Hungry?
June 2nd 2007 14:01
I think many people begin a get in shape program because of a shock that their emotional equilibrium cannot abide. They are cruising along and suddenly they are weighed at the doctor's office or they grab a pair of little worn pants out of the closet and discover that they used to be able to wear them. A state of shock is usually not the best time to rely on one's judgment, but I understand that without the state of shock no change is likely to take place. In the last couple of posts I have been trying to help someone who is in that shock phase to make so prudent decisions about how they are going to get in shape and avoid the problems that an emotion inspired fitness program can present.
As I said last time, a person who gets a fitness shock usually launches into a diet and an exercise program at the same time and sends their innocent body into a a period of too rapid adjustment. I suggested that haste be made slowly by first establishing a sound diet for about three weeks and then entering very cautiously into an exercise program. If you are a NMF reader of any tenure you know that I think that weight training should be that exercise program. If you give your body time(It took it awhile to get out of shape,didn't it?), it will do everything you are asking of it.Rush it and it will show you that it has its own ways, whether you like them or not.
I mentioned last time that a person on a diet and exercise program probably faces problems with hunger.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that eating less and working more will make you hungry. And when you are on a diet being hungry is the whole problem. What many people do not understand is that a proper diet will limit your hunger to a level unfamiliarly low to you by any previous standard, if you are eating the crap that most of us in the West eat. How is this?
A diet high in carbohydrates (and sugar especially) reaks such havoc on the insular system in your body that all kinds of bad things happen. One of these is a hungry feeling that is not to assuaged, unless more sugar and starch is poured into the system. The carb eater can easily be thrown into a nasty cycle of eating junk only to be hungrier and in need of more junk. There are many diets that do not take this into account and entice the dieter with promises of eating small portions of junk. The result is that calories are restricted,but the hungry feeling is still being stoked by the out of whack insular system. Add an unfamiliar exercise load and the dieter is in for a raging hunger problem, which can only be solved in the obvious, counterproductive way. Is it any wonder that most dieters fail in the first few days or weeks?
If,however,you limit starches and sugars to a minimum and select those you feel you must eat from a list of very low glycemic foods, you will discover, as I did, that you no longer experience the kind of hunger that you have in the past and that the obsession with food that you may feel is dissipating. When you get hungry, it will be real. What a burden will be lifted from your psyche, if the only hunger you have to worry about is legitimate hunger.
Does this mean that low carb is the diet way to go? I suggest that it is, but at any rate low glycemic is on the right path. No diet that does not rid you of what is essentially an addiction to sugar etc, is going to do you that much good in the long run. Being hungry in the right way is something worth pursuing.Your servant, as always.
As I said last time, a person who gets a fitness shock usually launches into a diet and an exercise program at the same time and sends their innocent body into a a period of too rapid adjustment. I suggested that haste be made slowly by first establishing a sound diet for about three weeks and then entering very cautiously into an exercise program. If you are a NMF reader of any tenure you know that I think that weight training should be that exercise program. If you give your body time(It took it awhile to get out of shape,didn't it?), it will do everything you are asking of it.Rush it and it will show you that it has its own ways, whether you like them or not.
I mentioned last time that a person on a diet and exercise program probably faces problems with hunger.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that eating less and working more will make you hungry. And when you are on a diet being hungry is the whole problem. What many people do not understand is that a proper diet will limit your hunger to a level unfamiliarly low to you by any previous standard, if you are eating the crap that most of us in the West eat. How is this?
A diet high in carbohydrates (and sugar especially) reaks such havoc on the insular system in your body that all kinds of bad things happen. One of these is a hungry feeling that is not to assuaged, unless more sugar and starch is poured into the system. The carb eater can easily be thrown into a nasty cycle of eating junk only to be hungrier and in need of more junk. There are many diets that do not take this into account and entice the dieter with promises of eating small portions of junk. The result is that calories are restricted,but the hungry feeling is still being stoked by the out of whack insular system. Add an unfamiliar exercise load and the dieter is in for a raging hunger problem, which can only be solved in the obvious, counterproductive way. Is it any wonder that most dieters fail in the first few days or weeks?
If,however,you limit starches and sugars to a minimum and select those you feel you must eat from a list of very low glycemic foods, you will discover, as I did, that you no longer experience the kind of hunger that you have in the past and that the obsession with food that you may feel is dissipating. When you get hungry, it will be real. What a burden will be lifted from your psyche, if the only hunger you have to worry about is legitimate hunger.
Does this mean that low carb is the diet way to go? I suggest that it is, but at any rate low glycemic is on the right path. No diet that does not rid you of what is essentially an addiction to sugar etc, is going to do you that much good in the long run. Being hungry in the right way is something worth pursuing.Your servant, as always.
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Comment by Ironman
Ageless Abs
Print Normal font Large font A bit of weight training might make you younger as well as perking up those pecs and firming those abs. A lot of research is now directed at finding ways to slow the aging process. Now a piece published in the journal PLoS ONE has found that doing resistance exercise training actually reverses the aging process at a cellular level.
To understand how resistance exercise can make your cells younger, you need to be aware of one of the current theories of aging. Within every one of your cells is a mitochondria. These mitochondria are the powerhouses of each cell. They create the energy that every cell needs to run. It is believed by many experts in the field of aging that it is the breakdown of mitochondria that leads to the deterioration that we associate with aging. This new study has shown how you can rejuvenate those deteriorating mitochondria.
You can well imagine that if the energy source of cells is breaking down then the cells themselves will cease to operate optimally. As cells fail then the organs that are made up of those cells also start to breakdown and there you have a major mechanism of age-related decline. One of the tenets of anti-aging medicine is that aging does not need to be synonymous with decline. If you can address the underlying disease promoting states that we accept as normal then you can age "optimally", without illness and without deterioration. So if you can stop mitochondrial breakdown, you may be stopping one of the drivers of "normal" aging at the cellular level.
In this study conducted at the McMaster University Medical Centre in Ontario, they took tissue samples from the muscle of a group of people aged 20-35 and from another group of people aged 65 plus. One way to measure how a mitochondria is going is to examine its "transcription profile".
Mitochondria have their own DNA that is separate to the DNA in the cell nucleus. This means that mitochondria make their own proteins and other essential materials. You can tell if a mitochondria is dysfunctional by measuring these proteins. This is called the mitochondrial "transcription profile". Sure enough, the researchers in this study found that the people aged 65 and over had much greater mitochondrial dysfunction than their younger counterparts.
After these initial measurements the older participants were asked to undergo a resistance training program. The program consisted of two one-hour sessions per week. In each session they would work every major muscle group by doing exercises like leg presses, chest presses, leg extensions, leg flexions, shoulder presses and lat pull-downs. They kept this program up for six months and the results were significant.
Naturally, the resistance training resulted in greater strength. Before the program the older participants were 59 per cent weaker than the younger participants but after six months were only 38 per cent weaker. The fascinating thing however, was the change in mitochondrial function. After the six months of training the "transcripion profile" of the older people had reverted back to that of a younger person.
So resistance exercise (as opposed to aerobic exercise) can make your mitchondria function more efficiently. At a cellular level you have literally become younger. The good news as well is that it is never too late to start. People aged 65 and over showed they can get the benefits in this study and if the exericse is continued for more than six months the benefits may be even greater. So whatever your age, get those muscles working and if anyone asks why you have suddenly taken up resistance training just explain that you read The Tonic and have become a "mitochondriac". This response might not make things any clearer but you will have had the personal pleasure of an appalling pun, and personal pleasure plus exercise just has to keep you young. At least, that's my prescription.
Footnote: For those of you who want to give your muscle building a push along, a new study in the Journal of Physiology found that adding omega-3 oils to the diet of animals over a five week period, doubled the amount of muscle tissue they developed when compared to a normal diet. Yet another reason to get into the fish and also the fish oil.
Comment by JohnR/Nomythfitness.com