As August, or fat month draws to a close; we look at weight loss on this episode of 32Gi Sports Nutrition. The month would not be complete without looking into it. While exercise and nutrition go hand in hand when it comes to weight loss, which is more key?
Transcription:
Thanks for joining us this week on 32Gi Sports Nutrition I’m Mr Active David Katz. I hope you’ve been enjoying the coverage Mark Wolff and I have been giving you over the course of August. Looking at different, varying aspects of fat. How you can use it in exercise and products you take in. What is the difference between high and low fat, but all of that is available on our website 32Gi.com.
To end the month we wanna look at weight loss. Weight loss is a huge goal for many people and one of the reasons people do go and sort of start new exercise regimes. Start these nutrition diets and focusing more on getting things right to lose that weight. So Mark basically what would you say are the best ways for people to try to burn body fat? But by using a combination of both nutrition and exercises, we generally know they need to go hand in hand.
MW: Look I think the, the first thing that I need to state up front is that everybody is looking at a quick fix to burn body fat. A lot of people are taking substances which are very health hazardous. I mean you taking about stimulants, you talking about thermogenic’s, you talking about maybe even illegal substance. I don’t think this is the way to go.
Clean natural ways of actually burning body fat
We need to look at clean natural ways of actually burning body fat. There’s many, many ways that this can be done. So firstly yes nutrition combined with exercise are key. But nutrition alone can already start to help as far as body.
I mean we’re burning calories all day long but nutrition is very critical in burning body fat. I think the first thing is we need to assess what kind of a person you are. Have a look what is impacting you from a food point of view. What it is that a person is consuming that might negatively being fat. That’s the first thing.
Sometimes a person can be carbohydrate intolerant and they would need to go into lower carb but slightly high fat diet. Sometimes they’re just eating too many cheap meals or too many of the wrong foods or food groups. It’s a matter of looking at the kinds of foods that somebody is eating.
The timing between those meals as well. Also the portion sizes and the volumes of what they’re eating. So looking at the macros, the carbohydrates the proteins and fats. Nutrition really, really varies differently from one person to the next.
So each person is unique. But I need to state up front that, that is the probably the most critical factor when it comes to wanting to become far leaner and to burn off body fat. You need to eat correctly. If you don’t eat correctly you are going to really battle to do it just with exercise.
The role exercise plays in weight loss
Exercise then fits into the picture, there are two puzzle pieces that need to be inter-linked. As far as exercise goes there’s obviously you know people talk about aerobics as far as burning off fat goes. But from my point of view obviously high intensity training sessions also obviously enable body fat burn.
Not necessarily during the actual session but because it burns off a large amount of calories even post-exercise that you can actually put yourself into a nice fat burn zone post-exercise.
I think a combination that are required, high intensity sessions combined with also lower intensity sessions. And lower intensity sessions I’m talking more endurance. So longer based training session you’ll find that endurance athletes are people that train for for longer hours, they actually tend to become a lot learner a lot quicker.
But again it depends on the kind of athlete. Because some people want to maintain a slightly higher muscle mass so they not going to go and do three or four hours. They might limit themselves to 90 minutes of aerobic exercise. But you can make that kind of exercise extremely effective in ensuring that the, the right amount of calories is burnt off and you can’t target fat as well.
A lot of people think that you can target body fat and you can target certain areas of the body to break down fat. It just doesn’t happen. The body will actually breakdown fat naturally and it will choose the areas that happens first. And it just so happens that Murphy’s law might say that for a woman the body fat on the butt is the last place you lose. For a man sometimes it’s around the waste or even sometimes it’s the double chin.
But wherever it is you have got no understanding of what is gonna breakdown first. But I think if you stick to health eating regime and you understand that, that’s the most critical factor; and you time the right exercise and you time the nutrition around the exercise. There’s only one way you can go and that’s forward.
The fat burning zone
DK: Now Mark looking at sort of heart based training a lot of people doing that and the point is you don’t have to go sit at a maximum or sit at your threshold to be burning fat. That fat burn zone is actually at a much lower heart rate isn’t it?
MW: Yes it is at a lower heart rate and we spoke about that in I think one of the other podcasts. Which is, how does fat burn? By oxygen getting into the body it is able to, it forms a sort of a carbon bond, attached to the fat molecule. The fat molecule eventually goes through the cycle and it actually gets burnt off.
The problem is if you are training at that aerobics zone and you are getting the oxygen into the system and you allowing for fat burn to take place. My question is what have you eaten before that session? What is in your system before that session? Because sometimes you can train for an hour in a low zone but you might never even start burning off fat depending on what is actually sitting in your body.
You know people say maybe it takes 20 or 30 minutes to burn off fat. But I think this is where the nutrition comes into play. What have you eaten prior to or during that exercise and I think that is the difficult thing. So I like a combination of high intensity and aerobic.
Because you’ll get the benefit of both worlds. High intensity without a doubt will burn off that glucose in the system quite quickly. Then switching maybe to a combination of aerobic with high intensity you’ll find that, that combination works a lot more effectively. But there if you only training in a very low zone then your nutrition has to be spot on. It really has to be crucial to this process.
What is a healthy body weight?
DK: Now Mark in terms of sort of measuring sort of body fat. I know the BMI index has been the standard for a long time, but now there are other options that people are sort of questioning is that the best way to sort of measure it. But my point is yes, endurance athletes are very low fat, body fat. But for the average person you don’t really need to get that low do you? You need a certain amount of body fat within your system.
MW: I think there’s a few classifications when it comes to body fat. There’s a level they call an acceptable level from a health point of view. Where a man would be say between maybe 18 to 25% and a woman maybe between 25 to 30%. I don’t think somebody should be satisfied with acceptable. I think you should try and look to get more into that health and that fitness zone.
Where a man should be if he wants to be from a health and fitness perspective, I think he should be looking at around 17% or under. A woman should probably be looking at around 24% probably between 20/21 to 24% body fat that would be quite good. Then you know you in a very healthy space and that’s more of a fitness space to be in. I just feel that’s far better to be.
Obviously athletes you talking male/female there’s essential fat that the body needs. A male probably needs at least 4% I would say maybe 2 to 4%. But a female you probably looking at around 10 to 12%. Any female athlete going under that is in a really dangerous position the same with the male. You need to be slightly over that essential factor part.
But again that’s far, far more the serious athlete. I don’t expect anybody to get down there unless they are competitive. It’s something that they really, really – it’s an area that they wanna be. Most athletes would be slightly higher than that.
But I would say to people, try and aim for that fitness health zone and that would be a safety zone. I wouldn’t say you know being acceptable. I think you shouldn’t be satisfied that you say it’s not good enough.
As far as the BMI goes I agree with you 100%. When I was doing weight training 20 years ago, I still was quite lean. But I was quite muscular, my BMI was through the roof. People told me just people without seeing me you know based on your BMI you’re unhealthy.
I don’t believe in the BMI I think it’s just it is too much generalisation. Everybody is different some people have got bigger bone structure some people have got more dense muscle structures. You know the BMI structure obviously is worked on a height and weight basis. So I just think that yes it’s definitely not an accurate measurement. I like to work with body fat without a doubt I like to work with body fat. To me that’s a very, very true reflection of your status of your actual composition.
DK: Well Mark thank you very much for that. One of the key things to take up there really is no quick fix when it comes to weight loss. You’ve gotta put in the nutrition and you gotta put in the effort, with your healthy living and your sort of exercise regime around that. Thanks for joining us here on 32Gi Sports Nutrition, from myself Mr Active David Katz, we’ll catch up with you in September. Hope you enjoyed fat month with us on the podcast.