Month: September 2015

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How to Set Exercise Intensity

Today, I want to look at the issue of setting exercise intensity in the context of aerobic work, interval training and weight training.  It’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while (I think I actually started an article on it years ago) I have included it in other books (notably the Stubborn Fat Solution) and it is going in The Women’s Book.

Setting Aerobic Exercise Intensity

Traditionally, the intensity of aerobic exercise has been set with heart rate. The typical first step was to estimate maximum heart rate and an old equation of 220 minus age is commonly used. This equation was developed decades ago on a small sample of men and a better equation for women would be 227 minus age in the first place. But the problem is that maximum heart rate can deviate enormously from this value.

That maximum heart rate was then multiplied by various percentages (such as 60-75%) to set training ranges for aerobic activity.… Keep Reading

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How Does the Menstrual Cycle Affect Energy Balance?

One of the primary factors that separate women and men is the presence of the menstrual cycle, the roughly 28 day cycle during which her primary sex hormones estrogen and progesterone change in a fairly “standard” pattern.  During this time, nearly every aspect of her physiology changes.  Specific to today’s article I want to look at the impact of the menstrual cycle on energy balance (i.e. calorie intake vs. calorie expenditure).    In doing so I will be primarily looking at the following paper.

L Davidsen et. al. Impact of the menstrual cycle on determinants of energy balance: a putative role in weight loss attempts. International Journal of Obesity (2007) 31, 887-890

Women and Body Composition

As I discuss in extreme detail in The Women’s Book women get the short of the end of the stick when it comes to body composition.  Their bodies fight back harder, they lose both weight and fat slower (even given an identical intervention), they tend to gain fat more easily, they gain muscle more slowly, etc. … Keep Reading

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Meal Frequency and Meal Patterning

The following is an excerpt from The Women’s Book.  Specifically it looks at the issue of meal frequency and meal patterning.   Specifically it looks at the issue as it pertains to women, who often face issues that males do not.

Chapter 13: Meal Frequency and Meal Patterning

In the last chapter, I looked in a great deal of detail at concepts related to setting up what I consider an optimal diet. This included a look at general dieting concepts along with information about setting protein, fat, carbohydrate and sodium/potassium intake. I also looked at fluid intake and artificial sweeteners.

Having set up a diet, there are additional issues that need to be addressed such as meal frequency and overall meal patterning (on a given day) and calorie distribution (over the course of the week). I’ll look at each in some detail including some relatively “new” approaches that may be superior under some conditions.… Keep Reading

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Do Antidepressants Cause Weight Gain

Given that I’ve been fairly open talking about my own mental issues and dealing with bipolar, I tend to get my share of questions regarding either mental health in general or medications.  These are only potentially overwhelmed by the number of questions I get about women’s periods.  In any case, a commonly asked question is “Do antidepressants cause weight gain?” and that’s what I am going to address today.

Let me say up front that neuropsychiatry and all of this is not my primary field nor area of expertise and absolutely don’t claim that it is.    At the same time, the neurochemistry of eating behavior is a long time interest and there is certainly crossover between the topics which is why I feel comfortable enough writing about this.  Anyhow.

So far as the general question of whether or not antidepressants cause weight gain, there’s no singular answer.   Different drugs have different relative risks or propensities with some causing weight gain, some causing weight loss and others being relatively neutral.… Keep Reading