My consulting work focuses on two levels of improving nutrition. #1 stop eating the de-natured/highly processed foods. Many people stop here and have the mentality that they eat a “healthy” diet simply because they aren’t eating as much rubbish as the average American. Step #2 is the hard one - now that we’ve stopped eating the rubbish, lets put in real food with live enzymes/antioxidants…That’s where most people lose the comittment - it’s just not convenient enough for them. Our culture has become so accustomed to easy/pre-packaged foods. This is a hard habit to break.

I know for certain the raw fruits and vegetables have an amazing ability to heal - even once disease has set in! As a nutrition consultant, I’ve seen it happen frequently with my clientelle. The only word of caution I’d offer though, is that it’s not achieved as easily as popping a vitamin. Because fruits and veggies themselves can contain thousands of different antioxidants/phytochemicals - we can’t just isolate a few, pop them in a pill and hope that they can duplicate the complex interaction of foods found in nature.

For healing purposes or to build a healthy immune system, we should them when their fresh off the vine, and raw to maintain their nutritional integrity. I do this as much as possible. When I can’t I take a whole-food supplement (NEVER vitamins).

JEREMY BARNETT CFT

How many diets and crazy ways have you heard of to lose weight? There are many fad diets and untruths when it comes to fat loss. The truth is that you can’t just cut your calories or carbohydrates dramatically and lose fat and expect to keep it off. The only true way is to perform regular exercise, eat a well-balanced breakfast; lunch, dinner and two to three small well balanced snacks between these meals. The hardest part for most people is under standing the nutritional balance that is specific to them. A person trying to lose weight to consult a nutritionist to help them determine the appropriate calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, sugar, fiber and water intake per day and per meal. Without the proper nutrients your body will become nutrient deficient and your body’s metabolism goes into a starvation mode by slowing down the metabolism to conserve energy until the next feeding. This process forces your body to store the food you eat as fat as a reserve energy source in case of famine. The body will take amino acids from muscle tissue and convert them into glycogen (the body’s preferred energy source for physical activity) to be used for energy, which leads to muscle atrophy (muscle breakdown). This further slows the body’s metabolism down forcing the body to store even more fat.

If there’s one thing I know after working with hundreds of clients on the issue of weight loss is that quick fix DIETS DON’T WORK!

This is especially true of women. The female body comes equipped with a higher percentage of lipogenic (fat storing) enzymes and less lipolytic (fat releasing) enzymes than their male counterparts. A female’s lipogenic enzyme count increases and lipolytic enzyme count decreases after a calorie restricted diet, making it harder to lose weight each and every quick fix diet from that point on.

Okay men don’t get too cocky. A man’s body doesn’t appreciate a quick fix diet anymore than a women’s. I’ve seen many people try every quick fix diet on the market and some of them lose a tremendous amount of weight very quick, only to gain it all back in as little as a month or two. Coming off a calorie restricted diet and trying to eat “normally” again is like a tidal wave rushing in.

Instead of starving your body to shed fat quickly, a more effective and longer lasting way is to increase your daily activity, control the portion size of the meals you eat, balance the nutritional values (protein, fat, carbohydrate) of your meals and the type and time of day that you eat your carbohydrates.

Remember muscle cells need fuel for energy. If your body doesn’t receive a sufficient amount of food for energy then it will breakdown amino acids in muscles and convert them into glycogen. This is called glyconeogenesis (the breakdown of muscle). Since muscle is wasted in this process the body’s metabolism slows down and begins to store more fat in case of starvation.

With the use of resistance training exercises (weight training) you’ll increase the size of the muscle cells (hypertrophy) and also increase your body’s metabolism for optimal fat loss. Sounds to me like resistance training reigns supreme in the fight to burn fat! Seasoned strength training professionals, athletes and researchers have known for years that there is a significant post-exercise elevation of metabolism, lasting up to three to four hours after your weight training session ends. This is important to the time-restricted individual whom has to decide between cardio or weight training. Since cardiovascular exercise provides very little post-exercise elevation of metabolism, your cells stop burning extra energy when you finish your bike, run swim, etc. Compare this to a good solid weight training session where your metabolism keeps nibbling away at fat for hours.

To get a closer look at this in action just look at any group of athletes whose predominant exercise consists of resistance training, or short, high intensity sprint work. Sprinters are some of the very leanest athletes in sports. Olympic weight lifters and body builders would rather be castrated than go for a long run, yet they are predominately a very lean group. Aerobics alone will burn more muscle than fat. Compare the physique of a long distance runner to that of a sprinter or body builder. Although the runner is considered very thin, this type of athlete has very little muscle mass when compared to a sprinter or body builder. Again, aerobics alone burns muscle. IDEA, a leading health industry magazine released a study a few years ago indicating that aerobics instructors had an average body fat of 20% or higher which is surprisingly high for what is to be considered a professional instructor.

I have helped my clients by teaching them to eat a well-balanced breakfast, lunch and dinner being the smallest meal of the day and smaller balanced snacks between these three meals.

I hope this information will better help you to lose weight and keep it off permanently. Just remember to do the following:

1. DON’T DIET! Eat nutritious well-balanced meals to discourage (survival) fat storage.
2. Make the first two meals of the day the largest. Eat snacks in between breakfast, lunch and dinner to convince your body you’re not starving so, you don’t activate lipogenic enzymes.
3. Dinner should be the smallest meal of the day.
4. Increase daily physical activities and focus your training efforts more toward resistance training for increased lean mass and decreased fat mass.
5. Visit our website: www.elitebodyphysique.com for free sample meal plans and training programs.

If you’re unsure on how to properly start an effective weight loss and resistance-training program please contact Dr. Peck or one our certified fitness trainers for assistance at:

Elite Physique
8911 Daniels Pkwy. Unit 7
Ft. Myers, Fl. 33912
239-561-7474
www.elitebodyphysique.com

JEREMY BARNETT CFT