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If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that I think long term weight/fat loss has less to do with physiology and more to do with psychology.  Now don’t get me wrong, you have to eat the right foods and do the appropriate exercise.  That is a given.  But I think all the arguments on the internet about the amount of carbs we should eat, the type of exercise we should be doing, and the magical supplements we should be taking are all secondard to having the appropriate psychological environment for weight loss.  After all, a plan you don’t follow is only as good as the paper it is written on. 

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If you think back to the number of times that you or someone you know has failed at achieving their dream body, has it been because they didn’t know what they should and should not be eating?  Has it been because they didn’t know that they should exercise regularly?  Or has it been that even when a plan was going well, they were unable to make it stick or to follow through on the commitment in the long term?

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I would say that the latter is definitely more common.  But before I get hate mail about this I want to touch on two very important points. 

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1 - There are some people who are limited by other metabolic issues like food intolerances and so on.  I can acknowledge this and I HAVE seen in…but it is unlikely and this probably does not apply to you.  And even if it does, you still need to get a solid exercise and nutrition program in place before you start to address these details.    Without such a plan, you’ll never be able to lose weight regardless of whether or not you’ve addressed these issues.

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2 – Not sticking to the plan may have something to do with willpower, but you are not necessarily to blame for this problem.  In fact, it frustrates me when fitness professionals belittle and blame their clients for something that may not be as much in their control as we’d like to believe.

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Fortunately, today I’ve got a really great explanation for WHY our willpower fails and a couple methods to improve our ability to self regulate our behaviours so we CAN stick to our diet and exercise program and get the results we deserve. 

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Check out this video by my friend and colleague, Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginnis on willpower, planning, and exercise adherance.  I think many of you will be able to relate. 
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Does this make sense?  What do you think? Could we not use this to improve exercise AND diet?

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First off, I really want to thank everyone who purchased, promoted, or even just endured the launch of my product How to Read Fitness Research last week.  I think it went really well and I’m happy to have created such a much needed product in this field.  This week, we’ll be back to some regularly scheduled (non-promotional) content. 

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However, as part of the launch last week, my colleague (and super smart guy) Mike Reinold shared some content that I thought would be very useful so I decided to share it here as well for those who don’t follow his blog. 

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Basically, in last week’s post where I shared a video I talked about subscribing to the electronic table of contents of various journals to stay on top of the most current research.  And in my product I list the journals that I think every fitness professional or serious exercise enthusiast should follow.

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But Mike took it one step further and shared some journals that he thinks would also be valuable to those with more of a rehabilitative focus.  I figured I’d present those here so you didn’t miss them.

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Here they are…straight from Mike’s post:

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• JOSPT – Journal of Orthopedic Sports and Physical Therapy – the cream of the crop for ortho and sports PT journals.  Pretty technical but still quality.  The best reason to join the APTA and sports or ortho sections.
• AJSM – American Journal of Sports Medicine – another elite journal, geared more towards ortho and sports physicians and surgeons and a gold mine of information for us too.
• Sports Health – A fairly new journal designed for us all – docs, PT’s, ATC’s, fitnes specialists, etc. A little less technical (which is often good), but great.
• JAT – Journal of Athletic Training – Official journal of the NATA and always has some good content.  Similar to JOSPT, likely the best benefit of joining the NATA.
• JBMT – Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies – For those of us that enjoy different approaches, manual therapy, and expanding outside of the typical American thought process.  Edited by Leon Chaitow, you’ll enjoy the content.  As a side note, I believe that this is where Tom Myer’s Anatomy Trains concept really took a jump start.

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So if you’re interested in rehab and you want to get a jumpstart on the competition by reading some research…these journals would be a great place to start!

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In light of my upcoming product How to Read Fitness Research at the end of March, I’ve decided that I’m going to dedicate at least some time on my blog to discussing fitness research and related topics over the coming months.

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I’m really excited about this project and I think it is going to give a lot of people freedom from being spoon fed fitness misinformation from supposed experts on the internet.  From this point on you won’t need to rely on someone else.  YOU will be able to determine for yourself whether the information you are reading is legit or a steaming pile of crap.

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Without Further Ado – Let’s get to it!

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I’ve discussed previously the topic of acute and chronic studies, but today I want to delve a little deeper.  More specifically, I wanted to share that I’ve recently had several email exchanges with a couple other bright fitness professionals talking about things like the effects of growth hormone or adipose tissue blood flow on body fat.

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The point I was sharing with these other smart folks is that even though growth hormone may increase fat mobilzation acutely or that adipose tissue blood flow may be immediately increased with some execise/treatment modalities this may not translate into real world fat loss.

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A good example of this (albeit in a slightly different area) is that certain types of exercise increase testosterone and growth hormone acutely.  And since we know testosterone (and maybe GH) increase muscle mass this might lead us to believe that the same type of exercise that acutely increases these hormones will increase muscle mass…but it doesn’t.  Muscle mass does not increase more as a result of this acute hormonal change.

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In the end, focusing on one acute measurement as an outcome might lead you down the wrong path.  And while these measurements might lead to further hypotheses to be tested (which is good), they shouldn’t be considered conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of a method. 

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For now, I think a lot more needs to be learned about GH, adipose tissue blood flow, and fat loss before we start making recommendations. 

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But in terms of research, next time you read something suggesting that you focus on a single acute measure (like fat mobilization from growth hormone), make sure to ask yourself whether it actually plays a role in real world fat loss before you change your routine.

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