Getting your body back for summer, Q&A

Volume 1, Number 37 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | June 1 - 7, 2007

Health & Fitness

By Greg Rothman, M.S. P.T.

Last week’s column was the last of a four-part series outlining a program to help readers get in shape for summer, a program designed to help you build lean muscle and burn body fat in a short period of time, and one that works for anyone who is in good health and able to follow the recommendations. That said, it is easier to work with individuals one-on-one than to help individuals in a forum like this. So, it is not surprising that some of you had questions regarding the program and how it might work for you.

I’m in the third week of your program and have definitely noticed a big difference in my body, but I’m worried about the “protein days” that start in the fifth week. It sounds like ‘Atkins.’ I’ve been on Atkins before, and it really was not good for me. I ended not feeling well and couldn’t stick with it and ended up gaining a lot of weight, so I’m nervous about cutting out all my carbs, as you say to do in the program.

I’m so glad you wrote in to express how you felt while you were on Atkins. I’ve got good news: You’re human. The human body requires carbohydrates to function; it is your body’s preferred source of fuel. In fact, it is the only fuel that can be utilized for brain function; so, when you didn’t feel well on the Atkins Diet, it was because you were depriving yourself of the fuel your brain needed to function. When your body is depleted of carbohydrates for a period of time, brain function slows and you start to feel unfocussed, cranky, even dizzy.

Other things happen with long-term carbohydrate deprivation as well. Your body’s survival mechanism kicks in and begins to manufacture its own carbohydrates. It does this by breaking apart muscle tissue and using it for fuel. Muscle is ‘active’ tissue—metabolically active—so when this happens, your metabolism begins to slow. Furthermore, your body protects itself by altering hormonal production in the thyroid gland so that you require fewer calories to survive. The result is that your metabolism slows further. With long-term carbohydrate deprivation, you can downgrade and damage your metabolism in significant ways so that when you go off the diet, you will gain back any lost weight and much more, since you now have a slower metabolism.

The good news is that the suggestions that I make in my program do not allow for this to happen. The ‘protein days’ (days in which you eliminate all starchy carbohydrates and double your protein intake) are only suggested for short periods—two to three days each week in the fat-burning phase of your program. This model helps you deplete your glycogen (sugars stored in muscle tissue) so that your body is forced to burn more stored fat as energy.

Because of the short time periods involved here, your body does not need to become catabolic (to break itself down). Instead, after the two or three days in which fat is burned at an increased rate, you begin eating in a balanced way again and your body, hungry for those carbohydrates, incorporates them back into your improving lean tissue structure. It is a very effective way to ‘tease’ that extra stubborn fat out of your cells to be burned. Provided you do not go beyond the suggested time-frame with this strategy, you do not need to worry about the effects you described for the Atkins Diet.

In your article on getting in shape for summer, you say to keep cardio under 30 minutes each day. I always try to do at least an hour of cardio to burn lots of calories, and wonder why you think doing less cardio is better.

Thank you for your question. You harbor the same belief about cardio workouts that so many people that I meet do. As a fitness professional and gym owner, I often find it difficult to help people understand how doing less cardio will help you burn more fat. But it is true. The reasons are two-fold.

First, when doing cardio for long periods, it is very difficult to maintain the kind of intensity that leads to the most fat burning both while you are exercising and in the hours following the activity. The most recent studies suggest that the best strategies involve H.I.T. (High Intensity Training), or interval training, for shorter periods. I discuss this is in more detail in my column on cardio training, which can be found at: http://chelseanow.com/cn_21/makingthemostofyour.html.

Second, it has been shown that when you do cardio for longer periods, there is a tendency for muscle tissue—instead of fat tissue—to be broken down in order to fuel the workouts, which slows your metabolism. The best strategy involves shorter periods of cardio (up to thirty minutes) on most days of the week.

That said, I hope that many of you are putting the strategies outlined in my last four columns to good use and are well on your way to stronger, leaner bodies. The summer is a great time to have fun with your fitness program outdoors. So, in my next few columns, I’ll talk about ways to keep your regimen going while taking it outside of the gym.

Greg Rothman, M.S. P.T., is the owner of emPower Fitness Studios (emPowerFitnessNYC.com). He received his masters degree in physical therapy from Columbia University and has 15 years’ experience in the rehabilitation and fitness fields, most recently as the personal training manager and top-level trainer for Equinox Fitness Clubs in New York City. SEND YOUR QUESTIONS about nutrition, fitness and sports injuries/rehabilitation to Greg at emPowerFitness@aol.com.