The University of Fitness

Fasted Training for Fat Loss

One way to make your fat loss workouts more efficient is to do them fasted, when your stomach is empty or almost empty. The logic is obviously that without any or too many calories coming from food currently being digested, the body will use stored energy, making fat loss workouts more productive. When using this strategy, a common recommendation is to make sure the last meal is at least 4 hours prior to the workout. However, the body can digest meals up to 6 or 7 hours after eating, especially if the meal was large or had certain nutrients such as fat which can slow digestion. So what is the best way to optimize your fasted workouts? Introducing, the morning workout.

Also, a great way to catch a few more sunrises.

Morning workouts are particularly effective fasted workouts since your last meal was presumably much longer than four hours ago. This is the first benefit. After a night of sleep, the body has switched from food energy to using stored energy, since the last nights meal was done digesting several hours into the night. The body has already been using its fat and, to a much lesser extent, glycogen stores for energy. [...] Continue Reading…

Focus: the Pitfalls of Being a Jack of All Trades

In my last post, I talked about New Year’s resolutions and how it can be easy to set a goal without laying out how exactly to reach said goal. Another way to people frequently keep themselves from reaching their goals is by doing the exact opposite, and setting five endpoints and trying to reach them all at once. As much as every single infomercial on television would like to have you believe, it’s not actually possible to simultaneously lose fat, gain muscle, eliminate those love handles, get a bodybuilder chest, and cure baldness, all at the same time. Especially not with some stupid contraption that promises all of the above while sitting in a glorified beach chair for 20 minutes a day. As the cliche-crazy Colonel from Avatar would likely say, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” [And yes, I'm still picking on him.]

The most tricked out pocket knife ever. And simultaneously the most useless.

The point I’m trying to make is, when people try to work towards too many things at once, they end up making little or no progress in either area. It’s a pretty loose analogy, but that “pocket” knife up there can technically do 400 things but it would probably take 45 minutes and 3 Eagle scouts to whittle some kindling with that thing. Instead, it pays off much more to focus on one goal, attack it aggressively for X amount of days, and then move on to the next thing on the list. [...] Continue Reading…

Resolution Time

First off, I hope everyone had the happiest of holidays. Also, apologies for being MIA for the past few weeks. You know, finals and all.

With 2009 coming to an end, we all know what time it is. December is a month of indulgence, and as soon as that’s over comes just a slight bit of regret for letting loose at parties and family dinners and allowing yourself to loosen your belt one notch [though there's no need for the guilt since it's good ol' homemade food]. So, either because of the indiscretions of December or because you put it off all year in 2009, January 1st is the time to make those resolutions to get into shape.

The point of today’s post isn’t to discourage you from making a fitness-related resolution because they’re either stupid, misguided, failures, or any combination therein. Resolutions can work, but you have to make them the right way. The problem with normal resolutions like “lose 10 pounds by February” or “have a six-pack by the end of 2010″ is that they focus on the ‘what’ and not the ‘how’. I’ve been guilty of this for the past several years [yeah, that second one in the last sentence was my resolution 4 years running]. Inevitably, I got through a week of running on the treadmill or doing an hour of crunches a day, and then missed a few days and let it slide because, hey, I’ve got until the end of the year.

I like the third one.

The thing is, saying that you will accomplish X by the date Y seems fairly simple, specific and straightforward. But it’s a very deceptively vague way to set out a resolution because you just ignore all the real specifics. So, as much as I hate to use a tired old saying, failure to plan is planning to fail in this case. Speaking of tired old cliches, has anyone seen Avatar? I’m pretty sure the old, evil ex-Colonel talked entirely in them. He actually said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore” at one point. No shit, Colonel, it’s another planet. But I digress.
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Weightlifting 101: Best Tools for the Job

Stepping into the weight room first time can seem a bit daunting. Even if you consider yourself experienced in weight training, it can sometimes be confusing to pick out which tool will best suit your need. There are a bunch of different options out there, so it helps to know the pros and cons of each type of weight to make better decisions during your workout and maximize the effects of your weight training.

Decisions, decisions…

Here are a few basic types of weights:

• Barbells/dumbbells
• Kettlebells
• Bodyweight
• Weight machines
• Odd object weights

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Nutrition 101: One Simple Diet Tip That’s More Than Half the Battle

I’m sure everyone’s heard some version of this little gem of diet tips, but it really is one of the most valuable pieces of advice to follow when it comes to eating healthy: don’t eat anything that comes in a bag or a box. The premise is so simple it can be sort of puzzling: just eat natural foods, the kind that don’t come prepackaged in a cardboard box or an airtight, sealed bag. “Really, that’s it?” That’s it. That means no sugary cereal, no Twinkies, no Doritos, and while we’re at it, you can forget about drinks that come in cans too.

Congratulations! You’re in the right aisle.

Just to cover all our bases, here are some other versions of this rule:

• Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
• Don’t eat anything that doesn’t rot.
• Don’t eat it if there’s something on the ingredient label you can’t pronounce/recognize as actual food.
• Buy your food on the outside edges of the supermarket, not the middle aisles. [Typically where fresh food is]
• Don’t eat anything that casts a shadow. [Oops, how'd that get in there? Silly vegans.]
• Don’t eat anything on a dare.*

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