’Fat burners’ are the most popular supplement group on the market.   What exactly is a ‘fat burner” ?  Manufacturers apply this term to describe any supplement that  increases fat metabolism or energy expenditure for a short time period, increases weight loss, increases the use of fat as a fuel during exercise, or somehow causes metabolic  changes that promote the use of body fat over a long time period.  While there are thousands of fat burner supplements available for purchase on the market, few have any human studies to back up their claims.  Supplements that have been tested on humans include caffeine, carnitine, green tea, conjugated linoleic acid, forskokloin, chromium, kelp, and fucoxanthin.  Of this list, only caffeine and green tea have sufficient data to back up their claims, and the effects on fat metabolism are small.  The other supplements, while showing some promise, need further testing to warrant recommendation for use.

Athletes sometimes do need to cut some weight but they can’t afford to miss training days from getting sick.  Nor do they want to lose muscle!  It is easy to reduce the calorie count in a meal by about 15%.  That does not mean you won’t feel full.  Research by Barbara Rolls, PhD, at Penn State University showed that by decreasing the amount of grains and meat portions, and subsituting low calorie vegetables, subjects in the study consumed fewer calories.  Even better, they didn’t really notice the amount of calories was reduced.  The bonus of swapping out some greens for grains was a boost in anti-inflammatory nutrients.  If part of your dinner plate is sugar or grease, then replacing more veggies for these foods can have an even higher payback.

Marquette – NOV 19th.  Mary Connor and Donna Marlor  will be at the Marquette Yoga Center to introduce YOGA FOR A  LEAN LIFESTYLE to the Marquette communty.  Described as a yoga  approach to weight loss and maintenance,  Yoga Center owner, Mary Connor said,  “It is a unique  program for anyone and everyone who has ever struggled with body image, yo-yo dieting, eating disorders and of course excess weight.  Based on the 8 limbs of yoga, when combined with nutrition coaching, this program offers a peaceful approach that is effective for managing holiday stress and eating.  Yoga is an  essential part of the program since research studies have shown that so often overeating is not about food.

When I suggest to a client that the best way to insure success at reaching their weight goal is to keep a daily record of food intake, it’s a suggestion usually met with resistance.  Exercise logs don’t fare much better.  But if you are having problems staying motivated for more than a couple of weeks on a weight loss program, then monitoring with a personal digital assistant (PDA) might be the answer.  Research has demonstrated that when self-monitoring of daily diet and exercise was done using a PDA, after 6 months the group using the PDA technology had more weight loss, and had a higher number of self-monitoring entries than a comparison group using  a paper record.  Perhaps just as important, the PDA group that also received a feedback message ate fewer calories and less saturated fat than the other groups (paper record or PDA only).

 It should not be a surprise that frequent monitoring of goals and messages that encourage us to keep trying make it easier to reach health goals.

 If you were to wear your favorite pair of running shoes and run for 6 minutes at 6 minutes per mile, and then repeat the same course the next day using “barefoot” shoes at the same pace, which would burn more calories?  When a group of 10 recreational runners, 5 males and 5 females were asked to run at a 70%VO2max pace, heart rate and rating of perceived exertion were higher wearing regular shoes.  While the difference between barefoot vs. shoes was only 2% on a treadmill, when tested on ground, to run the same pace VO2max was 5.7% higher with shoes.  What does this mean?  If you want to use less effort and win a race, go barefoot.  For the calorie burn, work harder and wear shoes.   Think about it: would you ride a mountain bike during a road race?

No More Pyramids!  A welcome change,  the USDA finally has us back to the table, and eating from a plate.  Now up on the web, Choose My Plate  is a back-to-the-basics approach for healthy eating.  A great online tool, the plate method provides a simple, organized view of what foods to choose for balance and fuel.  You can personalize a calorie level and menu plan by entering your age, gender and activity level. Whether a recreational athlete or elite, this basic food guide can make it easier to reach your performance goals.

When the scale seems “stuck” despite doing regular aerobic exercise, it might be time to grab some barbells in the weight room.  What is the best routine to maximize the calorie burn?  That is what researchers at the University of Southern Maine decided to find out.  They compared the energy cost of performing a bench press exercise 2 ways: muscular endurance vs. strength routine.  Single-set bench press lifts of approximately 37%, 46%, and 56% (endurance-type) and 70%, 80%, and 90% (strength-type exercise) of 1 repetition maximum were performed.  Because a higher volume of reps could be done at the lowest weight (until failure), the best calorie burn was at 37% of maximum.  Subjects could perform 36 reps at the lowest weight and burned almost twice as many calories compared to the strength-type exercise routine, where only 8 reps or less could be completed.  Bottom line: for the most “burn”, go light and lift long.

Eating an orange or kiwi may be your answer to burning more fat during exercise.    Most people do not know that vitamin C is involved as a cofactor in the biosynthesis of carnitine, a molecule required for burning fat as energy fuel (fatty acid oxidation). 

Preliminary findings are that subjects who are vitamin C depleted have lower levels of carnitine leading to a 25 percent decrease in fatty acid oxidation per kg body weight when performing a submaximal, 60-minute treadmill test than individuals whose vitamin C status is adequate.

A high intensity workout at maximum effort, for 60 minutes burns up about 15 cal/min or 900 calories.  Subtract from exercise calories, the calories you would have burned sitting for an hour, about 100.  Exercise caloric expenditure would be an additional 800 calories over resting rate of 1500 calories for the average woman, making her total requirement 2300 calories for the day.   For males, average resting caloric needs are between 1800 – 2000 calories.  To calculate a more accurate value for resting calories use the Harris- Benedict equation.

Working hard does not mean you can down as much food as you want.  Just two pieces of a large cheese pizza and a 16 ounce soda totals up to 755 calories, 21 g protein, 15 g of fat, and 136 g of carbohydrate. 

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 One of the mistakes I see many vegetarian athletes make is forgetting that plant based protein may also contain substantial amounts of carbohydrate or fat.  Here is an example: 2 tablespoons of peanut butter provides 8 grams of protein – but it also has 16 grams of fat and is 190 calories.  A half cup serving of black beans has fewer calories – just 114 – but adds 20 grams of carbohydrate and only 8 grams of protein to the diet.  When an athlete needs 100 grams of protein per day, it is sometimes difficult to balance the additional carbohydrate and fat calories with total energy needs.

 A great vegetarian choice that provides a high proportion of all nine essential amino acids is the whole soybean.  In one half cup of mature yellow soybeans, there is 14 grams of protein, only 8.5 grams of carbohydrate and 9 grams of fat, and 194 calories.   Foods that contain whole soy in the diet are tofu, soy milk, canned soybeans, and edamame.