I think there are a lot of good reasons for everyone to engage in a strength training program. Benefits include getting less injuries when engaged in sports activities, increased metabolic rate, decreased risk of obesity, decreased risk of thinning bones, especially in women and decreased risk of falls in the elderly. Also when your strong, I think you just feel better about yourself which is important. I have followed Dr. McGuff's program with some minor variations of my own for the last 2 years, lifting once a week and have seen a steady consistent increase in my strength while experiencing no incapacitating injuries during the workouts or more importantly in my tennis which I play 4-5 times per week. Dr. McGuff recommends that you lift weights until you can lift them slowly for 90 seconds the increase the weight. I have found the easy way to accomplish this is by putting THIS MP3
| count_for_gym_2.mp3 |
on your cellphone or iPOD and use Bluetooth headphones to listen to it while doing Dr. Mcguff's workout. It is simply me counting to 90 seconds in your ear. I find stop watches cumbersome to use.
THIS IS A LINK TO DR MCGUFFS PAGE WHERE HIS BOOK CAN BE PURCHASED AND THERE IS MORE INFORMATION
THIS IS A LINK TO DR MCGUFFS PAGE WHERE HIS BOOK CAN BE PURCHASED AND THERE IS MORE INFORMATION
HERE ARE SOME POSTS I'VE DONE ON EXERCISE
Here's a reply I recently posted on a friend's FB page, a nurse - practitioner I used to work with who said she was going to start exercising to lose weight. Exercise doesn't have nearly as much effect on weight loss as the dietary component. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22681398 Yet so many providers encourage their overweight, out of shape patients to do it, sometimes to their detriment as they are more succeptible to sports injury, heat injury and CV events. Here is a quote from the link that follows " Importantly, the risk of a cardiac event is significantly lower among regular exercisers. Evidence suggests that a sedentary person’s risk is nearly 50 times higher than the risk for a person who exercises about 5 times per week. Stated simply, individuals who exercise regularly are much less likely to experience a problem during exercise." http://m.circ.ahajournals.org/content/107/1/e2.full#ref-2 . And the third myth I hear many practitioners promulgating is that increased exercise will increase basal metabolic rate and you will burn more calories. With the exception of resistance training this is simply not true. Here's a good study showing active hunter-gatherers have lower BMRs than sedentary obese Americans http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040503 . Here is a definitive study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2706222 . In my opinion the healthiest approach is first to lose weight . (the most effective method is clearly carbohydrate restriction) with no exercise then as the body heals add gradually more and more activity as desired with at least 30 minutes per week of resistance training to muscle total exhaustion. It pains me that these harmful myths still abound.
I think resistance training is important for people who participate in throwing sports or sports where jumping or rapid changes of direction or speed are required. Resistance training strengthens not only the muscles but also the ligaments, tendons and cartilage and thus helps prevent muscle tears, sprains, strains and cartilage injuries. Resistance training in the elderly has been shown to prevent falls and strengthen bones. I feel "Body by Science " by Doug McGuff MD is the best book on the subject. His exercises can be done in as little as 15 minutes once a week. To his "big five" exercises I add an exercise for the low back and the gastrocs which I feel are important for sports with sprinting and rapid changes of direction like tennis.
nothing wrong with walking, golfing and clogging. I play tennis 10-15 hrs/wk, liftweights an hour a week and have since I retired 3 1/2 years ago. The problem is thinking exercise is going to be some magic potion that is going to help them lose weight or speed up the weight loss from eating ZC. It;s not. In fact if you exercise you have to eat extra meat to keep your body from going into starvation mode. When your body get's less calories than it wants it goes into starvation mode. Since muscle calories weigh so much more than fat calories and requires so much more energy to mainrain it thinks this drought could get bad, I better get rid of some of that muscle I'm carrying around, I'll need less calories and I'll still have the fat as a back up if things get catastrophic. The goal in ZC is to nourish the body by eating health giving meat. You can only lose weight with exercise if you starve yourself at the same time because if you don't your appetite wil just increase and you'll eat the extra calories you just burned. And... most of the weight you lose will be lean muscle. So enjoy lots of walking, golf and clogging, don't do it to lose weight and realize you'll need to up your meat intake when you do it, your body will remind you :-) PS I agree with the veterans that increasing exercise in the first 30 days is of counterproductive due to the process of adaptation.
Saw this article “Don't depend on exercise for weight loss” that I thought everyone might be interested in. Here is a quote I thought sums up the difference between eating meat and carbs in 1 sentence, brilliant. "Calories from fat produce fullness or satiety whereas calories from sugar or carbs cause fat storage and hunger." http://m.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/midweek/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503658&objectid=11543548
First for any zero carbers reading this, exercise is not required for the zero carb way of eating and you will spontaneously gain muscle and have the energy and strength to be much more active than you were just by eating the ZC way. For some of us exercise is a hobby and what follows is a discussion of my take on that hobby. Patty asking how you should exercise your body is like asking what kind of computer you should buy, the answer is the same, "it depends on what you want to use it for!" There 2 types of skeletal muscle, fast twitch fibers which are relatively lite and weak but can work all day and slow twitch which are heavy and generate great force but run out of energy quickly. Endurance exercises like jogging and cycling only use fast twitch. If you want to become a competitive endurance athlete lifting weight can be counterproductive as slow twitch muscle is heavy to carry around and doesn't help in running unless you are sprinting. On the other hand if you want to play tennis or hockey or football that involves brief all out sprints, quick stops and rapid changes in direction you want lots of slow twitch along with thick strong tendons ligaments and cartilage. The only way to achieve this is to totally exhaust the muscles by doing resistance exercises to the point of complete muscle exhaustion then resting long enough to allow the muscle, tendon, ligaments and cartilage involved to to grow stronger. Both Dr. McGruff and fellow Family Medicine doctor Ted Naiman whose video on the subject I am posting below use 5 Nautilus machine exercises done very slowly to achieve muscle exhaustion and no supervision is required for this. I made an MP3 of myself counting to 90 seconds (the lifting period Dr. McGruff uses though some people do 60 seconds.) I wear Bluetooth earphones when I go to the gym. They have a small control on the side that lets me start, stop and reset my count which is playing on my phone. I do the exercise as slow and controlled as possible once a week. If I reach 90 sec without exhausting the muscles involved I up the weight by 5 lbs the next week. I keep track using an an Excel spreadsheet on my phone. I have been doing this for 15 months with marvelous results. As for exercising the heart to develop stamina studies have shown 4 minutes of sprinting as fast as you can go is as good as 1 hour jogging. Adding strong, slow twitch muscle mass has also been shown to decrease insulin resistance according to Dr. Naiman https://youtu.be/RlYXb1xs86U . This is a video of Dr. McGruff doing his workout. https://youtu.be/FVhhbC51_3k I'm tagging Hatem because I know he's interested in this stuff.
I do the "Body by Science" by Doug McGuff MD big 5 weight lifting workout plus 2 exercises I added myself (1 to strengthen he low back and one to strengthen the gastrocs). http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?page_id=18
I lift once a week. It takes about 50 minutes but I take my time and do 4 of the 7 exercises (chest and overhead press, low back and gastrocs) on a Smith machine which requires significant set-up time to change from one exercise to another. I lift primarily to strengthen my muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage to prevent injuries and improve performance in my passion, Tennis whiCh I engage in 10-15 hours per week both singles and doubles. Spring, summer and fall I try to spend at least an hour a day playing in the ocean here in Galveston. My favorite activity is on days with big surf (about 20% of days) diving on top of big waves to feel them lift and drop me. I also do some body surfing, waves allowing. I do it mainly for the sun and I believe trace minerals can be absorbed percutaneously by the body when needed.There is good evidence for this process with Magnesium (see Attachment). I've been lifting for about 1 1/2 years and have doubled and in some cases almost tripled all of my starting weights with no injuries. Hope you find this useful, Paul
nothing wrong with walking, golfing and clogging. I play tennis 10-15 hours a week and lift weights an hour a week. The problem is thinking exercise is going to be some magic potion that is going to help them lose weight or speed up the weight loss from eating ZC. It;s not. In fact if you exercise you have to eat extra meat to keep your body from going into starvation mode. When your body get's less calories than it wants it goes into starvation mode. Since muscles weigh so much more than fat and thus take more calories to carry around and requires so much more energy to maintain as muscles are constantly burning calories just to keep the right tension to hold your body in proper alignment while fat doesn’t have to do this). I starvation mode the body is programmed to initially burn extra muscle protein for energy instead of fat because if the “drought” it is experiencing gets worse, losing the extra muscle means less calories are needed and it still has the fat calories “in the bank” to see it through the drought. Leaving you weaker with thinner muscles and tendons and therefore more subject to cartilage injuries (cartilage has a large amount of protein in it) and muscle and tendon strains, sprains and tears should you desire to exercise. Also I commonly see people “give themselves permission” for a carb or sugar laden treat after exercise (after all “they burn it off, right?”) and if they calculated to calories of the sugar rich sports drink or scoop of Ice Cream it would be more than the calories they burned jogging 3 miles (about 375). The goal in ZC is to nourish the body by eating health giving meat. You can only lose weight with exercise if you starve yourself at the same time because if you don't your appetite will just increase and you'll eat the extra calories you just burned. And... most of the weight you lose will be lean muscle. So enjoy lots of walking, golf and clogging, don't do it to lose weight and realize you'll need to up your meat intake when you do it, your body will remind you :-) PS I agree with the veterans that increasing exercise in the first 30 days is of counterproductive due to the process of adaptation.
I think resistance training is important for people who participate in throwing sports or sports where jumping or rapid changes of direction or speed are required. Resistance training strengthens not only the muscles but also the ligaments, tendons and cartilage and thus helps prevent muscle tears, sprains, strains and cartilage injuries. Resistance training in the elderly has been shown to prevent falls and strengthen bones. I feel "Body by Science " by Doug McGuff MD is the best book on the subject. His exercises can be done in as little as 15 minutes once a week. To his "big five" exercises I add an exercise for the low back and the gastrocs which I feel are important for sports with sprinting and rapid changes of direction like tennis.
nothing wrong with walking, golfing and clogging. I play tennis 10-15 hrs/wk, liftweights an hour a week and have since I retired 3 1/2 years ago. The problem is thinking exercise is going to be some magic potion that is going to help them lose weight or speed up the weight loss from eating ZC. It;s not. In fact if you exercise you have to eat extra meat to keep your body from going into starvation mode. When your body get's less calories than it wants it goes into starvation mode. Since muscle calories weigh so much more than fat calories and requires so much more energy to mainrain it thinks this drought could get bad, I better get rid of some of that muscle I'm carrying around, I'll need less calories and I'll still have the fat as a back up if things get catastrophic. The goal in ZC is to nourish the body by eating health giving meat. You can only lose weight with exercise if you starve yourself at the same time because if you don't your appetite wil just increase and you'll eat the extra calories you just burned. And... most of the weight you lose will be lean muscle. So enjoy lots of walking, golf and clogging, don't do it to lose weight and realize you'll need to up your meat intake when you do it, your body will remind you :-) PS I agree with the veterans that increasing exercise in the first 30 days is of counterproductive due to the process of adaptation.
Saw this article “Don't depend on exercise for weight loss” that I thought everyone might be interested in. Here is a quote I thought sums up the difference between eating meat and carbs in 1 sentence, brilliant. "Calories from fat produce fullness or satiety whereas calories from sugar or carbs cause fat storage and hunger." http://m.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/midweek/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503658&objectid=11543548
First for any zero carbers reading this, exercise is not required for the zero carb way of eating and you will spontaneously gain muscle and have the energy and strength to be much more active than you were just by eating the ZC way. For some of us exercise is a hobby and what follows is a discussion of my take on that hobby. Patty asking how you should exercise your body is like asking what kind of computer you should buy, the answer is the same, "it depends on what you want to use it for!" There 2 types of skeletal muscle, fast twitch fibers which are relatively lite and weak but can work all day and slow twitch which are heavy and generate great force but run out of energy quickly. Endurance exercises like jogging and cycling only use fast twitch. If you want to become a competitive endurance athlete lifting weight can be counterproductive as slow twitch muscle is heavy to carry around and doesn't help in running unless you are sprinting. On the other hand if you want to play tennis or hockey or football that involves brief all out sprints, quick stops and rapid changes in direction you want lots of slow twitch along with thick strong tendons ligaments and cartilage. The only way to achieve this is to totally exhaust the muscles by doing resistance exercises to the point of complete muscle exhaustion then resting long enough to allow the muscle, tendon, ligaments and cartilage involved to to grow stronger. Both Dr. McGruff and fellow Family Medicine doctor Ted Naiman whose video on the subject I am posting below use 5 Nautilus machine exercises done very slowly to achieve muscle exhaustion and no supervision is required for this. I made an MP3 of myself counting to 90 seconds (the lifting period Dr. McGruff uses though some people do 60 seconds.) I wear Bluetooth earphones when I go to the gym. They have a small control on the side that lets me start, stop and reset my count which is playing on my phone. I do the exercise as slow and controlled as possible once a week. If I reach 90 sec without exhausting the muscles involved I up the weight by 5 lbs the next week. I keep track using an an Excel spreadsheet on my phone. I have been doing this for 15 months with marvelous results. As for exercising the heart to develop stamina studies have shown 4 minutes of sprinting as fast as you can go is as good as 1 hour jogging. Adding strong, slow twitch muscle mass has also been shown to decrease insulin resistance according to Dr. Naiman https://youtu.be/RlYXb1xs86U . This is a video of Dr. McGruff doing his workout. https://youtu.be/FVhhbC51_3k I'm tagging Hatem because I know he's interested in this stuff.
I do the "Body by Science" by Doug McGuff MD big 5 weight lifting workout plus 2 exercises I added myself (1 to strengthen he low back and one to strengthen the gastrocs). http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?page_id=18
I lift once a week. It takes about 50 minutes but I take my time and do 4 of the 7 exercises (chest and overhead press, low back and gastrocs) on a Smith machine which requires significant set-up time to change from one exercise to another. I lift primarily to strengthen my muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage to prevent injuries and improve performance in my passion, Tennis whiCh I engage in 10-15 hours per week both singles and doubles. Spring, summer and fall I try to spend at least an hour a day playing in the ocean here in Galveston. My favorite activity is on days with big surf (about 20% of days) diving on top of big waves to feel them lift and drop me. I also do some body surfing, waves allowing. I do it mainly for the sun and I believe trace minerals can be absorbed percutaneously by the body when needed.There is good evidence for this process with Magnesium (see Attachment). I've been lifting for about 1 1/2 years and have doubled and in some cases almost tripled all of my starting weights with no injuries. Hope you find this useful, Paul
nothing wrong with walking, golfing and clogging. I play tennis 10-15 hours a week and lift weights an hour a week. The problem is thinking exercise is going to be some magic potion that is going to help them lose weight or speed up the weight loss from eating ZC. It;s not. In fact if you exercise you have to eat extra meat to keep your body from going into starvation mode. When your body get's less calories than it wants it goes into starvation mode. Since muscles weigh so much more than fat and thus take more calories to carry around and requires so much more energy to maintain as muscles are constantly burning calories just to keep the right tension to hold your body in proper alignment while fat doesn’t have to do this). I starvation mode the body is programmed to initially burn extra muscle protein for energy instead of fat because if the “drought” it is experiencing gets worse, losing the extra muscle means less calories are needed and it still has the fat calories “in the bank” to see it through the drought. Leaving you weaker with thinner muscles and tendons and therefore more subject to cartilage injuries (cartilage has a large amount of protein in it) and muscle and tendon strains, sprains and tears should you desire to exercise. Also I commonly see people “give themselves permission” for a carb or sugar laden treat after exercise (after all “they burn it off, right?”) and if they calculated to calories of the sugar rich sports drink or scoop of Ice Cream it would be more than the calories they burned jogging 3 miles (about 375). The goal in ZC is to nourish the body by eating health giving meat. You can only lose weight with exercise if you starve yourself at the same time because if you don't your appetite will just increase and you'll eat the extra calories you just burned. And... most of the weight you lose will be lean muscle. So enjoy lots of walking, golf and clogging, don't do it to lose weight and realize you'll need to up your meat intake when you do it, your body will remind you :-) PS I agree with the veterans that increasing exercise in the first 30 days is of counterproductive due to the process of adaptation.
Here's a picture of me at 65 taken April 7, 2016 showing what Body by Science and Zero Carb has done for me.
