Bodyweight Regulation Wrap-Up: Other Hormones
I already talked a little about insulin in that series but there are still more hormones of some importance. With more likely to be discovered as time goes on. Oxyntomodulin, GLP-1, PP and others are being discussed in recent reviews and further research will go towards determining what in the hell is actually going on.
Tangentially, this is one of the big problems in trying to find a true ‘solution’ to the issue of weight loss and obesity: the human body has a number of overlapping, integrated and redundant pathways that all send signals to the brain. Fix one and something else eventually steps in to fill the role and cause problems.
A new interview with yours truly
Over the past several weeks, I’ve done an online interview with Steve Troutman for his body-improvements blog. You can read what I had to say below Body-improvements interview Part 1 Body-improvements interview Part
Part 3,4 of my interview at Body Improvements
We’re still working on the changes to the site/blog, please stay patient. IN the interim, you can read Part 3 of my interview at Body Improvements and Part 4 of my interview at Body Improvements
Why is Stubborn Fat Stubborn?
In general there are clear gender differences that show up at puberty, suggesting that sex hormones play a role in how fat cells develop. And there is much truth to this. It turns out that if you take a fat cell from a man’s thigh and a woman’s thigh, they are functionally identical and essentially indistinguishable physiologically. Even though the man generally has extremely low levels of estrogen.
Greg Everett’s Olympic Lifting Seminar DVD – Product Review
A few days ago, I did a review of Greg Everett’s new book on Olympic Weightlifting; as I stated, he has also done a DVD which I ordered shortly after getting the book.
Calorie Partitioning: Part 2
So you start your diet, reducing carbs, calories or both. Blood glucose and insulin levels are going to be reduced. This is good, it releases the ‘block’ on fat mobilization. Additionally, catecholamine release typically goes up, further increasing fat utilization. Blood levels of fatty acids will start to increase. This is good, as it tends to promote fat burning in tissues such as liver and muscle. This effect is facilitated if you deplete liver and muscle glycogen as glycogen depletion tends to increase the use of fatty acids for fuel. The increas in blood fatty acid levels also has the short-term effect of causing insulin resistance which, as I mentioned, is a good thing on a diet since it spares glucose and helps promote fat oxidation. So far, so good, right?
Calorie Partitioning: Part 1
At a very fundamental level, the problem that natural bodybuilders and athletes have is one of partitioning; that is, where the calories go when you eat more of them or come from when you eat less of them. In an ideal universe, every calorie you ate would go to muscle tissue, with none going into fat cells; you’d gain 100% muscle and no fat. In that same ideal universe, every calorie used during dieting would come from fat stores; you’d lose 100% fat and no muscle. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal universe.
Insulin Sensitivity and Fat Loss
In theory, you can make arguments for or against any of these approaches in terms of superiority. In the real world, it’s not quite that simple. You can always find folks (and this is true whether they are bodybuilders or just general dieters) who either succeeded staggeringly well or failed miserably on one or another approaches.
What is Training Intensity?
One of the longer standing arguments in the field of strength training has to do with the definition of intensity with various camps essentially defining intensity in their own way and everybody talking past one another when they have debates about it.
Steady State and Interval Training: Part 2
As mentioned in Part 1, interval training hurts. It’s difficult and you have to be willing to push to make them effective. Put differently, if someone is not going to work sufficiently hard at interval training, then there’s really no question about intervals versus aerobics. A half-effort interval workout doesn’t accomplish any of the things that interval training is trying to accomplish; if you aren’t willing to push yourself on the intervals, you should simply do regular aerobic training.
