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NEAT and Resistance to Fat Gain

For literally decades it was stated that daily energy expenditure/metabolic rate was made of up three components: Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), the Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA) and the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF).   It had long been known humans showed drastically different responses to overfeeding in terms of weight and fat gain.  So you might imagine how much of a shock it was when, in 1999, a discovery was made that not only identified a fourth component to metabolic rate but also explained the huge variance in weight gain.  That component would come to be called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT.  Today I want to examine the paper that did both.

Levine JA et. al. Role of nonexercise activity thermogenesis in resistance to fat gain in humans.  Science. (1999) Jan 8;283(5399):212-4.

Variation in Weight Gain with Overfeeding

As I stated above, it’s long been known that two individuals may gain staggeringly different amounts of weight and fat when they overeat. … Keep Reading

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Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body

There are a lot of myths that still float around the training world and these are often used to make suggestions about how to train or approach the goal of improving body composition.  Perhaps one of the most prevalent is that adding muscle mass will significantly increase daily energy expenditure, helping both to lose fat and keep it off.  Unfortunately, as I have stated on the website, this isn’t really true.  To examine why I want to look at the following paper:

McClave SA, Snider HL. Dissecting the energy needs of the body. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. (2001) 4(2):143-7.

Incorrect Claims About Energy Expenditure

As I stated above, one of the longest held myths is that gaining muscle will significantly increase daily energy expenditure. … Keep Reading

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A Look at Spot Reduction

The idea of spot reduction, reducing body fat in a specific area with exercise, is one that has floated around the fitness body recomposition world for decades.   Men want the ever desirable six-pack and can be seen doing abs until the cows come home while women try to slim hips and thighs with endless reps on the inner/outer thigh machine.

Exercise classes pander to this, offering hour long “abs” or “buns/thighs” classes which usually consist of a billion reps of movements that work the target area.  Even in the bodybuilding world, where people really should know better, some still argue that spot reduction can occur and that working a given muscle group will help reduce fat in that specific area.   I addressed this topic somewhat in The Stubborn Fat Solution since some of what I discuss in that book could readily be confused with spot reduction even though it’s really not.… Keep Reading

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A Look at The Tabata Protcol

In recent years, the Internet has gotten a bit crazy for high-intensity interval training, proclaiming it’s superiority overall other forms of conditioning training.   And while HIIT can take many forms, one popular one, wholly misrepresented in the fitness industry is what is called the Tabata Protocol.

This describes a very specific approach to HIIT created, originally for speed skaters, by an author named Tabata.  Hence the name.     It’s even been studied and it is this study that I want to look at today.

Tabata I. et. al.  Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max.  Med Sci Sports Exerc. (1996) 28(10):1327-30.

HIIT and the Tabata Protocol

The concept of HIIT is fairly general, it describes a method of training where short periods of near maximum training lasting 15-90 seconds (with some variance) are alternated with periods of low intensity activity for some number of rounds.   … Keep Reading

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Is There a Best Diet for Premenopausal Women?

One of the longest running debates in the field of nutrition is whether specific diets, especially low-carbohydrate diets, have a “metabolic advantage”.  By this I mean that they can somehow cause more fat loss at the same calorie level as other diets.   A recent study looking at different types of diets in pre-menopausal women is currently making the rounds and people are using it to claim exactly that.  So let’s look at the following study in some detail:

Gardner CD et. al. Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among overweight premenopausal women: the A TO Z Weight Loss Study: a randomized trial. JAMA. (2007) 297(9):969-77.

Low-Carbohydrate Diets and the Metabolic Advantage

As I said above, a long-standing debate is over whether or not specific diets, especially low-carbohydrate diets have a metabolic advantage. … Keep Reading