Is it just coincidence that lean people seem to stay lean?

Ever wondered why two people can go on the same diet but not get the same results?

Our own individual chemistry plays a part in how much body fat we will likely lose when on a diet/workout regime.

The major factor in how much our body will lose is determined by how overloaded our body is already. Rather than try to explain the intricate details of your physiology, lets talk about what we all know about the end result of being overloaded.

If you are overloaded at work and your cubicle neighbor asks if they can palm a small project off to you, your reaction is likely to be different than if you have an easy load.

Once your body has been overcome by whatever stress/dietary habits/sleep patterns/hormone variations/internal allergic reactions the path to weight gain has been laid down and there is a downward slide about to happen.

If you speak to anyone that took medication or hormone supplementation they will tell you they changed nothing in their diet and suddenly started gaining weight. Why? Because although their calorie intake was the same, the way their body was able to process what was going in was the differentiating factor.

Its not what goes into your mouth, its how your body is processing that energy that makes the difference.

For the next two weeks, notice the following an hour after each meal:

Are you still hungry?

How bloated do you feel?

Do you have energy or do you feel sluggish?

All of the above may be signs of a metabolism that has slowed according to your diet.  How to change it?  The top three culprits are usually the following:

Sugar

Wheat

Milk and milk products

Don’t ask me why – I can just promise you that if you were to eat the same calories but cut out those products you would lose weight and feel like you had more energy.

So track how you feel and if you find yourself feeling sluggish, still hungry and low on energy, note what you ate and try something different tomorrow.

Remember that your body is your own – your chemistry and how you process food is unique to anyone else.  Track how you feel after your meals and refine your meals to give you a better energy boost.  Keep track of these!

As you lose weight your body will respond differently to different foods by virtue of your own chemistry changing.

Why did nobody tell you this?  Because they think you wont pay attention to a message that is more complicated than ‘calories in / calories out’.  I however am going to give you more credit than that – so don’t make me look bad, ok? 

Got a question?  Post a comment at the bottom and I will gladly help in any way I can.

Yours in health,

Jamie Atlas

The post You Are Not One Size Fits All. Why You Need an Individual Weight Loss Plan: appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

You know the piece I am talking about – the infinity staircase, the forever stepper, the piece of equipment that spits you out the back if you aren’t looking where you are going.

Live in Denver?  Go to WWW.FITNESSBYATLAS.COM to get a free pass to one of our classes

Frank knew that if the elevator at work ever broke down... he would be ready.

The Stepmill is an excellent piece of equipment that challenges both the leg muscles and cardiovascular system. If you aren’t a regular exerciser (at least once a week) then this machine is not for you… just yet.

I recently posted an article that talked about the top three pieces of equipment: the treadmill, the bicycle and the elliptical machine. What I didn’t realize is that although those are the most commonly talked about, that doesnt necessarily make them the best (think Britney Spears).

I received a post shortly after asking me about the rowing machine and my opinion of that. I of course realized my error immediately. I had pandered to the masses!

I had Ignored the legions of less-popular equipment users that for some reason would stumble across this blog and indignantly protest my narrow perspective of exercise equipment. Shame on me!

Why do I love this machine? Here are just a few reasons:

• Replicates the real world
• Works the all the major muscles of the legs
• Because few enough people use them that you can usually find one that isn’t taken
• Great Cardiovascular exercise
• The variety of foot positions keeps you from ‘hamster wheel syndrome’
• One of the few machines I recommend to average gym goers as well as high level athletes

Climbing the Vatican Stairs - bring a water bottle... and extra calf muscles

I can use this machine in a variety of ways. If I am constantly changing the way my body steps then I can be sure to work all angles of my glutes/quads/hamstrings/calves while still burning fat and reaping the cardiovascular benefits.

Some step patterns are more demanding than others, but here are just a few positions that I have my clients make use of when they feel up to the challenge.

For a full lower body challenge, try climbing the ‘virtual staircase’ any of in the following patterns:

• Regular position
• With feet wide
• With feet narrow
• At a 45 degree angle to one side
• Regular position stepping slowly then quickly stepping up (think about waiting ’til the last second to step up with the other foot)
• Angling the feet so they are pointed 45 degrees out
• Angling the feet so they are pointed 45 degrees in
• 2 steps at a time

For an extra booster, try any of the above variables with the following tweak:

• Just one finger from each hand lightly touching the rails (great stability challenge)
• One/Both hands behind the back (awesome leg and stability emphasis)

Warm up before your Cardio

Of course the most important thing in all of the above is that you are warmed up – I know, I know – you gotta warm up before you do cardio? You’re kidding, right? This machine is a challenge on your lower body joints – not something to lead off with.

Be sure you feel your knees and ankles are fully warmed up – try five minutes on one of the more popular exercise equipment pieces in your gym before stepping up to the high yield workout that is the Stepmill cardio session.

If you wanted to do the above as part of your regular workout, here is a recommended program to follow:

For this workout at a 7/10 intensity the whole time – be sure to get a couple of stepmill workouts under your belt before you start going for the steeplechase championship.

Looking at these stairs, I would wager that these Buddhist monks probably have some killer glutes and calves hidden under their robes

Beginning full lower body stepmill workout:

1. 5 minutes on treadmill at easy pace to warm up
2. 1 minute regular
3. 1 minute wide
4. 1 minute 45 angle left
5. 1 minute 45 angle right
6. 1 minute regular with only left hand on rail
7. 1 minute wide with only left hand on rail
8. 1 minute 45 angle left with only left hand on rail
9. 1 minute 45 angle right with only left hand on rail
10. 1 minute regular with only right hand on rail
11. 1 minute wide with only right hand on rail
12. 1 minute 45 angle left with only right hand on rail
13. 1 minute 45 angle right with only right hand on rail
14. 1 minute regular
15. 1 minute wide
16. 1 minute 45 angle left
17. 1 minute 45 angle right
18. Feel free to repeat the above 16 minute cycle as many times as you would like depending on the time you have to workout or when you start to feel the burn in muscles in your legs you didn’t know you had.
19. 5 minutes treadmill to cool down and finish
20. Stretch major muscle groups of the legs

All of us are looking to improve our results in less time in the gym. If you want better results for your lower body, the best thing you can do is change up the stimulus for the lower body. By increasing the angle at the hips, knees and ankles. (such as with the angle formed when using the stepmill).

Not sure what to say about this one other than - Whhhaaaaaat?

The total amount of work required by the legs is greater in the step – if the leg bends 15 degrees (as you would walking on a treadmill) then the muscles used and the amount of work is significantly less than if there is a 60-90 degree bend in the knee and hip. Don’t believe me? Try walking the stairs vs walking the path.

More hip and knee angle in your workout is always going to mean more muscles worked (which makes for better looking legs).

Next time in the gym, dodge your regular cardio routine and have a play on the stepmill. Sure, it’s a bit dusty and doesn’t have a fancy program tool or incline adjustment. But just try it out.

After a few weeks of conquering the Stepmill you will find a newfound ability to conquer hills and staircases of varying altitude. More importantly, you will now have the power to saunter past the next escalator you see, giving a consolatory sneer to the poor saps that just dont have what it takes to take the real stairs. Those wusses.

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

Live in Denver?  Go to WWW.FITNESSBYATLAS.COM to get a free pass to one of our classes

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The post Stepmill: Most Underrated Machine in Your Gym. appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

If you workout the wrong way, you have a good chance of gaining size where you don’t want it.

The real shame is that you haven’t been taught how to workout to tone muscles and how to workout to gain size!

If you want to gain muscle size, then you should workout like a bodybuilder. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t. Unfortunately this isn’t as simple as it sounds.

Chances are you don’t want to be the next WWE female wrestler, but chances are also good that nobody has been able to tell you how to create different changes other than to say ‘workout at a lower intensity’.

Are you working out like a bodybuilder? Do you know the difference?

Here’s what to look for – Bodybuilders usually work out in the following manner:

Isolated muscle groups (using machines that work just one muscle at a time – e.g. leg extension for the quadriceps muscle at the front of the upper leg or the bicep curl for just the bicep).

Split Routines (workouts that specialize the workouts to upper or lower body – e.g. chest and triceps, back and biceps).

High Intensity workouts such that they have trouble walking/opening doors/feeding themselves the next day

Either of the first two look familiar to your regular workouts?

If you are interested in gaining muscle, then you would be best served to avoid all of the above. However, that leaves you with a dilemma.

Isolated muscle groups are used in almost every exercise in your average gym workout or aerobics class!

If you do a dumbbell bicep curl with ‘proper form’, you have effectively isolated the bicep and have therefore given it the signal to grow. You are essentially sending the signal to your body to give you bigger arms. If you do it with improper form then you have an increased risk of injury! Surely there must be a solution that gets us where we want to be without turning us into the next Chyna along the way!

Notice how two of the above pictures are doing the same exercise? Wouldn’t it make sense to add extra muscle groups such as in the squat with bicep curl example on the left?

If you were looking for completely different (in fact OPPOSITE) results, wouldn’t it make sense to do a completely different exercise?

If you do side shoulder raises then you are asking your body to build you some natural shoulder pads.

If you split your program up by body parts then you are again stepping into the bodybuilding world.

Is there a solution that allows women to get the toned athletic body they are after?

The solution can be found through ‘functional exercises’. These are exercises that are based on using muscles together to help you with your daily functional activities. The good news is that functional exercises also burn more fat than traditional isolating exercises.

How to tone muscles without expanding them:

Rule #1: Always combine muscles together.

Do a bicep curl with a squat. Do a tricep press into a lunge. Discover exercises such as the woodchop, the bent leg dumbbell deadlift, the standing chest fly and these three exercises:

The following video shows three exercises for runners, but they are also my three favorite that I have every client do that walks into my studio. Just these three exercises work almost every muscle in the body

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yhPtQNEsE]

Rule #2: Mix up the combos, not the body parts.

If you do a new exercise then you are working the muscle in a different way. If you want to workout 5 times a week then compile a list of 30 functional full body exercises and do 6 exercises each day. If you want to hire a trainer at your local gym for a session then do that and ask them for a list and have them show you how to do it.

if you don’t know where to start or what to do then you could set up an in-home session – click here to understand how an innovative personal training company can help you workout from home on your own schedule

Rule #3: A little soreness and a little grit is good.

Some soreness the next day is good – the intensity of your workout doesn’t have to be such that you crack a filling, but does have to be enough that you give a slight grimace at the end of the set (think ‘tight jeans’ grimace but not ‘compressive evil high heels’ grimace) .

Because we are no longer isolating muscle groups your capacity to grow muscle is significantly reduced. Because we are also working multiple muscles every time, the toning of these multiple muscle groups also becomes the primary focus of your body. So once you feel confident with the technique, fire up the Gloria Gaynor on your ipod and get into the workout.

Rule #4: Remember that you are working more muscles, which means burning more calories

If you do a isolating bicep curl, you burn one muscle group. If you do a ‘squat with a bicep curl to overhead press’ then you just worked about 15 more muscles in the same time period. Which one worked more muscles? Which one burned more calories? Which workout style is going to get your body leaner and meaner in a shorter period of time?

Do I ever use these muscle-isolating machines? No, I don’t.

Do I ever have any of my clients use there machines? No, I don’t.

Every workout I ever do has a functional training focus to it. But I dont do it because I want to stay lean. Nor do I work in a functional movement system to have toned muscles.

I do functional workouts because they are fun.

At the end of the workout I have a sweat on my brow and a smile on my face – what more could I ask for than that?

Yours in health,

Jamie Atlas

PS  If you would like to know more about functional personal training for max toning and fat-burning or have a burning fitness question that needs answering , please email me. You can find my email contact details here

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The post Womens Fitness: How to Work out Without Bulking Up appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

This is part 1 of a three part series.

I will start with the treadmill, since that is one of the most popular pieces (although I have been known to trash treadmills, they certainly have their place in the gym and deserve a fair comparison). Click here and here to read my attack on the misunderstood and often misquoted treadmill.

People often get confused as to which is the better option for their workout – treadmill, elliptical or bicycle. The decision can be difficult to make without the right information.

Mimes. Easily confused, but not as creepy as clowns.

Here is the answer I like to give when asked for preferences (and no, I am not open to offers from equipment companies to bribe me – although I do really like the StarTrac total body trainers – the variety on those things is awesome!!)

The answer I like to give whenever asked “what is the best equipment/exercise band/workout video/lycra spandex catsuit” is always the same:

“it depends”.

It depend on what you are after, it depends on what your history of exercise is, and it depends on what injuries you might have and sometimes it just depends on how you feel on the day.

Live in Denver?  Go to WWW.FITNESSBYATLAS.COM to get a free pass to one of our classes

Before I get into the major differences, here is something to consider. If we can work more muscles then we will burn more calories.

However, we need to make sure that our joints do not get overloaded at the same time. A key phrase to remember when deciding what to use, is the phrase ‘repetitive patterns’.

Repetitive patterns can be a major cause of joint pain, muscle imbalances and unfashionable sweaters from your Granny at Christmas.

Repetitive patterns of movement can wear your joints out faster- repetitive patterns in sweaters are just destructive to your sense of fashion… Seriously – is that guy wearing…. a leather kilt?!

When I select a machine, I am always careful to make the workout on it just a little different than last time (which is why you need a workout program) – whether it be foot position, incline, speed, stride length or just mixing up the programs. I want to make sure I am giving my body a different input – and I do this for the folllowing reasons:

By mixing up the variables on any given machine, you can improve your results in the following ways:

Increased overall cardiovascular ability – if we continue to do the same program our level of cardio can become stagnant, even decrease.

Decreased chance of injury – by training in different ways, I give key muscles a chance to rest while other neighboring muscles have a chance to work – this allows my body to recover partially while working a variety of muscles in different ways.

Reduced boredom - lets face it, we all want to enjoy our workouts more. The only way to keep things fresh… is to keep things fresh! Mixing up the programs at least keeps us guessing – and if we can make sure we feel the burn at the end of it all, then we are on track to improve our results but also on track to make sure we are motivated to turn up for the next workout!

The major differences between the ‘big three’:

Treadmill:

When you take a step on a treadmill, every step is just a little bit different. You can reduce the range of your steps or increase them if you are jogging/running. It also means that different muscles are being worked and a variety of muscles means better results when compared to a locked position (such as you would find with an elliptical or a bicycle). however, it means that if you are tight in the hips, you might be walking with a reduced range as opposed to an elliptical making you take longer strides which would lengthen out your hips (and so the paradox unfolds). So if you have tight hips I might recommend spending more time on the Elliptical – or to tackle the problem at the source, try doing some hip flexor stretches (this gal does a great job or explaining what your hip flexors are and how to stretch them).

I like:

I like that you are able to self-select your own stride and I also like that it means you are working your body in a slightly different way with each step.

I like that you can do a large variety of things on the treadmill like walking and running (which may not seem like a bunch, but the action of walking, jogging and running are all thoroughly different movement patterns with different muscles and loads

I don’t like:

I don’t like that people crouch over the treadmill as if they are about to make out with the start button.

I don’t like that people hang on to the rails as if they are about to get pulled under the moving belt.

Major advantage: Your body uses more lower body but also rotates as you walk/run which means more muscles worked and more calories burned for your time spent watching Ellen/Oprah/That guy from the money channel who just yells and smashes things all the time.

Major disadvantage: Higher impact than bike or elliptical means joints get more of a pounding compared to a bike or elliptical which means you must be more careful with your program variety as you progress.

Overall:

The treadmill is an excellent piece of equipment – although misunderstood by many.

Do not confuse the action of walking/running on a treadmill with the action of walking/running on real ground (again, Click here and here if you are interested to know why). It may look the same to our untrained eyes, but your body knows the difference – just like my wife knows a fake gucci.

I couldnt tell you the difference even if you showed me the ‘made in china’ label (made in China means they are fake, right?), but with one glance – she knows.

I’m not sure what is worse – buying a fake gucci or making ‘mans best friend’ wear a high fashion backpack. I bet all the other dogs beat him up as soon as he gets to doggy daycare.

Your body knows the difference between being on ground and the treadmill. It doesnt mean it isnt good for your body and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it every now and then. But it does mean that if you are doing it so you can go on a hike or go running in a triathlon that you should consider

Elliptical: to be continued

Bike: to be continued

What do you think? Am I missing a piece of equipment that you totally love?

Send me your equipment name and why you love it and I will write a review on it for all to see.

Jamie Atlas

Live in Denver?  Go to WWW.FITNESSBYATLAS.COM to get a free pass to one of our classes

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The post Treadmill, Bicycle or Elliptical machine? pt 1 the Treadmill appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

I missed this element many times in regards to my own personal fitness and nutrition goals.

At a fitness conference it was all at once that the realization of this question hit me.

It changed me with such clarity that it made me want to go back in time, track down my five-years ago self and give myself one of those wrestling moves you see on tv for being such a dummy and not figuring this out years ago.

a picture of me about to go back in time in order to give myself a well-deserved backhand

Many people start an exercise routine and have goals.

Other people are told by their doctor to start doing something.

Others are fans of weight watchers or jenny craig (both of which have their positives and negatives).

The key to success that often gets missed comes to us not when we are at our meetings and not when we are at the gym.

It is not when we are talking with our friends about our progress or our new outfits or our old outfits that we want to start wearing again (even though capris are sooo out of style now).

The key question (and it’s answer) is something that we may be a moment of silence for.

It is the moments of silence in our lives that lend us opportunity to solidify our foundation

The answer to this question helps us at 6am in the morning in the middle of winter when it is cold and windy outside and bed seems just so nice.

The answer is crucial to our success when our friends innocently invite us to a night of debauchery and hedonism the likes of which we sorely miss and would thoroughly enjoy.. at least until the next day.

If we fail to ask this question then we build our fitness goals on a false foundation.

If we are able to answer this question then we have found the concrete pillar upon which we can refer back to at times of weakness, the touchstone that will drive us forward when life around us tries to drag us down.

The key question is this:

What could stop me from achieving this goal – and what am I going to do to make sure it doesn’t?

The answer will change as your weight loss/fitness changes. If you can focus on your answers at times of weakness, you can focus on not letting anything stop you.

Dont

Let

Anything

Stop

You

Like a loaded gun on your hip, have your solutions ready when the obstacles come…

And success will be yours.

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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if you liked this post, you might also like:

What the world of fitness has been reduced to (in one picture)

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The post The One Question you Need to ask Yourself Before Starting a Weight Loss Program appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

What if I told you a sixpack was impossible for you?

What if I did some magic genetic test and you found out you were always going to have a bit of fat covering the belly.

So many of us are in the gym working out and it hit me the other day that some of these people may never get to have a lean sixpack stomach (probably most of them). And it made me sad to think that these people might give up exercise altogether out of frustration.

How would you react? Would you keep working out?

Would you stop altogether once you got the news about your permanent pooch and say “Well, that’s it then. I guess I might as well go get some bon-bons”

(does anyone actually eat bon bons anymore? They seem to be the standard fat joke food, but whenever I look for them in the supermarket i can never find them)

In case you are wondering, this is (apparently) is a bonbon. I still dont know what is inside, but they appear deliciously bad for you.

Why do you exercise? If you knew you couldn’t get the aesthetic goal you wanted – if it was never going to be a possibility even if you camped out at whole foods and ate only the most organic and health of foods in a carefully balanced and precise nutrition regimen and worked out like a banshee in spandex…

Would you keep working out even if your aesthetic goals were not attainable?

Are we all exercising purely for aesthetic reasons?

Do we not even care about the potential problems that come from inactivity?

Research shows that inactivity increases our chances of experiencing:

• Joint pain
• Heart problems
• Bone density issues
• Cancer of a variety of types
• Lack of energy
• Greater strength losses as we age
• Reduced flexibility (think you have trouble touching your toes now?)

Does any of the above life altering factors matter to you? Did they ever enter your consciousness before? Does it matter now that you have read it again? Why didn’t it matter before?

Your daily activity is connected to much more than your ability to fit into your skinny pants

I feel like that is all I see on TV nowadays – sixpacks left and right and nary a heart health commercial in sight. Let me know if that is all you people really want!

Am I not seeing the same things you are?

Is quality of life just not sexy enough anymore?

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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The post Would You Still Work Out If You Knew You Couldn’t Get a Six Pack? appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

That’s me every time I see one of these so-called ‘fitness products’ on the late night infomercials.

You know it. I know it. She knows it and this guy knows it.

The chances of your average Jane or Joe getting to look like this is going to require a whole lot more than a hot water bottle around the belly.

You see, I hate fitness infomercials. No wait, thats not strong enough. I detest fitness infomercials

You know the ones I am talking about. The ones that promise health results are are also conveniently designed to be easily stored away after use – and never see the light of day again.

If I released a drug to the market that was ineffective for 90% of the population but worked great for just 10%… would that be acceptable by anyones standards?

If I then took the 10% and blasted their results all over TV how long would it take for the hammer to come down on my operation? Apparently I would have no problems at all… as long as I gave the magical words ‘results not typical’.

It doesnt mean you cant do it. It does mean that you shouldn’t believe the hype, and it also means that you should know that it is going to be hard work.

If it was easy then plus size stores would not exist and pizza hut would not be reporting record profits.

It requires commitment like you have never given before. So make sure you know what you want. It weight loss is what you want then set your eyes on that goal and do not turn away. Treat your goal as the small cubs and yourself as the mama bear and dont let anyone or anything come between you and that goal

Release your inner ‘Mama Bear’ if anyone or anything tries to get between you and what is important to you.

This lady knows what I am talking about when it comes to the infomercials and their propoganda.

So does this guy

If you forget everything else this post is about, remember this:

Aim for small, manageable, continuous improvement

Ever met the guy who lost 60 pounds in three weeks, only to yo-yo it back on and then some? I get to meet him on a regular basis – in fact the gyms have quite a number of people like that (maybe you have some friends like that).

Dont be discouraged if you dont end up looking like the guy/girl on the calendar picture that has probably been photoshopped and camera magicked beyond all recognition. Just pull out a picture of how you used to look and focus on being different than that.

Katie Couric losing 20 pounds in 20 seconds thanks to the miracle ‘photoshop workout’

The body will respond best to gradual changes to its dimensions. Push it too hard and it may push back in the form of joint pain, bad technique or injury.

Don’t expect dramatic change – I don’t care what the infomercial says.

If you start a weight loss program and you get more results in the first week, great for you. Your weight loss will plateau. Get mentally ready for it. When it happens, just keep plugging away and dont give up on it.

Dont give up even if you don’t lose another pound for a month. Never watch another episode of worlds biggest loser, tell other people to shove their advice where the sun don’t shine and stick to what gives you healthy, moderate progress towards your goal.

Think about this:

The slower your body gets to where you want it to be, the less likely it will be to bounce right back

So, keep it real. Keep your expectations real, keep your progress real and keep your commitment to yourself real.

Best in health,

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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if you liked this post you might also like the following articles:

Your workout may be making you fat – the #1 mistake people make

Your bathroom scale must be destroyed

The post “Results Not Typical” – Setting Realistic Weight Loss goals appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

You may need to gain weight in order to lose more fat.

Let me explain a bit more clearly.

My clients that are focused on losing body fat sometimes hit a brick wall. When that happens, I usually get asked to give my opinion. Usually I receive a request for my expert opinion and thoughts in the following manner:

“Hey! My scale hasn’t budged in the past 8 weeks? Whats up with that? Call yourself a personal trainer?”

In fact sometimes the client even weighs MORE (and then they are really freaking out)!!! This usually brings a big smile to my face. But not because they are moving backwards in their health. I smile because (given lifestyle and nutrition factors are on the mark) a gain in weight means my client is progressing even faster towards their goal. This inevitably creates confusion.

It is at this point I quickly ask the first key question:

“Your weight has not changed?”

The response can vary, but usually goes along the following lines:

“No, my weight has not changed. And I have been doing your stupid workouts and eating according to your stupid nutrition plan and my stupid scale says I am the same stupid weight! Dhhharrrrggghhh!”

At which point I ask the second key question:

“Have you lost any size in your pants/dress/waistline?”

The answer (if they are being honest with me and themselves) is “yes”. It is at this point my client begins to realize what has happened to their body is not a direct correlation to their weight.

Your scale has been lying to you the whole time.

Here is a deeper explanation:

At the start of any exercise program you will have an initial period where you gain muscle and lose body fat. It is scientifically proven that if you take pretty much anybody and make them do something when before there were doing nothing, they will change their composition and lose body fat and gain muscle.

Any trainer worth his/her salt can take someone and create change in the first 8 weeks. Past then is when the body starts to stabilize and things need to change. After this initial ‘honeymoon period’ the trainer must then adjust the program accordingly. The person will likely start to gain more muscle and lose less fat (comparatively and generally speaking).

After 8 weeks your body starts to gain more muscle but is not losing fat as fast.

This means that you will see your scale start to level out. But fear not, faithful exerciser. Your body is still changing, just not in the same way it was initially.

For the next 8 weeks your body can experience an increase in muscle without shedding a pound or gaining any size.

What does this mean? If you are a trainer it means you get lots of clients who have seen one too many late night infomercials and believe that weight loss is an easy process in which you just keep doing the same thing and your body keeps losing poundage until you look like Brangelina (well, I meanBrad or Angelina.. maybe not a combination.. that really would be unnatural!!).

Your body burns more fuel sitting around if it has more muscle

So throw away your scales! No longer must you stand in the bathroom on an early sunday morning cursing at the weight scale that confounds you so.

The goal pants know all

If you want to lose weight, you probably want this because you want to look better in your clothes/fit into smaller clothes. So pick out a pair of pants/a belt, and mark where it is now or how they feel now.

Then hide them for two weeks. Then put them on again. Smaller? A bit less snug? Give yourself a pat on the back and sneer heartily at the evil white square with the wavering needle that once held so much power, now reduced to an incidental measurement with minimal validity to your true goals (as opposed to its previous position of determining your reason for being).

This is your thigh on drugs… well, actually it is one thigh with more muscle, another that has less muscle and more fat – notice how they are relatively the same size?

If you were to weigh these two thighs, the muscular one would weigh more than the other more flabby one – which might make you think that the more muscular one was less healthy – if you were looking purely at what the scale says, that is…

Your weight is less important than how you fit into your clothes. You cannot know what lies below the skin – you can know that if you weigh more and your clothes are looser – you have more muscle, and less fat.

If you have not been losing weight but are feeling stronger and healthier than ever, then keep going! Know that as long as you are continuing to eat healthier and move with more vigor, that you are on the right track, and that though your weight may stay steady, you will be fitting into those goal pants in no time.

Have you seen changes in your body due to your workout plan that your weight does not reflect?

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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The post Weight Loss Paradox: Your Bathroom Scale Must be Destroyed appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.

It hits the best of us. After 3-4 months of steady exercising, your weight loss plateaus – maybe even reverses!

You get some good results at first, but now you just seem to be hovering around that point between “have you lost some weight?” and “is that a new outfit?” – meanwhile, the scale seems to be running its own evil propaganda campaign.

The Fat-loss Plateau of the Ya-Ya sisterhood

So what do you do to break a plateau? What if your weight has started to creep back up again despite your best efforts? Do more cardio? Change up your program? Get a personal trainer? Which one you choose (and how you stick with it) can make all the difference.

#1 Mistake people make in the quest for weight loss:

Repetitive cardiovascular activity

If you are doing cardio to lose fat, you may have been making a crucial mistake:

As your body improves in cardiovascular ability (and its ability to do certain movement patterns such as the repetitive motion of an elliptical trainer), it becomes more efficient at doing certain activities.

If you always use the same movement pattern, the body becomes more efficient at that movement pattern. Think about the first time you played a new sport/activity. You were exhausted the first time, but much less exhausted the third or fourth – physical changes played a part, but your body was already becoming more efficient at moving in those patterns.

The elliptical machine. Can you imagine the energy we could generate if we hooked these up to the main grid? You could power a whole gym with these oversized hamster wheels.

When doing an activity that you are familiar and competent at, you burn less calories within the same amount of time.

Looking at the picture above, can YOU think of a more repetitive and predictable movement for both your upper and lower body than doing the same pattern with your feet and arms every…single… time…

Confused? Try this example on for size:

Meet “Cardio Charlie”. Charlie one day decides to burn the fat away purely by doing the same cardio machine day in and day out. More miles tracked means more poundage burned, right?

Charlie keeps everything else the same (same calorie intake, same daily habits, same sleep patterns) but adds cardio to the routine. For the first week, Charlie does 40 minutes 3x a week and burns 2 pounds. Overjoyed by the results, the next week Charlie does an 60 minutes 3x a week and loses 2 pounds again and starts to think “What are all those people complaining about… this weight loss thing is a piece of cake!” (mmmm, cake)

What kind of mpg is your body getting? The less fuel you burn in your workout, the more you have left on your thighs…

From Hummer to Hybrid

It only takes a few weeks of dedicated cardio sessions before something starts to go wrong with the plan…

Your body (which started off burning fuel like a rusty diesel truck) after a couple of weeks is suddenly burning fuel much more economically.

You have, (by virtue of your bodies amazing physiological and cardiovascular adaptations), created a fuel efficient machine capable of doing the same amount of work with even less fuel consumption.

But building a fuel efficient machine is probably not what you came here to do, is it?

If you wanted a fuel BURNING machine, then your strategy of doing even more and more cardio to burn the pounds just backfired on you.

Process this equation:

New guy on treadmill = “X” calories in 40 minutes

Experienced treadmill user working at same pace as the newbie = Less than “X” in 40 minutes due to muscle and cardiovascular efficiency.

The end result? New guy gets the calorie burn – experienced guy gets the chronic and repetitive stress of the joints doing the same movement repetitively for the last 100 workouts.

The more cardio you do on the same equipment at the same intensity, the more fuel-efficient your body becomes at that exact workout.

ONCE ADAPTED, YOUR BODY COULD MOVE FROM CALORIE DEFICIT TO CALORIE SURPLUS

THIS CAN RESULT IN INCREASED FAT STORES – EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO AVOID IN THE FIRST PLACE!

But faithful reader, this story does have a happy ending…

What if our good friend Charlie were to mix up the cardio AND intensity AND equipment selection?

What if Charlie were to do some long slow distance cardio mixed with some higher intensity mixed with some interval cardio sessions.

Would that unpredictable nature keep the system from ‘settling in’?

Would it also make a difference if the program involved different machines? How different would the muscle pattern be if you switched from a treadmill to a rowing machine? From a bike to a stairway?

So if Cardio Charlie started switching up the cardio – added some weightlifting circuits, got a few sessions in with a trainer just to make sure everything was being done right, then most likely the plateau would be broken and Charlie would see the scale start to drop once again…

UNLESS….

Unless of course Charlie made the second most crucial mistake – the mistake of working out the wrong muscles in the wrong way to achieve fat loss.

Stay tuned for the workout mistake #2 that people make that actually REVERSES their fat loss in the gym.

Have you seen this mistake #1 happen in front of your very eyes? Had a friend experience this exact phenomenon? Tell us about it!

Jamie Atlas

http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

Want more fitness ramblings in your inbox? Make sure you subscribe to my rss feed!

The post Your workout may be making you fat – the #1 weight loss mistake people make. appeared first on JamieAtlas.com.