Calorie counting dietary approaches are very popular with fat loss programs. Restrict your caloric intake and/or combine it with calorie burning exercises and it works, but not always. For those who are getting to the 50+ age group, they typically find it more and more difficult to maintain a lean physique even though they are still burning the same calories through exercise and eating lots of salads and sticking with 'healthy' whole wheat bread. 

 

One of the explanation is that we have less lean muscles as we get older and hence our metabolic rate is reduced. We briefly discussed this in Issue 9. Another potential explanation is that consuming 'healthy' foods with high Glycemic Index is not as forgiving any more as it used to be when we were younger. 

 

Calorie counting approaches are beneficial for those who wish to see results faster, which in turn will help keep someone motivated to continue working on healthy life style choices. In the long term, we need to do something that will keep us both lean, as per our genetic predisposition, and healthy without being hungry all the time. At the end of the day hunger will always win. 

 

In this newsletter we will discuss calorie-in-calorie-out approach (essentially summarizing a couple of articles we sent you previously) and talk in some more details about our hormones.

 

This study demonstrated that the calorie-in-calorie-out approach did not work in ~50 years of age obese women with the metabolic syndrome. Otherwise, there would be no difference between the two groups of women.

 

Many women reaching that age group could attest to this. While at younger age they used to eat well, exercise and have a fairly lean physique. Now they still eat well and do the same exercises, but the body does not respond in the same way it used to.

 

 

Lipase is another key component responsible for mobilizing stored body fat for energy. This hormone is sensitive to insulin and epinephrine (adrenaline). Epinephrine acts as the on switch, starting the process of fat breakdown while insulin works as the off-switch, stopping the process.  When high intensity strength training is performed our blood sugar dips down, hence lowering our serum level of insulin. When the intensity is high the body will also release epinephrine. These two factors combined creates an ideal environment for lipase to start the process of mobilizing body fat for energy. 

If your goal is to lose body fat then you should perform a true high intensity workout, emphasizing exercises that utilize more muscles. This workout is quite intense and should not be composed of more than 8 exercises, the Big Five exercise program would be sufficient. This will activate epinephrine and reduce your serum insulin levels which will allow lipase to facilitate the fat burning process. Do not rush replenishing your post workout carbs with foods that have high Glycemic Index if your main goal is lose body fat.