Student Fitness

By: Veljko Petranovic

In my gym, everybody seems to be on something. I’ve recently talked to an Egyptian fellow, a mass monster by anyone’s standards, and he swears that his immense bulk is the result of heavy training and branch-chained amino acids. He’s an arm-wrestling competitor and looks like he could lift a house. This other guy, Mirko, my buddy from school, has a very lean physique and looks like one of those model types. He takes German creatine, whey protein, glutamine, aminos and ZMA. His home looks like a supplement warehouse. And then, there’s this dude we call “Cold”, who used to be really big and fat, but now sports a tiny, ripped waist and unhuman mounds of muscle everywhere you look.

Cold works as a bouncer, and I guess that’s a good career choice, since he has a very nasty disposition. A few days back, he took his shirt off, and you could really tell he was on something. Great muscle separation, paper thin skin, lumps and bulges up the yazoo. His traps have took the place of his neck, and he can bench 450 for reps. Despite all this, one couldn’t help but notice terrible acne which cover his entire back. For lack of a better word, it looks disgusting.

A lot of other people in my gym take steroids as well. The thing is, noone competes in powerlifting, or bodybuilding, or baseball or whatever. Guys buy a membership, and a few short months later, their arms swell up like balloons and their backs block out the sun. You see them some time later, and they are back to a more reasonable size, more human proportions. And, without fail, they all look terribly depressed. Once you were Superman, being Clark again really sucks.

My viewpoint on this is, unless you are making money from a sport that demands strength or size, you have absolutely no business taking anabolics, androgens or hormones. Due to a shift in our collective conciousness, women have gained more power and rights, and men, especially younger guys, seek to compensate. This „compensation“ can manifest itself in a variety of ways, but a very common one is the Adonis complex, bigorexia, muscular dysmorphia, whatever you want to call it. A lot of men feel inadequate, and resort to chemical enchancement.

The list of side effects of these drugs is as long as my arm. Hair loss, acne, testicular atrophy, damage to the liver, mood swings, high blood pressure, acromegaly, water retention, impotence, organ enlargement. Death is a big one, too. Need I go on? The thing one has to ask himself is, is this really worth it? Are you really going to put your health in danger for the sake of sheer looks? Isn’t it stupid? Is it not downright idiotic?

There is something to be said about moderation. It applies to some things. But, let’s take Heroin for example. There is no moderation with it. Either you’re addicted or you’re clean. In my opinion, the same goes for steroids. No one ever does „one cycle“. Taking „low doses“ actually means suffering less side effects, and there is no safety involved once you start tampering with your body’s natural hormonal balance. You can try, and get out of it relatively unharmed, but for what? Being huge? Bah.

Any recreational athlete can achieve his goals naturally, provided that his goals are realistic. You’re not going to look like Ronnie Coleman with weights and food alone. But just about anyone can take crappy genetics, apply hard work and dedication and produce a marvelous looking body. It’s a matter of consistency and figuring out what works for you. You can gain 20 pounds in a month and lose them in two months, or you can accept fitness as a lifestyle and keep looking great no matter what. Think of it as brushing your teeth. Think of it as an investment in your future, and the future of your kids. Think of it as playing smart.

By: Ryan Imbach

It’s time for you to eat, and you need a good, high protein meal to satisfy your hunger. Unfortunately, your cafeteria is closed, and pizza is not an option. It’s time to whip up some good grub. It is possible to eat a home-cooked meal in your dorm room. Though it may not be like Mom’s, you have the satisfaction that you made a healthy meal to fill your nutrition needs. Here’s just a few of the thousands of meals you could eat:

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

This one is great to have in the morning or post workout. It really does taste like pumpkin pie, though it is more “oatmeal-ish.” Here’s what you need:

-1 cup of old-fashioned oats

-1 scoop of vanilla whey or casein protein (casein makes it nice and thick!)

-A few tablespoons of pure canned pumpkin (just pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling)

-Glass bowl

-Enough water to cook the oatmeal

Just heat the water and oats in the microwave until they are cooked through. I like to add the pumpkin after it’s cooked, because it’ll thin out the oatmeal. Then add the protein, stir, and chow down! Some great additions are cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, and walnuts.

Scrambled Eggs

Eggs are full of nutrients, fat, and protein. Basically, they’re awesome. You can’t really hardboil them, but you can scramble them. The items you’ll need are very few:

-A few eggs

-Glass bowl

-Preferred spices

-Non-stick cooking spray (optional)

I find that spraying the inside of the glass bowl helps keep the eggs from sticking to the sides of the bowl when cooking them. All you do is put your eggs in the bowl, whisk or stir until the yolks are broken up, and cook them in the microwave. I usually do it on a medium to high setting. Make sure to stir every 45 seconds or so, or your eggs will explode. Once your eggs are cooked to your liking, you’re ready to eat.

Easy Bacon

This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Get some lean turkey bacon and make sure the package says it’s microwaveable. Follow directions. Eat.

Healthy Elvis Sandwich

Have you ever heard of the “Fat Elvis” sandwich or ice cream? Apparently, Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches deep fried in oil. Of course, we aren’t going to do that. What we can do is modify this great sandwich into a muscle-building meal. Here’s what you need:

-Low carb, high fiber tortilla

-Banana

-Natural peanut or almond butter

Take a tortilla and spread peanut butter on it. Peel the banana and put it on your peanut butter creation. Roll it up and eat it. A good variation is to microwave the whole wrap so that the peanut butter is nice and gooey.

Protein Ice Cream

If ice cream were healthy and full of muscle-building nutrients, it would be the only food I would eat. Unfortunately, the high sugar, high fat, and low protein don’t mix too well. So what’s a guy (or gal) to do? I’ve come up with a healthy “meal” that won’t ruin your physique. Well, I won’t say I discovered it, but now it’s here for everyone to see! What you’ll need:

-Cottage cheese, low sodium preferred (any percentage)

-Whey or casein protein, you choose your favorite flavor

-Any natural nut butter, such as peanut butter (optional)

-Any spices, such as cinnamon, that might complement your creation (optional)

Get one or two cups of your cottage cheese. I like low sodium, because there’s less salt taste. Add one or two scoops of your protein. Then add any extras you have in mind. If it’s way too thick, add a very small amount of water and keep mixing. Now you can eat it right there, or you can refrigerate or freeze it so that it gets cold and thick. This really is good. Now if you don’t like cottage cheese because of its texture, then I suggest doing this same recipe with only casein protein and extra water. It will still be good, though you need a lot of scoops to end up with roughly the same volume of ice cream.

So there you have it; a few easy recipes to help you in your nutrition program. Always keep in mind that with these recipes, as with any meal, you should seek to eat an additional 1 to 2 servings of vegetables or fruit. Remember, eating healthy doesn’t have to be bland. You just have to have some creativity when it comes to dorm room meals.

By: Veljko Petranovic  

Give this plan a shot and you’ll likely be satisfied with the results. In the end, it will come down to your own discipline and willingness to endure hardship. If you decide on using a fat burner, your results will improve based on the efficacy on said supplement. Keep in mind that most of them offer false promises and a placebo effect. Caveat emptor!   The summer approaches.

I remember being 18. Two friends and myself were planning on taking a trip to the Adriatic sea and spending our summer holiday there. Fresh out of High School, I had managed to put on some fairly significant muscle weight, but disappointingly, a bit of fat was shrouding my new body. It wasn’t the look I was after.

What will the beach bunnies say? Thus began my extensive search for the perfect fat loss diet.  Surprise, surprise, there was no such thing to be found. A lot of web sites were recommending a lot of different things, pushing a lot of miracle drugs, promising Godzilla-like muscle gains and penile enlargement along with a ripped six-pack. There had to be a simpler way of shedding some fat. Then, I discovered the Atkins diet. It was pretty cool on paper, and the logic behind it seemed sound enough. I tweaked it a bit to suit my individual needs, and lo and behold, in a quick month, I managed to get rid of 10 pounds of excess weight.   

The Atkins diet preaches a no-carb approach, to put it simply. Not knowing which foods contained that evil macronutrient, I whipped out a 1989 manual for the ladies, something along the lines of “Lose the belly inches after pregnancy”. On the last few pages was the food value chart, which I heartily recommend you get your hands on.  Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Write down your typical daily menu, and include everything that contains calories, the drinks as well. Now, calculate how much calories you are consuming and subtract 500 from that number. Now, note that a gram of fat contains 9 calories, whereas a gram of protein or a gram of carbohydrate is only 4 calories. A logical observation would be that the easiest way to restrict calories is to completely remove fat from your diet. Do not do this.

Your body needs fat to function normally. Low fat diets are very effective, though, but this particular type of nutritional strategy is more about calorie manipulation then it is about reduction.  So, if a kilogram of fat contains 9,000 calories, and we have reduced our calorie intake by 500 per day, logic dictates that we will lose a kilo of fat per 18 days. This is where the manipulation comes in. If you’re like most people, your body is dependent on the carbs for energy. When you take carbs out of the equation, something almost magical happens – your body switches to breaking down bodyfat into ketones, and uses them for energy. Nifty! This is a state called ketosis, and is the fundamental of the Atkins diet. It can only occur when your blood sugar levels drop radically. As long as you are ingesting enough protein and supplementing your food with vitamins and minerals, you are not going to lose much muscle mass from the calorie restriction.   

Ketosis ain’t nice. I remember breaking up with my then-girlfriend two weeks into the diet over something trivial. We got back together, eventually. You see, the brain is very much dependent on carbs, and when those aren’t provided, your judgment becomes clouded and your concentration is very low. Not a good thing if you’re preparing for a big exam! The good thing is, after about two weeks, your body gets used to this and resumes normal operation. But the cravings still remain. I remember dreaming of eating chocolate. I remember smelling pizza from, it seemed, a mile away. I remember that, at the time, peas sounded like a heavenly treat.   But don’t give in.

You are going to eat egg whites, various meats and fish and drink water, coffee and tea. This is it. Spread out these foods over 4-5 meals evenly throughout the day for 6 days a week. Remember to subtract the 500 calories from your normal menu. On day 7, you can eat, wait for it, anything you want. Pig out for 24 hours straight. Go on. Indulge yourself. The purpose of this cheat day is twofold. First, you’d likely go nuts and stop the diet without it. Second, the sudden high carb intake will fill out your muscles with glycogen and the rest will be burned for energy, again switching your body to using carbs. But when you resume the diet on day one again, the process is reversed and the body confused. What the…? This “switch” also helps burn a ton of fat.

  If the ketones from the burned fat reach a high concentration in your blood, a toxic state known as ketoacidosis sets in. You notice this when you start smelling like acetone. It is thus fundamental to maintain a workout program during the diet. Combine weight training with cardio for best results. Drink ungodly amounts of water. Set up hard workouts after the cheat day, so you can benefit from the carb intake the most.   That’s it. Four weeks of Hell and, for me, 10 excess pounds lost. It may be different for you, in the sense that “mileage may vary”.

You know your body better than anyone else. If you’re an ectomorph (naturally skinny with a fast metabolism), you can get away with two cheat days per week, as in days 6 and 7. If you decide on using a fat burner, your results will improve based on the efficacy on said supplement. Keep in mind that most of them offer false promises and a placebo effect. Caveat emptor!   The summer approaches. Give this plan a shot and you’ll likely be satisfied with the results. In the end, it will come down to your own discipline and willingness to endure hardship. The prize may be only superficial, vain and shallow, but most of us are in the lifestyle because we bear those qualities, too ;).

By: Veljko Petranovic

Compromises, compromises…
What is college good for? Some young guys and gals think it’s a terrific way to get a solid education and to get prepared for holding a responsible, well-paid job.
Suckers, right?

You came here to party. To get drunk off your butt every weekend and sometimes in between weekends. You came here to smoke the herb and chase after the willing members of the opposite sex like a frisky hound dog. You came here for the fraternity toga parties which, as you were maybe told, often evolve into full-on Roman style orgies (they rarely do, though). You came here to live out the rest of your youth, because we all know that you’ll be chained to a desk in no time, burried under a heap of papers and harassed by an unforgiving boss. This is your last chance to get buck wild and intoxicated like there’s no tomorrow.

Trouble is, you also want to look good while doin’ it.
Somehow, the fitness lifestyle and the party lifestyle just clash. Absurd, yes? But it’s true.
So what do we do? We compromise.

Let’s say you are a proud member of the local gym. Whether you go there to hit the weights or to partake in an aerobics class, or both, you are supposed to maintain a semblance of a healthy living. If you expect results, that is. Training with a hangover is no fun. You probably won’t exercise with 50 percent of your usual intensity. Your output will suck. And so will your appearance.

Let’s take beer for example. Beer is cool, right?. Beer is fun. Even Arnold, the Governator, liked to have a roasted chicken plus beer after a hard workout session in his day. The thing is, it was one beer and not five, once a week and not all the time. Alcohol is just empty calories. And a soon-to-be fit body needs a solid nutrient uptake if it is expected to put on the muscle and shed the fat. Did I mention the beer-belly thing? No? Shucks.

It doesn’t matter so much that alcohol isn’t very healthy and promotes liver cirrhosis. Right? Oh, yeah, it does matter. What’s also bad about it is the fact that, when you’re drinking, you’re not eating. Which means that you’ve somewhat successfully stimulated your muscles earlier in the week, but now, those same muscles aren’t given even a slim chance to recuperate and grow. You’re putting on fat and burning your hard work. Put down the shot glass, man. Stop tapping the keg. Go home and get some sleep. It’s during sleep when the growth occurs. This has to do with the fact that the majority of your natural Growth Hormone is released during sleep.

That’s cool, you say, but I can still toke mad weed and get away with it, right? Well, yes and no. While it’s true that tetrahydrocanabiol won’t interfere with the muscle building and fat burning process in your body, it is also true that it lowers your testosterone levels with habitual use. This is bad news for both males and females, since both sexes need that hormone to function normally. Also, smoking marijuana is notorious for diminishing your motivation to train, making you a lazy, out of shape… Well, stoner. Let’s call things their respective names. And the munchies you get afterwards will make sure you eat enough junk food to feed an Ethiopian family for a week. Not exactly the FDA’s recommendation. Not exactly healthy and fitness-y.

The other drugs… Well, I am putting hope in the assumption that you wouldn’t be reading this if you even remotely did not care about your life. Leave the hard drugs to hard druggies. You know better. Take pride in that fact.

Here’s where we make that compromise. You can live clean and expect results for six days a week. No less, remember. Looking good takes sacrifice.

Pick a non-training day, like Saturday, to indulge in your “extracurricular” activities. Go all the way. Par-tay. Reserve a keg just for yourself. Puke all over your shoes. Wake up in Mexico. Just remember to be back, by Monday, 9 AM sharp. That’s when you train legs.

By: Joe Norton 

Get Sleep
Get your recommended 8 hours a night of sleep or pay the consequences: decreased mental alertness, inability to focus, inability for the body to repair muscle, inability for the body to lose fat, and much much more. Believe me, it’s very important to get enough sleep. Especially when being a student relies so much on their mental ability and yet there are so many factors present in college that tend to seriously reduce the amount of the time students sleep. Read more about it…

Eat all Day
It is much better for your body to get more meals of less, than fewer meals of more. Eat Breakfast. Eat snacks. Eat when your hungry. Not the diet advice you were expecting? I rely on a bodybuilding-like system based on harnessing the power of your natural metabolism. It’s as simple as: Keep throwing a little bit of coal into the furnace all day and it will burn the most regularly, and most efficiently. One step further and you can begin monitoring the macro-nutrients present in your food intake and modify your diet so that every meal or snack you eat is exactly aligned and balanced with the macro-nutrient ratio you are aiming for. If this sounds too advanced, then just focus for the time being on increasing the frequency of your meals while decreased the size of your meals. One you get comfortable with this level of nutritional awareness you can take more and more advanced steps.Read more about Losing weight by eating all day…

Get Out of the Room and Get Some Exercise
College is a time of great parody. At some moments you are busier than you can handle, while others you have nothing to do and are completely bored. It’s important, however, during these gaps of boredom and dorm room lounging that you make time to get out once in a while. Fresh air, sun light, other people… these are things that you need to leave your room to experience and should do so often. Go for a run, go to the gym, go play ultimate Frisbee – just find a reason to leave the room and get moving. Your body will thank you.

Manage Stress Effectively
I am a huge proponent of the power of the mind. When you get stressed out, your mental sickness (per say) can easily spread to your physical. It has been noted in scientific studies that people with high levels of stress have a repressed or weakened immune system. What this means is that in addition to keeping yourself physically healthy you need to invest time in keeping yourself mentally healthy. Take time to relax, do things you enjoy, exercise is also known to help to a large extent in reducing stress.

Drink your Water
What are the main things you drink on a college campus? Alcohol and Caffeinated beverages? Well, both of these cause dehydration which makes it that much more important to get in all 8 glasses of water the doctors suggest per day. (I recommend drinking an additional glass of water each alcoholic drink or caffeinated drink in order to offset the dehydrating effects). Read more about Alcohol in College…

Be Consistent
Remember that with all the above, consistency is the most important factor in determining the amount of success you will have with your fitness plan. Rather than going to the gym for the first week of your program for 2 hours a day and dropping off and getting exhausted; you can instead go for like 45 minutes and maintain your level of motivation and interest. Exerting yourself too much too early tends to lead to quitting the fitness plan. If you get your exercise in on a consistent basis it is more important than length of time or intensity. Without consistency nothing else matters because you aren’t really following your plan if you don’t have consistency.

By: Joe Norton 

1. Don’t just hope to find time for going to the gym. Take the time to plan it. The college lifestyle can be hectic and plans/entire courses of the day can be changed with a decision. When you have plans in advance you can build your day around your fitness lifestyle.

2. If lines at machines at the college gym are annoying you then you might want to try going earlier in the morning or later at night. College gyms tend to have very light traffic till just before lunch, it will get more busy throughout the day usually peaking by 5-8 and die off the closer you get to closing time. With this in mind, you can have the whole gym to yourself if you go at one of the less busy time periods.

3. Don’t forget about all the old school bodyweight exercises you know of. You know exactly what I’m talking about: The Push-up, the sit-up, the pull-up (if you have a chin up bar to use). These are compound bodyweight exercises that are the basis for many fitness routines and it’s because they are some of the most effective excercises we know about. Pushups and situps can be done anywhere, any time. Why not do a quick set of each during commercials?

4. Hoof it a bit. Walking is a great form of exercise. Try to plan your day to allow for a few strolls. Even though they require little physical effort they cause serious health benefits. Take every chance you can to get out of the cramped dorm room and take a look around on a walk. Why take the shuttle to save 10 minutes when you could have just added in 10 minutes of light exercise…

5. Moderate your alcohol consumption. Alcohol is not going to help any of your goals – unless your goal is to pass out. Alcohol causes a decrease in testosterone and will negatively impact your ability to grow muscle. Alcohol is also full of empty calories and simple carbs, plus – a lot of people eat seriously unhealthy food once they have had too much alcohol (this is where most of the fat for the beer belly comes form). Read more about “Alcohol In College”

6. Get enough sleep. Atleast 6 for most people, 8 is recommended. Lack of sleep can cause many things, the worst of which is psychosis (that’s right, a psycho), including decreased cognitive ability. It will also completely screw over any kind of lifting / fitness plan. Your body needs time to rest and repair, if you never give it time it can’t ever rest & repair. Read more about sleeping…

7. Avoid the buffet. It is scientifically proven now that when you go to a buffet you definitely eat more. We all knew it, no one doubted it, yet for some reason people still go to buffets which tend to have the worse food on campus. Bleh, boo this buffet! Read more about buffets…

8. Put some Pilates into your fitness plan! Pilates are those core based bodyweight exercises that seems kinda somewhat similar to yoga but its not. Yeah those, they are amazing for abs and can be done anywhere. I suggest the floor because it has no give and works good as support. However, you can even do them in bed. Things like “the hundred”, leg raises, the saw, v situps, are all Pilates moves and there are many more – check’em out.

9. Stay busy. Join an organization or professional development club and participate often. Not only will this help out your resume and your skills in the given area, but also it means you are busy more and less time to sit around. Stay moving, stay burning calories.

10. Join a team or club, or atleast start a recurring physical activity (like Sunday basketball games, Saturday morning football games, whatever). Add something to your life that is going to continually cause you to do activities that benefit your goal. Deciding to run a 5k or hell, even a marathon – is a gigantic example of starting a recurring activity that will actually guide you to your goal.

Keep these tips in mind this upcoming semester.

By: Joseph Norton

When I lost weight it wasn’t because I went on a diet. It was because I analyzed my habits and lifestyle - chose my goal of what habits and lifestyle I did want. Then I worked to become the new me. When I was doing all this I noticed that every problem area of my life that was causing me discomfort could usually be grouped into one of three categories. Together these 3 categories are the major areas where the college atmosphere influences students and makes them prone to weight gain:

Lifestyle

College is different than high school. It’s as simple as that. The primary areas of the typical college students lifestyle that are affected is the amount of free time they have, how they use their free time, how much you physically exert yourself (be that excercising, lifting, anything that is aerobic). Usually, this new free time is used in ways which are, although fun, not quite conducive to weight loss. Just think about how often you use your free time to work out physically?
Many high school athletes who managed to stay fit from practice do not compete in college. Inherently, the additional hours of free time will undoubtedly lead to increased sedentary activity.

This is why I was so shocked at my weight gain. Being a former athlete I felt immune to weight issues. It should have dawned on me that although I was a football player in the past, nothing about my current lifestyle includes any of the physical training from my football days. So what happen is I ate the same, and exercised less - big shock, I gained weight.

Even if you never played sports, its likely you still spent more time exerting yourself
during offhours in high school than you will in college. Also, take into account how much more downtime you really have. An average courseload being 15 credits, this means 45 hours of actual classtime per week.

College, technically speaking, takes up about as much time as a “full time” 40 - 50 hour workweek. Even being so, it’s not much time your actually in class.

Think about highschool and how it was typically 6 hours, 5 days a week. Well, for college the average schedule requires 3 hours, 5 days a week. Meaning college takes HALF as much time as high school. This is why moderating how you use your downtime is so vitally important.

Stress

College students are in a complex environment; surrounded by new people, learning new
concepts, and all while trying to maintain an active social life. It can get a little stressful. Stress causes all sorts of problems.

Stress can cause your immune system to get seriously bogged down, inviting illness.

Pair this with the fact that college is already a risky place for illness and you got a serious
threat of sickness Also note that stress causes higher cortisol levels, which directly increases abdominal fat.

Here are several strategies that can help you cope with stressful situations in college, according to the University of South Florida’s Counseling Center for Human Development:

Learn to manage your time wisely. Make and follow a daily schedule that includes time for classes, reading and writing assignments, exam preparation (don’t procrastinate!), healthy meals, exercise and a job.

Set priorities and make the most of your opportunities as a student. Write down the most important items and concentrate on those at the top of your list. Writing ideas down helps crystallize your thinking and reinforce important goals.

Learn to say “no” to some of the demands for your time. Protect your own best interests by refusing to allow yourself to become overstressed by taking on every request or opportunity that comes your way.

Make careful planning a basic part of your academic routine. In a student’s hectic world, poor planning often leads to crisis situations. And crisis almost always leads to stress.

Food

Far too many students come into school with the midnset that the meal plan will be there whenever they are hungry.

Only to realize that most meal plans only allow 2 meals a day on avg and definitely require additional supplementation.Without viable healthy alternatives to campus food, and with surrounding fast food, the convenience factor becomes overwhelming.

Students snack on candy bars and soda from the vending machines instead of buying fruit or juices to ease those late night cravings. With some planning and moderate discipline, students can learn that it is not terribly difficult to live a healthier lifestyle.

Upon entering college the average student’s life is dramatically altered in these three areas. Unfortunately for us with a naturally slow metabolism the impact of these three changes can lead to dramatic weight gain – The Freshman 15.
Together these factors tend to cause 3 significant changes in the fitness and nutrition of the college student.

1. Consume More Calories – poor food choices, to counteract stress

2. Burn Less Calories – from being less active

3. Start/Stop Metabolism – from missing meals, poor food choices

Another result of the lifestyle switch between high school and college is the proclivity of college students to live on a more nocturnal schedule.

This can cause problems especially given how the meal plans given out at colleges operate during day hours. This can lead to missing the “time zone” for a specific meal period. To avoid this you need to learn to work with your meal plan.
Another significant problem with the lifestyle inherited by the college student is frequency of meals. There is a significant problem with only eating 2 meals a day, and doing so crushes your metabolism.

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS

Alcohol has been implicated as a factor that may hurt your efforts to lose
body fat. Whether alcohol is “fattening” has been a very controversial subject
because technically speaking, alcohol is NOT stored as fat; it is oxidized
ahead of other fuels.

Whether moderate drinking is healthy has also been a subject of controversy.

Many studies show that cardiovascular health benefits are associated with
moderate beer or wine drinking (which has been of particular interest lately with

reservatrol in the news so much), while other studies show improved insulin sensitivity.
Some experts however, say that alcohol has no place in a fitness lifestyle.

A recent study published in the journal Obesity adds new findings to our knowledge about alcohol, insulin resistance and abdominal obesity. Analysis of the results as compared to other studies also gives us some insights into why some people seem to drink and get fat while others seem to drink and get thin!

The truth about the beer belly phenomenon

This new study, by Ulf Riserus and Erik Inglesson, was based on the Swedish Uppsala Longitudinal cohort. The researchers found that alcohol intake in older men did not improve insulin sensitivity, which contradicted their own hypothesis and numerous previous studies.

They also said there was a very “robust” association between alcohol intake,
waist circumference and waist to hip ratio. They pointed out that a high alcohol intake, especially hard liquor, was closely associated with abdominal body fat,
not just overall body mass.

Abdominal fat accumulation is not just a cosmetic problem, it can be a serious health risk. Abdominal fat, also known as “android” or “central” obesity, increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, high blood lipids, glucose intolerance and elevated insulin levels.

Many other studies have also found a link between alcohol intake and abdominal fat, but this too has been controversial. A study that was widely publicized by the BBC in 2003 dismissed the concept of the “beer belly.”

Nevertheless, it looks like there’s some scientific support to it after all (or at least a “liquor belly” according to this newer study).

Hormones may be strongly involved because high alcohol intake has been shown to decrease blood testosterone in men, and also increase cortisol levels, which can lead to visceral fat accumulation.

Why is there so much controversy? Why the discrepancy in research findings about alcohol’s influence on obesity, abdominal fat, and insulin sensitivity?

Well, here’s the real story of why some people don’t get fat when they drink:

A lot of the confusion is because epidemiological research cannot show cause and effect relationships and mistakes can easily be made when drawing associations based on limited data.

With the nature of these longitudinal studies, you have to look at the lifestyle and nature of drinkers in general (or in this study, hard liquor drinkers). Also, the Swedish study focused on older men, so age may have been a factor. You may be more likely to deposit alcohol right on your belly as you get older.

When you hear that alcohol increases belly fat, you also have to look at what else is going on in the life of the drinker, particularly what the rest of a person’s diet looks like, and how alcohol intake affects appetite and eating habits.

Research says that alcohol can mess up your body’s perception of hunger, satiety and fullness. If drinking stimulates additional eating, or adds additional calories that aren’t compensated for and which lead to positive energy balance, then you get fat. You may also get fat in the belly, no thanks to what booze does to hormones.

Another thing that confounds the reports on whether alcohol contributes to weight gain is the fact that the game changes in heavy drinkers. We know that alcohol contains 7.1 calories per gram and these calories always count as part of the energy balance equation… or do they? With chronic excessive alcohol consumption, it’s possible that not all of these calories are available for energy. Due to changes in liver function and something called the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS), alcoholism may be a real case of where some calories don’t count. Many alcoholics also skip meals and eat less with increasing alcohol consumption.

Alcohol metabolizing pathways notwithstanding, even if binge drinkers, daily drinkers or heavy drinkers consume most of their calories from alcohol, if they eat very little, and remain in a calorie deficit, they will not get fat. Compound this with the hormonal effects and you witness the skinny, but under-nourished, unhealthy and atrophied alcoholic (the person you’d think would be most likely to have a beer belly).

It’s the calories that count

The bottom line is, the idea that alcohol just automatically turns into fat or gives you a beer belly is mistaken. It’s true that alcohol suppresses fat oxidation, but mainly, alcohol adds calories into your diet, messes with your hormones and can stimulate appetite, leading to even more calories consumed. That’s where the fat gain comes from.

If you drink in moderation, if you’re aware of the calories in the alcohol, if you’re aware of the calories from additional food intake consumed during or after drinking, and if you compensate for all of the above accordingly, you won’t get fat.

Now, with that said, you might be wondering: “You mean I can drink and still lose fat? I just need to keep in a calorie deficit?”

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. But before you rush off to the pub for a cold one, hold that thought for a minute while you consider this first: The empty alcohol calories displace the nutrient dense calories!

When you’re on a fat loss program you have a fairly small “calorie budget”, so you need to give some careful thought to how those calories should be “spent.” For example, if a female is on a 1500 calorie per day diet, does she really want to “spend” 500 of those calories – one third of her intake - for a few alcoholic drinks, and leave only 1000 for health-promoting food, fiber and lean muscle building protein?

I realize some people may answer “yes” to that question, but then again, if some people spent their money as frivolously as they spent their calories, they would be in deep trouble!

To summarize this into some practical, take-home advice, here are 7 of my personal tips for alcohol consumption in the fitness lifestyle:

(1) Don’t drink on a fat loss program. Although you could certainly drink and “get away with it” if you diligently maintained your calorie deficit as noted above, it certainly does not help your fat loss cause or your nutritional status.

(2) Drink in moderation during maintenance. For lifelong weight maintenance and a healthy lifestyle, if you drink, do so in moderation and only occasionally, such as on weekends or when you go out to dine in restaurants. Binge drinking and getting drunk has no place in a fitness lifestyle (not to mention hangovers aren’t very conducive to good workouts).

(3) Don’t drink daily. Moderate drinking, including daily drinking, has been associated with cardiovascular health benefits. However, I don’t recommend daily drinking because behaviors repeated daily become habits. Behaviors repeated multiple times daily become strong habits. Habitual drinking may lead to heavier drinking or full-blown addictions and can be hard to stop if you ever need to cut back.

(4) Count the calories. If you decide to have a bottle of beer or a glass of wine or two (or whatever moderation is for you), be sure to account for the alcohol in your daily calorie budget.

(5) Watch your appetite. Don’t let the “munchies” get control of you during or after you drink (Note to chicken wing and nacho-eating men: The correlation to alcohol and body fat is higher in men in almost all the studies. One possible explanation is that men tend to drink and eat, while women may tend to drink instead of eating).

(6) Watch the fatty foods. When drinking, watch the fatty foods in particular. A study by Angelo Tremblay back in 1995 suggested that alcohol and a high fat diet are a combination that favors overfeeding.

(7) Enjoy without guilt. If you choose to drink (moderately and sensibly), then don’t feel guilty about it or beat yourself up afterwards, just enjoy the darn stuff, will you!

To see a complete fat burning system that takes you by the hand, step by step and shows you what to eat, what to drink (and what not drink), how to exercise and how to stay motivated.

References:

(1) Alcohol Intake, Insulin Resistance, and abdominal obesity in elderly men. Riserus U, Ingelsson E., Obesity. 15(7): 1766-1773. 2007

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com

By: Joe Norton 

There are many ways you can increase your metabolism, the best ways of which are to be active and to eat often. However, there are smaller, simpler things you can do to increase your metabolism a little. Every little bit helps.

Load up on hot sauce - capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, causes an increase in metabolism. Studies have found that capsaicin works in two ways to reduce cholesterol levels: it decreases cholesterol absorption by the body so that more is excreted in the feces; and it increases the enzymes responsible for fat metabolism in the liver, so that more triglycerides, the hard insoluble fat, are secreted by the liver rather than accumulated in the body.

Drink coffee -Anyone who’s had a few too many coffees and sufferred the shakes can tell you that caffeine is a serious stimulant that dosen’t get much negative press due to our cultures love of coffee. Just make sure to drink plenty of water (I drink a glass of water for every cup of coffee, in addition to my daily 64 daily ounces) to counteract the dehydrating effect of the caffeine.

Eat Some Ruffage – Celery is so fibrous that your stomach burns more calories digesting it than you gained by eating it. So what happens is a net change that is negative. You burn calories by eating stringy veggies like celery.