You have read it here many times before: “Fat is not the enemy”. In fact, in Fat Fiction I wrote about some of the more common misconceptions about fat and how our body deals with it. The Fitness Mantra bottom-line has always been that fat, one of the three macro-nutrients, is vital to our diet and should be a part of every well-balanced meal.

The Brown Fat Revolution: Trigger Your Body’s Good Fat to Lose Weight and Be Healthier is the new book by Dr. James R. Lyons that not only validates our belief in the goodness that is fat but also takes us further by describing the two major types of fat and explaining why one is much better than the other. Here is a Fitness Mantra Book Review of “The Brown Fat Revolution”.

Once again, a quick reminder: I am trying to standardize all future book reviews on Fitness Mantra and after referencing a lot of online examples and references, I have decided on this format. Please feel free to send me your comments and criticisms so I can improve on this.

Title: The Brown Fat Revolution: Trigger Your Body’s Good Fat to Lose Weight and Be Healthier
Author(s): Dr. James R. Lyons
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 978-0-312-59540-1
Price (10-Apr-2010): US $16.49
Preview: On Google Books
Subject: Diet, Health, Exercise and Fitness
Theme: Lose weight and be healthier by knowing about the two types of fat: the good Brown Fat and the bad Yellow Fat.
Thesis: Understanding the two types of fat, Yellow and Brown, and learning how to minimize and convert the bad Yellow Fat to the good Brown Fat is one key way to lose weight, look good and improve one’s overall health.
Disclosure: I was sent one free copy of this book by the publishers to review. As always, please be assured of completely unbiased reviews on Fitness Mantra.

Review of The Brown Fat Revolution:

Dr. James R. Lyons, the author of The Brown Fat Revolution, has worked nearly 30 years as a renowned plastic surgeon and he uses his experience to explain the effect that fat has on the way our bodies are shaped and in the way it ages over time. The book is divided into three main sections:

In the first part called “The Brown Fat Revolution Basics”, the author begins with the simple but profound statement: “Fat is your friend.” and then goes on to explain how fat, in sharp contrast to the constant vilification it receives in the media, is actually good for us and why seemingly logical statements like “Eating fat will make us fat” are downright wrong. A certain quantity (and type) of fat, he contends, is good for us and is what gives certain people their “glow” making them look years younger than they really are.

The book goes on to explain the way our body metabolizes food and converts it to energy. The initial source of energy is always glycogen which is stored in the liver and muscles but extra calories will be converted first to the good (brown) fat and any further consumption of food will lead to the secretion of bad (yellow) fat. So the key, says Dr. Lyons is to ensure a constant source of glycogen giving the body no reason to store yellow fat and the trick to devise an Eating Plan that promotes this. Finally he completes the introduction with two chapters on the crucial role played by hormones during the the twenties to forties (category one) and the fifties and older ages (category two).

Part 2 tackles the difficult but (in my view) quintessential aspect of the Eating Plan. I have always believed that no amount of exercise can overcome a poor diet and I am glad to know that Dr.Lyons feels the same way. he starts of by stating that “about 75 percent of how we look is determined by what we put in our mouths.” So well put! The primary goals of his eating plan include eating at least 6 times a day at regular intervals and getting enough protein as well as the right kind of carbohydrates. He even gives you a cheat day (in moderation, of course!). The chapters in this important part of the book form a treasure trove of information about nutrients, good eating habits and even a detailed four-week eating plan for both hormone categories.

Finally, Part 3 details the “Brown Fat Revolution Exercise Plan”. By focusing on the “core” or central area of the human body, Dr. Lyons details an exercise plan that works by strengthening the abdominal region, back, shoulder and legs. In another sign that his thinking matches closely with what I believe here at Fitness Mantra, Dr. Lyons is not a big proponent of excessive cardio. His preferred exercise? High-Intensity-Interval-Training method as applied to sprinting.

This is followed by detailed exercise guidelines using only the most minimum of equipment (just bungee cords, straps for door-anchors and ankles, metal clasps and low-weight dumbbells). The exercises are clearly demonstrated and well-explained directly under each photo. This is followed by a four-week exercise plan for both hormone categories.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, The Brown Fat Revolution is a solid addition to any fitness enthusiast’s library and contains tons of useful information and eating/exercise plans. Yes, some of the information is already contained elsewhere and some of the ideas have already been explored by others, but Dr. Lyons has collected what he believes to be the most pertinent facts he has encountered and managed to compile them in an easy to read and easier to follow reference manual for all of us to benefit from.

I highly recommend this book for all age-groups and fitness levels.

PS: As always, I am always eager to hear your thoughts on this book if you have read it. And also let me know your opinion about this book-review format. Do post your thoughts in the Comments section.

Folks, it’s been a long time coming and I don’t think I can lie to myself (or to you) anymore. Diets, exercise, this paranoid – almost maniacal – eye on calories in, calories out… none of it is working for me (and accept it – it’s not working out so well for you either, is it?)

So, today I have decided that instead of using the tried and tested (and failed) physical approach to weight loss and fitness, it’s time to move on to the spiritual. As of today, I have rechristened my blog to “Fitness Tantra” with a catchy byline of “Make Tantra Your Way Of Life”. So, what is Tantra, you ask? Tantra is the use of divine powers that flows through the universe to attain one’s objectives. Think about it – there must be millions of people who at this very moment are all trying to lose weight. Fitness Tantra will be a site which we can all use to harness that energy toward the attainment of our common goal of losing weight!

Sri Yantra

To do this, we must have a common idea in mind and, of course, something to focus our energies on. Again Wikipedia comes to the rescue with a great chart that we can all stare at for hours. Please take a look at the image on the right. This is the “Sri Yantra” chart which is Sanskrit for “Look At The Center For A Long Time”. Focusing solely on this chart we can all channel our energies into achieving weight loss.

Also note the important point in the Wikipedia article: Yoga and Tantra :

“Yoga is suppression with awareness; Tantra is indulgence with awareness.”

As you can clearly see, the switch to Tantra means that you are now free to indulge in whatever foods you crave. The only important criterion is that you practice awareness. For example, if you are eating a glazed doughnut, say out loud “I am aware that I am eating a glazed doughnut.” That very act of saying this out loud and proclaiming your awareness will protect you from any ill effects of eating that doughnut.

So, to sum up the Fitness Tantra strategy:

1. Stare at the Sri Yantra poster.
2. State your awareness of what you are eating out loud.

These two simple steps will guarantee that you will continue to lose weight at an astonishing rate! Come, join me as we all embark on this amazing adventure and do keep me posted on how your weight loss is progressing!

Fitness Tantra is the new, easy way to lose weight and remember “Make Tantra Your Way Of Life”! Do share this amazing news with all your friends too!

[Update: Yes, folks; one look at the date of this post and you must have realized this was all in fun. Forget about staring at posters; just keep pounding iron and eating right! - FM]

The garden is one of the few places that many people would confess feeling truly ambivalent about. While it’s true that a beautifully maintained garden not only adds beauty and value to the home or community it graces, but also provides a sanctuary for nature lovers or serenity-seekers, what’s also true is that the very thought of having to clear, rake, seed, mow, aerate, fertilize, dethatch and water a garden or lawn tends to overwhelm the average person. The physical strains associated with a good day on the yard can be quite substantial and not to be dismissed lightly.

“Garden Your Way to Health and Fitness” is a recently published book that shows you not only how to create the perfect garden based on your needs but also how to do so in the safest possible way with minimal strain on your body while getting a good full-body workout in the process! Here is a Fitness Mantra Book Review of “Garden Your Way To Health And Fitness”. I am trying to standardize all future book reviews on Fitness Mantra and after referencing a lot of online examples and references, I have decided on this format. Please feel free to send me your comments and criticisms so I can improve on this.

Title: Garden Your Way to Health and Fitness
Author(s): Bunny Guinness and Jacqueline Knox
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 978-0-88192-881-5
Price (10/24/2009): US $14.96
Preview: On Google Books
Subject: Gardening, Health and Fitness
Theme: Minimizing injury while gardening; achieving good health and fitness from a well-designed garden
Thesis: Stretching and balancing oneself beforehand and using the right tools in the correct fashion while gardening will minimize the risk of injury and allow you to enjoy a beautiful, well-planned garden that can be a personal sanctuary as well as a place to exercise, stay fit and grow ornamental flowers or sustainable fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs.
Disclosure: I was sent one free copy of this book by the publishers to review. As always, please be assured of completely unbiased reviews on Fitness Mantra.

Review of Garden Your Way To Health And Fitness:

Bunny Guinness, a professional landscape designer and Jacqueline Knox, physiotherapist, come together to create a gardening book that also stresses the importance of ensuring correct posture and balance while in the garden.

The book begins with simple balancing techniques that one can perform even before beginning to garden and one can discern a lot of pilates movements in these exercises. Running the gamut from simple stretches to spine curls, side rolls and so called “diamond presses”, this eight-step routine is sure to get you in limber form before you begin your garden work. There’s even an aerobic section if you plan to do more strenuous gardening.

This is followed by a detailed chapter describing the virtually unlimited potential of a well-designed garden in giving you the workout you desire. The gardening-calorie-chart in the very begining of this chapter makes it clear: gardening work = calories-burned! Collecting grass or leaves for an hour? 260 calories. Chopping wood? 385! Interspersed with amazingly well-taken photographs, you are walked through dynamic workouts like squats, lunges and step-ups. You are also shown the proper techniques for various strengthening exercises.

From here, the authors shift to taking you to more “gardening oriented” material like choosing the optimal tools for safe work, maintaining proper posture while actually performig the various gardening procedures like trimming or moving a loaded wheel-barrow. Desiging the right kind of garden for your purposes follows with beautiful pictures of various functional elements you can think of adding: walkways, sleepers and even multiple-levels all come together to create the perfect environment for your garden.

There is even information on creating ornamental and productive (as in giving you things to consume!) gardens in the end that round up this concise, yet compelling, book.

If there’s one aspect of this book that tends to stand out, it’s the outstanding collection of photos and pictures throughout the book giving you the very correct impression that these authors are genuine experts in their respective fields. Their combined knowledge of gardening and fitnessshines through in these pages and if you have ever considered spending any significant portion of your time in your garden, especially with the idea of getting a good workout in the process and/or growing your own food organically, Garden Your Way to Health and Fitness will be an excellent reference in your endeavour and come highly recommended.

If you have read or benefited from this book, I am eager to hear your own thoughts about it especially if you have implemented some of the more functional aspects of their garden-designs that lean toward health and fitness. Also, I would like to know if this book-review format is to your liking and what, if any, changes you would like to see in it. Please feel free to sound off in the comments!

A simple concept about the food we eat and what it does for us. But I haven’t seen it expressed quite so succinctly:

“Every bite you eat is an act of nourishment or an act of suicide.” – Dr. Bruce Bond

So, what do you choose? Good or bad? Fitness or Inactive Tiredness? Health or Disease?

Life or Death?

[Via Erica S on Twitter]

Consider two simple scenarios you could be facing at lunchtime: when you have a solid food and water, you could eat those separately or you could premix them into a soup and drink the whole thing together. Which of the two techniques do you think will keep you full longer hence preventing you from snacking often and gaining weight? If you said “The soup!” then it just shows you have read the title of this blog post!

But seriously, BBC News Magazine reports that eating the same food and water combined together as a soup will help keep you full much longer than if you ate them separately. The secret lies in the way food passes from the stomach to the intestines:

After you eat a meal, the pyloric sphincter valve at the bottom of your stomach holds food back so that the digestive juices can get to work. Water, however, passes straight through the sphincter to your intestines, so drinking water does not contribute to “filling you up”.

When you eat the same meal as a soup, the whole mixture remains in the stomach, because the water and food are blended together. The scientists’ scans confirm that the stomach stays fuller for longer, staving off those hunger pangs. [BBC]

Ghrelin and the suppression of hunger:

Ghelin is a hormone released by the stomach walls when the stomach is empty. This hormone triggers a response in the brains hypothalamus region that causes us to “feel hungry” and we start to look for food. But when the stomach walls are stretched as a result of eating food, ghrelin production is stopped and we “feel full”. So one easy way to keep the feeling of fullness for longer periods of time is to eat foods that stay in eh stomach longer.

But as you saw eating food and drinking water separately causes the water to leave the stomach first and the food left behind is not there long enough to keep you satisfied. Soups on the other hand stay in the stomach in their entirety and are only slowly removed causing you to avoid the dreaded 3:00 p.m. snack craving.

What has been your own experience with soups? Have you ever felt full for a longer period of time when you drank soup for lunch? Do comment your thoughts  on this study and head on to BBC to read the entore article also.

[Via Lew Rockwell]

If you are a person who regularly eats out then this news item should come as no surprise at all. With portion sizes constantly on the increase and restaurants forever trying to figure out how to increase the taste in their dishes, is it any wonder that the first casualty in this war on portion-sense is the number of calories in your food?

“Sky-high Calories In Some Restaurant Meals“, on WebMD explores this continuing phenomenon of ever-higher portion sizes. The Center For Science In The Public Interest (CSPI) studied the calorie and ingredient information for some of the popular meals from large restaurants and found saturated fat and sodium so high that it would be enough for three days!

Here are just a few of the major offenders:

• Chili’s Big Mouth Bites with French fries (four mini bacon cheeseburgers with fried onion strings): 2,350 calories, 38 grams saturated fat, 3,940 milligrams sodium.
• Olive Garden Tour of Italy, with lasagna, chicken parmigiana, and fettuccine alfredo: 1,450 calories, 33 grams saturated fat, 3,830 milligrams sodium.
• The Cheesecake Factory Fried Macaroni and Cheese: 1,570 calories, 69 grams saturated fat, 1,860 milligrams sodium. [WebMD]

Even an average meal at a restaurant can run close to 3000 calories when you realize that the entree, main course and dessert could each be close to a 1000 calories apiece. And some are just way worse than others:

Hurley believes diners don’t realize just how indulgent some items are. It’s a given that you’re splurging when you order Uno Chicago Grill’s Mega-Sized Deep Dish Sundae, a chocolate-chip cookie baked in a pizza pan and topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce, she says.

“But how many people would guess there are 2,800 calories and 72 grams of saturated fat when that sundae hits the table?” [WebMD]

The CSPI is petitioning for a law requiring more easily available nutrition information on restaurat menus, menu boards etc. In the meantime, however, it’s upto the consumer to be wary of which dishes are high-calorie ad which ones are (relatively) more healthful.

For more examples of dishes-gone-wild and some tips on choosing good meals at restaurants head on to WebMD to read the entire new article.

Another little fitness-quotation gem I came across yesterday and thought it worth sharing:

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. -Edward Stanley

It’s a choice we make everyday: be healthy or not, stick to our diets or not, exercise or not. Well, whatever you choose, just know this: there are always consequences.

Salt, how do we hate thee, let me count the ways! Sometimes the public is so quick to get on the nutrition bandwagon and demonize a perceived common enemy, that common sense and due diligence are often shown the door (case in point: our fear of saturated fat, cholesterol, … I could go on, but those are rants for some other day). Today we shall talk about salt. Yes, that very same white powder which was once apparently given to the Gods as an offering, without which food is often tasteless, heck, without which we could not even survive.

Today it is not far from the truth if I say salt is close to being public enemy #1. With the sodium content prominently displayed on all food-nutrition labels, salt is the bane of many a food-processor who just wants to preserve the food until it gets to you and wants to add some flavor while at it. Before you think I am all for excessive salt consumption, let me make it clear that anything in excess is bound to create an imbalance in our bodies that will then have to be taken care of, a process that uses up valuable resources and could lead to other complications. But to vilify one particular ingredient to the extent it is being done these days is overkill and probably incorrect as well.

“The neverending war on the white stuff” posted on Spiked-Online discusses the campaign against salt waged by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). By 2012, the FSA would like to bring the salt consumption of UK residents down to just 6g a day. Almost 80 categories of foods like bread and cereals have been affected by this new mandate.

As can be expected, the food manufacturers are up in arms over these new rules. Yes, the primary concern is that the foods being packaged with less salt will have a lot less appeal to consumers. But there is something else: the relationship between salt consumption and our health is not even conclusive! From Spiked:

When it comes to actual research on the effects of salt reduction, the results are inconsistent and any benefits are generally very small. A review in the British Medical Journal in 2002 concluded: ‘Intensive interventions, unsuited to primary care or population prevention programmes, provide only small reductions in blood pressure and sodium excretion, and effects on deaths and cardiovascular events are unclear. Advice to reduce sodium intake may help people on antihypertensive drugs to stop their medication while maintaining good blood pressure control.’ In other words, if you’ve already got high blood pressure, salt reduction might help, but for everyone else it is probably pointless. [Spiked]

And irrespective of what excessive salt could or could not do to our bodies, regular consumption of salt is not only OK, it is actually vital to our very survival. Our bodies are certainly capable or handling any little extra quantities of salt we might unknowingly consume (no one I know would consume spoonfuls of salt – our mouths pretty much makes sure we eat things in the right quantities and proportions). There is even a theory that our mouths react to salt in a favorable way because from an evolutionary point of view it was known to be good for health.

As the article concludes, while politicians try to “save us from ourselves” by giving us one mandate after another and invading our privacy with faulty research, it’s up to us to read more, get educated and not give into the hype.

[Via Lew Rockwell]

It’s well known that as you age, unless you take active steps to remain healthy and fit, you tend to gradually put on more fat and lose muscle mass. What is not so well known, however, is what those specific preventive steps really are.

True, a healthful diet and frequent, well-planned exercise can help thwart the inevitable drop in metabolism, but for a few more specifics, you can turn to a recent health-item on the MSNBC Health site, Avoiding the midlife diet crisis.

Since this slowing metabolism is a slow process, the author claims you can stay one step ahead of it by making gradual changes yourself, as you age. Some fo the key points raised are:

• Reducing portion sizes: Did you know, on average, women need 100 fewer calories at age 40 than at age 20?
• Keep your brain sharp: Diet is key here with a focus on fruits and vegetables.

For more tips including ideas for keeping a stable blood sugar level and choosing the right kinds of beverages to keep you well-hydrated, check out the entire article and take those steps to stay young in mind and body!

How often have you heard someone at the gym or on a late-night infomercial say that working out will help you burn fat for hours after you stop? Too many times to keep count? Well, Edward Melanson, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver would beg to differ and he presents his views in Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews.

WebMD reports on these findings. The problem is that moderate exercise, especially that doen for less than an hour, has little effect on the so called “24-hour oxidation of fat”:

“It’s not that exercise doesn’t burn fat,” Melanson says. “It’s just that we replace the calories. Exercise increases the capacity to burn more fat. But if you replace those calories, that is lost.” [WebMD]

To test the level of fat burning after exercise, Melnason’s team used 28 participants in a study. Of these, 10 were lean and endurance-trained, 10 were lean but untrained, while the remaining 8 were obese and untrained. Their exercise involved riding a stationary bike for about an hour burning 400 calories. After the exercise, while calories burned were indeed higher for all the test subjects, the 24-hour test revealed that instead of fat, it was carbohydrates that were being burned.

The reason for this, according to Melanson, is that what we eat after an exercise affects the kind of macro-nutrient our body uses first for fuel:

For instance, eating as little as 240 calories of carbohydrate during the hour before exercise can reduce fat burning during exercise, and the boost in fat burning during exercise can be “blunted” for up to six hours after eating a meal, says Melanson, citing other research. [WebMD]

These disappointing results are just for moderate exercisers who workout for an hour or less. High intensity exercisers or those practising interval training are bound to notice much better results. Still, the bottom line is simply this: if you are trying to lose weight, it’s dangerous to assume you can eat whatever you want or inwhatever quantity you want, simply because you have “done your exercises for the day”.

You cannot change the laws of science: take in more calories than you expend, and you will gain weight. No question about it.