That's Fit

Even with the best of intentions, as well as an admirable amount of effort, the weight sometimes doesn't come off!! Try as you might to get the needle on that scale to budge even the slightest bit, sometimes it's just not having it. This is especially true for people who have already lost quite a bit of weight and are now trying to take off those last ten pounds or so.

To help you shed those stubborn extra pounds, here is a quick tip from an article titled "Scale Stuck?", which appears in this month's edition of Self magazine. I'll be posting one of them a day for the next 10 days.

Hopefully these tips will help you figure out what's causing those pounds to stick around.

Quick Tip #7

Diet Flub: Your wear your comfy clothes - What's wrong with wearing large, baggy clothing? Nothing if you're lounging around the house. Or doing anything else, for that matter. They're your clothes, you can wear whatever you want. BUT, if you're avoiding wearing clothes that fit snugly, you could be missing out on some very obvious clues. Like, oh I don't know, the pants that fit perfectly three months ago are now clinging to you like spandex, or how that favorite polo of yours now looks like a belly shirt. These are obvious signs that you've put on some pounds.

Fix It: Try putting on your jeans once a week. This will help you keep tabs on any sneaky bulge that may be forming around your midsection. The author of the article in Self magazine stridently suggests giving away your larger clothes once you no longer fit in them, helping to ensure that you will not gain the weight back again. You can also avoid wearing clothes that mask what you consider to be your flaws. Granted, nobody wants to flaunt what they may feel somewhat ashamed of, but this can also be used as a motivator to keep you on track. Case in point, I remember reading an article (not in Self, but in a different publication) about a man who felt as though his calf muscles were too small. For years, he would avoid wearing shorts to the gym, even when temperatures reached close to 90 degrees. He hid what he was ashamed of, until one day he decided that he was no longer going to conceal what he considered to be his problem area. From that point forward, he always wore shorts to the gym, knowing full well that people may notice his disproportionately small calves. Instead of allowing his insecurity to hold him back, he instead used it to fuel his workouts. Years later, he finally built his calves up to a point where he was actually proud of the way they looked, so much so that he considered them to be one of the best built parts of his body.

Being a recovering personal trainer (no meetings involved, no "hello my name is Chris and I'm a personal trainer" introductions. It's great), I have quite a bit of experience helping kids lose weight. For a short period of time back when I was training, I was helping members of a teenage swim team gain a competitive edge. At least, that's the way their slightly overzealous coach explained it, but I digress. Anyway, in working with kids in this capacity, you learn quickly that a fitness goal -- as well as the ability to achieve that goal -- is never the same across the board. Body types are different, levels of determination vary, and it also seemed as though body fat reduction was affected by gender.

Now, after reading about a study published a little while back in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, it seems as though these observations of mine may have been right on the money. It turns out that the impact of exercise on body fat differs for boys and girls. This discovery comes after a study of 224 children (a random sample) aged between 7 and 10 from twelve different schools in the Republic of Ireland. Unlike the girls in the study, the boys who performed the least difficult exercises were found to be the fattest. Moreover, those who led a predominantly sedentary life (video games and the internet strike again) had the thickest waists. As stated, this was not the case for the girls in the study.

It's strange to think that we live in a time where kids are going to personal trainers, not just to improve their sports performance, but to simply get some exercise. I know I pointed to the internet and video games as the culprit behind the rising child obesity rates, but also to blame are poor diets -- not eating enough throughout the day and then eating far too much in one sitting. I don't for a second claim to be an expert on why kids are getting heavier, but these reasons just mentioned seem to make sense to me. What I do know, however, especially with this new research on the topic to support my belief, is that (redundancy in 3-2-1 ... ) everybody's body is different. Some people need more time than others to lose weight and fat, as evidenced by this study on boys and girls. It also speaks to the fact that the Body Mass Index (BMI) may be inadequate, by itself, to determine the extent of cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents, and possibly even adults.

One of the more popular supplements to come along in the past five years has been Nitric Oxide (or NO). In fact, I did a post a while back on my experience with one of the more popular NO products on the market: No-Explode. Though I have stopped using this product since (mainly because its very high levels of taurine and caffeine made me a bit jittery), I may try supplementing with the primary active ingredient, which is an amino acid called arginine.

Research out of the Univeristy of North Carolina, Wilmington revealed that arginine can simultaneously help you build muscle while dropping body fat. In their study, fifteen female athletes consumed 6 grams of arginine supplements per day for four weeks. Researchers found that these women lost 2 pounds of body fat while at the same time gained 2 pounds of muscle, all without any change to their diets or exercise programs.

Now, before you rush out to your nearest GNC and pick up some arginine, you may want to first discuss things with your doctor. But, if you've already tried supplementing with this amino acid and would care to discuss your experience with it, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

You'll often hear people say that since they quit working out, all of their muscle "has turned into fat." On the flip side, many people try to "crunch" their flabby stomachs into perfect abs. But as Joy Bauer reminds us, burning fat and building muscles are two entirely separate processes.

Fat is burned through eating less and exercise and includes a process where fat cells are actually disassembled by the body and expelled through heat, exhalation, sweat, and urine. Muscles, on the other hand, are built through regular use. So fat can't be turned into muscle, but shedding that fat will reveal the shape you've been sculpting underneath!