We are living in an age where the amount of food we consume in its original state has greatly diminished. Instead, our cupboards and pantries are filled with “food products”. These food products consist of overly processed carbohydrates from corn and wheat that come in cardboard boxes and have a list of ingredients as long as my arm. Chances are you won’t be able to pronounce many of the ingredients because they consist of chemicals created in a lab designed for mass production and an unlimited shelf life. I don’t know about you, but I am not too jazzed about the idea of having my food fueled by ethanol and my fiber coming from cotton seeds. These are now the norms and not the exceptions. So if the idea of using these inexpensive, low calorie, highly processed foods to aid in your fat loss goals sounds appealing, you might want to reconsider.

You may not realize it but the corn and wheat that we consume is not the same corn and wheat that our grandparents ate 50 years ago. The seeds used to grow our corn and wheat have been modified and hybridized to such an extent that the nutrients in commercial corn and wheat are practically non-existent. Our bodies have not evolved to digest and metabolize these foods. When they enter our digestive system our bodies identify them as foreign material and are unable to use them effectively, because there is little to extract from them.

Any meal or snack that is high in processed carbohydrates will cause a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for the rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the levels of blood glucose. The problem is that insulin is primarily a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of fat in case of a future famine. So the insulin that is stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the storage of body fat. When we eat too many processed carbohydrates, we are essentially sending a hormone message via insulin to the body that says “store fat”. And it gets worse from there. Not only do increased insulin levels tell your body to store fat, but they also tell it not to release any stored fat making it impossible for you to use your own stored fat for energy. Double whammy.

We have established that hormones play a crucial role in determining how energy is used and how fat is stored. And we have identified the #1 offender that makes fat loss so difficult, even when our calorie consumption is low. Next week I will address foods that will reverse this process and get you on the right path to fat loss.

When I look back on my elementary school gym classes, I realize now that these teachers had it right. Classes would consist of chasing each other around the gym as a warm up, which was followed by some form of skipping, jumping, throwing, pushing, pulling and climbing.That was the extent of it. It seemed like hard work at the time, but we became comfortable with our bodies by learning how to move them through space. These moves are what best resemble every day life activities and transfer to overall athleticism. Bodyweight training which is a test of relative strength is what beginners need to strive for in their first year of training before moving on to free weights. Relative strength is exactly what it sounds like. It is the maximum amount of force that one can exert in relation to their body size or weight. I have seen many guys come into the gym, stack a bunch of weight on a bar or plates on a machine and perform numerous repetitions. On the flip side, if you were to ask them to perform a proper push up or chin up, they would be unable to complete more than one or two. This scenario is all too common. Don’t fall into this trap. 

A question I often get asked by clients is whether bodyweight training is effective for adding muscle ? Absolutely. Look no further than the physiques of gymnasts we see at the Olympic Games. They spend countless hours balancing and moving their bodies through space under extreme amounts of tension. For a beginner trainee any bodyweight exercise that provides sufficient tension will result in strength gains.  At the onset, strength gains are due to enhanced neural efficiency (the brain becomes more efficient at sending messages to the working muscle).  After the initial 3 to 5 weeks of a strength training program, hypertrophy (muscle growth) becomes the dominant factor in strength gains.

As bodyweight exercises begin to get easier there are always ways to make them more challenging. Training unilaterally (one limb at at time), changing angles to create a mechanical disadvantage, using rings and other suspension devices like the TRX or Jungle Gym XT are options that provide greater instability and the excess tension necessary to make these exercises more challenging. 

 Bodyweight training will not beat up your joints like common weight training exercises do. They allow your body to move through a more natural range of motion. The problem with machines that you will encounter in commercial gyms is that they force our bodies to move in one fixed plane. Either left, right, up or down. Our bodies are not designed to move like this ! They want to move slightly up, then over, a bit to the right and then back up again. So your joints end up in a compromising position, where your stabilizer muscles are bypassed because no balancing is required and your muscles end up growing in an unbalanced way which leads to weaknesses, imbalances and injury.

The best part about bodyweight training is that it can be done anywhere at any time and it requires minimal space. You can train in your basement, backyard or a local park, weather permitting. This works out great for people who are short on time or are intimidated at the thought of having to exercise amongst a large group of people. If you are starting from ground zero, learning the basic technique for push ups,  pull ups, planks, bird dogs, squats and lunges is where you need to start, If you are unfamiliar with the proper form to execute these moves, there are a number of videos on YouTube you can watch that demonstrate them all very well. 

I attended a Human Performance seminar last weekend and within the course of the day we were required to take the Myers and Briggs  personality test. I tested high for introversion, but what caught my attention was a score of 1 out of 100 to ‘openness to new experience’. I knew up front that I had never been a fan of change and have a preference for safety and convention.  I think most of us reach some  point in our lives where we realize that change is necessary for continued personal growth and that can be scary. I am certainly no different. So I have decided to take the plunge into the unknown.

I am a strength coach/personal trainer by trade and I have managed to carve out a nice little niche business in the Greater Toronto Area , but the need to branch out, express myself, meet new people, learn more, and share new ideas is paramount. Your knowledge, attitudes and opinions on the topics of discussion are strongly encouraged.  Social media has become an infinite information highway and is a great tool to convey messages to a broad audience.

My reason for blogging is to meet new people, share my knowledge, become a strong writer, get to know myself better,  live a more intentional life and hopefully inspire others. My current plan is to blog once a week with topics pertaining to human athletic performance, strength training, nutrition and overall well-being. Keep an eye out  for next week’s entry entitled: ” How to begin an exercise program and stick with it”.