- Avoid processed foods like the plague.
- Increase protein intake to burn fat.
- Eat healthy fats - particularly those with lots of Omega 3 fatty acids (and coconut oil).
It also makes an interesting, and to me compelling, case against moderate intensity "cardio" exercise, the sort of exercise that is pretty much universally claimed to burn the most fat. His argument is that too much of this sort of training only trains your body to store fat, particularly if you eat lots of refined carbs, which your body can very efficiently store as fat. In my experience I believe this to be true. High intensity exercise revs up your metabolism for long after you've finished exercising, and it is the sort of exercise that challenges your lungs and heart to grow stronger (which is key to getting faster, opposed to hitting a plateau). For the past few years I've done most of my training using "chunks": chunks of intensity interspersed with my normal riding, aiming for about 20 minutes or so of intensity (i.e. anaerobic zone performance) per training session. An added advantage is that I train less, so I recover faster (a very important consideration when your over 50, but also for folks that work a lot or have lots of family obligations). As I get closer to race day, the frequency and intensity of my training drops, while the duration increases so that the duration and intensity becomes more like race day as the actual race gets closer.
The latter book expands on the former. It's perhaps written more for the sedentary 50 year old than the elite athlete, but it was still a worthwhile read. The only criticism is that there is a fair amount of hawking of Dr. Sears' services and wares. But even with that he is pretty much dead on, with perhaps one criticism. At one point in the book he states that "overconsumption of protein is the key to fat loss." While I believe it can be crucial for rapid initial loss of fat, long term consumption of too much protein can be very hard on your kidneys. Moderate amounts of protein and a whole foods diet is probably a lot safer bet. And he seems to stick to that path through most, but not all, of the book (the book really needs a good editor).
Probably the two most worthwhile parts of the book are his two analogies that refute the conventional wisdom that weight control is merely a matter of controlling caloric intake. When my wife sees how much I eat and am still able to maintain an off season weight of around 168 pounds, she tends to agree with Dr. Sears. His first example is a woman that eats a carb heavy (most likely refined carbs) diet. As she restricts her calories her weight continues to go up, despite eating 1500 calories or less per day for weeks. His second example is a man that eats several thousands of calories per day, mostly of protein, and can't gain the additional weight that he wants (the same sort of diet that body builders use to achieve a very lean body mass). Clearly weight is not a matter of calories in, calories out. The former example illustrates how easily your body will metabolize refined carbohydrates (sugar, flour, all the refined corn and soy fillers, etc) into fat while breaking down your own muscle tissue to get an adequate amount of protein. The latter example clearly shows that excess calories are not always stored as fat. The main concern that I have for the latter example, especially for folks over 50, is that overconsumption of meat can raise your body's acidity, with lots of bad implications for your health, including leaching calcium from your bones. That's why moderate protein consumption (a portion about the size of your palm at each meal) together with lots of whole fruits and vegetables (to create a better acid/alkaline balance in your body) is a better strategy for everyday eating.
No comments:
Post a Comment