WE need muscle. There can be no disputing that. The amount of muscle, however, is more open to debate.
When it comes to losing excess fat, which all of my current Amazing 12 Chichester crew are striving for, developing muscle is king.
We are led to believe is that if we exercise/train more and eat less we will lose weight. And to some extent it is true. But what often happens is that while we may shift some poundage, we also strip away muscle as well as fat and, more importantly, screw up our metabolism in the process (I’ll go into this in more detail later). Long-term, that’s a disaster.
Having muscle is therefore critical in the process of fat-burning. It is also vital for other functions, too.
Muscle enables us to express bodily strength and so much more. We have about 600 skeletal muscles. They help make us functional and efficient, to stay healthy and pull blood into the tissues that need it. Without movement, which requires muscular action, our hearts wind up doing too much work and, over time, become strained. Without movement, our cells starve, affecting our cardiovascular system, and the distribution of oxygen in our body falters.
When muscles are weak and injured and don’t work well, our joints become compromised.
Having too much body fat makes us more physically and mentally tired, releasing inflammatory hormones that cause us to want more food, which is why we get cravings. Fat wants to be fed.
The goal for everyone interested in being healthy should be to have and maintain lean muscle mass for as long as possible. Genetics and age will play a part, but much more so our lifestyle and dietary choices.
Josh Hillis, a respected and experienced nutrition and fitness coach who co-wrote Fat Loss Happens on Monday, said: “People who are lean are in the habit of being lean. They’ve practised eating lean – like a skill.”
We can’t do a great deal about our age and genetics, but we can about how we choose to live and what we eat.
The older we get, the harder it is for our bodies to retain muscle. Therefore, more effort needs to be put into holding on to it. What can we do? Choose to live in a way that helps support that.
Did you know that those who train or exercise for one hour daily but spend the rest of their time sitting and not moving are only 4% better off physically than those who lead a sedentary life?
“The research shows that you can stay younger, longer if you have more lean muscle on your body,” said Shawn Stevenson, an expert on sleep and fitness and author of Sleep Smarter.
“Lifting weights enables you to express your genetic potential. Your genes expect you to lift heavy things.”
That’s why on the Amazing 12 we do a lot of lifting.
Lifting and moving weights combined with eating the right foods, consuming sufficient protein and, critically, getting enough recovery and quality sleep is the path to success for my dedicated quartet.
All of them want to get fitter and stronger – and they already are just two weeks into the program.
However, each of them is facing his or her own challenges. For Ben, Adriano and Stacey it’s sleep. For Jo it’s trying to avoid falling sick.
Jo had to skip several days training. On a few days Adriano and Stacey (who have a young baby) and Ben, who gets up for work each day at 5am, have been tired from not sleeping well enough. Lack of sleep not only makes finding the energy for training harder, but losing the all-important recovery time will reduce the chances of obtaining the best results and weaken the immune system.
There are measures we can take to help improve sleep, but you have to be prepared to implement them. What value is knowledge without application?
Muscle doesn’t repair and grow without quality sleep. Seeing as muscle makes us healthier and it’s opposite is fat, you don’t need to me to spell out what fat does.
What we need to ask ourselves is whether the choices (food, exercise/activity, sleep) we make each day are feeding our muscles or fat?
Willis added, “If you don’t constantly feed fat, you’ll lose it. If you keep feeding it, it will stick around forever.”
Crash diets don’t work! Let me repeat that: CRASH DIETS DON’T WORK! At least not in the long term, which is what matters.
I’ve done crash diets. Actually, I’ve done what might seem an extreme crash diet – fasting for three weeks. I lost weight, but most of it muscle. Let me tell you, I felt as weak as a kitten. But when I started nourishing myself again, almost immediately my strength quickly returned. You can see the difference from the photos above. One is of me not eating or resistance training and the other, several years later, after completing the Amazing 12, aged 47.
Notice I said “nourish” and not “eating”? What we put into our bodies makes a massive difference. So on the Amazing 12, my team are not just training, but following a fitness and strength program that works in tandem with a healthy eating plan. I’m always on at them to eat foods that have nutritional value.
While crash diets nearly all work initially – our bodies inevitably adapt and, consequently, hit a plateau. And what can happen is that our metabolism becomes slower than it was before we started. The weight goes back on and often in excess of what was lost.
As a coach, I am always banging on about how each of us must take ownership of the problem – understand what you are putting into your body and, maybe most importantly, plan your meals ahead of time.
Learning about food and how to prepare it is a skill worth acquiring as it could greatly enhance the quality of your life.
Adriano, for instance, travels to London to work a few times each week. He takes with him his food. When he gets hungry, he eats it. If he didn’t have everything organised, he’d be at the mercy of what’s available and that could compromise his results. Next week he has to travel to Africa for his job. If he doesn’t think ahead he will struggle to stick to the eating plan.
Luckily for Ben, he has a mother who has his food prepared in advance for him. But, ultimately, Ben needs to take control of his own food. I’m trying to get him to drink more water, too. The more reliant you are on others, the greater the chances of slipping to failure.
As Hillis says, “Until you make the switch in your head that food preparation is the most important workout of the week, you’ll forever be caught in the trap of trying to get your results through workouts.”
Keep reading that paragraph until it sinks in!
So, to recap, muscles aren’t for show. And to develop lean muscle we need to train regularly and smartly, eat a nourishing diet and get sufficient rest.
Make gaining lean muscle a goal because muscle marshals our metabolism, which is critical in regulating our body weight.
Muscle, however, is high maintenance for our bodies. That means it’s the first thing the body releases whenever we follow eat-less-exercise-more diet plans. It also weighs more than fat, which is why the scales will often tell you lies. Don’t rely on bodyweight numbers as a marker for health, fitness and well-being.
More significant is what you can do with your body. I record the achievements of all the participants each week so I can monitor their progress. There will be some days and weeks that are tougher than others. That’s normal and to be expected. This is a journey that has its share of pot-holes. Reaching the end and learning enough from the experience to venture onwards better equipped is what it should be about.
All four of my prospective graduates were tired by the end of this week. When it’s cold outside – as it has been – and your body feels like it needs a rest it’s easy to want to put your feet up. But they all turned up and put in a brilliant final shift.
Worth remembering is a quote by Jason Lewis, the first man to circumnavigate the planet (over 13 years) by human power (walking, cycling, inline skating, kayaking, rowing and swimming).
He said, “Our bodies are capable of amazing feats if our minds agree to cooperate.”
Doing the Amazing 12 isn’t reserved for the elite. You just have to get your mind to cooperate. If you are interested in being a part of the next wave of the Amazing 12 Chichester or would like to know more about it, send me a message – Claude@intelligentstrength.co.uk