Strength training & protein increase fat loss & keep it off...

Today's Post: Monday, 12-7-2009

In today’s Early to Rise email, see www.earlytorise.com , an email on money, success, and health, the founder, who goes by Michael Masterson, titled his health essay today,

“ How to Avoid Becoming a Fat Thin Person.”

This is a very good title for three reasons,

First, if you lose weight by losing muscle, when you’re done, you will burn fewer calories which tends to make you eat more than your body uses which causes any fat you lost to return.

Second, your ability to do things from jumping out of harm’s way if needed to carrying groceries depends on your muscles so having less of them literally makes you less able and safe.

Third, people who are already at normal weight but who don’t exercise and have too little muscle DO have the kind of internal, abdominal fat that tends to cause heart disease and type 2 diabetes. So, if your weight loss efforts turn you into that kind of normal weight person, the health benefits of losing the weight are far less than they could be.

Michael points out to only lose fat but no muscle at all in your weight loss efforts is clearly the right goal.

I think this is easier to focus on if you actually say you want to LOSE FAT rather to focus on losing weight. (Of course if that fat you want and need to lose weighs over 40 pounds and you succeed in losing it, you will weigh less.)

Michael reports that research published in the Journal of Nutrition found that two matched groups of women on a moderately calorie restricted diet got very different results.

Both groups ate the same number of calories -- & both groups even walked several times a week -- but the women in one group ate a bit more carbohydrates and a good bit less protein and the women in the second group not only ate substantially more protein and fewer carbohydrates, they also did two sessions a week of strength training.

The results were strikingly different.

The women on the higher carbohydrate, lower protein diet who walked but did no strength training lost an average of 15 pounds; and something like 2.5 pounds of their weight loss was muscle. (They lost about 12.5 pounds of fat.)

The women in the high-protein group who did strength training just two days a week had lost an average of 22 pounds; & only about half a pound of that was muscle. (They lost about 21.5 pounds of fat.)

The combination of a bit more protein and less carbohydrates with strength training increased the fat lost by 9 pounds.

But the importance of the increased fat lost is even more than just the greater amount.

The high protein, strength training group, was visibly trimmer and less fat far more than the lower protein group who did not strength train.

They looked better and very likely felt more successful. They were clearly stronger than the group that did no strength training. Their health improvement was far greater.

And, even better, between these better results and feelings they also had enough muscle to burn more calories than the group of women who did not strength train and who LOST so much more muscle, so their chances of keeping off the fat they lost are dramatically better.

The increased protein & fewer carbohydrates also helped. As readers of our previous posts also know, high glycemic carbohydrates that you eat make you less hungry at first but soon increase your hunger. Protein foods, by contrast, that you eat, make you less hungry a bit more & do NOT create the rebound hunger before your next mealtime as the carbohydrates do.

This means that the better results were also very likely caused by the higher protein group being less hungry as much as the greater calorie burn from the strength training and less muscle lost.

The best news is that the increase in protein was likely small something like an extra egg or two small servings of fish instead of one & the strength training group only did two sessions a week of it.

This means most people can very likely do as well.

This also means that someone who does the triple of walking most days for at least 20 minutes, strength training two days a week and vigorous interval cardio 3 other days each week -- and eats more health OK protein foods -- and eats green and nonstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit and whole grain foods AND eliminates refined grain foods & foods made from them, all soft drinks, and most sugar will very likely do even better.

Best of all, this way of eating AUTOMATICALLY reduces the calories you eat; but does NOT make you more hungry.