Fit Communications

The May 2006 issue of Fitness magazine offers a one-page article called “Fast-track your strength training.” I was pleased to see that the five tips offered reflect the strategy I use in my workouts and in my trainee’s workouts.

Here goes:

1. “Move quickly from upper to lower body.”

This tip alone can save tons of time. Why sit around between sets with your muscles getting cold, your energy draining away, and your butt preventing others from using gym equipment? Do a set of pushups, then move right to lunges. When you’re done with the lunges, do some lat pulldowns, then some calf raises. You get the picture.

When I’m working out my trainee, I also change the order of the exercises so that no two workouts are the same. As she finishes a movement, I’ll announce the next movement, and we go right to it.

2. “Drop the weight.”

This tip is about performing drop sets, which I also like to call “down the rack.” It’s easy to do with machines that have weight stacks, and easy to do if you have room to line up a set of dumbbells. Do your first set (post warm-up) with the heaviest weight you’ll use for that movement that day. Do as many reps as you can with good form. Immediately drop the weight and do as many reps as you can with good form. Drop the weight again and go for it. You get the picture.

A single drop set is often all I need of a particular movement. It’s fast, and it’s effective.

3. “Work two muscle groups at once.”

This is about doing movements that involve more than one muscle group. I’m not a big fan of these exercises, but I do believe in supersetting nearby muscle groups–for example, performing a set of dumbbell front raises for the anterior deltoids, then immediately switching to bicep curls or hammer curls.

4. “Balance on one leg.”

I ought to be doing this, especially as we need exercise to maintain balance as we get older.

5. “Team up on one muscle.”

Supersets again, but this time doing multiple movements back to back for the same bodypart–say, leg presses followed by lunges.

Bottom line: by increasing intensity and refusing to waste time sitting on your duff, you can get the weight portion of your workout done in 30 to 45 minutes tops. Unless you’re a powerlifter or preparing for a bodybuilding or figure competition, you don’t need more time than that to increase strength and build muscle.

Trainer Alycea Ungaro, quoted in the May issue of Fitness magazine, advises us to "focus on pulling your abs in and up for every move–even when it’s not an ab exercise."

A good suggestion.

Also, when you’re stuck in traffic or sitting at your desk, it helps to practice pulling your navel toward your spine–and to tighten your glutes and thighs repeatedly.

Every little bit helps.

I’ve mentioned the National Weight Control Registry before–a collection of individuals who have lost 30 pounds or more and maintained the loss for a year or more. Various researchers have studied these people’s experiences and written about their weight-maintenance success. Here you can read some of their findings.

Well, now I am eligible to join them, having gone from 162 pounds in mid-September 2003 to 132 pounds in April 2005. (Yes, you read that right–it took me more than a year and a half to lose it.)

By the time I get the questionnaire and respond, I will have maintained for a year. Woo-hoo!

I’m now 128 pounds and shooting for 125 next month, when I’m planning to wear a very foxy dress while singing torch songs at my brother’s wedding reception. That’s another story.

I’ve just submitted an info-request form at the NWCR website, and presumably a more detailed questionnaire will be mailed to me. I’ll keep you posted.

Getting back to the slow pace of my weight loss: The morality tale is, don’t be stupid like me and refuse to count calories. Don’t be stupid like me and say to yourself, "Sheesh, I don’t know why I can’t get off this plateau. I’m eating healthy; I’m working out. What gives?"

Newsflash: that’s a sign that you’re eating (albeit healthily) exactly enough calories to maintain your weight. Want to lose fat? 1) Exercise. 2) Count calories and write down the food value of absolutely everything that enters your mouth. 3) Eat fewer calories than you need to maintain, but don’t starve yourself. It works!

MSNBC.com has posted a Forbes article called "How we gain weight and keep it on."

Here’s the blurb:

Weight-gain is not a head cold or a boil that magically appears overnight. Like muscle, it’s something that increases gradually with time and with your complete awareness and collaboration.

The amusing thing is the deck to the story: "Think it’s just Twinkies, beer, and sloth? Guess again." Actually, I did think those were primary factors.

The piece goes on to explain that, um, junk food, excess alcohol, and lack of exercise are factors that encourage obesity. Makes you wonder who wrote the deck and what he or she was thinking.

Yes, the article mentions other factors as well—aging, stress, frequent restaurant meals. But the bottom line is what you already know: eating too much and moving too little will make you fat.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that stick-thin Nicole Richie is the cover model for the current issue of Lucky magazine? This poor woman looks like a skeleton with a hairdo. I’m not trying to make light of those who have eating disorders, but I question the magazine’s willingness to promote eating disorders by putting someone so unhealthy looking on the cover.

Women’s magazines tend to drive me nuts (not nuts enough not to buy them) because of the physiques they feature–among other things.

Fitness magazine is one of the worst for featuring skeletal “exercise models” who look as though they’ve never touched a dumbbell in their lives.

If you appreciate seeing women with some muscle tone, Oxygen magazine, on the other hand, features gals who train with weights and look like it. I’m not talking about steroid-bulked hulkettes but good-looking women with a level of muscular development that’s attainable without ’roids or HGH (just lots and lots of hours in the gym).

The February issue of More magazine includes a two-part article written by two friends who have entirely different approaches to food and body weight. One woman is a size 12 who enjoys food and says that once she made peace with her (not really very large) body, she got a lot more sane about food. She talks about her irritation with her friend who wears a size 6 and follows a very regimented food plan.

The regimented friend also has her say, explaining that she used to be overweight and has been able to lose weight and keep it off by participating in a 12-step program. Her program requires her to weigh or measure everything she eats, and she follows very specific, indeed, rigid rules. She never deviates from her food plan–which means never eating dessert or drinking wine, for instance.

Although the article was interesting, I was somewhat bothered that it seemed to suggest that rigid rules (and zero indulgences) are required in order to maintain weight loss. The successes of the people who belong to the National Weight Control Registry suggest otherwise.

In a nutshell, NWCR members are people who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year. (Once I get to the one-year anniversary of my weight loss, I plan to sign up.) From what I read, these successful "losers" stay on track through exercise, portion control, and healthy food choices. Portion control and exercise in particular help give people the flexibility to have dessert now and then–unlike the size 6 woman in More. It’s great that she’s maintained her loss, and it may be that rigid control is the ticket for her. I just don’t think that works–or is necessary–for most of us.

The February 2006 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine has an intriguing article about an obesity expert and physician who was once morbidly obese, weighing in at 290 pounds on a 5′ 2" frame.

Dr. Ward works with obese children, trying to help them learn behaviors that can reduce their weight and improve their health. The intriguing part–kudos to O–is that the interviewee pulls no punches when discussing the difficulty of maintaining weight loss and how easy it is to stray from good habits and regain the weight. She has lost 100 pounds and is working hard to lose more, and she discusses how essential it is for her to work out regularly.

Don’t believe anyone who suggests that weight loss can be maintained without exercise.

I gotta love Tom Venuto for introducing me to the zig-zag concept of caloric reduction. It really, really works, and as empirical evidence, I have two new fat-loss stories to tell you.

But first a little digression about counting calories. Why do people resist this idea so vigorously? Maybe part of it is that we’re so easily suckered by the latest bestselling diet book and the idea that there’s a secret, magical method for weight loss. Bottom line is, any plan that works does so because you’re taking in fewer calories and/or expending more calories through activity. End of story. Calorie counting may be dull, but it works, and once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.

So here are the success stories. Both involve women near my age (one’s 50, once’s in her mid-50s) who have been working on weight loss for more than a year. One had stalled out completely, one had actually gained back a few pounds. Broken record that I am, I keep preaching calorie counting and the zig-zag.

Part of my spiel: Unless you’re counting calories, you have no idea how much you’re actually taking in. And if you’re not losing weight (despite exercising and eating healthy foods), you’re eating exactly as much as you need to maintain rather than lose (barring a genetic or metabolic disorder).

Lo and behold: Both women recently started zig-zagging. Both started losing weight–including my good friend who honestly didn’t think she was eating more than 1,300 or 1,400 calories a day. Guess what? She was.

I have to crow a little because after needling her for nearly a year to try the zig-zag, her plateau (of more than a year) is a thing of the past, and she’s lost nearly 10 pounds in about six weeks.

As for me, I’m working out, maintaining my weight loss pretty effortlessly, and have lost another couple of inches over the past six months. Most my skirts and trousers are size 6 now, with an occasional size 4.

I was ruminating the other day that of all the people I know who have lost weight during the period of my weight-loss adventure (September 2003 through the present)–a not inconsiderable number–all but a handful have gained it back.

Those who haven’t regained (including myself) are the people who 1) exercise regularly and 2) have made permanent changes to their eating habits.

That’s boring, right? You know all this. I know all this. I just feel depressed about all the hard work these people have done and now need to do all over again.

A good friend–someone I’m training–was talking the other day about how she misses the bakery muffin she used to enjoy every morning from the shop across from her office. My advice was to let the muffin be a special treat that she enjoys maybe once a month while trying to lose weight and maybe once a week or twice a month when she’s in maintenance. Everything tastes better when it’s a special treat.

So boring as the concept of maintenance is (and the general idea of exercising self-control on a daily basis), the payoff is looking great every day and even better, feeling healthy and energetic.