MUSCLE MATTERS… NEW Nutritional Transformation Program coming to FITLINE

Coming September, Fitline Coaches will be launching into a Nutritional Transformation program with Fitline clients. Stay tuned this week on details to pre-register for our seminar that will deliver the information you need to take on this program and create long lasting change. To get the motivation started here is a taste test of just one the essentials components of this brilliant program coming to Fitline… MUSCLE MATTERS MUSCLE MATTERS When Arnold Schwarzenegger popularised body building in the late 70’s with the cult hit ‘pumping iron,’ it sparked a mass of gymnasiums opening up around the world. People rushed to the gym in record numbers and joined the ‘iron game’ in a vein attempt to look like Arnie. Jane Fonda had to come along in the 80’s with her aerobics video’s and ruin all that now didn’t she! Now you don’t have to train or look like Arnold to get the benefits of resistance training. A structured weight training program is by far the most efficient way to build muscle and lose fat. More importantly, it is the most effective way to maintain those results in the long term. The reality is when it comes to fat loss, many people refer to the scales as their barometer. This can be a very misleading and disheartening process. The fact is you can actually increase in scale weight and become dramatically leaner by building lean muscle.  Conversely, losing scale weight doesn’t automatically make you leaner. By not addressing your muscle mass needs you can be underweight and still have a very high body fat percentage. Calories and kilojoules are by no means the be all and end all when it comes to fat loss. Metabolism, hormones, digestive health, toxicity, sleep and stress related issues among others can all be huge factors in achieving the body of your dreams. However it is astonishing to understand that around 66% of your daily energy intake is utilised by your muscle mass! That’s right, around 66% of the energy from food you consume is used as fuel by your muscles. Compare this to around 17% of daily energy expenditure being metabolised by exercise and you quickly realise that trying to out exercise a bad diet is almost impossible. Build more muscle and you turn yourself in to a fat burning machine! This energy conversion is one of the many processes that make up your metabolism. If fat loss is your goal then one of the first things you need to achieve is an elevated resting metabolic rate (RMR) and the best way to do that is by building lean muscle. Once achieved you will be burning more energy at rest. With an extra kilo of muscle mass you will be burning more fat simply by reading this article! The below diagram tells the full story and is at the forefront of the ultimate body transformation program we will be bringing to Fitline: Metabolic Precision. Those of you that read my article last week would be well aware that our team have been hitting the books hard behind the scenes studying what we regard as the best program available in the industry.’   The other amazing benefit from strength training is the hormonal effect. Lifting weights has been referred to as the fountain of youth as it regulates not only your sex hormones but the so called hormone of ageing – Insulin. If you refer to any world class diabetes centre, you will see that resistance training is at the forefront of the exercise prescription due its powerful ability to improve insulin sensitivity. For men, lifting weights can have a dramatic affect on their ability to produce testosterone and growth hormone. A structured resistance training program that focuses on a high volume of work, short rest periods and moderate to heavy weights can help turn back the clock. Guys, that feeling you have when you walk out of the studio after a lifting session is not just the boost of your ego, but the amazing effects of these hormones. For women, there has at times been a negative connotation attached with strength training. This typically centres around the feeling of not wanted to ‘bulk up’. Please let me elaborate on why this theory is unfounded and why strength training for women should be a high priority in a fat loss program. Women do not have sufficient enough testosterone to bulk up. With 15-20 times less testosterone than men, women do not have the same testosterone boost post workout that men do. What they do get is a strong growth hormone response (GH). GH burns fat in the body and will assist in building quality lean muscle to create the metabolic effects as listed earlier. Now I’m not saying that you have to throw the baby out with the bath water and complete no aerobic work. Steady state aerobic work can be good for a number of things. For instance going for a run is a great way to de stress and clear your mind. It also helps with the release ‘feel good’ chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. If you have experienced the feeling of the runners high then you will know what I mean. The problem arises when too much volume of work is being completed this can be very catabolic (break down) to muscle and also increase your cortisol (stress hormone) due to high amounts of oxidative stress being placed on the body. If you are training for general health and fitness then this is fine. But if you are training to change your body composition then it is another matter entirely. High intensity interval training (HIIT) which requires repeated sprints and recovery periods is far superior to lose fat than steady state aerobic training.

In fact HIIT training has actually been shown to improve muscle mass as well as revving up your RMR for many hours following an intense session. Combining a structured resistance training program with a HIIT training program can be a great recipe for success for many people. The problem lies when your nutritional habits do not match that of your exercise routine.Every decade we lose the capability to build muscle mass and maintain it. If fat loss seems to be much more of a challenge now than it did then ‘back in the day’ then you will understand what I mean. If you are serious about losing fat then you need to go about carefully reconstructing your metabolism by building lean muscle tissue and pairing your exercise program with the right kind of nutrition. Finally, a strength training program is simply a tool for success. It is what you do before and after the session that can maximise or sabotage your results. After an exercise session in the gym you have approximately a 3 hour time frame to maximise your results with adequate nutrition. As part of the Metabolic Precision program we call this time frame the ‘Metabolic Window’. Miss this opportunity and your ability to build lean muscle and burn fat will be greatly compromised.