Should You Throw Away Your Scale?

Recently we did a poll on our Facebook page on how much weight I would gain on a week vacation at an all inclusive resort.  I did this poll for a few reasons.  One of the main ones was to show our clients and subscribers that we are human.  Just because I am a trainer and push my clients to follow a healthy nutrition program, doesn't mean there aren't times that we blow it and eat bad foods and drink alcohol.

I personally hate eating around other trainers who look down on anyone who eats what they consider bad foods like bread or gluten or whatever else they seem to have a problem with.  I just can't live that way.  I follow a nutrition diet of lean proteins, a variety of fruits and veggies, with starchy carbs in moderation.  Most of the time this is what I do.  But 10-20% of the time I will eat whatever I want and not feel bad about it.  This is a lifestyle that works for my and I can live with.

So I decided to eat and drink whatever I wanted for a week and see what kind of effect it would have on my weight.  Well 5 days into the vacation I was up 5lbs.  I figured at this point I would probably gain around 8lbs in the week.  Well then Thursday hit.  I will spare you the details, but I ate or drank something that my digestive tract wanted to get rid of immediately.  I pretty much could not stray too far from a toilet for the last two days of our trip.  Needless to say my weight started to drop back down.  After was all said and done I finished up 2.4lbs.  Most people might look at this and say, "Great! I didn't gain too much weight on my vacation."  And that may be true.  But the scale doesn't tell you everything.

I also measured my body fat % before and after.  Before the trip I was 12.8%.  When I got back I was at 14.8%.  Now there is always room for error with the type of testing I used but let's say these number are pretty accurate.  What this means is that before the trip I had 22.9lbs of fat on me.  After the trip I had 26.9lbs of fat.  So the scale said I gained 2.4lbs but I really gained 4lbs of fat.  The reason the scale didn't go up is most likely because I lost some muscle mass from lack of exercise or more likely water weight due to mi estomago issues.  A 2.4lb gain on the scale may not seem to be that bad, but 4lbs of fat is.  This took me a week to gain and will like take a month to get off.

So the purpose of this post was to remind you that you can use the scale to help guide you along the way, but it should not be your primary indicator of your success.  You weight can go up for a lot of reason other than fat gain and the scale can go down for many reason other than fat loss.  But just remember the goal is fat loss not weight loss.  Weighing in is only part of your assessment.  Make sure you are getting your body fat tested or at least circumference measurements so you know exactly how your body is changing.  If you restrict your calories on a diet you will lose fat, but are you losing muscle, bone, water weight, and organ tissue as well.  The goal of a weight management program is to lose primarily fat mass while maintain or increasing lean body mass.

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training

Is Breakfast The Most Important Meal of The Day?

We have all heard it before.  I have probably said it at some point.  Your mom probably told you when you were a kid.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  We have heard this for years.  There seemed to be tons of reason why you needed to eat a good breakfast to get your day going.  Is this 100% true though?  It may not be as clear as you think.

When it comes to nutrition it seems that we are always changing what we "know."  However, there is so many things to consider it is probably impossible to know the entire truth.  But I have recently come across a few studies that show an interesting perspective, that may question what we thought we knew about eating breakfast.

I'm sure you have heard that you need to eat breakfast in order to lose weight because it will give your metabolism a kick start.  A brand new study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that this really isn't the case.  In this study they measured metabolic rate with and without breakfast.  They found that there was no significant increase in metabolism when breakfast was consumed.  One note we should make is this study was performed on already lean individuals.

The next study looked that those who were obese and how breakfast consumption helped with weight loss.  They divided individuals up into breakfast eaters and breakfast skippers.  After the duration of the study there was no difference in weight loss between groups.

So that's two studies showing that maybe it isn't so important.  But if we look at the National Weight Control Registry studies we see some interesting numbers.  The NWCR is composed of individuals who have lost on average 66lbs and kept it off for 5.5 years.  So these individuals are having successful weight loss and keeping it off.  Studying this group might give us insight to what works and what doesn't.  Out of this group 78% eat breakfast regularly.  While some do lose weight without eating breakfast they are in the minority here.

And yet a final study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at what if you just change your breakfast behavior.  For this they divided participants into four groups.  One group was those that normally ate breakfast and continued to eat breakfast, the next normally ate breakfast and stopped, the third did not normally eat breakfast and continued to skip it, and finally a group that normally did not eat breakfast and did eat it during the study.  Here they found the two groups that lost the most weight were the ones that changed their behavior.  So the group that usually ate breakfast and stopped lost more weight and the group that didn't normally eat breakfast and started lost more weight.

So I'm sure I completely confused you with these findings.  But the truth is the answer to weight loss probably isn't as simple as just eating breakfast.  This might be one small change that might help some and may not have much of an effect on others.  I personally would recommend eating breakfast, especially if you exercise in the morning, but for some people this will not necessarily mean more weight loss.  The key is though that eating breakfast won't make you gain weight with all else being equal.  So if you feel better when you eat breakfast keep doing it.  If you don't like eating right away and can't seem to eat breakfast, you can still have a successful weight loss program.

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training

How To Really Make A Lifestyle Change

When most people think of the job of a personal trainer, they usually assume it is someone who will help you learn or show you how to exercise properly and teach you nutritional guidelines to follow.  While those are very true characteristics of a personal trainer, a good one should be doing much more.  I'm sure you have heard of the phrase, "make a lifestyle change for successful weight management."  We hear this all the time but how can it be accomplished?

Our goal as fitness professionals at SDPT is to try and accomplish this.  We don't simply want to write and exercise program and a few nutritional tips.  Our real purpose is to educate you on how you can live the healthiest lifestyle that you see fit.   While everyone is looking for the quick fix, this usually leads to short term and limited results.  When a true plan is developed and maintained we see the best results possible.

Here are some pointers on how to integrate a new habit into your lifestyle.  This ideas are from the book, "The Power of Less."

1. For the next 30 days select one and only one habit that you think would make the biggest impact in your life.  Focus all of your effort on this one habit.  This could be keeping a food log, drinking more water, starting an exercise program, stretching....anything that will impact your life more positively.  Your goal is to only attempt to achieve this one new habit for one month.  When you get too ambitious, things start to fall apart.  We see it all the time.  A client who never has worked out before wants to work with a trainer 3 times a week, take a yoga class, a spin class, start a super restrictive diet plan, and train for a marathon.  Individually these are all great goals but it will be too overwhelming and most likely none of them will be achieved.  
2. Write down your specific goal and your plan of action.  This is where a trainer can be extremely useful helping you design an effective plan that you can simply follow to see results.  But if you can't hire a professional at least do research and come up with a plan that you can put into place.  If things come up you can alter the plan if necessary but stick with it as best as you can.  
3. Post your goal publicly.  Those that try things on there own with no accountability are at a huge risk of failure.  Tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it.  If you don't want everyone to know then don't blast it out on facebook, but make sure a few people know what you are doing and ask for their help.  If they are true friends they will do anything to help you succeed.  If they get in your way, it might be time to spend as little time as possible with those people.  
4. Continually reassess and evaluate your progress.  After a few days look at your progress and see how you are doing.  If you have fallen off track, get right back on.  This is where your support group comes in.  Inform them of your progress and ask them to check on you regularly.  You might even find out that a friend or coworker has a similar goal and starts it with you.  

Once you have successful integrated that new habit you can decide if another habit should be started or you continue to work on the one.  It is amazing how much of a difference one simple change can make in the long term.  

Please feel free to contact us if you need any help with your plan.  

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training

Are you working out too much?

Most people assume more is always better with exercise.  But there is a point when you might be working out too much and getting worse results.  The first question you should ask about an exercise program you are currently doing is "Are you getting results still?"  If the answer is no you might think the solution is to workout more.  While for some people this may be the case but not always.  There are two reasons why you should not increase how much you are working out.

The first one is simple.  You might be overtraining.  Overtraining leads to less results and more injuries.  Remember that exercise is stress.  It is a good form of stress on the body but it is still stress nonetheless.  Too much is bad, regardless if it is good or bad stress.  Remember that when you workout you are actually getting weaker.  You are breaking your body down so it will redevelop stronger and able to handle the increase workload.  This is true for cardio or strength training.  Just think if you are strong before you go into a workout or after.  You will definitely be stronger before the workout.

The key is properly recovering after the workout is over.  If you are training as hard as you can every time you exercise you might be overtraining.  Here are some symptoms:

1. Decrease in exercise performance
2. Chronic fatigue
3. Loss of muscle mass
4. Increase number of infections or illness
5. Psychological staleness or loss of motivation
6. Elevated resting heart rate

These are some of the more common signs of overtraining.  If you feel this might be what you are suffering from it is ideal to take a week or so off.  This doesn't mean you can't exercise at all but you just want to back off the intensity and frequency.  Once you feel better you can resume your normal routine.  It is a good idea to plan a lighter week every 6-8 weeks in order to prevent overtraining, especially if you are working out hard.  

On top of overtraining there is another reason you need to watch how much you are working out.  This is critical if you are training to lose weight.  If you workout too hard too after you may actually decrease your activity for the rest of the day.  Studies are showing that when individuals increase the amount they workout, they actually move less for the rest of the day.  So they might burn more calories during a workout, but they burn much less for the rest of the day.  This means you don't burn as much as you think you are and will not see the weight loss that you want.  

To solve this problem, just try and pay attention to your energy levels throughout the day when you workout.  If you feel tired and like you can't move, you might be training too much.  An exercise program should give you more energy, not take it away.  You could always track your movement with a pedometer or a fitbit to make sure you keeping up the same activity levels.  

So see if you might be working out too much.  I generally recommend 2-3 days of cardio and 2-3 days of strength training.  You should have 1-2 days of recovery each week though to allow you to keep up the intensity each workout.  

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training

The Best Glute Exercise

While at the gym recently I had two guys stop me and ask what I was doing.  The reason was is because I was performing a glute exercise you typically don't see most people doing.  This is a shame for two reasons.  First off, most people have weak glutes which leads to a number of other problems including back and knee pain.  Secondly, this exercise is just about of the best for targeting the glutes.  If you think your backside needs some extra attention try the barbell hip thrust.

To perform this exercise place a padding on a barbell.  You can start from the floor or have your shoulders on the bench as seen above.  Place the barbell on your hips in a comfortable position.  Brace your abdominals so you have no movement in the lumbar spine.  The key to this exercise is to make sure all movement is from the hips.  Bend the hips to reach your butt to the floor.  Contract your glutes as you raise as high as you can so your torso is level with the bench and repeat.  Try perform 3 sets of 12-15 reps.

If this exercise scares you, here is another option that is less intimidating, but still great for activating the glutes:

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training

Read This Before You Try Interval Training

If you read my last blog post or have followed our postings in the past, you know how big of a fan we are of high intensity workouts like interval training.  These are the best workouts for fat loss and for performance (usually), so we recommend them often.  But after making my last post which I got a great response from I almost wish I made this post first.

Interval training trumps slower, lower intensity training for fat burning, hands down.  It just isn't close.  I can list tons of research on the topic, which I have done on many blog post already.  I think most people are starting to realize how important an interval workout is for your weight management program.  But is it necessarily right for you?  You can make a ton of money investing in certain stocks.  If you don't know the right things to invest in you can lose everything.  Interval training when you aren't ready or aren't performing it properly can have a similar effect.

First, let's see if you should even be attempting interval training.  One drawback of interval training is it increases the risk of injury and it increases the risk of dropout.  As good as this type of workout is you can get hurt doing it which will most likely cause you to quit, or you will not like it because it is too hard, and quit.  Interval training is hard.  That is why it works so well.  The higher the intensity the higher the fat burning ability of the workout.  Therefore this is not a workout for beginners.  Here is a checklist to run through to see if you are ready for interval training:

1. You have no current injuries.
2. You have been consistently training for 3-6 months.
3. You have no previous medical condition that would be contraindicated for intense exercise.
4. You are properly recovering from workouts and do not constantly feel sore.
5. You have the drive and motivation to push yourself harder than you feel comfortable with.
6. You can perform cardio exercise at an intensity at or above your lactate threshold for around 5-10 minutes.

Most of this points are fairly simple to evaluate.  Just answer with an honest yes or no.  The last point may not make sense to you.  Lactate threshold is a term where lactate is accumulating in the blood.  It means you are at a high intensity and you cannot clear lactate from the blood quick enough.  You really do not need to understand this point to perform interval training but you do need to know how intense this is.  There is a simple test you can perform.  You first need to determine where you threshold is.  To do so pick a form a exercise and start at a slow pace to warm up.  We will use the talk test to determine when you have reach your approximate threshold.  Gradually increase the resistance or speed every 2 minutes.  Each time you increase try recited the alphabet, sing a song you know, or just talk to someone.  Continue to do so until you notice it is uncomfortable to talk and you cannot do so without stopping every few seconds to breath.  When you have reach this uncomfortable level of talking you are at an intensity around your threshold.  See if you can maintain this for around 5 minutes.  If you can you are conditioned enough for intervals and you are prepared to hit the intensity necessary for this type of training.  

This intensity you have found should be remembered.  Mark down what you heart rate was so you know approximately how high you have to get it for interval training.  This level must be reached and exceeded in order to successfully perform high intensity interval training.  You will notice that as you improve you will have to work harder to reach the same heart rate level first when you first started.  This means you will continue to progress and make the exercise more challenge to continue to receive benefit.  

If you ever need help finding your threshold or seeing if you are ready for interval training, just make an appointment with one of our trainers to help you out.  

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training

Why Cheetahs Can Eat So Much.

I know this title might seem somewhat off, but a recent trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park further solidified my thoughts on the best way to burn off fat.  While taking the tram ride, I have to say we had one of the best tour guides I have ever had experienced there.  He was remarking on all sorts of random facts on the different animal and plant life at the park.  For example did you know that the Ruppells Vulture is the highest flying bird at 37,000ft and has never been diagnosed with cancer?  Pretty cool.

But I thought even more relevant to readers of this blog is the fact that cheetahs can eat just as much food as lions do.  Even though lions greatly outsize the cheetah, they still eat about the same amount of food per day, yet the cheetah is very lean.  Why is this?  The cheetah has a very fast metabolism.

Now it is important to recognize that a cheetah and human's physiology will be different, but still an interesting point.  The reason the cheetah's metabolism is so high is because they run at such great speeds.  After hearing this I immediately thought of my clients. This is exactly what I try and tell individuals trying to lose weight.  Look for ways to speed up your metabolism, which is most likely slowed due to poor dieting over the years.  Cheetahs run incredibly fast to catch their foods.  This is such a shock to their bodies that the response is increased metabolism to keep up.  We can do that too.

On a side note, when you drop your calories for long periods of time, such as in most diet programs, the metabolism will react by slowing down to attempt to match the calories coming in.  If this is maintained the metabolism will continue to slow.  Then once off the diet and you start eating more again, your metabolism will gradually increase but not at the rate it slowed.  This means that you now start gaining weight faster than you previously had.

So back to boosting your metabolism.  Even though cheetahs and humans are different they both can have a similar result to moving fast.  When humans exercise at high intensities, over time it will increase your metabolism.  This can be done with cardio training, resistance training, or some combination of each.  This is the program that we try to reinforce at SDPT.  Burn significant calories during the workout and increase metabolism to fight the effects of a decrease in daily calories.  Without doing this you will lose weight initially but find it harder to lose weight down the road.

Now that you hopefully see the importance of higher intensity exercise let's put it into practice.  So what is high intensity training mean?  If we are looking at cardio training the goal is to reach 85% of your max heart rate.  You can use a heart rate monitor for this or you can estimate.  If you scale your intensity based a 1-10 you would want to be around an 8.  This is much harder than most people want to workout.  By hitting these intensities you will significantly burn more calories and boost your metabolism.

I recently came across a study on resistance training and metabolism.  Researchers compared traditional weight training vs. high intensity weight training.  Traditional training is perform an exercise, resting, and repeating.  High intensity training referred to performing a heavy lift for 6 reps, resting 20 seconds, repeat as many reps as possible, rest 20 seconds, repeat as many reps as possible.  This was performed with fewer exercises and fewer reps than the traditional training group.  They found that the high intensity group increase their post workout metabolism by 22.6% which was 4 times as much as the traditional group.  This equalled an extra 432 calories burned the following 22 hours after the workout.  Not bad!

When you are putting together your workout program try high intensities when appropriate.  You should not be a beginner attempting this however.  Work on general conditioning and endurance first and then try high intensities.  To change it up this week try one H.I.I.T cardio workout and one strength training workout.  For your cardio warm up for 5-10 minutes with your favorite type of cardio.  Then perform 10 sixty second bursts with 2-3 minutes of light recovery.  For your strength training try performing a circuit of 6-10 exercises using weights that you can only perform 6-8 reps of.  I promise you will notice a huge difference if you have not been working out this way.

You Stay Healthy San Diego!

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training