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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Nuclear bombs and your fat cells - what do they have in common?

I came across an interesting article today that confirmed what we pretty much suspected for a long time - that the number of your fat cells are fixed in number. What's strange is how they came across it. Take a look at why you're stuck with those pesky fat cells, and how nuclear tests during the Cold War era helped them figure this out. Then don't fret ... while the number of cells doesn't change, the amount of fat they contain within them does. You CAN still lose the weight and deflate those pesky cells, so you don't get to use it as an excuse for not losing fat as the article implies.

There is more and more controversy over the pharmaceutical industry ... it seems like the companies are ready and willing to rake in quite a bit of profit, but when it comes to accountability, they throw up their hands and walk off stage. At least one pharmaceutical chief walked out on his interview when pressed for information about a drug.

Some people are afraid to ride in a car or fly in a plane, but more than half of America (that's how many people are on at least one prescription drug) should be more concerned with what's in their medicine cabinet. According to one article that referenced the CDC, drugs killed 10,000 in 1990, 20,000 in 1999, and 33,000 in 2005. See a trend? We're talking a multibillion dollar industry.

The same people who tell me it's too expensive to eat healthy invest a lot of money in antacids to combat their fast food diets and a variety of other over, under, and behind-the-counter medications to "stay well."

I found personally that when I stopped taking cold medicine, cough medicine, pain medicine, etc, I began to have fewer colds, coughs, and pains. Interesting ...

Back in 2004, when I first published Lose Fat, Not Faith, I had a chapter (and still do) about dairy products. I laughed when the dairy industry released their rigged studies claiming that dairy helps us lose weight and then went on a major marketing campaign. I guess trying to scare the women of America into believing their bones would become brittle and break if they didn't walk around with a milk smile wasn't effective enough, so they decided to make you feel less guilty about having milk and cookies or large bowls of cereal and slices of cheese during the day.

Fortunately not everyone was buying the advertising campaign disguised as science, and a report on the theory of dairy and weight loss was published. The conclusion? "Consequently, the majority of the current evidence from clinical trials does not support the hypothesis that calcium or dairy consumption aids in weight or fat loss." No surprises here ... if you want more information years ahead of when the media will finally "get it" (they are still behind on the importance of saturated fats, for example - most people still go around thinking these are the "bad fats"), you definitely want to pick up the Lose Fat, Not Faith Transformation Kit.

I've always been a fan of using calories to the extent you can learn what is going into your system and also take some of the guesswork out of determining how much exercise/nutrition to plan for. There is a great article about calorie counting coming back in style that I enjoyed. I agree ... people tend to try to focus on that one thing (sugar, fat, etc) but I know from a decade of coaching that the high protein people, the high carb people, the vegetarians, the food combiners, and all sorts of different varieties can all successfully lose weight so no one system is right ... but personally, I've found monitoring calories, while difficult, ALWAYS works, when some other programs seem to work better for different people.

Speaking of counting calories, I haven't been counting mine lately ... and my weight has stabilized. I still have a ways to go but my priority has been consistency first. I'm still not 100% on my exercise game. I've not missed a workout, but I've had to shift schedules and I want to get better at that first, then tighten the reins on calories.

Tonight I performed my 4th workout in the new "Hypertrophy Specific Training" protocol I set up. It was great, I'm feeling stronger and see muscle definition ... it will be interesting to see how the running side progresses, last week I hit all of my targets (an interval training session, a 2-mile pace run, and a 3 mile leisure run) ... I increase it all this week. I'll keep you posted in my exercise journal.

Warmly,

Jeremy Likness

posted by Jeremy Likness | 8:16 PM


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