This past weekend I participated in The University of Western Community Exercise and Nutrition Symposium (quite the mouthful!) Obviously when you assemble 12 exercise and nutrition experts from various domains, you are sure to learn something new every time.
I thought I’d take the time to toss up my 5 favourite body transformation ideas I heard over the day.
#1. Pregnant women do NOT need to keep their heart rates under 140 BPM.
Margie Davenport, who is completing her PhD studying the effects of exercise in pregnant women, pointed out how this old recommendation was based on some seriously flawed research. Newer findings suggest that for women who were active prior to getting pregnant, returning to moderate-intense physical activity by the 2nd trimester is totally safe.
Margie also reminded us that it is NOT normal for women to gain 30-50+ lbs during a pregnancy. In fact, she quoted some ideal weight gain numbers that I found surprisingly low. But that just goes to show how accustomed we’ve all become to treating pregnancy as a nutrition free-for-all.
#2. Adherence, not advanced programming, drives results.
Dr. John Berardi shared some information from his Lean Eating Coaching program. This program, which takes places entirely online, has allowed him to discover certain traits that are strong predictors of body transformation success.
Turns out that to lose an appreciable amount of weight, you need to adhere to your diet and exercise plan a minimum of 75% of the time. And sticking with it closer to 90-100% of the time produced even better results.
Although these number won’t shock anyone who works in the field, they serve as good reminders that we need to stop chasing the “best exercise program” or the magic food that will spark our weight loss. Instead, get even a basic plan and commit to doing it, day in and day out, and you’ll be amazed at your level of success.
#3. Buy fruit and berries in season, then freeze them for the winter.
From the annals of “why didn’t I think of that?”, Dr. Lonnie Lowery turned in a surprisingly insightful talk on a topic, Food Preparation, that many of us weren’t sure of what to expect. Once of his best nuggets was that he buys tons of berries in season, when they are both cheaper and more nutritious, then freezes them for use in the winter.
Although everyone loves to hear the latest, greatest science, it is strategies like this that can pay off huge, both financially and with our body transformation efforts.
#4. Interval training may not be as effective for fat loss in women.
Dylan Olver made this somewhat controversial statement at the conclusion of his sprint training talk. Turns out in one of the studies coming out of the Exercise and Nutrition Research lab at Western, females didn’t lose any body fat in response to 6 weeks of sprint training. In contrast, males lost on average 5 lbs.
Data like this is tough to reconcile because there was no dietary control in place but it does highlight that the physiology differences between males and females are likely quite a bit more significant than we like to believe. Currently, the lab has launched a new study strictly looking at the effects of sprint training in females to see if they can figure out what might be happening. Stay tuned for future updates…
#5. Exercise makes some people fat.
This one was a comment I made actually. Although everyone thinks exercising more will result in greater weight loss, I showed some data which shows that in a small subset of the population, exercise actually just makes them hungry. In turn, these individuals who are more hungry, overcompensate by eating more calories than they expended through exercise, ultimately causing them to gain weight over the course of a 12-week exercise study.
Pretty crazy stuff!
It really just goes to show how important individual responses are to both diet and exercise interventions. Also serves as a reminder that if the plan you have currently been following for several months isn’t producing the kind of results you want, then you need to switch things up.
There was a ton more great information relayed at this conference that I wish I could share with all of you, but can’t in the interests of time. However, there’s a chance several of the talks might get uploaded to the symposium website so if they do, I’ll make sure to let you know.
Also just a reminder, if you’d like a copy of my talk, I’ll be sending it to newsletter subscribers, so if you haven’t already done so, sign up for the newsletter below.
Till next time, train hard and eat clean!
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