CST Free Weight Exercises By Scott Sonnon

Another Z Health video. I’ve touched on the benefits of being barefoot before and the potential damage from running shoes. Here is another approach on why traditional running shoes can cause problems.

Z Health is worth looking at

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Eggs for breakfast……

Eating eggs for breakfast helps reduce calorie consumption throughout the day by 18 percent

A new study demonstrates that eating protein-rich eggs for breakfast reduces hunger and decreases calorie consumption at lunch and throughout the day. The study, published in the February issue of Nutrition Research, found that men who consumed an egg-based breakfast ate significantly fewer calories when offered an unlimited lunch buffet compared to when they ate a carbohydrate-rich bagel breakfast of equal calories.(1) This study supports previous research which revealed that eating eggs for breakfast as part of a reduced-calorie diet helped overweight dieters lose 65 percent more weight and feel more energetic than dieters who ate a bagel breakfast of equal calories and volume.(2)

“There is a growing body of evidence that supports the importance of high-quality protein in the diet for overall health and in particular the importance of protein at the breakfast meal,” said Maria Luz Fernandez, Ph.D., study author and professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Connecticut. “We examined two typical American breakfasts, and the participants’ self-reported appetite ratings reveal that a protein-rich breakfast helps keep hunger at bay.”

I’d note that it does look like the research was sponsored by the America Egg Board!

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I have mentioned z health before and the seminar I attended with mc

here is a video of the founder of z health talking about the concepts:

There are other interesting videos just posted too like this one on the arthokinetic reflex

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Interesting that the BBC picked up on this as a potential April Fool.

Tucking into a fried breakfast of sausages, eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, black pudding and tomatoes is a healthier way to start the day than a bowl of cereal, according to a study in the International Journal of Obesity.

I wasn’t encouraged that the original linked to the Daily Star (a UK tabloid mainly about tits), but had a look at the abstract. It is in mice, but in raises some interesting ideas.

The Press Release is here

Studies have looked at the type and quantity of food intake, but nobody has undertaken the question of whether the timing of what you eat and when you eat it influences body weight, even though we know sleep and altered circadian rhythms influence body weight,” said the study’s lead author Molly Bray, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in the UAB School of Public Health.

Bray said the research team found that fat intake at the time of waking seems to turn on fat metabolism very efficiently and also turns on the animal’s ability to respond to different types of food later in the day. When the animals were fed carbohydrates upon waking, carbohydrate metabolism was turned on and seemed to stay on even when the animal was eating different kinds of food later in the day.

“The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day,” said study senior author Martin Young, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease. “This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilization throughout the rest of the day, whereas, if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you have metabolic plasticity to transfer your energy utilization between carbohydrate and fat.”

Breakfast is not the time of day for carbs!

I usually have a fatty breakfast - eggs, bacon, omlette or whatever and usually a coffee made by pouring a fresh expresso into a mug of double cream. After that I am not usually hungry for the rest of the day….

Bacon or Bagels? Higher Fat at Breakfast May Be Healthier Than You Think, Says UAB Research from uabnews on Vimeo.

Time-of-day-dependent dietary fat consumption influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters in mice

Background:

Excess caloric intake is strongly associated with the development of increased adiposity, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hyperleptinemia (that is the cardiometabolic syndrome). Research efforts have focused attention primarily on the quality (that is nutritional content) and/or quantity of ingested calories as potential causes for diet-induced pathology. Despite growing acceptance that biological rhythms profoundly influence energy homeostasis, little is known regarding how the timing of nutrient ingestion influences development of common metabolic diseases.

Objective:

To test the hypothesis that the time of day at which dietary fat is consumed significantly influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters.

Results:

We report that mice fed either low- or high-fat diets in a contiguous manner during the 12 h awake/active period adjust both food intake and energy expenditure appropriately, such that metabolic parameters are maintained within a normal physiologic range. In contrast, fluctuation in dietary composition during the active period (as occurs in human beings) markedly influences whole body metabolic homeostasis. Mice fed a high-fat meal at the beginning of the active period retain metabolic flexibility in response to dietary challenges later in the active period (as revealed by indirect calorimetry). Conversely, consumption of high-fat meal at the end of the active phase leads to increased weight gain, adiposity, glucose intolerance, hyperinsulinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and hyperleptinemia (that is cardiometabolic syndrome) in mice. The latter perturbations in energy/metabolic homeostasis are independent of daily total or fat-derived calories.

Conclusions:

The time of day at which carbohydrate versus fat is consumed markedly influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters.

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This is not intended to promote “AthleanX” - I know nothing about it (no affiliate payments or anything). What I thought was interesting in the video was the second exercise he demonstrates - a limited range sort of pullover / straight arm pulldown.

Interestingly the range of motion he uses on this to me looks similar to that prescribed by Bill De Simone in his Moment Arm Exercise book. I’ll have to check

I am often on the look out for calisthenics for the lats - pushups, squats are fine but the rear of the body can be hard to hit. His hamstring move looks good too.

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This is what it is all about!

Get out there and play

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Here is an interesting study that indicates that Intermittent Fasting - as prescribed in Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat - works well for fat loss. ( Interviewed Brad Pilon here)

There are some good thoughts on the study here from the researchers:

The results defy the notion that fasting or dieting leads to gorging later; they also counter the idea that people have a genetically determined set point weight.

However, the study suggests a new strategy for losing weight. Although chronic lifestyle changes (eating healthier foods and getting more exercise) are preferable ways to lose weight, Levitsky said, a weekly fast might be another way to go.

Since it takes 10 to 14 days to recover the body tissue lost from a one-day fast, “Going without food for one day each week should produce a significant reduction in body weight over time,” Levitsky said, now that we know that “fasting does not lead to overeating, and total recovery of body tissue does not occur within the week.”

A useful study for those interesting in the science behind IF

One day of food restriction does not result in an increase in subsequent daily food intake in humans

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of one day of food restriction on subsequent spontaneous daily food intake and the recovery of body weight in humans. Twenty-two, non-restrained females were fed from Monday to Friday for four weeks using food prepared and measured in the Cornell Metabolic Laboratory. For the first week, all participants ate ad libitum. For each subsequent Monday, participants were divided into three groups in which either they (a) ate ad libitum, (b) were restricted to eating 1200 kcal (5040 kj), or (c) were fasted. From Tuesday until Friday participants ate ad libitum. During each session, all food consumed as well as body weight were measured.

Body weight did not change following the day of ad libitum eating, but decreased significantly after the day of food restriction decreasing still further after fasting, indicating high compliance with study protocol. Although the loss in body weight was regained within four days, the recovery was accomplished without any increase in spontaneous food intake. Although no direct measurement of energy expenditure was made in this study, the results strongly suggest that decreases in metabolic rate play a more dominant role in the recovery of body weight following food restriction than the control of food intake.

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Just a quick heads up on a couple of articles I saw over the weekend indicating that long distance running is bad for the cardiovascular system, despite apparently positive impacts on the normal metrics for cariovascular health.

Kurt notes and points to one on Medpage

Open Water Chicago points to a separate report on the same research in abcNews

Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute and Foundation found that these runners faced a greater risk of accumulating plaque in their coronary arteries – despite having less body fat, lower LDL cholesterol levels, and lower heart rates.

An abcnews comment amuses me:

No one is sure exactly what the plaque findings mean.

Well, we can guess.

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This is an mind / body one. From the abstract below it is not clear what they did or how they reached the conclusion, but it brings to mind something that Frank Forencich pointed to last year

Can Your Brain Fight Fatigue?

…..many (but not all) physiologists now believe that exhaustion isn’t just in the muscles but also involves the brain. “What we now think is that the muscle isn’t acting on its own,” he says. “There’s an interplay of central processing and muscular exertion.” From the outset of exercise, “the brain asks for and gets constant feedback from the muscles and other systems especially about body temperature” and checks on “how are things going,” says Carl Foster, a professor in the department of exercise and sports science at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse. Through mechanisms that aren’t fully understood, the brain tracks and calibrates the amount of fuel that is in the muscles, as well as the body’s core temperature. As the amount of fuel drops and the temperature rises, the brain decides that some danger zone is being approached. It starts reducing “the firing frequency of motor neurons to the exercising muscle, leading to a loss of force production,” says Ed Chambers, a researcher at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham in England and an author of the carbohydrate-drinks study. In other words, the mind, recognizing that the body may be going too hard, starts sending fewer of the messages that tell the muscles to contract. The muscles contract less frequently and more feebly. In a sensation familiar to anyone who exercises, your legs die beneath you.

The limit to exercise tolerance in humans: mind over muscle?

In exercise physiology, it has been traditionally assumed that high-intensity aerobic exercise stops at the point commonly called exhaustion because fatigued subjects are no longer able to generate the power output required by the task despite their maximal voluntary effort. We tested the validity of this assumption by measuring maximal voluntary cycling power before (mean ± SD, 1,075 ± 214 W) and immediately after (731 ± 206 W) (P < 0.001) exhaustive cycling exercise at 242 ± 24 W (80% of peak aerobic power measured during a preliminary incremental exercise test) in ten fit male human subjects. Perceived exertion during exhaustive cycling exercise was strongly correlated (r = −0.82, P = 0.003) with time to exhaustion (10.5 ± 2.1 min). These results challenge the long-standing assumption that muscle fatigue causes exhaustion during high-intensity aerobic exercise, and suggest that exercise tolerance in highly motivated subjects is ultimately limited by perception of effort.

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I’ve previously pointed to the excellent book Born to Run, which looked at barefoot running within a narrative of a marathon in Mexico involving the Tarahumara Indians.

The book also features “Barefoot Ted” here he is talking to the Google Staff:

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