Did you know that exercise does not burn fat?

Exercise creates a delayed effect of fat burning. Barely any fat is burned DURING exercise but instead is burned 14-48 hours AFTER exercise (1).

And the most interesting part of this is that the great majority of fat is burned during deep sleep. Poor sleep is a definite barrier to burning fat. This means you burn fat in the body’s RECOVERY process. 

Fat-burning hormones are most active in the middle of the night.

But it is crucial that you understand how to use the variables of exercise to create the biggest bang for your buck, i.e., burn the most fat. These variables are intensity, type, duration and frequency.

Let’s first talk about INTENSITY. Fat-burning hormones are triggered by intensity of exercise, and the more intense, the more fat gets released (2).

The next factor is TYPE of exercise. Since hormones work in waves, as in circadian rhythm (e.g., sleep cycles, menstrual cycles), then it would make sense to exercise on a wavelike pattern — interval training.

Sustained (same pulse rate) exercise works against the normal rhythms of the body. Short bouts of intense exercise activate more growth hormone (fat-burning hormone). Sustained exercise activates more cortisol (stress hormone). Cortisol can nullify growth hormone, canceling out the effects.

The next factors are DURATION and FREQUENCY. The optimum duration for exercise is between 25 and 40 minutes; and since your body does the burning during the RECOVERY cycle, exercising every other day is best.

The only Catch-22 is if you are an Adrenal body type. This type needs to walk and will lose more weight with light workouts, due to the sensitive reaction to stress. However, once an Adrenal, not always an Adrenal.

Study my book The 7 Principles of Fat Burning(more), especially the exercise chapter, while doing the eating plan. Chapter 10 will give you the foods highest in potassium, calcium and magnesium, which are great for the Adrenal body type.

I have developed an incredible tool to track all this automatically. This program will analyze your foods, nutrients, exercise, sleep, stress, etc. and give you exactly what to focus on. Go to www.drberg.com, and click on FatBurningTracker.com to learn more and sign up (it costs around $9 per week). 

References 

1. Schuenke, Mark D., Richard P. Mikat, and  Jeffrey M. McBride. Effect of an acute period  of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise  oxygen consumption: Implications for body mass  management. European Journal of Applied  Physiology 86, No. 5 (March 2002): 411-17  

2. Felsing, N.E., J. A. Brasel, and D. M. Cooper. Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Effect of low and high intensity exercise on circulating  growth hormone in men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 75:157-62 3. Kamath et al. 1991. Yamamoto et al. 1991.

Exercise has the ability to trigger hormones that then release the fat for energy 24 to 48 hours later.

Here’s how it works.

1. You stress and tear down the muscles of the body.

2. The body then builds back these muscles a little stronger.

3. The energy used to build these muscles can come from two sources: sugar or fat.

4. If you are not eating sugar, the body is forced to use fat.

5. This process occurs during the downtime—the rest period.

So here are the THREE biggest mistakes.

The first one is NOT stressing or tearing down the muscles enough. This happens through intensity. If the exercise is not intense, insufficient hormones will be triggered.

The second mistake is consuming some or even a little sugar in the diet, which will automatically prevent ANY fat burning from occurring. Even three ounces of juice will prevent fat burning for eight hours. Wine will do it too.

The third mistake is that the person is working out EVERY DAY and never allowing the hormones to be activated, since these fat-burning hormones work in the off day NOT during the exercise.

Summary

1. Do intense exercise (see chapter 14 in my book The 7 Principles of Fat Burning for the exact pattern). Also, if the adrenals are weak, you’ll need to first do the Adrenal program for a while.

2. Avoid all sugars and hidden sugars.

3. Exercise only every other day. And in some cases, every two days might produce more weight loss.

And what about the person who exercises two hours per day, seven days per week, runs 26-mile marathons, and loses ZERO weight?

In my new book, The 7 Principles of Fat Burning [ more ], I tell you what’s really going on. Your own hormones are blocking weight loss. The main hormone is cortisol. You have probably seen infomercials on all sorts of diet pills that supposedly lower cortisol. The problem is that cortisol levels can’t be lowered by pills.

Let me explain how this hormone works. Cortisol is made from the outer layer of your adrenal glands (stress glands on top of your kidneys). Cortisol is a glucocorticoid, meaning it releases glucose (or sugar) from your muscles and liver. In plain terms, this hormone keeps your body burning sugar, NOT burning fat. The body will then take this high level of sugar and convert it into FAT around the organs in your midsection.

This midsection fat will then be resistant to dieting. In other words, it will be very stubborn, because most diets, including low-calorie ones, give the dieter more stress. This only makes things worse.

Exercise won’t work either because this adds MORE stress to the system. More stress equals more work for the adrenals. However, if you exercise by walking or treadmill with a pulse rate of 125 to 130, the adrenals seem to relax and cortisol levels will decrease. But make sure you do not eat ANY sweets before, during or after. This includes juice and sports drinks. Adding some protein one hour before will help decrease cortisol. Make it in the form of raw nuts or seeds. Small amounts of protein trigger growth hormone. When growth hormone increases, cortisol decreases. Use low-pulse-rate exercise to control cortisol levels. The more stress you experience, the more I would recommend keeping in aerobic exercise. Do it every day but be sure you do it so you do not experience heavy breathing. Your breathing should be regular and not huffing and puffing.

Walking outside is much better than an inside treadmill, if this is possible.

You have to eat, not to lose weight, but to feed or heal your adrenals. Then, after a few weeks, you can add exercise, but only as long as you keep your pulse rate below 130/minute. These body types should NEVER skip a meal, yet they should also NEVER stuff themselves. Both skipping meals and overeating add stress.

This body type needs to sleep at least seven hours a night, because lack of sleep means more stress.

To get the full program, read my book The 7 Principles of Fat Burning. You might also want to take the free quiz [ here ].

Training, which is repetitive exercise, decreases the effects of these hormones over time—usually within 2 to 6 weeks.

So how does one keep the intensity high over an extended period of time?

You have to continue to make the exercising difficult. You have to do things to keep the body from adapting to this stress.

The optimum change of exercise should occur every 2 to 3 weeks.

You can start out doing biking, then switch to jogging, then to step aerobics, then to racquetball. Whatever it is, it has to stay intense and difficult.

I’ve developed a unique Internet program over the past three years that allows you to track these effects. Go to http://www.fatburningtracker.com/ and watch the demo.

In order to give you this advice, I first need to go over some minor background in how the body burns fat. In previous newsletters and in my book, I’ve talked about pulse rate as it relates to energy production.

To burn fat, you need a low pulse rate between 125 and 129. When you go over that, your body starts burning sugar and less fat. It’s just the way the metabolism is designed. In addition, when you do resistance-type exercise like weight training, basketball, soccer or football, you also burn more sugar than fat. So the key to burning fat is slow pulse rate—either walking, slight jogging, mild biking, treadmill or some types of stationary bike.

Now that you have that, let’s take it one step further.

When you begin exercising, you will initially start burning sugar; then within 20 to 30 minutes, if you keep your pulse rate slow enough, you will START burning fat. SO EVERY DAY WHEN YOU BEGIN TO EXERCISE, IT TAKES 20 to 30 MINUTES BEFORE YOU BURN EVEN ONE DROP OF FAT. It’s kind of a waste of time if you add this up through the week.

Let’s say you exercised one hour for the next six days. Divide six hours in half and you get three. This means that you wasted three hours of no fat burning and only received three hours of fat burning. Not very efficient!

But let’s say you exercised only two days of the week for two hours each day. Take four hours minus one hour of sugar burning, and that’s three full hours of fat burning—you basically saved yourself two hours for the week. You start to add this up and it’s no wonder you have difficulty squeezing in exercise, especially when you see little result. By making this one change, you could save eight hours per month of wasted time.

And can you imagine the poor person who exercises only 40 minutes, six days per week? How much fat burning are they really getting?

Only one hour!

Is there a way to burn fat using the same amount of time exercising? Or is “time” the most important factor– MORE exercise burns MORE calories.

I see lots of people who report that they are at the gym daily, doing long and intense workouts, keeping this up for years yet never losing weight.

Exercise in itself doesn’t trigger fat burning. The process of exercise doesn’t  “heat your body” and melt the fat off. That’s called sweating and losing water weight.

There is a key factor that dictates why many people stay fat, which is very different than the “consuming more calories that are burned” or “not exercising enough (sedentary lifestyle) to burn off calories” ideas.

To understand how to burn actual fat with exercise, you need to know the purpose of fat. Fat is potential energy.  Fat is actually the largest gland of the body - it even produces hormones.  It stores energy.  Fat is the body’s energy reserve which is only used (burned as fuel) under very specific circumstances.

Burning fat with exercise involves HORMONES.

Hormones are the messages or signals produced by glands, which direct the body to increase or decrease metabolism. And you have 3 hormones that SLOW metabolism and store fat and 6 hormones, which SPEED metabolism and burn fat.

Exercise stimulates hormones that then do the work of burning fat off your body.

In this article, we will focus on the EXERCISE influences of fat burning.

In the book, The 7 Principles of Fat Burning, I state that people must get healthy BEFORE they can lose weight, not the other way around. All day long, people are telling and selling the reverse – lose some weight and your health problems will go away. Obesity is a disease and causes…..”

The other point I make in my book, is that exercise creates a delayed effect of fat burning. Barely any fat is burned during exercise, but 14-48 hours later fat burning occurs.

And the most interesting part of this is that the great majority of fat is burned during deep sleep. Poor sleep is a definite barrier to burning fat.

This means, you do not burn any significant amounts of fat DURING exercise, but in the body’s RECOVERY process, after exercise. Fat burning hormones are most active in the middle of the night.

But it’s is crucial that you understand how to use the variables of exercise to create the biggest effect – burn the most fat. These variables are intensity, duration, frequency and type.

Let’s first talk about INTENSITY.

Fat burning hormones are triggered by intensity of exercise and the more intense, the more hormone gets released.

Effect of low and high intensity exercise on circulating growth hormone in men

NE Felsing, JA Brasel and DM Cooper
Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center,

Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Vol 75, 157-162,

“Typical variation in growth hormone secretion throughout the day, illustrating the especially powerful effect on secretion caused by strenuous exercise, and illustrating also the high rate of growth hormone secretion that occurs during the first few hours of deep sleep.”

                                                Textbook of Medical Physiology, 7^th edition, Guyton & Hall, p. 889

However, the burning of fat from the hormone trigger is delayed 14-48 hours.

Mark D. Schuenke, Richard P. Mikat, Jeffrey M. McBride. Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management. European Journal of Applied Physiology Issue:  Volume 86, Number 5, March 2002, pp. 411–17 

Gillette CA, Bullough RC, Melby CL

Post exercise energy expenditure in response to acute aerobic or resistive exercise.
 Int J Sport Nutr. 1994 Dec; 4 (4):347–60.

The next factor is TYPE of exercise.

Since hormones work on waves, as in circadian rhythm, (ex: sleep cycles, menstrual cycles) then it would make sense to exercise on a wave-like pattern – interval training.

Sustained (same pulse rate) exercise works against the normal rhythms of the body.

                                    Kamath et al., 1991
                                                Yamamoto et al., 1991

Short bouts of intense exercise activates more fat burning hormone (growth hormone). Sustained exercise activates more cortisol (stress) hormone. Cortisol can nullify growth hormone canceling out the effects.

The next factors are duration and frequency.

There seems to be an optimum duration of exercise between 25-40 minutes. And since your body does the burning during the RECOVERY cycle,  exercising every other day is best.

In this next section, I explain the technical aspects of exercise and fat burning. This is mainly for doctors, Exercise Physiologist and maybe Personal Trainers.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Technology

We use HRV as a research tool to observe autonomic nervous system regulatory changes in the recovery cycles after exercise. HRV is the measurement in the distance between heart beats.

This information can be translated to autonomic function of the circulatory system. Normal healthy people have a greater variance between heart beats than unhealthy people. The greater the variance (changes in distance between the beats), the higher the HRV.

The more fit and healthy a person is, the more fat they can burn, only IF they recover from exercise properly.

Overweight people generally have poor recovery.

“Obese persons suffer from an increased mortality risk supposedly due to cardiovascular disorders related to either continuously lowered parasympathetic or altered sympathetic activation”.

Autonomic cardiovascular regulation in obesity

K Laederach-Hofmann1, L Mussgay2 and H Run´ ddel2

1Unit of Psychosomatic and Psychosocial Medicine, University of Berne, Switzerland

2University of Truer, Center for Psychobiological and Psychosomatic Research, Department of Behavioral Medicine, St-Franziska-Stift, Bad Kreuznach, Germany

Peterson et al. (1988), who reported an inverse correlation of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity with increasing body fat.

Rossi et al. (1989) could also find a lower parasympathetic function but reported no differences in sympathetic functions in obese subjects.

A decreased parasympathetic activity has equally been reported by Aronne et al. (1995).

Zahorska-Markiewicz et al. (1993) observed an over reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system, but a depression in parasympathetic activity analogous to that of Piccirillo et al. (1996).

Healthy individuals, at rest, are predominantly parasympathetic.

Interestingly, frequency of breathing has a profound effect on autonomic nervous system. A lower breathing rate (6 breaths per minute), creates high parasympathetic tone and as the breathing frequency increases to 8,10,12,14, etc. breaths per minute, parasympathetic tone decreases significantly.

Athletic performance is dependent on correct training. Identifying the correct individual intensity, duration and frequency is essential to achieve a positive end result. There is a high correlation between well trained athletes and reduced levels of resting heart rates. The involvement of the autonomic nervous system and physical training is well documented.

Physically trained people have generally increased parasympathetic tone.

Ronald E. De Meersman, 1992, Respiratory sinus arrhythmia alteration following training in endurance athletes. Enhanced aerobic capacity increases parasympathetic tone.

Goldsmith et al. 1992 “Exercise training may increase parasympathetic activity.

Physically trained people also have lower heart rates, especially at rest.

                        DeMeeresman, 19993b; Kenney, 1985; Smith, Hundson, Graitzer, & Raven, 1989

Sustained (steady-state) exercise causes a significant suppression of both sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.

                                    Kamath et al., 1991
                                                Yamamoto et al., 1991

Parasympathetic recovery is higher in trained athletes than non athletes. In addition, heart rate and parasympathetic recovery is more rapid in athletes than non athletes. Training enhances neuro-adaptive changes in recovery.

                         Shin et al., 1995

Overtraining is a combination of excess intensity, duration and frequency together with low quality of recovery. The recovery process is controlled by parasympathetic nervous system.

Overtraining can also increase resting heart rate.

How do you determining overtraining and the correct recovery rate?

Heavy overtraining shifts the cardiac autonomic balance towards sympathetic dominance, over parasympathetic.

                                    Pichot et al., 2002

How does one know if they are getting the correct recovery?

Using the Exercise Recovery Testing & Training device HRV technology can assist in measuring heart rate recovery and parasympathetic recovery.

The Exercise Recovery Testing & Training program is a research tool for the practitioner, the personal training and Exercise Physiologist to help find the optimum exercise program.

Exercise Recovery Testing & Training (ERTT)

· Physical Fitness Assessment

· Receive Immediate Objective Feedback on Autonomic System Recovery

· This allows fitness professionals to detect overtraining or under training and to optimize exercise program.

· Gives the Fitness Researcher a real objective tracking method of monitoring fitness levels over time. 

“…heart rate variability appeared to be a better tool than resting heart rate to evaluate cumulated physical fatigue, because it magnified the induced changes in autonomic nervous system activity”.                    

Pg. 53, Physiological Assessment of Human Fitness, Peter J. Maud / Carl Foster

Amateur athletes focus on the quantity of exercise. Professional athletes focus on the quality.

The best indicator of health is the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls homeostasis.

Sympathetic: that system which would be considered the activator or accelerator of the nervous system.

Parasympathetic: that system which would be considered the recovery or brakes of the nervous system.

Fitness: the ability or capacity of the body to utilize oxygen, rid waste (lactic acid), and endure body stress. We are measuring fitness by measuring the body’s ability to recovery from exercise. The more fit a person is, the faster they recover. HRV is the quality measurement of the hearts work. The better conditioned the athlete, the lower the resting heart rate. The lower the resting heart rate, and the higher the HRV, the more fit the athlete. HRV allows you to get information on the capacity of fitness or physical condition and the ability to recover after exercise.

“…heart rate variability analysis may be an appropriate too to monitor the effects of physical training loads on performance and fitness and could eventually be used to prevent overtraining states”.

                        Pg. 53, Physiological Assessment of Human Fitness, Peter J. Maud / Carl Foster

What is the Heart Rate Variability?

Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the beat-to-beat alterations in heart rate. It seems to be a marker of both dynamic and cumulative load. As a dynamic marker of load, HRV appears to be sensitive and responsive to acute stress. HRV is regarded as an indicator of the activity of autonomic regulation of circulatory function

The dynamics of the autonomic nervous system during exercise

When a person exercises, both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system dynamically works to adapt the body to this increased required demand for more oxygen, more energy, more blood flow, more nutrients, etc. The parasympathetic system allows the body to recover from this exercise stress. The body uses fat fuel energy in the recovery phases of exercise.  It is likened to a car going through traffic, speeding up and slowing down to get somewhere. The faster you go, the more gas energy it takes.

Two people with different metabolic rates eating the same food could see completely different changes in weight loss. One system is more efficient than the other. One system is using more fuel and the other is more efficient in that it can run on a small amount of fuel. The endocrine system causes the body to regulate the amount of fuel it runs on.

Overtraining with poor recovery cycles over time can slow the metabolic rate, so the body can adjust to its environment and hold onto more energy. The body adapts and will keep fat around the vital organs (found around the belly) to help survival. The autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system works together in this process. The Heart Rate Variability measures the Autonomic Nervous System.

The Exercise Recover Testing and Training (ERTT) device allows a practitioner to see these changes in recovery after exercise. There is a normal recovery and an abnormal recovery. Well trained athletes have very good recoveries. Recovery is the dynamics of how well the parasympathetic nervous system rebounds from stress – exercise.

The health of this recovery can give clues to whether or not a person is overtraining, under training or doing the right balance of exercise and recovery. Exercise is a combination of stress (sympathetic or catabolic) and rest or recovery (parasympathetic or anabolic).

Finding out the recovery rate of overweight individuals is a key factor in an individual weight loss program. This allows a state of balance and improves not only the health, but the ANS function.

With this ERTT too, the practitioner is given some guidelines but has the flexibility to test his or her clients and identify the right combination of exercise, which will improve the balance and health of the ANS. Adipose tissue is affected by the ANS.

So instead of just working harder and guessing at which work out you need to put a client on, why not first adjust the variables of exercise to match this. If someone is too stressed and has a poor recovery, then you would decrease the intensity and increase recovery.

The Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Some studies suggest that HRV is a good predictor of mortality.

HEART-RATE RECOVERY IMMEDIATELY AFTER EXERCISE AS A PREDICTOR

OF MORTALITY

CHRISTOPHER R. COLE, M.D., EUGENE H. BLACKSTONE, M.D., FREDRIC J. PASHKOW, M.D., CLAIRE E. SNADER, M.A.,AND MICHAEL S. LAUER, M.D.

Exercise Recovery Testing and Training (ERTT)

ü Do Your Own Research in Finding the Optimum Exercise

ü Develop Tailor-made Exercise Programs

ü Assess Parasympathetic and Heart Rate Recovery after Exercise

For more information, call 703-256-6300