to lose, and muscle you want to build, you can end up getting a ton of volume for each area of the body worked at the end of each exercise session, at the end of the week. (This is always on top of cardio and nutrition). Make the majority of your exercises large compound exercises that work lots of muscles, and do these frequently, and then add in a few on top of that to isolate certain muscle groups.

To simplify it further, here are two options for “toning” or “spot reducing”;

• You want “toned” back of the arms. You would have to specifically work your tricesp muscle doing hundreds of reps of exercises, many days of the week (like a body builder routine who spends 1-2 hours in the gym a day 6 days a week doing isolated exercises).

~ Considering most people struggle with hitting the gym 3-5 times a week consistently I don’t see using this High volume regime for toning as very effective.

 

• You want “toned” back of the arms. Choose a handful or two of full body exercises that are going to not only challenge the arms, but the rest of the body. Do a good solid workout with intensity using all your muscles for roughly an hour let’s say 4-5 times a week. At the end of this program you have spent less time exercising, and more time focusing on getting overall body tone and strength (leaner muscles) rather than just ending up with some nice looking arms.

Katy put it herself like this: “Yeah. So spot reduction – biologically, spot reduction is how it works. However, the frequencies of movement are so so slow, that even if you’re doing 2-3 workouts a week over a period of 4 months, that’s still quantitatively so low that you probably wouldn’t notice any physical reduction in the shape of your fat deposits”.

 

So would you look at that! After 10 years of refusing to use the word “toning” in the industry I find a nice scientific way to bring it around full circle.

 

What a perfect segway to me telling you about a program I am starting on Tuesday April 12^th from 6-7 pm at the YWCA Health and Fitness Centre.

I teach a women on weights training program. It is an advanced women’s only small group training program where you learn compound lifts and advanced strength-training exercises. These exercises are great because they work every muscle in the body at once, giving you an efficient, metabolic boosting, strength gaining, fat blasting workout!  

The class is $150 for members and $186 for non members. It runs for 6 weeks on Tuesday nights from 6-7 pm. Call 604-858-5777 to sign up.

 

I hope this blog made sense for you- please let me know if you have any questions!!

 

If you don’t have Itunes or listen to podcasts, you can also read the entire interview Katy did about this topic (including references to the research studies) here:

https://nutritiousmovement.com/podca