Weight Reduction

Cary: You are right about different metabolisms impacting weight loss. From what I've read, some people do store fat more than others. So the starving ancestors may have something to do with it.

That said, regarding calories, here is a quote from Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, by Walter Willett, M.D. "Your weight depends on a simple but easily unbalanced equation: Weight change equals calories in minus calories out. Burn as many calories as you take in and your weight won't change. Take in more than you burn and your weight increases."

Also, from the perspective of what you eat, calories are all the same (though low glycemic foods can make it easier to control consumption and high caloric density foods are much easier to overeat). In this quote, Dr. Willett is addressing the source of the calories: "If you read diet books or keep up with health and nutrition news, you've probably heard a lot about "fat calories" or "carbohydrate calories." The idea that fat calories are different from carbohydrate calories came from studies done under extreme conditions, such as consuming pure carbohydrate, protein, or fat. In these situations, the body converts dietary fat to body fat a bit more efficiently than it does carbohydrate or protein. In a normal diet, though, your body converts all three to fat at the same rate. Like a kiss or a rose, a calorie is a calorie. So five hundred calories from ice cream, five hundred from red meat, and five hundred from pasta will have similar effects on your weight."

>different activities require different training protocols and tend to attract different body types/mindsets

Absolutely. Some people just don't respond well to endurance training, and others get little benefit from HIT and resistance training. But we all get benefits from doing some kind of regular exercise.

Most of us don't backpack like marathoners, so don't need to train like that, but there's no harm in training for extreme endurance if that's what you enjoy. I have too many other sports that I enjoy, and most of them would be compromised by extreme endurance training. But I feel cross-training (or 3rd way as Brian calls it), is beneficial to most sports. Ultimately the more time you spend backpacking, the better and fitter you will be for it…no magic bullet.

I would add to the "strength, endurance and technique" comment with flexibility. This seems to be sorely neglected by many people, and yet in some ways it's the most important long term attribute to work on.

>I have seen many very muscled specimens struggle to do 10 pullups

Muscle and strength are not the same. A lot of 'well muscled' specimen achieve a good deal of that muscle through anabolic steroids and other ergonomic aids (or genetics). Kind of like a prize bull who does nothing more than eat all day, yet thanks to his hyperactive hormone output he looks huge. One of my 'sports' that I like to participate in is judo. It's a sport where strength to weight ratio is severely tested on a regular basis, and you quickly learn to disregard the size of your opponent!

A 100 calories from broccoli aren't any thing like 100 cals from sugar. Some foods are easier to shuttle into fat storage than others.

I'm sure you're right, but I think of it a little differently. I avoid the sugar over broccoli for two primary reasons: Nutritional bang for my buck and glycemic load. Assuming I limit myself to a reasonably fixed amount of calories in a day, why spend those limited calories on sugar when I get no nutrition and it is high glycemic? (Putting aside the sweet tooth issue.)

1. yeah but carl lewis used steroids ;) seriously, i suspect the data/theory applies more to joe couchpotato vs john couchpotato, not a world class (or longtime serious training) athlete

2. why stop running? for me several reasons. i'd love to run again and still hope to. injuries & illness, though, have conspired to keep me from it for several years now. i didn't run to get in shape or for a workout – i ran because i love running. it's just a chore to do almost any other kind of exercise on a regular basis. i'm trying to enjoy walking/hiking as much, but it really isn't the same. likewise biking.

when it's been really bad, just sitting up is painful and tiring, though. chronic pain & inflammation can take a lot of wind out of the sails, at least my sails. i go without any pain medication 98% of the time or so, but i have a bottle of vicodin for when it's a bad day and i absolutely must do something (usually work, but i bring a few pills on any trip i take, too). I think i wind up using about 10-15 pills or so per year; i have a lot more sympathy for some addicts now, but their example also is what gives me the discipline to avoid taking anything (even ibuprofen) on any but the very worst days.

"My point is that short intense work outs will be more beneficial for both strength and conditioning and your body wont loss muscle in the process like it would if it was sustained"

Fair enough, Brian. But my question is: Strength to what end? Conditioning is a little dodgier, IMO. I have always thought of conditioning as tailored to an activity, e.g. backpacking, football, track or field events, etc. It seems to me that short intense workouts could definitely improve strength and, possibly, condition you for certain activities. But they would not condition you for others.
Endurance training, properly executed, will prepare you for a different class of activities and yes, you will probably lose a bit of muscle mass, along with a lot of fat, in the process but eventually arrive at a state of equilibrium where the muscle mass remaining is precisely what you need to excel in your activity-no more, no less. Over training is another story entirely.

Tom, I don't really know about middle-distance runners. And I don't really know the reasons why, I'm just presenting the research (rather than anecdote) showing that interval training increases VO2 max, decreases bodyfat and increases muscle mass more than endurance exercise. 5-10k runs are not considered endurance activities.

>This makes sense to me but why stop exercising?

Injury and illness are often good reasons…

>OTOH, I have seen a whole lot of lifters/body builders go to h$ll in a hand basket real quick when they stopped exercising. Go figure. I don't think that is peculiar to endurance athletes.

Although some ex-bodybuilders appear to go to pot, the internal changes are not the same as ex-endurance athletes. Many ex BBs (like myself) still weight train, and still maintain their muscle mass (or even increase it). It's not always that they stop exercising, often it's just that they stop *dieting* and gain a lot of unsightly fat around the muscles. It doesn't mean they develop metabolic syndome, and in fact that extra muscle mass helsp to keep metabolic syndrome at bay. Now if you stop completely and lose your muscle mass, you end up just as bad off as the ex-endurance athlete. Muscle=glucose sink=better insulin sensitivity.

>Weight change equals calories in minus calories out. Burn as many calories as you take in and your weight won't change. Take in more than you burn and your weight increases."

Yes, but some people (through genetics, age, gender or yo-yo dieting) will have a more rapid decline of metabolism when calories are cut, meaning that the less they eat, the less they burn, which means they need to eat even less, so they burn even less…in a downward spiral. Also, a calorie is not a calorie in all cases. There is the thermic effects of different foods. Protien having the highest, followed by carbs and then fat. High fibre and high protein foods are also more filling, making it easier to eat less and feel full.

Right on, Lynn. Flexibility, the too often missing link, especially as we get older. :(

anyone heard of Dean Karnazes?

he's a pretty decent ultramarathon runner – has run quite a lot of 100-200mile races, including badwater (death valley to mt. whitney)

Looks like Der Governator to me. I guess Badwater can do that to you. ;}

"Endurance training, properly executed, will prepare you for a different class of activities and yes, you will probably lose a bit of muscle mass, along with a lot of fat, in the process but eventually arrive at a state of equilibrium where the muscle mass remaining is precisely what you need to excel in your activity-no more, no less. Over training is another story entirely."

I agree, this is where 3rd way cardio comes in. I take MMA (mixed martial arts) and you must be strong and have great endurance. There is a point were muscle mass is just extra weight and the trick is to make the muscle you have remain lean while upping its strength and of coarse having excellence cardio.
3RD way came about because fighters noticed that even if they could run a marathon they would gas in a fight in the 1st round. And if they just pumped their muscles all day they would be strong but also would gas in the first round- so they has to put them together. This involves combining strength training with cardio- like flipping tires, throwing medicine balls, kettlebells, basically doing intense push-pull moves while keeping the heart rate up high. You can only do this for short periods. But it follows the simple rule that the body will only change itself to adapt if its "shocked" and "traumatized" but its only positive if you do that in controlled short training bouts. Other wise you will over train.

Come to think of it, when I was in my youth, I excelled at both the 100 meter and 10k cross-country events, so maybe they do require a similar VO2 max?? Never was any good at competitive endurance events, but have no problem recreational backpacking.

you are simply fast

fast twitch muscle can be trained to perform as slow twitch, but the converse is not true

my guess is you have a nice bit of fast twitch muscle and were also pretty well trained for distance

"you can't teach speed"
and beyond technique, you can't train it much either (compared to endurance)

"Tom, I don't really know about middle-distance runners. And I don't really know the reasons why, I'm just presenting the research (rather than anecdote) showing that interval training increases VO2 max, decreases bodyfat and increases muscle mass more than endurance exercise. 5-10k runs are not considered endurance activities."

Lynn,
The studies don't appear to be comparing interval training with true endurance activities(<=1 hr in the studies). It seems to me that a more valid comparison would be intervals, or any other anaerobic activity with a true endurance activity, e.g. marathoning, Nordic skiing. The muscle mass part I do not disagree with. On the rest I am skeptical, to say the least.

We could spend endless hours debating whose training method is "better". In the end, it is not that important to the topic at hand. Weight loss (whether from fat, muscle or water) is the topic, and is appropriate for a site called BPL. Backpacking is not a competitive sport, so extreme training (endurance, strength or otherwise) is not necessary to enjoy it. Because of the other sports I also enjoy, I prefer to shed fat or water rather than muscle. Tom may have no need of more muscle than he needs to complete a marathon, so his exercise regime will differ from mine. Brian's focus is different again.

Just get out there and move your body by finding a sport (or sports) that you enjoy. Eat sensibly and enjoy your outdoor trips with the minimum of body weight that you are comfortable with acheiveing.

>The studies don't appear to be comparing interval training with true endurance activities(<=1 hr in the studies). It seems to me that a more valid comparison would be intervals, or any other anaerobic activity with a true endurance activity, e.g. marathoning

Problem is that to do a study comparing eg marathoning would mean recruiting people who are already athletes. Most of the studies on gains in aerobic fitness and fat loss are centred around (and relevant to) average untrained individuals wishing to lose fat and get fit. Joe Average doesn't have the time or inclination to spend much more than an hour in an exercise session. You could compare elite marathoners to elite sprinters, but they've already made the adaptations to their sport, so it wouldn't really tell you which is the best method for an individual to get fit with. Also, elite athletes are somewhat self-selected based on their inborn abilities (muscle fiber type, ACEII genotype, etc..), so it would be like comparing apples to razor blades.

"Problem is that to do a study comparing eg marathoning would mean recruiting people who are already athletes. Most of the studies on gains in aerobic fitness and fat loss are centred around (and relevant to) average untrained individuals wishing to lose fat and get fit. Joe Average doesn't have the time or inclination to spend much more than an hour in an exercise session. You could compare elite marathoners to elite sprinters, but they've already made the adaptations to their sport, so it wouldn't really tell you which is the best method for an individual to get fit with. Also, elite athletes are somewhat self-selected based on their inborn abilities (muscle fiber type, ACEII genotype, etc..), so it would be like comparing apples to razor blades."

Lynn,
You are right of course. Our debate has been an apples(weight loss) vs oranges(training protocols) vs razor blades(VO2 max and how to optimize it). I am at least partially responsible for hijacking a thread addressing weight loss, and I apologize to one and all. But it's been worthwhile, at least for me, and I do think a thread or even a forum slot on conditioning would be worthwhile. Any interest out there?

Edited by Ouzel. Re 100 meter and 10 km running in your youth.
I don' think so, Lynn. A 100 meter dash is over before oxidative metabolism has a chance to kick in. Basically, ATP + Creatine = 100 meters. 10 km x-c, OTOH, has you spending a significant amount of time at or near the anaerobic threshold(squeezing every last molecule of O2 out of each breath, to paraphrase you). That requires a well developed VO2 max, if you are going to excel, and I'll bet your training developed exactly that. How did you train, BTW?

>A 100 meter dash is over before oxidative metabolism has a chance to kick in. Basically, ATP + Creatine = 100 meters

Yes, but I was referring to the literature showing that sprinters in general have very high VO2 max, and your friends observation that the folks who fared best on Everest were 5-10k runners. I was just speculating that they also would have very high VO2 max??? Also, I believe most of the oxygen uptake in sprinters occurs after the race. It's not any lower than for endurance athletes, it's just delayed…

No special training when I was young. I was just naturally good at both sports, just like I was naturally good at rock climbing and weight lifting. That's one of the basic phenotype differences that makes one type of training ideal for one person, but not so good for another. The trick is to find what you enjoy enough to stick with (like backpacking!), and do it regularly. For me, cross training is the best approach. Some aerobics (biking, rowing etc..), some weights, some yoga and tai chi, some judo (which combines all of the above).

"Yes, but I was referring to the literature showing that sprinters in general have very high VO2 max, and your friends observation that the folks who fared best on Everest were 5-10k runners. I was just speculating that they also would have very high VO2 max??? Also, I believe most of the oxygen uptake in sprinters occurs after the race. It's not any lower than for endurance athletes, it's just delayed…"

Lynn,
I think we've been talking about apples and oranges all along. I've always looked at VO2 max as a measure of an athlete's ability to uptake O2 WHILE engaged in an activity. Yours seems to include post exercise uptake to address an activity generated deficit. A miscommunication, mostly on my part. Well trained 5-10 km runners most definitely have a high VO2 max. The best run for ~12:30(5k) and ~26:20(10k), and many go on to the marathon as they get older and run ~2hrs 5 min. All this requires an incredibly high sustainable VO2 max. Coming from a running background, my friend's anecdote didn't surprise me at all, as climbers also function at the anaerobic threshold. In fact, I think it is an idea worth investigating-maybe some bright eyed PhD candidate in exercise physiology looking for a good thesis topic?

> I've always looked at VO2 max as a measure of an athlete's ability to uptake O2 WHILE engaged in an activity.

They are not really THAT different in concept IMHO. In both cases the VO2 max needs to be high to perform the activity, In other words, if a sprinter didn't have really good VO2 recovery, they would not be a good sprinter. It's a loan from the bank that has to be repayed pronto (with interest) or you're gonna be in trouble. I would assume that it is this drive for rapid recovery that leads to the larger improvement in VO2 max in previously untrained people undertaking sprint training. But than again I don't really know…

I think some reading this thread might find this article interesting but I am not sure if everyone can source it.

Endurance performance of the elderly mountaineer: Requirements, limitations, testing, and training
Martin Burtscher1

(1) Medical Section, Department of Sport Science, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j278h0568314q7m3/

"Endurance performance of the elderly mountaineer"
Could be relevant in about 15 – 20 years times …

Cheers

Hi Tony,
I tried but, after letting me read a teaser page, they
wanted to charge me $34 for the whole article. Unfortunate, as it sounded interesting. I guess I bumped up against the limits of free exchange of information on the Net. :(
Thanks for passing it along anyhow.
Tom

" "Endurance performance of the elderly mountaineer"
Could be relevant in about 15 – 20 years times …"

I have a hunch that it's going to be a little longer than that. ;-)