DC Fitness Advisor Says TIME Magazine Was Almost Right About Exercise Not Making You Thin

Time magazine just ran a piece called “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” by John Cloud. While most fitness professionals are incensed by Cloud’s piece, DC Fitness Advisor, Josef Brandenburg says, “Cloud’s piece was far more right than wrong. People in my profession are mad because they see this as a threat to their livelihood.”

“If Cloud had said, ‘exercise done for the sake of burning extra calories will not make you thin,’ then he would have been exactly right. Traditional exercise done for the sake of burning extra calories does not really work. We don’t have any scientific evidence to say that it does, and about half of my clients come to me after they get to the point that they are doing aerobics for 6 hours per week without…

Press release continued right here.

5 Celebrity Fitness Secrets For A Great Beach Body

Summer is officially here.  The clothes are coming off as we go to the beach or pool, and people want to look their best.  So we had award winning Washington, DC personal trainer Josef Brandenburg compile 5 secrets that celebrities use to create and keep amazing beach bodies:

#1.  Marissa Miller – Don’t drink your calories: Marissa told Cosmo “I hadn’t had soda in about five years, and I came home to find this thing in the fridge that rolls soda cans out like a dispenser.  I’m like, ‘What are you doing to me?’” referring to her husband’s new soda dispenser.

“There are almost no beverages with calories that aren’t just pure sugar – juice included.  Sugar spikes insulin and insulin makes you tired, fat and hungry,” says Brandenburg.

#2. Jason Statham… click here to read the rest of the 5 celebrity fitness tips (free as a press release).

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Why Does Interval Training Really Work?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should be pretty well aware that aerobic exercise is next to worthless for fat-loss.  You can put a woman on an 18month marathon training program and she won’t lose a pound! (1)  (If that sounds weird to you, then please read my piece from last week as the Washington, DC Weight Loss Examiner.)

While the most important part of a fat-loss exercise program is the metabolic resistance training, there isn’t a very good consensus on WHY metabolic resistance training and interval training work so well for fat-loss.

I used to think that it was because of this thing called EPOC – excess postexercise oxygen consumption, or the metabolic boost (elevation) that you get after intense exercise.  But, it turns out that EPOC probably isn’t big enough to account for the amount of fat-loss, and fat-loss doesn’t really work that way (calories in vs. calories out).

I have a new theory of why it works that I am reprinting here from my Monday post as the DC Weight Loss Examiner:

Interval training only consumes your stored carbs for fuel.  Body-fat is fundamentally regulated by the hormone insulin.  More insulin = more body fat and vice versa.  When you deplete your muscles carbohydrate stores (glycogen) you improve your sensitivity to insulin.  The more sensitive you are to insulin the less insulin you need to make to handle the same amount of food and/or carbohydrates.  The increased sensitivity to insulin is temporary, but if you do high intensity exercise like interval and resistance training you will appear to be someone with better insulin sensitivity (have less body-fat). (2-5)

That is the primary way that I think interval training creates superior fat-loss.

The secondary way is that intense exercise releases stuff called catecholamines.  These are chemicals like epinephrine and norepinephrine that stimulate the release of fat from your fat cells to be burned off.  The calories consumed by the workout are probably irrelevant.

I could be totally wrong, but that doesn’t matter.  it still works far better, in far less time and is more fun.

For more free info on how to do intervals click here.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

References:

1. Janssen, G. M., et al.  Food intake and body composition in novice athletes during a training period to run a marathon. International journal of sports medicine, May 1989; 10(1 suppl.):s17-21
2. Joslin. Elliot. Et al. Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 13th edition, 1994
3. Nussey, Stephen. et al. Endocrinology: An Integrated Approach. Informa HealthCare, 1st edition, 2001
4. Kronenberg MD, Henry M. et al. Williams Textbook of Endocrinology. Saunders. 11th edition, 2008
5. Lehninger, Albert. Et al. Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry. W. H. Freeman. 5th edition. 2008

Brown Fat & Weight Loss – What Does This Mean For You?

This will NOT just be a re-hashing of what you’ve heard on the radio, or read in the newspaper. It’ll be worth your while to read the whole 500 words (3-4min).

This week’s latest piece of weight loss news is about brown fat, or brown adipose tissue (BAT).  In lean people it burns up extra calories, and BAT activity can be stimulated by being cold (so far,  this doesn’t sound very fun).  Lots of scientists and reporters are hoping that BAT will provide a new target for a drug to ramp up its activity and increase energy expenditure in the obese.

The hope is that making BAT more active will create a calorie deficit and thereby end the obesity epidemic.

Why This Is Probably a Stupid Idea

The problem with this idea is that it assumes that there is no physiological relationship between calories in and calories out – that hunger is all in our heads.  Its just a matter of mind over hunger for the rest of your life.  (Why didn’t I think about being hungry when I was obese?  Oh right, I did, and I was!  And no matter how many motivational seminars I went to hunger always won!)

The problem is that EVERYTHING that we know about metabolism says that energy in affects energy out and vice-versa.

You know, when you are on a very low calorie diet you unconsciously stop moving, your sex drive disappears and you don’t have the energy to do much of anything.  Also, long bouts of strenuous activity make you want to eat more.

So, my point is that, if you were able to successfully stimulate BAT to burn up extra calories, it would not matter.  Burning extra calories would probably just make the person hungry, and those calories would get replaced by increased eating, or by the person moving a whole lot less.  Yes, the person could use will power to move more and restrict their intake for a while, but eventually the hunger will catch-up and the fat will come back – usually with interest.

The body is not some dumb machine where you can just change one important thing without there being consequences somewhere else.  This is why “eat less and exercise more” fails 98% of the time over the long haul.  Most people can’t be hungry forever.

What Gary Taubes Has To Say – The REAL Question For Your Body Fat

If you ever been impressed or learned something from anything I’ve said or written, it’s probably because I got it from somebody smarter than me.  Because he is WAY smarter than me, I asked Gary Taubes about BAT today.  Here’s what Gary had to say:

“I doubt it [BAT activity] means much because ultimately you’re concerned with the regulation of the white adipose tissue, which is the problem — not the total energy expended, but the regulation of the fat tissue. Why does the fat tissue take up too much fat? Not, why does the body expend too little energy?”

It seems like we’ve missed the point again.  The problem is that the overweight and obese accumulate too much white fat.  What regulates white fat?  Insulin, and pretty much nothing else does.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Gary Taubes probably knows more about the science of nutrition and fat-loss than almost anyone on planet earth.  He spent 5 years reading almost EVERY piece of research on the topics of diet and weight loss from the past 125 years and he distilled it into his masterpiece (in my opinion) Good Calories, Bad Calories.

I was so impressed with Gary that I said to myself, “I gotta interview that guy!”

Gary has the honor of being the very first person that I interviewed for my brand new Body Club Monthly Membership program.  Where he destroys almost every single sacred cow that there is in nutrition and public health such as:
•    Saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease
•    Weight loss is just calories in vs. calories out
•    Eating more fiber will prevent colon cancer
•    Aerobic exercise helps people lose weight
•    And a whole lot more!

By the way, you can go here for the best deal that I will ever be making on The Body Club.  There’s nothing to buy right now, its just raising your hand to say you’d be interested in being the first to find out about it and to save yourself a spot for the best deal ever on The Body Club.  There is an expiration date.

Oh, and clients, you will get ALL of the content of The Body Club absolutely FREE as part of your membership.  It will be going up in the member’s only section of thebodyyouwant.com. which is coming soon.

We’ve always known this

What I found really interesting about Gary’s work is the one of the fundamental facts of obesity – that starchy and sugary foods make people fat – used to be common knowledge, but is not somehow controversial.

For example in the novel Anna Karenina that was written by Tolstoy WAY back in the 1870’s make explicit reference to the power of low-carb diets.  Anna’s lover, Count Vronsky “avoided starchy foods and dessert” to lean out for a horse race he was going to participate.

I know, Tolstoy is not hard science, but there’s more.

In 1951 seven British clinicians published a text book called The Practice of Endocrinology where they give this advice for dealing with obesity:

“Foods to be avoided:

1.  Bread, and everything else made with flour…
2.  Cereals, including breakfast cereals and milk puddings
3.  Potatoes and all other white root vegetables
4.  Foods containing much sugar
5.  All sweets…

“You can eat as much as you like of the following foods:

1.  Meat, fish, birds
2.  All green vegetables
3.  Eggs, dried or fresh
4.  Cheese
5.  Fruit, if unsweetened… except bananas and grapes”

Gary has some 25 pages of references like this from the very early 1800’s to the early 1980’s.   To date, there are NO studies that show that a low fat diet beats a low carb diet for weight loss (or fat loss).  The low fat group is always hungrier, less successful and has a higher drop out rate.  Where is the controversy?

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC.  Visit www.thebodyyouwant.com to find out about our 7-Day Free Trial.  Space is limited so act quickly.

What Do Hitler and Dieticians Have In Common? Lose a lot of fat fast without being hungry.

You’ve heard it said over and over again by well-meaning dieticians, “ a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.  To lose weight you just need to eat fewer of them.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a fat, carb or protein.”

Adolph Hitler said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  That all calories are created equal is one of those lies.  It turns out that there really isn’t much research to support that theory.

WILL YOU STARVE SO THAT THEY WILL BE BETTER FED?

Near the end of WWII Ancel Keys started a starvation study to see how best to help the people in the decimated parts of Europe after the war was over.  For the first 12 weeks the 36 young men were really well fed – about 3,200 kcal/day, 3 huge meals per day with multiple courses, lots of protein and definitely dessert.

Things changed completely for the second 12 weeks.  At this point his volunteers were fed a diet based on what people in war ravaged Easter Europe would be eating – cabbage, bread, peas, and extremely small quantities of meat (so small that most of the participants were unaware that there was any meat at all in their diet).  This worked out to be just under 1,600 kcal/day.

The men (all participants were men) were NOT happy.  They were always hungry, had no energy, miserable, developed numerous health and psychological problems, and thought about food constantly.  (Does that sound like you on your last diet?) (1)

The Monkey Wrench

In the late 1960’s John Yudkin at the University of London was having remarkable success using low-carb diets for weight loss.  To silence his critics he decided to do a formal study of his clinic’s clients.

These are the instructions he gave them:

“The subjects were asked to take between 10 and 20 oz milk daily (about 300-600 ml), and as much meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, margarine, cream and leafy vegetables as they wished. The amount of carbohydrate in other food was listed in “units” with each unit consisting of 5 g carbohydrate; the subjects were told to limit these foods to not more than 10 units (or 50 g) carbohydrate daily.”

It turns out that these people VOLUNTARILY ended up eating LESS than Ancel Key’s folks in terms of calories, but had NONE of the emotional or physiological problems.  In fact they all had MORE energy, and were NEVER hungry.

Ancel Key’s people had to be held against their will in locked bunkers to comply with the 1,570 kcal/day diet.  Yudkin’s people WILLINGLY and AUTOMATICALLY ate 1,560 kcal/day and felt BETTER. (2)

What’s The Difference?

Key’s Semi-Starvation         Yudkin’s Low Carb
100g protein                         83g protein
30g fat                                105g fat
225g carb                            67g carb
1570 kcal                              1560 kcal

One was a low fat diet, and one was a low carb diet.

How many ways can I say it?  I’m not even touching on the studies where the low carb groups ate MORE – a lots more – than their low fat counter parts and dropped 75-100% more fat.

I’m about to graduate from one of the top Dietetic program in the US – UMD.  Yes, I’m 6 years “late”;-).  Every semester is exactly the same.  They repeat over and over again the dogma: “for weight loss eat as little fat as possible, and a high carb diet.  All that matters is eating fewer calories and nothing else.”

But they repeat this without EVER offering up a single reference, and never actually investigating the so-called science that supports this idea.

Lucky for me (and you) I’ve stayed busy getting my real education outside of school – at least 4 seminars per year, 50 books, and I’m always in touch with experts in the real world who are getting results that people will actually pay money for, not parroting inane theories just because that’s what everyone else thinks.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning personal trainer in Washington DC that was nominated several times for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine.  Oh, and check out his new web-site washingtondcpersonaltrainer.com

References

1.  Tucker, Todd. The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keys and the Men Who Starved for Science.  University of Minn. Press. 2008

2.  Yudkin, John.  The Low Carbohydrate Diet in the Treatment of Obesity.  Postgraduate Medical Journal. May; 51(5):151-54

2 Things You Need In Your Kitchen

Before I get into the meat of the post I want to thank you for tuning in to me in 2008.  I am honored by your attention and time.

I’m looking forward to seeing you in the New Year.  In week #1 look for the start of a 4 part series on creating a brand new body in the time that you actually have.  I’m doing it with the good folks at Primer Magazine over the next 13 weeks:

•    Part I A (week 1):  creating the mind-set to finally succeed this New Years – 99% of Americans fail to keep their resolutions past even 2 weeks, so don’t miss this part.
•    Part I B (week 1):  the simple nutrition plan that will massively skyrocket your energy AND help you drop 10lbs of body-fat in 4 weeks without having to count calories
•    Part II (week 2):  the 4 week Metabolic Blast workout plan – the other half of the equation that will have you down up to 10lbs of body-fat in just 28 days and less than 3.5hrs/week of exercise.  (I’ve had people do a lot better than 10lbs in 28 days.)
•    Part III (week 5):  phase II of the Metabolic Blast and trouble-shooting based on readers questions.  If you want your body to make progress, then you must systematically (NOT haphazardly) progress your workouts over time.  Generally every 4 weeks works very well.
•    Part IV (week 9):  phase III of the Metabolic Blast.  Its time to finish off your New Year’s transformation and “unveil.”  If you’ve stuck with it so far you will be looking at a new person in the mirror.

#1.  Sugar-Free Syrup

.25 cup regular maple and/or pancake syrup has at least 200 kcal in it, ALL of which are from sugar.  A quarter cup is only 4 tbsp and is extremely easy to eat without realizing it.  Most people end up eating between .25 and .5 a cup with breakfast.

4tbsp of maple syrup is the equivalent of a 20oz bottle of regular coke.  That is a HUGE blood sugar spike and crash (energy destroyer), and a HUGE spike of insulin (super fat storage, unless you just finished lifting weights).

Sugar-free syrup has just 20kcal per .25 cup, all of which come from slow-digesting sugar alcohols.

So, if you are making my super yummy, high protein pancakes use sugar-free syrup.  By the way “super yummy, high protein pancake” is NOT an oxymoron, and they’re made out of actual food, not a hodge-podge of highly processed Franken-food.  Oh, and they are very easy to make too.

#2.  Low-Carb Ketchup

Ketchup is pretty much just red high fructose corn syrup (HFSC).  This came as a big blow to me as I am a ketchup lover.  75% of the calories in regular ketchup come from HFSC, the most fattening substance known to man.  A few tablespoons here and a few tablespoons there you have a can of coke on your eggs, bun-less burger or whatever you like ketchup on.

Luckily there is such a thing as low carb ketchup where they take out the HFSC or sugar and replace it with Splenda, and the remaining calories come from actual tomatoes.  It has 75% fewer calories AND no added sugar and still tastes good.

While neither one of these changes alone will give you a completely different physique, both will help you to make more progress towards a leaner and more energetic you.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.

Quick Home Fat-Loss Blast

The cold is officially here and people start to slack off because:

- its too cold to do intervals outside

- it takes too long to go to the gym just to do intervals

-its too expensive to buy a treadmill for your house.

Solution: The Dumbbell Matrix.

All you need for this fat incinerating interval workout is:

-a pair of dumbbells (preferably adjustable)

-5′x5′ space

-This video

How To Use This Workout

1. Pick a weight that lets you do the whole matrix in about 2min

2. Start your timer and GO! Stop it when you’re done.

3. Rest twice as long as it took you to complete the matrix, and repeat 2 more times (3 total)

4. Try to beat your time from the last workout

5. When you can do the whole thing in 90sec you can move up in weight

Why Use This Workout

1. Burn a lot of calories quickly

2. Boost metabolism after your workout

3. Increase your body’s use of fat for fuel for the next 24hrs

4. Its fun

5. You can do it inside where its nice and warm

Josef is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.

Why You REALLY Hate Health Food

One of the biggest problems that most people have with nutrition is that in reality they really can’t cook to save their life. Most people just have one strategy for making their food taste good – add a butt load of extra fat, sugar and/or salt. Of course all of those extra calories will end up in your gut or saddle bags.

When people try to start cleaning up their diet and move to natural, whole food they are repulsed and blame the health food. “This health food tastes like crap!” they think and/or say, and that is where most people end their journey to a life of looking and feeling great. Usually people come away with the false belief that “being fit means eating cardboard,” or “health food is so nasty”, or something else like that.

The reality of the situation is that their food was nasty because they can’t cook! Their food was only palatable before because they dumped all the junk on top of it – it doesn’t take any skill to do that. Their food was always nasty, but they disguised it with 1,000 extra calories so they weren’t aware.

With that here are 2 FREE resources for you:

FREE STUFF:

#1. “Pimp My Meal: 8 Instant Ways to Make Healthy Meals Delicious” The sub-title says it all. Its 8 very simple ways to make your healthy food taste better almost instantly.

#2. TheBodyYouWant.com Recipe Section
There are over 30 very tasty, healthy, fat-burning and/or muscle building recipes on my web site right now! And they are all free! Pick one meal that you are struggling with and try out one of my recipes today.

Josef is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.