Weight Loss Program for Health: wlt

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Some HIIT For Life & Less LISS For More! How to Burn 27,300 Kcal Extra W/out Losing a Single Extra Pound of Fat!

Image 1: Yep, you are right, the SuppVersity is the place to be to make sure you don't embarrass yourself during one of those potentially fatefully flirticious one-on-ones in the gym - Remember: Strong and Smart is the Newest Sexy ;-)

In view of the fact that you all seem to be enjoy the high intensity interval news aka "On Short Notice" items at the SuppVersity, I decided to do another double-feature today, somewhat similar to the "Weight Loss Threesome" three weeks ago. This time however not on sleep, TV and supplements, but on cardiovascular exercise for fat loss. For that purpose I have lined up a unique study about the longterm (!) beneficial effects of HIIT workouts on body composition, cardiometabolic risk factors, and conditioning of abdominally obese subjects (Gremeaux . 2012) and a study the results of which foster the surprising insight that 50% less can be 80% more when it comes to light intensity steady state (LISS) training for fat loss (Rosenkilde. 2012). So, let's get "without further delay" right to this sexually conservative, but contentwise highly experimentally one-on-one ;-)

Biggest Winners Combine Lifestyle Change With Optimized HIIT Workouts

In what the authors claim (and my personal readings in this area confirm) was the first study to analyze "the effects of a combined lifestyle intervention and optimized HIIT [regimen] on body composition, cardiometabolic risk, and exercise capacity in subjects with abdominal obesity", Vincent Gremeaux from the Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre (EiPIC) at the Montreal Heart Institute found that their 9-months program which comprised of five individualized nutritional counseling by a trained dietician and 54-min (total) of supervised optimized high-intensity interval exercise and resistance training 2-3x times a week (+optional 2x continuous moderate-intensity sessions per week, such as walking and/or cycling) had profound effects on body composition, cardiometabolic risk, and exercise tolerance in the 62 of the 69 obese subjects (44 men, 22 women; BMI 35.8 +/- 5; age 53.3 +/- 9.7) from the babyboomer generation (Gremeaux. 2012).

Figure 1: Dietary and workout regimen, graphical overview (based on information from Gremeaux. 2012)

As my graphical summary in figure 1 goes to show, the workouts were a breeze compared to last week's Iranian HIIT Solution. And in view of the "guideline compliant" macronutrient composition it is actually quite astonishing, how pronounced the average and individual results of the subjects eventually were.
If anything than the loss of lean mass (figure 2, left) would be a thing to be slightly concerned about. On the other hand, this leaves much room for improvements, which would be easily achieved by

really working out with weights you can only lift for 8-10 times and performing 3 circuits of free weight exercises with a focus on compound movements (if this is physically possible),
using "all-out" sprints preferably also on the treadmill instead of the cycle ergometer for the HIIT workouts (as long as your conditioning allows for that)
eating more protein and cutting back on carbs so that the total energy intake would keep about the same if you ate 1.5g protein/kg body weight per day and 20g+ of quality protein with every meal

As long as you are still overweight that should suffice to get leaner, when you are already lean, though, you won't be able to make progress without a minor degree of temporary (2-6 weeks) caloric restriction in the ~20% range.

Tipp: Don't count calories, just eat some rice less, just one instead of two bananas, etc.; try to get used to the notion of eating food, not calories!

You see, the general rules apply to everyone, their practical realization, i.e. the number of workouts, the intensity and the duration will however be different and has, when all is said and done, to obey to one simple rule: You cannot expect your body to change, if the circumstances don't require change! This evolutionary-esque principle applies to anyone from the morbidly obese baby boomer to the ripped physique athlete in the prime of his twenties - regardless of who are and who you want to be, the only way to get there is to challenge yourself appropriately!

[for implications see end of today's post]

Burning 300kcal/day W/ LISS Produces Greater Fat Loss Than Burning 600kcal/day!

Image 2: If this looks like you on one of your twice daily 2h cardio workouts in the "fat burning zone", this must be your first time, here at the SuppVersity. If not, you already know that 5min here at the SuppVersity everyday will do more for your physique and overall health than with all the "cardio" you can possibly pack into your already overcrowded schedule!

Especially if you are a total beginner or someone who is already strength training intensely almost daily, you can run the risk of outtraining your regenerative capacities by adding in more than one longer HIIT workout. Moreover, my personal experience tells me that "mixing things up" and doing some "regular" light intensity steady state cardio, especially rowing or outdoor activities can really give you an unexpected edge, in terms of fat loss without really taxing your system. Interestingly enough, the results of a soon-to-be-published study be Mads Rosenkilde and his colleagues from the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark do actually support my experience, as the 64 moderately overweight (BMI: 25-30 kg/m², fat percentage ≥25%), sedentary yet healthy men without a past history of useless dieting (and over-exercising) who participated in the 13 week trial (compare that to the above 9-months trial!) lost an astonishing amount of 4kg of pure body fat with nothing else than "classic" steady state cardio (Rosenkilde. 2012)!

~~"Energy in - energy out = fat loss"~~ - fail!

Over the course of 13 weeks, the participants took part in three supervised exercise sessions per week, which had to be performed at an average heart rate of >70% of their predetermined maximal heart rate. On the other four days they were free to engage in whatever physical activity they wanted, but had to wear a heart rate monitor that would allow them to decide, when they had fulfilled their daily 300kcal/day (MEDIUM) or 600kcal/day (HIGH) exercise dept. The log-files of the heart rate monitors were deliberately analyzed by the scientists every on a weekly basis, missed sessions had to be made good for and repeated non-compliance was penalized with immediate exclusion from the trial. Effectively, the guys in the HIGH dose arm of the study simply exercised longer at the same ~66-67% of their VO2_Max on the mean 6.2 "workout days" both groups had in common.

Contrary to what the scientists, who totally relied on their (stupid) calories in vs. calories out calculations, had expected these longer workouts and the associated increase in exercise induced energy expenditure did not result in either greater weight or fat loss in the highly compliant participants of the HIGH dose exercise group (compliance: 96% vs. 99% in the HIGH and MODERATE arms, respectively; statistically this difference was not significant).

Figure 3: Changes in body weight and fat mass (left) and "real" (=calculated based on weight loss) energy deficit the subjects accumulated over the 13-week study period (data based on Rosenkilde. 2012)

If you take a closer look at the data in figure 3 you will even realize that the 30 subjects who had initially been randomized to the MODERATE dose arm of the study and should thus expended ~27,300kcal less than their peers in the HIGH dose arm when the final measurements were taken, had lost slightly more total and fat weight than their harder training counterparts.

"Hey! Where are the weights, dude?"

Yet despite the fact that Rosenkilde et al. triumphantly report that the "energy balance was 83% more negative than expected in MOD, while it was 20% less negative than expected in HIGH" a closer look at the data in figure 3 will also reveal that the ratio of total to fat mass loss, i.e.

1.1 g of fat per 1g of total mass in the MODERATE dose group
1.4 g of fat per 1g of total mass in the HIGH dose group

does still speak in favor of doing a little bit more, than what is necessary to lose weight (I almost forgot: During the study period, the energy intakes did not differ between the groups and there were no significant differences between the subjects on low carb and the subjects on high carb diets wrt to the study outcome). This is all the more true, because the +1kg increase in lean mass (compared to a third sedentary control group this was even statistically significant) in the HIGH dose group went hand in hand with a significant increase in resting energy expenditure (+205kcal/day in HIGH vs. +192kcal in MODERATE).

However, I guess I don't really need to tell you the reason why I highly recommend that you still stick to short(er) and/or less frequent LISS (=light intensity steady state) workouts, do I? Yeah, right! Used more as a regenerative means, to play basketball or soccer with friends to take the dog for a walk or jog with your beautiful significant other through the park short(er) LISS workouts constitute an excellent counterpart to your obligatory weight lifting sessions and won't force you into the dreaded vicious circle of over-training (and under-eating), due to which the fat loss of so many trainees stalls, when the first couple of pounds have literally fallen off their hips.

Implications: Collectively these two studies would support the notion that all physical activity has its merit. They also emphasize the under-appreciated simple truth that both, the combination of a high intensity strength and moderate intensity LISS regimen (+ the occasional short HIIT workout) and a moderate intensity strength and high intensity interval training program (+optional moderate intensity LISS training) constitute effective ways to reduce your body fat percentage! With the former being more geared to the advanced trainee who is also looking to build some quality muscle mass and the latter being the workout of choice for the beginner who "just wants to look good naked", there are more than a billion permutations you will have to experiment with in order to identify not the best routine, but your best routine at a given timepoint in your career as a beginning, advanced, or elite physical culturist(highly suggested read: The "Step By Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine").

References:

Gremeaux V, Drigny J, Nigam A, Juneau M, Guilbeault V, Latour E, Gayda M. Long-term Lifestyle Intervention with Optimized High-Intensity Interval Training Improves Body Composition, Cardiometabolic Risk, and Exercise Parameters in Patients with Abdominal Obesity. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2012 Jul 30.
Rosenkilde M, Auerbach PL, Reichkendler MH, Ploug T, Stallknecht BM, Sjödin A. Body fat loss and compensatory mechanisms in response to different doses of aerobic exercise - a randomized controlled trial in overweight sedentary males. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2012 Aug 1.

Weightloss Threesome: TV or Sleep, Black Pepper, Ginger, Horseradish or Mustard, PolyGlycopleX (PGX) or Psyllium?

Image 1: True or false - Is three really better than two?

Since the On Short Notice columns turns out to be a major success, I decided that I could put out studies in packages of shorter items, on a more regular basis - at least if I stumble across pairs such as those in today's Fat Loss Threesome and have time to compile them in to a comprehensive blogpost. But enough of the prelude, let's get right to our threesome: Television or Sleep, Black Pepper, Ginger, Horseradish or Mustard, PolyGlycopleX (PGX) or Psyllium - What do you think, which of these is will spice up, which will water down your weight loss efforts; and for the bros out there: Can you stack all of them or do they have to be cycled?

TV Watching and Insufficient Sleep - A Dynamic Duo for (Childhood-)Diabesity

Image 2: Watching TV eating junk is only part of the equation; what's missing here is the lack of sleep kids don't get, when they watch TV canned with coke and energy drinks all night.

Facebook friends and followers of the SuppVersity Facebook Channel may be familiar with at least some of the recent articles on the negative impact of TV watching alone and in conjunction with sleep deprivation on the body composition and metabolic health of our children. My personal favorite in this regard is a letter to the editor of the British Journal of Nutrition, in which Travis John Saunders and Jean-Philippe Chaput argue that obesity prevention could be as simple as turning off the television and having a nap (Saunders. 2012). The authors reference a whole host of studies to support their hypothesis that TV consumption and the associated lack of sleep esp. during the early hours of the night contribute to the rise of the obesity epidemic:

TV viewing burns energy at a slower rate than most other waking activities and yet still most available evidence suggests that it may be energy intake, rather than expenditure, which leads the scientifically established association between screen time and weight gain, Saunders and Chaput ascribe to several confounding factors such as
TV viewing provides opportunities for snacking & food eaten in front of the TV is generally high in calories and low in nutrients (Thorp. 2011)
TV commercials reinforce the unhealthy dietary habits
Sleeping also burns less energy than regular waking activities, but reducing sleep time usually increases, not decreases weight gain, due to
increased consumption of high energy, specifically high sugar foods to compensate for the lack of energy (cf. "Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!")
decreased energy expenditure through fatigue-related reductions in physical activity and lower basal metabolic rates

"Pah, that's guesswork!" If that's what you think, when you hear about Saunders' & Chaput's hypothesis, you may want to take a look at another recently published study by Calamaro et al. who report that (1) children who consume caffeinated beverages (not even directly before bed) get 15min less sleep and (2) children with 3 technology items in their room got 45min less sleep (Calamaro. 2012). Significant correlations with BMI were yet present for the intake of caffeinated softdrinks, only!

In other words, although both are characterized by physical inactivity TV watching and sleep "exert opposing influences on energy balance and body weight" - an observation which leads the authors to humorously conclude that

Reducing TV viewing and/or getting adequate sleep require little in the way of resources or expertise, and may therefore be more sustainable than more traditional interventions focused on diet and exercise. If having a good night's sleep truly is better for your weight than watching TV, this would be a lifestyle modification which may be substantially easier to implement than adopting a new diet or exercise routine. This change of focus is certainly worth consideration, right after a short nap. (Saunders. 2012)

Assuming that you did not already take your nap or have exceeded your daily combined TV + Internet screen time, you will probably also be interested to hear that another recently published paper by Caroline Fitzgerald et al. reports that "a child who watches 18 hours of television (per week) at 4.5 years of age will by the age of 10 have an extra 7.6 milllimetres of waist because of his or her habits" (Fitzgerald. 2012). Does not sound much, but you know how things go, proper with 5, chubby with 10, obese with 20 and dead before 40... you don't really think your kid could have invested those 3.5 years(!) of he would have been sitting in front of his television screen into more productive, more healthy and more sustainable hobbies, do you?

Implications: The best way to avoid TV & sleep related weight gain and / or propel your weight loss is to start planning your screen time instead of simply planting your (fat?) ass on the sofa, whenever you have a minute to spare.

Go to one of the free online TV magazines and create a schedule pick only those shows you really feel you have to see and try to reduce your screen time by 20min every week.
Never eat in front of the television spontaneously, if you have a planned, healthy meal, make sure you don't have more on your plate than you plan to eat(!), and don't have anyone tell you cannot enjoy the SuperBowl or the latest Hollywood blockbuster without chips, popcorn and a soft-drink.
Get yourself a time-limit switch program it so that it the TV has no power, after 9PM, which is when you will be grabbing your new blindfolds and earplugs and head to bed, weeknights.

If you stick to those simple rules and use your iPhone or iPad only for your obligatory daily class at the SuppVersity you will not just improve your physique, you will also live a couple of extra years! After all, scientists from the University of Queensland calculated in 2011 that "every single hour of TV [i.e. one hour per day] viewed after the age of 25 reduces the viewer's life expectancy by 21.8 min" (Veermann. 2011)!

Mustard, Horseradish, Black pepper & Ginger - Useless Thermogenics

Image 3: Although it's more effective than horseradish, black pepper or ginger It would probably take more hot mustard than your tummy can handle to get ripped to the shreds.

If you are already not watching TV and getting enough sleep (see above) and still don't look as lean and jacked as you would like to, a group of Danish researchers has some suggestions on which supplements you should not waste any money on (Gregersen. 2012): Mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger! While the latter two did not exert any measurable effects on either diet induced thermogenesis or energy intake (obviously the intention was to reduce the latter), when they were administered at oral dosages of 1.3 g and 20g, respectively, the addition of 8.3g of horseradish or 21g of mustard to standardized brunch meal did at least have some effects on the 22 young (age 25y), normal-weight (BMI 21.8kg/m²) men in the randomized cross-over study by Gregersen et al.:

8.5g of horseradish decreased the postprandial heart rate and increased the blood pressure to a statistically significantdegree, while
20g of mustard increased the thermogenic response to the testmeal by 14%

Now, while the former sounds dangerous and the latter as if "Mustard-o-burn (TM)" was just around the corner, none of these statistically significant effects were physiologically relevant. After all, it would take roughly 1 years to shed an additional lbs of body weight from the +14% increased diet induced thermogenesis from mustard (even if that lasted 24/7), because +14% added to 13kcal/h are only 1.82kcal/h. Even if we assume that you eat 5 meals a day this would hardly amount to more than 10kcal/day or 1.5min of light jogging... but hey, we all know how futile calculations like these are - no? Well, then you should check out my "Busting the 3,500kcal Equals 1 Lbs of Fat Loss" post!

Implications: If anything the use of tons of spices will render your food so unpalatable that you will simply eat less. Aside from those anorexic effects the use of copious amounts of spices, as they would obviously be necessary to illicit significant thermogenic effects, will probably produce more negative than positive (side) effects and could thus even contradict the established beneficial effects of having a "normal" (=tasty) amount of spices in your diet (Kochhar. 2008).

And in case you still insist on "spicing" up your fat loss regimen beyond the reasonable level your taste buds (and gastrointestinal mucosa; cf. Jensen-Jarolim. 1998) can handle, the topical route as in "Topical Fat Loss: Capsaicin Cream Blunts Weight Gain in Rodent Model and Increases Leptin, Adiponectin, Lipolysis and Fatty Acid Oxidation in Visceral Fat Depots" could in fact be worth a try.

Viscous Weight Loss Alternatives: Psyllium Seed Gum and PGX^(R)

Now it would be unfair if I left you with "nothing" else but the advice to switch of the TV, get more sleep and refrain from spicy food (unless you eat it simply 'cause you like it). Luckily, there are yet two additional hitherto unpublished FirstView Articles in the queue of the British Journal of Nutrition which do suggest that dietary fibre, viscous dietary fiber, to be precise could make a valuable addition to your no-TV + lots of sleep regimen.

Figure 1: GI (measured according to ISO 26 642-2010) with and without addition of PGX viscous fiber supplement in 2x250ml water to the 50g carbohydrate meal (Brand-Miller. 2012)

When you ingest it prior to bread, rice, boiled potatoes, french fries cornflakes or instant outs (GI range 65-84) it, a novel dietary fiber supplement that goes by the ingenious brandname PolyGlycopleX
(PGX) leads to dose dependent reduction in the GI of a subsequent carbohydrate meals of 16.5% and 31% for the 2.5g and 5g dose of PGX, respectively - or, physiologically speaking, a 15-33% reduction in blood glucose elevations in the 120min after the consumption of the test meals.

Now that certainly does not sound earth-shattering, but a previous human study has already established that the reduced postprandial glycemia goes hand in hand with increases in PYY expression (Reimer. 2010) and reduced food intake on subsequent meals (Vuskan. 2009). Moreover, earlier rodent studies have established that PGX can improve glycaemic control and protein glycation (Grover. 2011), most probably due to the far-reaching metabolic effects of increased glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1; read more about this incretin hormone in "Eat More, Burn More and Lose Fat Like on Crack with GLP-1!?") levels.

Will eating 25g of psyllium /day reprogram your genes to burn not store fat?

What's even better though is that the last FirstView Article in today's fat SuppVersity news clearly suggests that you don't have to buy InoviBiologic's patented purified polysaccharide supplement that is extracted from konjac, sodium alginate and xanthan gum by the means of a proprietary process the company calls EnviroSimplex^®, to benefit from those health and weight loss effects. If the results Togawa et al. observed in their C57BL/6J who were kept on high-fat (40%) diets with or without the addition of 5% psyllium (as psyllium seed gum, PG-200) for 10 weeks translate to humans, the only reason I could see to spend the extra money would be the whopping dose of ~25g/day (0.32g/kg body weight; learn how to calculate Human Equivalent Doses).

Figure 2: Visceral fat mass and parameters of glucose and lipid metabolism after 10 weeks on the low fat control vs. the supplemented or unsupplemented high fat diet (data expressed relative to control; Togawa. 2012)

If the results do translate to human beings, you can stomach this amount of fiber without negative side effects and are still able to consume adequate amounts of "real" food, though, the data in figure 2 will probably have you hack "psyllium fibre buys" into google in no time. After all, the profound upregulation of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation and lipid transport Naoyuki Togawa and his colleagues from the Yokohama Corporate Research Laboratories and the Laboratory of Food and Nutrition, Graduate School of Horticulture at the Chiba University in Chiba, Japan, detected in fat and skeletal muscle tissue of their lab animals were not just statistically, but also physiologically significant. So significant, in fact, that the mice who consumed ~148g of the psyllium enhanced high-fat diet before they were euthanized at the end of the 10-week study period did not just gain 10% less body weight than their unsupplemented peers, they also had lower cholesterol, lower triglyceride and above all lower visceral body fat masses than the "control" animals on the supposedly healthy low-fat diet.

Image 4: Fiber or no fiber - those abs want to be worked out.

Implications: While ginger, pepper, horseradish and cool are still "hot", dietary fiber is (pun intended) somewhat poopooed upon by many of the "everything mainstream must be wrong" nutrition gurus and fitness enthusiasts. From a scientific perspective, however, it does make more sense to spice your meals up with fiber than with spices that burn away your intestinal mucosa and turn your gut into an open barndoor (cf. Jensen-Jarolim. 1998) for all sorts of things you should better leave where a huge amount of the fiber will go - in the toilet bowl.

That being said, we need further studies to elucidate if and at which dosages similar epigenetic changes as they were observed by Togawa et al. occur in human beings before making any definite recommendations. For the time being, I will simply repeat my advice to

fill yourself up with fiber-laden veggies and consume a balanced (!) amount of saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fats from whole foods,
aim for a mild energy deficit (~20%) and a reasonable carbohydrate intake of roughly 700-900g per week; either by low-carbing + refeeding (e.g. 6x 50-75g + 1x 250-400) or a constantly low intake of preferably low(er) GI carbs (don't count carbs from green veggies and co!)
eat at least 20-25g of a complete protein (count only meats, fish, eggs and dairy) with every meal and supplement with protein powders / bars, whenever you have no whole food source with 10+g of EAAs in it at hand
follow a sound workout regimen (e.g the "Fat Loss Support Routine" from the Step By Step Guide), don't do hours of "cardio" in the non-existent fat burning zone and cherish the fat-burning effects of glycogen depleting strength and HIIT workouts without overtaxing your central nervous system

If you follow 1-4 on 330 of 365 days of the next year you even the ugliest blubber that may still be covering your abs should disappear - and guess what!? All that without patented or non-patented viscous fiber supplements ;-)