Figure Athlete - A Microscope Keeps You Fat

A Microscope Keeps You Fat
by Chad Waterbury

"Sometimes you get irritated because you care," my mother likes to tell me on occasion.

I guess it stands to reason that this thorn in my side can be removed and the wounds will heal if I take positive action. What am I so worked up about?

Many of the Internet discussions I read on a daily basis befuddle me — and that's putting it mildly! (As a side note, when did the word "Internet" mandate a capital letter?)

I'm not going to pick on anyone, but when I overhear discussions or read threads I often can't help but think: Is this what people are really worried about? I mean, most of this stuff doesn't even matter when you look at the big picture.

So here I am, hoping to bring some clarity to your nutrition and training plans.

Before I start it's important for me to elucidate who this information is intended for. This article is for all of you ladies who are overwhelmed by the details. You know who you are.

You're far from your goals, you're not an expert in biochemistry, and you don't know whom to trust, what to believe, or what's important. My goal is to help you overcome the instinctive and undeniable human desire to "focus on the minutia," as TC likes to say.

Dan John, God bless him, cracks me up. We haven't talked much over the years, and I've only had a face-to-face with him two or three times. (See, the meetings have been so infrequent that I can't even remember how many times we've chatted.) But his articles and presentations always give me a handful of real-world nuggets of gold.

Anyway, one of my favorite retorts by him has to do with supplements. His athletes, students, friends, and neighbors like to tug on his ear for advice. Oftentimes, when the topic of supplements comes up, he's been known to fire back, "Do you floss? I only give supplement advice to people who floss."

This is how I feel about many of the topics I see raised in articles and threads. Have you taken a critical look at the forest before you worry about the leaves? The list of minutia is exhaustive, so I'll just pick on just a few.

These man-made garbage chemicals should be the last things you focus on when it comes to fat loss. Before you even consider whether Splenda is better than aspartame, take a good look at your overall carbohydrate intake for the day.

We know that lower carb diets will help you lose fat. Are you consuming 200 grams of carbohydrates per day, or 50 grams? Are you getting your carbs from bread, rice cakes, and lattes? Or are you getting them from fruits, trail mix, and sweet potatoes? Those are questions worth asking since they lead to real, noticeable results.

Let's take two extremes to get my point across. If you need to lose 30 pounds, substituting a half of tablespoon of real sugar for Splenda isn't going to do jack squat to help you lose fat. And if you've got ripped abs, a little bit of sugar isn't going to turn into fat, or turn you into Kirstie Alley, especially when you're staying active and getting your other carbs from natural sources.

Bottom line: If you read Sheila Viers' informative article on the subject, you know that artificial sweeteners aren't good for you. The jury's still out with regard to just how bad they are.

If you want to use them, that's your choice. But don't think for a second that they'll improve your health or physique. Do your body a favor and avoid them.

This simple sugar is stored in your liver, but your liver has a limited capacity for it. So if you eat too much fructose it'll turn you into a fat-laden, waddling cow. That's what many women fear, anyway.

Table sugar has a whopping 50% of fructose in its structure. Intuitively, this seems to be a bad thing. But the question is: How much table sugar are you consuming per day? Is it just a tablespoon in your morning coffee? Or is it contained in many of the foods you eat throughout the day?

If you don't know have the answers, that's part of the problem.

Even worse, I've lost count how many women avoid fruit because they heard about the purported evils of fructose. You can blame the sins of man on an apple but you can't blame it for the fat on your ass. Thankfully, Cassandra Forsythe wrote an excellent article setting the record straight with regard to fruits and fructose.

Bottom line: Can too much fructose hurt your efforts? Yes, but when you limit your daily carbohydrate intake to 50-75 grams per day, and when you focus on natural sources of carbohydrates, cutting back on fructose doesn't even need to enter the equation.

There are many foods that contain protein. Some foods, such as meat and eggs, are complete protein sources since they contain all the amino acids. Other foods, such as nuts and beans, are incomplete proteins since they lack some amino acids.

Foods that contain complete protein are often considered "ideal" because you never know which amino acids your body will need at any given time.

However, I frequently get asked by a well-meaning woman which foods are the best sources of protein. My first question is: How much protein are you consuming? Is it 30 grams or 150 grams?

You see, if you're getting 120 grams of protein from a mix of complete and incomplete sources it's a helluva lot better than only getting 40 grams per day from beef and eggs.

Figure athletes are often afraid of incomplete protein sources. But the truth is, many of these same foods are replete with nutrients such as fiber and minerals that will help you lose fat.

Bottom line: Focus on boosting your protein intake to triple digits. Only then should you worry whether or not more complete protein will help your efforts.

Technology allows us to pull lots of outrageous pranks on our friends and co-workers. (Don't think I've gone all ADD on you, I'm getting to my point.)

Imagine you cut your finger with a steak knife. You could take a digital picture of your cut, blow it up to preternatural proportions in Photoshop, and send it to your friends.

They click on the file and wham-o there's a gnarly 12" cut stretched across their computer screen. They've all but written you off and braced themselves for your epitaph.

But in reality, the rest of your body is healthy and strong. They simply got a disproportionate view of your health status.

My point is that it's crazy to blow up such a miniscule part of your diet and look for fat-storing culprits. What you need to do is step back and look at the big picture. Big changes lead to big results.

That brings me to the next topic: your workouts.

Total body exercises

The more muscles you recruit, the more fat you'll lose... so step away from the machines!

I want to get a law passed. It applies to all gyms and personal trainers. The mandate will state that any trainer who has his obese female client perform curls, calf raises, floor crunches, or seated machine exercises will be immediately deported.

These are the worst exercises you can do to lose fat!

I've got an assignment for you. Pick up a heartrate monitor, strap it on, and write down how much your heartrate elevates, and for how long, with the following circuit:

Biceps curls for 10 reps
No rest
Triceps extension for 10 reps
No rest
Side raises for 10 reps

That's 30 total reps.

Once your heartrate returns to normal do 30 squat thrusts. Be prepared for a shock in simple math when you compare the difference.

The most important training lesson you'll ever learn when seeking fat loss is this: exercises that recruit the most muscle mass burn fat fastest. Leg extensions are horrible, lunges are better, and a lunge with an overhead press is even better.

This same philosophy should be carried over to your energy systems training. Sitting on an exercise bike is inane, running outside is better, and squat thrusts are a much more effective fat-burning choice.

Bottom line: Single joint exercises are the worst fat-burners; compound exercises such as rows, presses and squats are better; total body movements are best.

These really are three essential components of any fat loss workout. Forget about esoteric set and rep combinations, and don't get caught up in articles that talk about heartrate zones and percentages of calories burned from fat. The following is what you really need to know.

When you increase the load or reps, and truncate rest periods, you can make any workout better for fat loss. You only need to glance over Tabata's exercise research to understand just how powerful high intensity work paired with short rest periods is for fat loss.

Cutting rest periods is easy. Just start with the shortest rest period you can manage and reduce from there, usually on the order of five seconds with each subsequent workout. So going from, say, 60 to 30 second rest periods over the course of six workouts is an excellent strategy.

Increasing intensity, on the other hand, is a little bit trickier for females. As many of you know, I'm a firm believer that certain women are genetically predisposed to getting bigger than they want when they perform too much volume with squats, deadlifts, and pull-ups, just to name a few.

When you just want to burn fat without adding excess muscle, increase the load so you can only get 3-4 reps with a few total body exercises and limit your sets to 3-4. Contrary to what you might believe, low-volume training with heavy weights (eg, 3x3) is one of the best ways to avoid getting big.

However, adding volume with heavy weights is one of the best ways to get bigger muscles. The difference, of course, is the total number of reps per exercise. So if you want bigger muscles, feel free to perform 8-10 sets of 3-4 reps with a heavy load.

Also, add reps to exercises such as squats and deadlifts to boost hypertrophy. For example, a three minute set of bodyweight squats is great for fat burning and building bigger thighs, if that's your goal.

Bottom line: keep rest periods short and loads and/or total reps high when training for fat loss.

As cliché as I may sound, people are still suffering from analysis paralysis. I hope I've given you a few reasons to shift your focus from small to big with your nutrition and training plans. Only scientists need a microscope.

For more of Waterbury's information pick up his e-book The 10/10 Transformation here

His book Muscle Revolution can be purchased here

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