Do Fat and Sugar Feed Cancer Cells?
“Sugar is the main culprit to feeding cancer cells,” says Dr. Keith Kantor, a leading nutritionist and CEO of the Nutritional Addiction Mitigation Eating and Drinking (NAMED) program.
NAMED treats substance abuse, mental illnesses and other illnesses.
“Fat does not directly feed cancer cells like sugar, but consuming too much sugar can cause excessive fat buildup in the body which increases inflammation and risk for numerous chronic diseases like cancer.
“Adipose tissue, especially around the abdominal region, is extremely inflammatory, which can increase the risk for cancer too.”
Though a mice study in Cancer Research (2012, Kolonin et al) says that obese cancer patients have a more dismal prognosis, the consumption of excess sugar perhaps out-ranks surplus fat as a trigger for the development of cancer.
Obesity IS a risk factor for some cancers such as colon, uterine and breast.
A plant based, whole foods diet (or one that is mostly so) is linked to a lower incidence of cancer.
There is no need to be perplexed over which “feeds” cancer more: sugar or fat.
Both are bad for the body, and both are strongly associated with the development of, and prognosis for, certain cancers.
The solution if you’re confused is to restrict, if not eliminate, processed foods.
In a modern society, this is very difficult to do, but you’ll benefit from an ongoing effort.
If you’re overweight, then make an effort to lose the excess fat.
This will be a natural outcome if you switch to a plant based diet of mostly non-processed foods.
But it’s also crucial that you add cardio and strength training workouts to your lifestyle.
People who regularly work out and have a healthful diet, and who are not overweight (and who also don’t use tobacco), are less likely to develop cancer overall.
Dr. Kantor has a PhD in nutritional science and a doctorate in naturopathic medicine, has appeared on CNN and Fox News Channel for his expertise, and has been an advocate of natural food and healthy living for 30+ years.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121015084651.htm
The One Diet Change that Will Make Weight Loss EASIER
Make this one small and easy change in the way you THINK about food.
And you will begin losing weight — fat weight — including in your stomach and thighs and your entire body.
Here’s What to Do
Get away from the requirement that every time you eat, it must be delicious.
To expect every bite of food you ever eat to be delectable will sabotage your weight loss efforts.
Instead of expecting and requiring food to be an indulgence, think of food as sustenance, fuel for the body, and something that’s health-giving to the body.
By viewing food this way, you will no longer feel it’s necessary to have pancakes or waffles drenched in syrup for breakfast, or a sausage burrito for lunch.
Or fatty meat and buttery mashed potatoes soaked in gravy for dinner.
“Treat food as a source of nourishment to your body cells and tissues,” says Prajakta Apte, RDN, owner and founder of Right Nutrition Works who helps people create a healthier lifestyle.
“Learn to enjoy food in its natural form such as fresh fruits, and not in the form of fruit juices or fruit roll-ups.
“Avoid eating veggie chips as an alternative to fresh vegetables.
“Foods in their natural/original form act as a medicine to maintain, prevent and treat disease.”
Certainly this all doesn’t mean eat food that tastes like cardboard.
But do some investigating and experimenting with recipes and foods you’ve never tried in their whole form — and you may end up pleasantly surprised: “I can do this!”
For instance, some people have become conditioned to believe that breakfast must be a big production of heavy rich food, always including some kind of pastry — along with the toast, sugary jams and carb-crazed orange juice from a carton.
But you don’t have to “enjoy” every bite you eat in the day.
Get away from this thinking, and you will finally lose weight and keep it off.
Instead of the orange juice, have a whole orange, grapefruit or melon chunks.
And why have a pastry at breakfast when you know you’ll be craving a dessert-type food after dinner?
Replace the pastry with whole grain bread. However, even bread can be a problem. Aim for a brand with the fewest ingredients.
Maybe you’ll be able to eventually replace the bread with steel-cut oats sweetened naturally.
A sample lunch might be a tuna or chicken salad with a boiled potato and vegetables — rather than fast-food fare.
If you’re hungry 90 minutes later, that’s fine; who says that one feeding must satiate you for hours?
Have some fruit, or plain yogurt or kefir, or maybe some nuts or several squares of dark chocolate as a snack.
If food is always for sinful pleasure, you’ll end up snacking on ice cream, cookies, brownies, bon bons, tortilla chips drenched in cheese, etc.
If food is for health and sustenance, you’ll be drawn to a few apples or a banana for your mid-morning snack.
Make this one change to your diet – to the way you think about what you should eat – and weight loss will never be easier.
Prajakta Apte is the author of the eBook “Overcoming Nutrition Roadblocks.” Her personalized approach to nutrition therapies helps treat root causes of conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, GI disorders, hypertension and many more.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Sinelev
Get a Biceps Vein: Vascularity Exercises for Women
Exercises that can help a woman get a biceps vein…
Are you a woman struggling to get that biceps vein going?
I take pride in my own biceps vein, which I refer to as my “cable.”
To get a biceps vein, three key factors must be at play:
No. 1: A body fat percentage in the lower range of the “athletic range,” as defined by the American Counsel on Exercise, which would be 14 to 16 percent for women.
Bodies vary, and some women may be able to achieve a biceps vein at 16 or even 17 percent body fat.
Get below 14 percent body fat, and for sure a woman should not only be seeing the biceps vein, but feeling it with the pads of her fingers.
No. 2: Intense weight workouts, the kind that give you a pump, a burn. Moderate to heavy weights must be used to get that wonderful vein popping out.
No. 3: Specific kinds of weight routines are necessary to really bring out the biceps vein.
Shutterstock/Artem Furman
Best exercises to bring out the biceps vein, particularly for women:
Any pulling-towards-chest exercise in which your grip is supinated (palms facing ceiling), will create substantially increased blood flow and vascular action in your biceps, bringing out the vein, provided your body fat is low enough.
1 Rows using a cable machine or a barbell.
In both cases, use a handle with grip less than shoulders width apart. Height of the pull, relative to torso, can vary. Use an underhand grip.
Shutterstock/Catalin Petolea
A neutral grip (palms facing each other) can bring out a biceps vein, but not as much as the supinated or underhand grip. Single-arm rows in a seated position will also work.
2 Single-arm rows while standing, using pulley machine, legs bent, upper body bent at hips, arch in lower back.
The free hand rests on thigh or knee of opposite leg, and the pulling motion resembles that of starting a lawn mower. How much you’re leaning forward can vary.
3 Chin-ups – without the assistance machine. “Hammer” chin-ups will also work.
4 Lat pull-downs with a supinated or neutral grip will help women get a biceps vein going.
5 Any kind of biceps curling will bring out the vein, as long as the routine is intense.
Shutterstock/Nicholas Piccillo
So how intense must exercises be to get that biceps vein?
The resistance should allow you to complete 8 to 15 repetitions … and no more.
The first repetition should feel challenging, and the entire set should be very difficult.
You should feel worked over at the end of every set. Complete range of motion should be used, with no cheating, though “loose form” is okay for the last few reps.
Rest in between sets should be 45 to 60 seconds. When these short rest periods, and an 8-15 rep max to muscle failure, are combined, you can get a biceps vein doing this just once a week for a 45 to 60 minute session.
Freepik.com/pressfoto
Women should take up rock-wall climbing. This will bring the daylights out of your biceps veins!
View the arms of experienced women rock-wall climbers with low body fat: Vein City, USA.
I’ve noticed that my biceps veins, as well as their extensions into my forearms, really seem to pop out after I’ve completed heavy deadlifts (palms facing me). Reverse curls will also bring out the forearm vascularity.
To top everything off, to maximize visibility of the biceps vein, women need to keep their sodium intake under 2,000 mg a day.
Some might say under under 1,600. Sodium makes the body retain water, and water retention between muscle and skin will mask vascularity.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Lyashenko Egor
Powerlifting and Can’t Lose Fat? Do Metabolic Weightlifting
Still have stubborn fat despite a powerlifting program?
A powerlifting regimen is not the best protocol for burning fat. Lifting the heaviest amount of weight does not translate to maximum fat burning.
You’d think it would, but it really doesn’t. Maximum fat burning occurs when you lift weights according to a bodybuilding, or “metabolic” protocol.
This doesn’t mean that a bodybuilding regimen will make you look like Arnold or bulk you up if you’re a woman.
The ability to get the appearance of a competitive bodybuilder is part genetic, strict dieting (not necessarily calorie restriction), and a heck of a lot of commitment.
Nevertheless, for optimal burning of fat, the bodybuilding, or “metabolic” regimen, is the way to go.
The metabolic approach generates the greatest hormonal response. It is hormones that fire up the fat burning, even though this weight lifting protocol doesn’t involve lifting the heaviest weights possible.
Let’s take the deadlift exercise as an example. Suppose you can deadlift 200 pounds barely eight times; the entire set is difficult.
Shutterstock/SerdyukPhotography
It’s so difficult that you must take a two and a half minute rest before your next deadlift set…you need that time to recover enough to do another eight reps at 200 pounds; or, maybe your second set is six reps at 220, because you like to lift as heavy as possible for reps.
After the second set, again you take a two and a half minute break, then do a few more sets at 200 pounds or so with two and a half minutes in between.
This is more of a powerlifting protocol. You’ll burn fat alright, but not as much fat burning will occur, when compared to a hormonal or metabolic approach:
You deadlift 175 pounds…you can do 12 reps, but barely. Now, instead of the two and a half minute rest, you take only 45 seconds. You’re not fully recovered, of course, and thus do only 10 reps…barely.
You wait only 45 seconds before your third set at 175, and you struggle to do just six or seven reps. The last set is six reps.
Despite lifting lighter weight this time, you actually feel more worked-over than you normally do with the 200-plus pound regimen. The next day you’re sore.
The metabolic weight lifting approach creates more release of human growth hormone and testosterone, two hormones that act as powerful fat burners. Lactic acid is another fat burner that’s triggered.
The metabolic weight lifting protocol calls for a 30-45 second rest in between sets. However, and this is a mighty big however, the sets must be done to muscle failure! And beginning with an 8-12 rep max!
These are the ideal conditions for maximum fat burning with your weight lifting regimen.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Miljan Zivkovic
Resistance Band Exercises to Burn Fat & Tone: Pics
Images & simple instructions: best exercises for weight loss & toning using a resistance band or tension tube.
However, I must stress that the level of resistance in the band (also known as a tension tube) must be sufficient to make you work hard enough to achieve weight loss.
Using a resistance band that’s too light in tension, relative to your strength/fitness, will not result in the weight loss that you desire.
For optimal weight loss results, you’ll need more than one resistance band to provide different tension levels.
Row: Standing or Seated. Loop tubing around the leg of a heavy sofa or other stable anchor. Grab handles and stand (or sit) away from the anchor point, facing it..
Shutterstock/Kaderov Andrii
Keeping back straight, pull handles towards you, driving elbows behind body. Then reverse the motion.
Shutterstock/Halfpoint
Your distance from the anchor point should be sufficient to make 8-12 repetitions very challenging (this rule applies to all exercises).
Chest Press. Loop tubing around a secure anchor that’s not close to the floor, if you can find one. This may be the handle of a sliding deck door.
Shutterstock/InnerVisionPRO
You can use the leg of a heavy sofa, but this isn’t the best angle for a chest press.
Stand with back facing the anchor and push the handles out in front. Weaker people can be challenged by looping the tubing around the back of a sturdy chair, having a seat and then pushing the handles out in front.
Shoulder Press. Stand on center of tubing with equal sides on either side of feet. Grab handles, straighten and push overhead.
Shutterstock/Maridav
If this is too difficult, use a lighter tubing, or, kneel on the tubing and try again. Another option is to wrap the band under a sturdy chair and push overhead while seated.
Squat. Stand on tubing, feet at least shoulder width apart, holding handles at shoulder level, palms facing out or towards each other.
Shutterstock/Jasminko Ibrakovic
While in this position, there should be enough tautness in the band such that if you lower to a squat, the band doesn’t slack out, and that when you rise back up, you can feel yourself fighting against the tension.
Leg Press. Lie on floor after looping the tension band or tubing around a stable surface behind your head.
Shutterstock/Photographee.eu
Place feet against the opposite side of the band, or tuck feet inside the handles of the tubing, legs bent, then push legs outward.
Lateral Raise. Using a tension band that has handles, stand on the band at its center point, then grab the handles and raise your arms out to the side. Release with control.
Shutterstock/Oleksandr Zamuruiev
The more distance between your feet, the tighter the tension (or the greater the resistance.
Triceps Extension. Stand on top of the band and raise your hands overhead, arms straight.
Keeping the upper arms still and tight to your head, bend your elbows so that your hands are behind your head. Then straighten your arms to complete the rep.
Biceps Curl. Place your feet over the band and simply curl up the handles, keeping your upper arms vertical and against your sides. Release with control.
Shutterstock/aijiro
Glutes Extension. On all fours, situate yourself with the resistance band as depicted below.
Shutterstock/ F8 studio
Bring your knee towards your chest, then extend your hip outward, leg straight behind you, to recruit the gluteus maximus. Hold for two seconds, then repeat.
And remember, to achieve weight loss, you must use a resistance band with adequate tension, and adjust your body position for adequate tension, so that 8 to 12 repetitions are very challenging.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/OSTILL is Franck Camhi
Should Skinny People Who Want to Gain Weight Avoid Cardio?
Sometimes, a skinny man or woman who wishes to gain weight will avoid cardio exercise out of fear it will prevent them from reaching their goal.
The irony is that in many people who want to lose weight, who do “tons of cardio,” the cardio isn’t very effective!
If you’re skinny and want to gain weight, DO cardio exercise.
This doesn’t mean you must spend hours and hours every week on cardio equipment.
But just because you want to gain weight, doesn’t mean you should deprive your heart from exercise that will make it fitter and healthier.
The effectiveness of steady-state cardio exercise at slashing body weight is overestimated.
The proof is all around you: Look at all the people on cardio equipment and in aerobics classes at your gym. How many are skinny?
But what about marathon athletes?
Yes, marathon runners are thin, but the cardio that a thin (or any size) person should do is hardly comparable to marathon training.
I’m talking three times a week for 30 minutes for cardiovascular health.
If a skinny person eats plenty of natural, complex carbohydrates, lean sources of protein and healthy fats like nuts, olive oil and coconut oil, AND strength trains using heavy weights and focuses on compound movements, that individual should gain weight.
Three, 30 minute sessions of steady state cardio per week will not sabotage this plan.
If anything, it can enhance it by providing the trainee with energy to carry them through their strength training sessions.
I’m not saying that jogging on a treadmill will enable you to bench press 200 pounds, but cardio exercise promotes better aerobic fitness, and better aerobic fitness will give you a little extra perk in your daily routine, giving you that extra boost to hit the gym hard.
When a skinny person can’t gain weight despite doing a lot of lifting, what’s typically the case is that they do the wrong lifting exercises and/or don’t use heavy-enough weight.
A food diary is especially important. Many thin individuals don’t eat as much as they think they do.
Bottom line for skinny folks: Do cardio, hit the weights hard, do not fill up on junk food, and focus on lean proteins, complex carbs, vegetables and healthy fats.
Almonds provide healthful fats.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
Teen Girl Is Overweight, Overeats: Is this an Eating Disorder?
Overeating in a nation that makes it easy for teens to overeat — and be overweight — doesn’t always mean an eating disorder.
Now keep in mind that in a culture where fast-food restaurants, bakeries, donut shops, bagel shops and burrito stands are there at every turn, it’s easy to overeat junk food. It’s THERE.
You can smell the aroma wafting through the air at the mall. You follow the aroma of the cinnamon rolls or giant soft pretzels.
And it all just tastes SO good!
But there comes a point where the situation may go beyond filling a hungry stomach with fabulous tasting foods.
The eating continues well-past satiation, and is triggered by circumstances such as boredom, stress, anxiety and depression.
Weight Loss through Exercise for Overweight Teen Girls
Exercise is good for every body. But like eating, exercise should never be done mindlessly. It should have a tactical approach.
The No. 1 reason for exercising should be for fitness and health. But if you want to lose weight, it’s perfectly okay to have fat loss in mind when working out.
Nevertheless, two hours jogging around the neighborhood in the name of losing weight is NOT the answer.
Strength Training
A teen girl is not too young to start lifting weights. And you are never “too fat” to lift weights. And lifting weights will NOT make you bigger!
Shutterstock/Aleksey Boyko
Which might make you bigger? Picking up dumbbells or picking up donuts?
Never believe for a second that working out with weights will increase your size.
Just remember this: If you feel bad about your body, it’ll be rather difficult to continue feeling this way once you’ve trained your body to lift heavy things and find that you can shovel snow or haul out the garbage effortlessly.
Aerobics
As a former personal trainer, I recommend high intensity interval training. This solves the problem of time investment and minimizes obsession.
Just 20 minutes of HIIT will burn more fat than two hours of slow paced cardio.
Shutterstock/Creativa Images
Plus, since HIIT can be done in only 20 minutes, after which you’ll feel spent, you’ll less likely become obsessed with it.
Whereas paced cardio can be done for three hours straight – making it easier to become obsessed with. Here are instructions on how to do HIIT.
Overweight in Teens: Don’t Wait till It Gets Worse
Addressing weight concerns now does not mean a breach of body positivity.
Rather, it’s about preventing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and other obesity related issues (e.g., difficulty conceiving) down the road during adulthood.
As a teen, you can still feel positive about your body (which is easier to do when you can lift heavy barbells) while working on losing surplus weight in a safe and realistic way.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Freepick.com/brgfx
Women’s Strength Training Rules for Maximum Fat Loss
If you’re disgusted with the fat in your thighs, tummy or elsewhere that just won’t budge, it’s time to take control with a strength training routine that will blast off the fat.
I’m a former certified personal trainer and will describe in detail how a woman can use strength training to achieve the greatest amount of fat loss anywhere in her body.
In order for strength training to burn maximal fat, strength training must be done very intensely.
There is a correlation between intensity and how heavy the weight is. However, if the weight is too heavy, you won’t get the intensity. Intensity is achieved with repetitions.
So if the weight is so heavy that you can lift it only five times, this won’t be enough reps to induce “metabolic failure,” which is what you want.
For optimal fat loss, a woman should do strength training with an amount that brings muscle failure (the metabolic type) within 8-12 reps.
Deadlift. Freepik.com
Many women already do 8-12 reps for their strength training – simply because they’ve read or heard that this is the ideal rep range.
Try this experiment: Next time you do your strength training, use the same amount of weight you normally use, but instead of stopping at between 8 and 12 reps, see if you can go to 15. If you can reach 15, see if you can go to 18, even 20.
If you can do more than 12 reps, the weight isn’t heavy enough. So, if you can actually make it to near 20 reps, the weight is entirely too light.
For strength training to induce optimal fat burning, a woman must use a weight that she cannot lift more than 12 times, but at least 8 times.
This is called the 8-12 rep max (or RM). If you can lift the weight 13 times but not 14, it is still too heavy. Increase it a little so that you are forced to stop at 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 reps.
Metabolic burn isn’t pretty. It hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt. The weight can no longer be lifted because your muscles are burning so much, rather than the weight is too heavy, as in “mechanical failure” that would result from a 4-6 RM.
A woman’s rest time in between strength training sets for optimum fat loss
Bent-over barbell row. embhoo/CreativeCommons
Rest time is 45-60 seconds. This means that for many sets, you’ll need to lighten the weight to achieve an 8-12 RM.
For example, in a bench press, suppose your first set of 8-12 RM is at 65 pounds. After 45-60 seconds, you can only do 6 reps with the 65 pounds.
This means that for the third set, the weight should be lowered to 55 or maybe 50 pounds. If you can push 50 pounds 14 times, this is a little too light.
Strength training this way will require some experimentation of weight loads, obviously. But this is what successful fitness enthusiasts do all the time; it goes with the territory.
Which muscle groups should be strength trained for the most fat loss?
Half squat. Freepik.com, teksomolika
One 45 minute session a week should be devoted entirely to legs. Legs can be major fat-burners if the strength training is done right, because they are such large muscle groups.
On a second day of the week, do a 60 minute strength training session targeting the back and shoulders.
On a third day for 60 minutes, strength training the chest, triceps and biceps will do.
Incline press. Freepik.com, javi_indy
Should women strength train with mostly machines or free weights?
Most of the routines should be with free weights, though the following machines are great: lat pull-down, chest press, leg press, leg extension and leg curl.
So though seated chest press is fine, do some chest presses with a barbell or dumbbell also.
Number of sets per muscle group is variable; general rule is that the more muscles worked in a given exercise, the more sets for that muscle group.
This means that on leg day, do a lot of squats, leg presses and weighted lunges, but fewer leg extensions and leg curls. Do only a FEW sets of inner and outer thigh routines.
To burn the most fat, women should do heavy strength training and follow these guidelines, but ease gradually into this type of strength training to avoid injury or excessive soreness.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
Why People Drive to the Gym to Use a Treadmill
There’s a lot of logic behind driving to the gym to use a treadmill.
I just can’t believe that anyone would ask why a person would drive to a gym (instead of walk) and then walk on a treadmill.
But there’s actually a lot of rhyme and reason to doing this.
I’m a former certified personal trainer, and I’ve driven to the gym for treadmill workouts.
I located two Web sites in which the question, “Why do people drive to the gym to use a treadmill?” is posed. Some of the answers are that people are lazy.
Hmmm. If you’re one of these critical folk, you won’t feel so insightful once you finish reading the following reasons why a person would drive to the gym and then walk (or run) on a treadmill.
Nine Reasons People Drive to Gym, then Use Treadmill (no particular order)
#1. To avoid getting heckled. Many walkers and joggers are self-conscious and just don’t want dozens and dozens of passing motorists seeing them move, especially if they’re considerably overweight.
Even an attractive woman may feel uncomfortable jogging along streets, not wanting to get whistled or hollered at by leering men in pickup trucks. There may not be a park nearby.
#2. A person may be in very poor physical condition, and would rather become fatigued and worn out inside a controlled environment than out on the streets.
#3. A treadmill has settings that a street or sidewalk does not. Set the machine at 4 mph and you guarantee a 4 mph pace. Outdoors, you may slow down and not realize it.
#4. A treadmill has an incline.
#5. Many people don’t like walking or jogging under a minimal or over a maximal temperature, and/or don’t like exercising outside if it’s windy.
What may seem like a “beautiful day” to you may be a bit too nippy for someone else to exert themselves.
#6. The only time a person may be able to walk or run may be in the evening when all the bugs are out.
#7. One who drives to the gym to use a treadmill might also have plans afterwards to do some shopping or visit some friends.
#8. The environment of a gym instills more discipline and drive in some individuals, being surrounded by like-minded people on other cardio equipment.
#9. After a treadmill workout, even though a person drives to the gym just to do this, they know deep down inside that they will follow up with a few additional exercises: with equipment that only the gym has, or with exercises that they can do at home (e.g., sit-ups) but wouldn’t simply because the home environment isn’t motivating enough.
Don’t fault those who drive to the gym to use a treadmill!
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Sources: experienceproject.com/question-answer/Why-Do-People-Drive-A-Car-To-The-Gym-To-Run-On-A-Treadmill/48978
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20121230203429AADwPsI
Can Bread Prevent Six-Pack Abs?
Trust me on this: There is absolutely no association between bread consumption and the development, or lack thereof, of six-pack abs.
I never told my personal-training clients, “If you want tight and toned abs or a six-pack, stop eating bread.”
Now when I say “consumption,” I’m referring to the ingredients in bread, a flour-based processed food. I am NOT referring to total daily calories when I say “bread consumption.”
I’ll get to calories in a moment. But first, I must reiterate: There is nothing inherent in bread’s ingredients, including white flour, that would make getting a six-pack difficult, let alone impossible.
Formula for Six-Pack Abs
Shutterstock/Dusan Petkovic
The formula for this most appealing trait is a low body fat percentage combined with trained abdominal muscles.
This begs the question:
Won’t bread prevent low body fat percentage, thereby preventing getting a six-pack?
The only thing that stands in the way of achieving a low body fat percentage is consuming more calories than you can burn off in a day.
If you’re in caloric deficit mode (but are still eating enough to maintain a good amount of lean body mass), you’ll have a low body fat percentage — and that buff physique..
How do you cut back on calories to lower body fat so that the six-pack is visible?
This can be done by deleting 500 calories a day of food — namely heavily processed food. In one week you’ll lose a pound of body fat.
This plan is ideal for those who are eating more food than they need.
A pound of fat = 3,500 calories.
Shutterstock/ESB Professional
On the other hand, an increase in exercise is all it takes to lower body fat enough to show the abs in some individuals.
Bread, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the calories in vs. calories out fat loss model, nor a medication or medical cause of difficulty shedding body fat.
Now, if you’re chowing down lots of bread every day, that’s too many calories from one type of food — a type of food that’s not essential to good health.
If you cut back on your daily bread consumption (if it’s 500 calories/day), then of COURSE this will result in fat loss of a pound a week. It’s fewer calories! Doesn’t matter what the omitted source is.
You’ll get the same result if you cut back on 500 calories worth of other foods you might be consuming in excess, such as pasta, beef, cheese or potato chips.
Fewer calories mean your body will dip into fat reserves for energy, including fat that’s hiding your six-pack.
The reason not all “skinny” people have a six-pack is because, though a person may be thin in terms of abdominal diameter, they’re packing enough fat in their stomach to hide abdominal definition.
Another reason why many slimmer folks don’t sport a six-pack is because their abs aren’t trained adequately, that is, the muscles there aren’t tight and strong.
To get a six-pack, you must have trained abs, plus a low body fat percentage from appropriate caloric intake combined with exercise that burns a lot of fat, such as high intensity interval training and big compound moves like the deadlift, squat and barbell work.
Shutterstock/PKpix
There is nothing inherent in bread’s ingredients that preclude development of a six-pack.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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