Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 6)

Recently, I have some friends asking me if taking steroids or HGH helps with their bodybuilding status. Then, I ask them back this question, "Does any of our muscular, lean, strong, powerful primal ancestors consume any steroids or HGH supplements during their lifetime? They looked blank and clueless why I popped that question to them. Bodybuilders obsessed with steroids consumption, loading their bodies with high doses of HGH, are at great risk of developing heart disease, particularly heart attack. It is actually common sense, and you don't need to be a genius to figure this out. When any of our hormones goes off balance, we suffer hormonal imbalance, disruption of endocrine system. Thus, we either fall ill, develop symptoms, and it will lead to disease. You have to remember, all our hormones, neurotransmitters and other molecule messengers, sync with each other in order to bring balance to optimum health, in other words, 'homeostasis'. 

We have tons of bodybuilders or gym enthusiasts overloading themselves with toxic protein powder supplements, HGH, steroids and god knows what other formulas invented by supplement companies. One very good example of an Australian bodybuilder (Mr.Australia) Lou Barry, who died of heart attack in the gym at the young age of 40 yrs? He looked well defined, healthy, muscular, fit and strong, yet what happened to him? Next, we have bodybuilder IFBB Pro Frank Hillebrand, who died of heart attack too early this year at the age of 44? Then, Edward Michel Kaouk, the Lebanese bodybuilding champion, died of heart attack too during his sleep. I could give you long list of these bodybuilders who suffered fatal heart attack due to abuse of these harmful substances, but you could do a Google search yourself as well. In a nutshell, there is no short cut to wellness and fitness. Toxic protein powders, HGH, steroids, all of these substances are not meant to be abusively consumed by human beings. Please read my earlier posts on heart disease which I explained how steroids cause heart failure. 

Well, not to mention elite marathon runners like Jim Fixx who died of heart attack too at the age of 52 yrs, and marathon runner legend Alberto Salazar who luckily survived heart attack too. Well, of course both these marathon runners are not related to steroids or HGH supplements, but they are examples of how endurance long distance exercise/sports affect our body and health. Below are a list of news and incidents of how toxic supplements and steroids associated with heart attack, as well as endurance exercises. Take some time, read the links thoroughly, with an open mind. It may save your life, especially the ones who love running or any endurance training, as well as bodybuilders. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/phys-ed-how-do-marathons-affect-your-heart/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/when-exercise-is-too-much-of-a-good-thing/

http://www.rlnn.com/ArtOct06/MarathonRunnerHeartAttackDies.html

http://www.examiner.com/marathon-in-national/marathons-and-heart-danger-dallas-marathon-runner-who-died-had-an-unknown-heart-condition

http://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/84740/flintshire-bodybuilder-dies-of-heart-attack-after-injecting-steroids.aspx

http://www.ergogenics.org/bodybuilding2.html

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/undercover38.htm

http://steroidanalysis.com/2010/08/dirty-brooklyn-doc-1-soon-to-be-dead-bodybuilder/

Now, let's resume the continuation of last post's discussion, about how cAMP influence our fat storing and burning in our body. Under normal dietary routines, that involve many meals throughout the day, gaining the undesirable fat while gaining muscle is almost inevitable. When I mention many meals in a single day, the body tends to store more fat especially when eating higher glycemic foods as well as high in sugar. If there is a reason for eating small meals within a day, it is to avoid insulin spike and control carbohydrate and sugar intake. Some people made mistakes even though they consume small meals throughout the day, with wrong types of calories and macronutrients. Conventional diets that incorporate long periods of off season overfeeding and long periods of on season undereating are probably missing the opportunity to take advantage of the biological principles upon which the body can potentially build muscle while losing fat.

Again, cAMP is a critical element in stimulating a growth potential. Nonetheless, for the materialization of this growth potential, another cellular factor must be activated. This cellular factor is called cGMP. It is responsible for the translation of the growth potential into actual muscle gain. Without its finalizing actions, there will be no tissue repair or growth.

How does this cellular factors works? When you eat a full meal right after fasting or exercising, you actually trigger an inner mechanism that helps your body to recuperate from induced stress. Your body gains an increased capacity to replenish energy reserves and nourish starving tissue with lost nutrients. It also gains the actual capacity to build and repair damaged tissues. All these actions are regulated by a cellular factor called cGMP.

cGMP is insulin-dependant and is therefore instantly activated when eating carbohydrate meals. cGMP appears ot inhibit the actions of cAMP by counteracting cAMP's effects. Nonetheless, under normal conditions, these two cellular factors work in sync, balancing each other through a negative feedback control, one is stimulator, and the other is an activator. One starts the process, and the other finalizes it. 

The human body is not built efficiently enough to go through long periods of induced overfeeding or induced underfeeding without adverse side effects. On the other hand, short periods of controlled undereating and overeating are likely to activate the cellular forces that help make possible simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss. 

Let's talk a bit about how cGMP can influence thyroid actions. Though not a steroid, the thyroid hormone has a steroid-like activity. It plays a critical role in regulating energy production, body heat, steroid hormone activity and fat burning. cGMP maximizes thyroid hormone utilization. To be fully effective, the thyroid hormone must be converted from T4, into its most active form T3. This conversation from T4 to T3 is catalyzed by a high level of cellular ATP that signals the body that plenty of energy is available. It signals thyroid to accelerate its actions and thus boost the body's metabolic rate. 

One of the main reasons for the metabolic rate decline is an inactive thyroid. The thyroid hormone can deactivate itself by reversing its active T3 form into a reverse T3, or also known as rT3, an inactive form. Reverse T3 is formed when not enough cellular energy is available over a prolonged period of time, a situation that may be due to over restrictive low calorie diet. rT3 is not easily detected by the routine blood test, done by most clinics or hospitals. Nevertheless, its potentially adverse effect on the muscle gains fat loss and overall metabolism, can be devastating.

People who go through long periods of crash or low calorie diet often suffer from impaired thyroid function, with symptoms such as sensitivity to cold, especially cold hands, low body temperature, dry skin, loss of hair, sluggish metabolism and overall fatigue. Rings a bell? When properly activated in the body's machinery, cGMP helps optimize thyroid functions, ensuring optimum energy utilization for all life functions and sustaining a healthy metabolism. Stay tuned..

Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 5)

In this post, I will discuss about muscle gain and fat loss at the cellular level. It will sound a bit more technical in some explanations and terms, but I will do the best I can to put it as laymen as I can. So, bear with me, as this post is fairly important for people who is interested in knowing the science behind muscle gain and fat loss. 

To gain muscle and lose fat effectively, you need to understand the basic principles of growth and fat burning. The most basic, self contained unit of life in your body is the cell, where every life action begins. Both growth and fat burning depend on the body's ability to activate certain compounds called cellular factors, which promote protein synthesis or fat breakdown. Endless number of cellular and systemic events are required for the repair, synthesis, and build up of muscle tissues, as well as the breakdown of adipose(fat) tissues, thereby turning fat into energy. 

Now, I'm sure some of you have heard or seen some so called 'miracle pill or supplement' which can stimulates the body to build muscle and burn fat. You might think it sounds too good to be true. What happen if you learn that your body already has this 'miracle pill' built in your body?

Your body is preprogrammed with an inner mechanism that, once activated, can stimulate growth potential while simultaneously burning fat. This mechanism works in a way that may contradict much of the information you get from fitness and muscle magazines, as this truth is 'anti-industry'. For fitness and muscle magazines, advertisements always, always comes first. If you notice, all muscle and fitness magazines are covered with mainly advertisements and why is that so? You do the math here.

When you fast, exercise or undergo intense stress, you activate an inner cellular process that induces the synthesis of growth stimulating hormones while forcing the body to dig into its storage cells and turn glycogen and fat into energy. This same process also simultaneously inhibit fat gain as well. The mechanism that stimulates these actions is triggered by a cellular factor, called cAMP.

Cyclic AMP's growth-stimulating impact isn't a simple feature. Now, let's examine how cAMP generates its anabolic stimulating and fat burning actions. When activated, cAMP catalyzes a chain of cellular events that triggers enzymes responsible for protein synthesis and energy production. This cellular factor, also promotes events associated with growth functions, in particular, the release of hormones that stimulate the synthesis of anabolic hormones such as human growth hormones and steroid male hormones.

There is a biological correlation between hunger, stress and survival. It is now known that hunger, danger and physical stress trigger a survival mechanism in which cellular leves of cAMP increase, thereby increasing energy production and overall endurance, all of which are critical for sustaining life. Simply said, cAMP helps support human survival during times of extreme conditions involving physical and nutritional stress. A threshold time is needed for activation of this cellular process, and the time depends on variables such as nutritional state and intensity of stress applied (undereating or exercise).

Undereating combined with exercise likely shortens the threshold time needed to turn cAMP into a dominating factor in the cell. Cyclic AMP is promoted by the stress and fat burning hormones adrenaline and glucagon. The adrenal hormones stimulate an enzyme to synthesis cAMP from the energy molecule ATP. I'm sure all fitness or personal trainers know what is ATP. Undereating or exercising that often induces a feeling of hunger and stress puts the body in fight or flight mode. In this survival mode, the adrenal and glucagon hormones activate compounds called G proteins, which increase cellular levels of cAMP.

 G proteins are involved in critical life processes. They mediate numerous life functions such as sensations of taste and smell, light detection and growth of nerves. Humans and other animals have an inherent increased capacity to sense things when hungry. This enchanced ability to sense the environment most likely helped species to hunt, fight or flee if needed, thus enhancing survival. And the mechanism that triggers this sensual wiring is regulated by G proteins and their related cAMP.

cAMP helps improve overall survival capabilities through wiring the senses, increasing alertness, stimulating tissues repair and improving energy utilization by turning glycogen and fat storage into energy. Eating full meals inhibit cAMP. Evidently, most modern diets do not sufficiently stimulate the production of cAMP. This fat burning, growth-stimulating agent is all but suppressed in our modern lifestyle, chronically inhibited by poor eating habits that typically involve consuming too many meals or ingesting too many carbohydrates during the day. Inhibited cAMP could be very well be a major reason for the current epidemic of obesity, weight gain, stubborn fat gain, diabetes and diseases related to premature aging.

Question? Can you gain muscle without gaining fat? Well, keep reading. Whether or not a person can gain muscle mass without gaining fat is a controversial question. The prospect of gaining muscle mass without gaining fat seems to good to be true. Professional athletes such as boxers, bodybuilders, martial artists, often fluctuate between 20-50 pounds of weight between on and off season. During off season, they desperately try to gain weight, which includes muscles and fat, while during on season, they try to shed off body fat in order to achieve lean muscle gains. However, there are downside of this method.

First of all, gaining fat in off season, may cause the formation of stubborn fat tissues. Thus, it may become increasingly difficult in future seasons, to lose fat and reach maximum definition. Secondly, the on season, which consists of about four to six months of reduced calories, low carb diet, may adversely affect the thyroid hormone functions and slow down the metabolism(BMR). Now, as I did explained before, when your metabolism goes south, this is not a good thing, and we do not want that to happen to our metabolism. The goal is to alter or stimulate our metabolism and how we express our genes, when it comes to specific type of exercise and diet.

If anyone would to tell you that exercise is about burning calories, that is the biggest joke I've ever heard! Imagine if you eat a Big Mac and a large french fries, you are requires to do mountain biking for more then 8 hours? Who is going to do that type of exercise? Thats insane yet stupid! It doesn't make sense at all. By the way, I've met some fitness trainers who told me that exercise is about burning calories, shocking!

Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 4)

Most of the the people I know, spend at least 60 mins in the gym doing treadmill activity combined with some body workout in the 'equipment' area. Some spend even longer time exercising in the gym, and bodybuilders or the ones who indulge in bodybuilding, spend up to 2 hours in their workout session. But the question is, why do they still have high body fat and not achieve fitness and optimum health? It doesn't make sense at all. 

Now, let's resume where we let off during the last post. As I will discuss how our body could maximize growth potential and turn it into gaining muscles, which is vital to aging, metabolism and overall health. Can anyone tell me why do we tend to lose the ability to maintain muscle mass and gain fat when we get older? Thus, we  become overweight and obese and develop chronic illnesses and diseases. If you understands the biology and physiology of human being, how it evolve and built as survival mechanism, you will realize that whatever I explain here in this blog, especially this post, make perfect sense. 

Now, to maximize growth, you must activate the hormones that stimulate growth. Hormonal stimulation is actually the switch that turns on the anabolic process, and this very switch gets flipped whenever you fast or undereat. Whatever I just mentioned, you may think, it goes against anything you've heard or read before, but regardless, these are the facts. 

Fasting or undereating sends a starvation-like signal that is perceived by the body as catabolic. Tom compensate for the missing food and to protect itself from metabolic breakdown, the body will boost its anabolic activities, spontaneously increasing its capacity to assimilate protein and other nutrients in order to ensure maximum nutrient utilization form minimum food. It also conserves muscle tissue by inhibiting protein breakdown. 

At the cellular level, a most powerful factor is activated during fasting or undereating. This cellular factor is a by product of energy metabolism and it activates anabolic-stimulating hormones that are secreted by the region of the brain called hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. 

Ancient people cycled between periods of undereating, when food was scarce, and periods of overeating, when food was abundance. Over eons of evolution, the human body had been well adapted to withstand periods of undereating. When you undereat, you trigger a primal biological mechanism that helps your body adapt to food deprivation and better survive in times of hardship.

Given all the above, the duration of undereating must be controlled. Of course we must not starve ourselves for days and weeks, if that would to happen, we might not survive and die off. To take advantage of this powerful dietary cycle and to avoid metabolic decline and muscle breakdown, you should always fully control the length of undereating, which should never exceed more then 24 hrs.

Now, how can we turn this potential into muscle gain? Undereating, overeating and exercise all force your body to activate and reactivate anabolic states in which the body is pushed to break, repair, build, rejuvenate and improve itself. During undereating and exercise, the body triggers an anabolic potential that will turn into actual repair and growth of muscle tissues after nutritional replenishment and while the body is in the state of rest.

Cycles of undereating and overeating can last from one day per week to continously, seven days per week. Another bonus of this method is that it forces the body to detoxify. Liver detoxification is critical for the proper production of steroid hormones and the proper utilization of food for energy and growth. Other benefits of detox are the recycling of the broken cells and proteins for overall rejuvenation of tissues.

During the times of undereating, individuals consume fewer calories then they expend. This means that undereating lasts from one nightly meal to the next nightly meal. "Undereating" is a relative term. What is considered undereating for some people may be considered overeating for others. If you wish to practice undereating as part of your daily routine, the principle is simple. Eat one main meal a day, preferably at night. Use your instinct rather than obsessively count hours, calories or macronutrients. Nonetheless, chronic undereating may lead to metabolic shutdown. Therefore, keeping to the cycle of undereating and overeating is a must.

Now, let's talk a bit about how we exercise. I have people asking me whether to eat just before exercise, or to exercise on empty stomach. Some people wake up in the morning on empty stomach and hit the gym. Others have a meal before the exercise/workout session. There are also so called bodybuilders who eat during the workout session, munching on breads and other imaginable food. Which is better? Which is more effective if you would want to burn fat?

Exercising on an empty stomach before you have eaten a meal is the most effective way to maximize the stimulation of an anabolic state, while forcing the body to burn fat and inhibit fat gain. People who exercise in the morning or any other time during the day on empty stomach, are putting themselves on win-win situation, maximizing the anabolic potential while accelerating the breakdown of fat for energy.  Please take note that it is very important to have a recovery meal following the workout that supplies all the right nutrients needed for the materialization of repair and growth. And yes, fast food, mamak food and most hawkers food are not the ideal food for this recovery phase. In fact, these foods are awfully malnutrition when consumed at any given time.

In this case, you might be asking, what do I eat during undereating phase? For the purpose of growth potential, undereating means minimizing your food consumption to mainly low glycemic fruits and vegetables, as well as small serving of protein based food such as organic free range eggs or quality organic grass fed whey protein. You can consume some raw nuts and seeds as well as coconut oil, preferably organic.

The idea is to avoid insulin spike and avoiding processed carbohydrates and sugar is ideally important. As noted earlier, if you workout during the day, you should have a recovery meal after each workout to inhibit protein breakdown and materialize the anabolic activity in the worked muscles. Give some time for your body to cool off, as your body is still trying to manage the stress hormones from the workout routine. Eating while stressed out, or immediately after exercise or workout, will throw your body into confusion. Allow approximately 45-60 mins and then eat a comprehensive main meal with good quality organic food consists of meats, eggs, fish, vegetables and a bit of quality fruits.

Let's talk abit about overeating. Lots of people when they hear the word overeating, they think of being fat and unhealthy. Well, this method of overeating is different from the general term of 'overeating'. Like undereating, overeating is a relative term. What one person considers overeating may be normal eating to another. What overeating really means, is eating more then you usually do. Regardless of how much you eat, you should always choose whole foods from all the food groups, protein, fat and carbohydrates.

Start with protein and veggies, the nutrients your body needs the most, and then add fuel foods, the carbs or fat. Include in your daily dietary regimen essential oils such as flaxseed, hempseed, krill or fish oils that are rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 6 oils do not need to be added or supplemented, as they are abundantly found in the food that we commonly eat. Omega 3 oils are often deficient and must be added or supplemented.

Essential fatty acids are critical for all life functions, including brain development, cell membrane formation and hormone synthesis. Periodic overeating signals the body to accelerate its metabolic rate to burn all those mega calories. Over time, periodic cycles of undereating and overeating will most likely help boost your metabolism so you will be able to eat more food and thus, further accelerate muscle nourishment without worrying about gaining fat. Sounds good?

Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 3)

We live in the era of 'fradulent fitness'. Thats what I tell my colleagues and friends. Fitness frauds are only too happy to supply the public the miracle products they demand. The biggest myth in all of fitness is that magical products exist that can build muscle and melt off body fat with the greatest of ease. 

Anytime a so called 'fitness expert' tells you that building muscle or shedding fat can be made easy, be aware that you are being manipulated into making a possible purchase. The fitness product pushers produce products that promise exactly what the public wants to hear, by buying 'breakthrough' products, you will magically be able to eliminate all the toil, tears, teeth-grinding effort and tough work required to trigger a true transformation. Sounds too good too be true right? Pop a pill for days, and you will lose pounds of fat from your body.

Now, let me ask you. Do you think calorie counting diet works? How about exhausting exercise routines? Do they all work long term? Yes, you may lose some pounds within that few weeks or months, but you will eventually bounce back to square one, if worst, you will end up gaining more pounds then before you even start off that program. Sounds familiar? The truth is that calorie counting diet and exhausting exercise routines don't work in a long run.

I have another question. How many fitness trainers that you know, explains to you on how your hormones affects the type of exercise or workout you do? Or do they just keep instructing you to curl that barbell, do crunches or even worst, advises you to join the RPM cycling class! Yeah yeah, I know you think that sweating your ass off on that RPM bike will burn lots of calories and fat and 45 to 60 mins of that session would turn out to be a great exercise session. If so, my next question throws to you. Why do most RPM intructors fail to have low body fat composition? The two RPM instructors in the gym I joined, both of them have mediocre to slightly high body fat, and that does not fits the puzzle properly. It doesn't make sense at all. 

Why is that so? Simple. Let's look at evolution and human metabolism. We can we learn from our primal ancestors? Gene expression and how we challenge our metabolism. It is NOT about burning calories and working out as long as you could for hours! One don't have to be a genius to figure out why world class sprinters have lower body fat and much more muscle mass then endurance athletes such as marathon runners and cyclists. Whatever types of exercise or workout we do, it DEFINITELY affects our hormones pathway, and with that, it changes our body's metabolism state.

Now, let's talk brieftly about anabolism and catabolism. How much do you know about anabolic and catabolic? When I ask fitness trainers, they all give wrong answers, and best of all, most of them (hired by the same gym outlet) gave different explanation/answers. I was shocked! How can one be fitness trainer and not knowing these fundamentals?

Your life, biologically speaking, is defined by your metabolism. The process of turning matter into energy and energy back into matter is what makes a living creature superior to any mechanical machine. Our human body, is programmed to recreate itself every minute of our life.Substances in the form of air, food, water, carbon dioxide and waste, are constantly moving in and out of our body. The process by which material is built is called anabolism, and the process by which material is broken down and removed from the body, is called catabolism. It is the balance between the anabolic and catabolic forces that regulate our body fat, muscle mass, rate of aging and overall health. Both anabolism and catabolism are critical to our survival and both these processess work together, activating and potentiating each other.

Like many other forces that are necessary to sustain life, anabolic and catabolic processes are naturally regulated in your body through negative feedback mechanisms, a most efficient form of biological control that regulates the balance between two opposing forces. Many, if not most of the body's life functions, such as the regulation of blood sugar, stabilization of blood pressure, assimilation of nutrients, and the stimulation of hormone synthesis are based on a negative feedback control.

Well, most life processes occur in cycles. the body maintains its homeostasis through a negative feedback control system that cycles continually among antagonistic forces that influence our capacity to survive. The anabolic and catabolic processes regulate each other through these numerous negative feedback loops. Hormones levels, cellular energy levels, and overall nutritional states are all factors that dictate whether your body builds and repairs tissue or destroys, recycles, burns or removes material. 

For instance, does anyone know that resistance training is actually a catabolic activity that tears muscle fibers?  This catabolic activity triggers an anabolic process by which the body repairs and builds stronger muscles that can handle more stress. For that matters, a notice trainee who has just started lifting weights will most likely experience fast gain in muscularity and strength.

Interestingly, just the opposite may occur when a person maximizes his or her anabolic potential. Trained bodybuilders and powerlifters who have achieved peak muscular development are the ones most likely to face the risk of muscle waste or reach stagnation point after which they fail to gain more muscle mass or strength. Those active individuals who experience muscle loss surprisingly gain back due so called "muscle memory".

It seems clear that the body has its own muscle mass set point. It will try to sustain this set point by regulating muscle gain or muscle loss accordingly. People often feel that they are getting weaker in spite of adhering to a diet and exercise routine. What they don't realize is that at a peak anabolic state, the body's catabolic activity increases as if it is trying to shrink the body down to its normal size. Nevertheless, in spite of the above limitations, it is still possible to break plateaus, grind limits and activate a most powerful anabolic state. The question is how?

By following a special dietary cycle that methodically induces a temporary catabolic state, which will then stimulate an anabolic potential that if materialized properly will prohibit the body from reaching a stagnation point. In the next post, I will discuss about how we could maximize maximum growth potential and how to turn growth potential into muscle gain.

Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 2)

I've got a question for everyone reading this post right now. If you workout or exercise hard enough, but has a crappy diet accompanied with poor sleeping cycles and stress management, can you achieve optimum health and fitness? If the answer is no, both of us, have the same agreement and point of view.  

When one sign up a training program with a fitness instructor, he or she would expect to improve fitness level and health, lose some weight, and feels better overall. But, what is the success rate? Does doing cardio on the treadmill or long distance running or even cycling improves health and efficiently burn fat? 

How about a customized exercise or workout regime, which allows you to burn fat even while you are at rest? Sounds too good to be true? Well, folks, I'm not selling anything here. I'm not advertising nor making any profit for sharing this valuable information. All you need, is just 30 mins or each exercise session and not more then 3 times a week. Only total of 90 minutes duration in the whole of 7 days period. Better still, you don't have to hop on that treadmill for hours and hours hoping you could kill off the fat around the midsection belly. 

Very specific hybrid exercises are used to generate a cardiovascular stimulus in addition to a resistance-training effect, together the resistance and cardiovascular response trigger the specific hormones that burns fat, not muscle. They also create an afterburn that benefits the body long after the workout is over and amplifies the fat burning effects of low intensity activities like walking. Your body will be toned and firm. Gone with the flabby arms, saggy thighs and spare tyre around your midsection area.

Of course, besides this specific training or exercise program, you will need to coupled with customized diet, but it is simpler then you would ever think, and with stress management and proper sleeping cycles, you would be able to transform your body into a much improved state, healthier, stronger, fitter and less body fat composition.

Now, think about the difference between world class sprinters and marathon runners. Can anyone tell me what's the difference between these two class of athletes? Well, both are extremely lean, but sprinters look muscular and trim, robust and more explosive, while long distance runners look gaunt and thin. Sprinters engage in very short bursts of all our effort for seconds, at most, just minutes. They burn far fewer calories when training for and engaging in their sport. And yet, they have less body fat and higher amount of muscle mass. Why is that so?

Surprisingly, for marathon runners, who run for hours, have more body fat  and expend much larger amounts of caloric energy. Same applies to long distance cyclist, heard or Tour Da France? I'm sure some of you have heard of Lance Amstrong? Shouldn't this make marathon runners leaner than sprinters?

If aerobic-exercise(or cardio) and calorie cutting model was the final word on fat loss, there wouldn't be such a discrepancy between these two types of athletes. Now, has anyone ever climb up few flights of stairs and feel your legs are burning and breathless? In this case, I'm referring to people who often exercise in the gym. You might be asking yourself, you workout in the gym few times a week, how could that happen? You might feel fine after a workout session, but winded after few flight of stairs?

Let's talk abit abut muscle loss and fat loss. What is the difference? If you lose weight, you could be looking at just the 'numbers' dropping right in front of your eyes. But, do you know exactly what you lose? Is it fat? Or is it muscles? Some people think it's alright, as long as they lose weight. Well, if you study about human physiology and metabolic rate (BMR), you will know, it is totally different!

Well, muscle loss is disastrous for your metabolism, and the ability to burn fat becomes drastically reduced without it. A complete lack of toned and saggy skin, is a dead giveaway that he or she has been a serial dieter. Muscle tissue can inherently change its shape with exercise and diet. Fat tissue can't do this. When muscle tissues is increased with specific diet and customized workout program, the connective tissue is strengthened and pulls the skin tighter. Fat tissue, on the other hand, makes you bigger as you gain fat and smaller when you lose it, but fat cannot produce contour, shape and tone.

So, to some of the bodybuilders out there, wonder why the more you workout, the bigger you get, and the lesser lean body mass is produced? You are basically building a lot of fat tissues, accompanied with partial muscle tissues as well. Wonder why the midsection spare tyre does not come off and unable to get solid six packs? Simple, wrong workout routine, poor diet, bad sleeping cycles and stress management. So, eat whatever you want and think you can build a healthy lean fit body? I don't think so.

Cardio vs weight training: Which is healthier? Which burns fat more efficient? (Part 1)

Today, I decided to write about cardiovascular/endurance exercise. Yes, marathon running, treadmill jogging, long distance cycling, and the list goes on. Those are referred as endurance or sometimes known as long distance cardio exercises. Most people would call it as "Cardio". 

This topic has been a 'hot selling cake' discussion, a never ending debate about cardio vs weight training, or similiar type of workout. I've been itching to write about the real truth about cardio exercise, and I guess today, will be the day where all of you get to realise the real stuff about what cardio is all about, and how it will impact our body and health. 

Of all the advise and tips given by personal trainers and fitness instructors, does doing cardio workout really works for you? What does it do to your body and health? Do you know what happens when you step on that treadmill for 45, 60 or even 90 mins? You are about to find out the truth about cardio exercise, and by the end of this post, you will decide yourself, which type of workout or exercise suits you better.

Whenever I hit the gym, I noticed people coming in to the gym, especially Monday or Tuesday mornings, looking rather clueless what they are going to do next, should they just step on that treadmill or elliptical trainer, or customized high intensity weight training such as interval, resistance or burst trainings. I can tell you, almost everyone of these people entering the gym, decided to go for the treadmill or elliptical trainer. Why? I'll buy you a drink if you could give me the answer. Of course I know the reason, but it would be fun if any of you could try to tweak your thinking a little bit. 

Now, who pays for personal training sessions at specialty gyms such as Fitness First or Celebrity Fitness? Hands up please, don't be shy. You are paying a lot of money for these sessions folks! Before I proceed further, does any of you care to interview or question the personal trainer or instructor about their knowledge and skills? No? thats what I thought too. The thing is, almost none of the client dare or care, to ensure they are making their money worthwhile, making effort to interview the particular trainers throughly, before decided to enrol in his or her training sessions. I know by making this statement, I will pissed off a lot of personal trainers. I may be blunt, but I'm all about reality and being honest. Either you love me, or hate me. Pick one. 

Honestly, I DO not think it is too much to interview or ask questions from a fitness trainer. Come on ladies, are you going to pay to get tortured or drained? Paying to lose water, muscles, instead of fat? Bear in mind, you are paying your hard earned money for a personal trainer, not personal DRAINER! I see all the time fitness trainer drained their clients in private gyms and asking obese people doing sit ups thinking it can flatten their tummies? This is ridiculously absurb! How did these so called fitness trainers obtained their certification? 

As I went to a new gym recently with my close friend, Mr. Chris, we were both stunned, shocked and out of words. A huge fat marginally obese guy, wearing fitness trainer shirt, giving personal training session?? What is happening here? Like I always tell all my friends and colleagues, NEVER TAKE HEALTH ADVISE FROM SOMEONE's GUT WHO LOOKS LIKE SHIT! That fitness trainer's gut looks like he is 7 months pregnant! And guess what, he has man's boobs too! I also had a guy friend (ex-colleague), who was employed as fitness trainer in FF, and he don't even have any qualification, and no knowledge about diet and health whatsoever. Utterly unbelievable for the standard of hiring of personal trainer for these private gyms. My overweight boss could be a fitness trainer too for god sake! I'm dead serious. 

Alright. Let's talk a bit about cardio exercise. What is the most popular type of cardio exercise seen in most gyms? Yes, you guessed it right. Treadmill running/jogging. My question is, why does so many people hit the treadmill jogging and running? Yes, you guessed it right again. People spent their time on treadmill, thinking that they can burn fat efficiently, at the same time, lose couple hundred of calories from the junk they ate. 

To be honest with you, I used to involve cardio running (treadmill) before I even know about the harmful impact of cardio to human's body and health. I used to run for 30-40 mins everytime I hit the gym, accompanied by resistance weight training. I feel burnout and exhausted. I thought I was training correctly for a better health and stronger leaner body. But, I was wrong, and when I studied endocrinology and physiology passionately, everything make sense, how our hormones react, whenever we perform any physical activities, as well as our sleeping cycle, stress management, diet and almost everything we do, it affect our biochemical messengers, HORMONES. I fell in love with nutrition, and most stuff which evolve around human body, health and our primal ancestors, Homo sapiens, which lead me to study intensively about human evolution, nutritional anthropology. 

It is simple, if you do not have good knowledge of how human physiology and endocrine system works, you will not be able to be a personal trainer. And knowledge about fat storing and burning is also very important as well. Why? How can you fine tune a car, if you do not fully understand how parts of the car suppose to be fit together and work optimally?  Make sense? In order to train someone to be lose weight in a healthy way (means not shedding water, fluid and muscles), or being leaner and stronger, fitter and full of energy, building a  healthy body is extremely important. What do I mean a healthy body? Of course I'm not referring to huge bulky massive body with inflamed layered fatty gut, and yes, I'm referring to tons of personal trainers who are addicted to toxic protein powder supplements. 

A healthy body, consists of many elements. Balanced hormones, sufficient in neurotransmitters, healthy diet, balanced energy (Qi), healthy GI tract and regular detoxification, and the list goes on. It is not about how many calories you can burn or how much weight you can bench or how many crunches one can do. It's about totality of the body's well being. 

Stay tuned..

Burger, bacon, ham, salami, hot dog : Deadly meat

I think back of my early days of enjoying fast foods, McDonalds, Burger King, roadside Ramli burgers, etc. Occasional meals which include sausages, hot dogs, bacons and hams, those are the days before I even know how 'harmful' these processed meats are to my health. 

Today, I'm gonna write about the dangers of processed meats. Before I start off, I hereby provide you some of the processed meats which are available in most supermarkets. 

• Bacon
• Ham
• Sausage
• Hot Dog
• Salami
• Pepperoni
• Hamburger

Now, processed meats are those preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or the addition of chemical preservatives. Particularly problematic are the nitrates that are added to these meats as a preservative, coloring and flavoring. The nitrates found in processed meats are frequently converted into nitrosamines, which are clearly associated with an increased risk of certain cancers. It's for this reason that the USDA actually requires adding ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to bacon cure, as it helps reduces the formation of nitrosamines.

Meat cooked at high temperatures, as many processed meats often are, can also contain as many as 20 different kinds of heterocyclic amines. These substances are also linked to cancer. In terms of this substance, the worst part of the meat is the blackened section, which is why you should always avoid charring your meat, and never eat blackened sections. Heating meat at high temperatures also appears to increase the formation of nitrosamines, with well-done or burned bacon having significantly more nitrosamines than less well done bacon.

So at the very least you will want to surely avoid eating hot dogs, bacon or sausages that are charred and very well done. Many processed meats are also smoked as part of the curing process, and smoking is a well known cause of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which enter your food during the smoking process.

There may be other factors at play as well, but at the very least it's known that eating processed meats exposes you to at least three cancer causing substances, nitrates and nitrites, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. People who eat processed meats regularly also tend to eat fewer vegetables than others, which likely only compounds the risks.

Just one sausage a day can significantly raise your risk of bowel cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. Processed meats may also trigger cancer in the prostate, lung, stomach and esophagus. Many processed meats also contain other additives like MSG and high fructose corn syrup, which are two items that don’t belong in your body in any amount.

There is also something very unpleasant that goes into some processed meats called “mechanically separated meats” (MSM). If you see this on a label, put it back on the shelf. Go google yourself if you interested to find out more about MSM. 

I know quite a number of friends who loves hot dogs and sausages, not to mention hamburgers. I used to love bacons for breakfast while I was studying overseas. Not now, not anymore, I regretted it, a lot. 

So, you must wonder, which meat choices are ideal for consumption? Simple, buy and eat organic free range meats. Choose for uncured varieties which doesn't contain nitrites or nitrates. Choose 100% chicken or beef and avoid any meat that contains MSG, HFCS, preservatives, artificial coloring and flavoring. In a nutshell, consume animal meats which should be allowed to live in their own natural habitats and eat their natural diets. Not fed on grains! Cows and chickens are not born to eat grains! 

Go read my earlier post on organic and commercial beef for more knowledge on what to buy while you are at supermarket. Unless you eat any form of meat that comes along your way, then god bless you.  

Detox : Colon Hydrotherapy

I've just done my colon cleansing detox therapy recently. Was abroad when this happen, and it was my fourth time doing colon hydrotherapy apart from other detox therapies which I've tried so far. 

Check out the video below( I hope the video link is working), the camera showing the tube which shows the saline water flowing, as well as whatever parasites, toxins and feces which are accumulated in the colon. If your colon is unhealthy with tons of toxins, feces and other microorganisms such as parasites, you may be lucky enough to see them flowing out pass the tube which is showed in the camera.

If any of you have tried colon hydrotherapy, you will know the benefits for your gut and your health. For those who has yet to experience it, I recommend this type of detox for a healthier gut flora and overall health. 

  

P/S: Thanks professor for lifting my spirit and motivation. I will keep writing as long as I have the passion and desire to share out all these health information for the public..hopefully to help as much people as I could. You are truly god sent.