Thanks to Craig Ballantyne I discovered Tom Venuto’s “burn the fat blog”. Just as Craig, Tom submitted some articles to my old e-zine Ironmag. That was six years ago and today Tom is well known for his e-book “Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle” and his personal coaching services. His blog is filled with good and informative articles geared towards body transformations and mental coaching/self image. It’s a great read.

You can find Tom’s blog at:

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/

I just found out that my friend and successful fitness competitor Pauline Nordin has joined the rank of bloggers.

Check out her blog at:

http://paulinefitness.wordpress.com/

As you might have noticed, I’ve added some good and informative blogs to the blogroll (in the right sidebar). And if you’ve been in the irongame for a while you might remember my old e-zine Ironmag.com. Maybe it’s even the reason why you’re here. Anyway, we ran a lot of guest articles on Ironmag and one of the better blogs I recently stumbled upon is Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training Blog. It’s frequently updated and it’s truly a great read. And yes, that’s right! Craig submitted a few articles to Ironmag in late 1999 and early 2000.

Here’s the link to Craig, it’s a definitely a bookmark:
http://turbulencetraining.blogspot.com/

The other day I got a question about fat as fuel during moderate exercise from an elite cyclist. So, as a little continuation on my blog article “Carbs, Glycogen and Performance”, I will now go into the different muscle fuel sources and how fat can aid you.
When you’re at rest, about 60 percent of the energy needed to fuel your body is coming from fat, or more correctly, free fatty acids (FFA) that are circulating in the bloodstream. Now, these FFA comes from fat stored in cells in areas where you accumulate body fat. When you exercise at low levels (about 25 percent of your aerobic capacity), fat provides about 80 percent of the muscle’s fuel, with the remaining fuel coming from carbohydrates (and less than 5 percent from protein).
Now, of these 80 percent, most of the energy comes from the FFA in the blood. But a small amount is derived from stored fat inside muscle cells; the intramuscular triglycerides (IMT).

Usually, most people focus on glycogen, (stored carbohydrates inside muscle cells), when it comes to endurance performance. That’s okay if you were to live in the 70’s, but today that’s a terrible close-minded approach.
If we start at a low level of exercise and as exercise intensity increases, so does the usage of IMT to fuel the muscles involved. At about 65 percent of max VO2, IMT supplies about 25 percent of the energy needed for sustained muscle contraction. And then, as you finally approach 100 percent of your aerobic capacity, glycogen becomes the necessary and preferred fuel.
The problem with fat at high intensities is that it takes considerably more oxygen for muscle cells to burn fat than carbohydrate. Fat yields 4.69 calories per liter of oxygen, while carbs yields 5.05 calories. Even though the difference is only 7 percent, this 7 percent caloric advantage of carbs turns into a three fold faster energy production during aerobic metabolism in the muscles.
Therefore, we come to the conclusion that glycogen is absolutely needed once you precede 85 percent of your aerobic capacity. If your glycogen stores are empty, or if you run out of glycogen, then you will hit the well-know wall.

Now, we know that you can refuel with carbs during exercise. But you can only metabolize about one gram per minute. That is not fast enough to replace what is being lost during hard exercise. That is why athletes need to pace themselves.
So, therefore you’re forced to rely on fat as fuel, and thus you need to slow down since fat needs more oxygen to be burned.
Now, there is a way to slow down muscle glycogen loss and better your performance. You can do that by increasing your body’s efficiency at burning fat as energy and by increasing your IMT stores. This can be of great benefit to those of you that perform in extreme endurance events such as really long marathons and bicycle road races. In events like these you will deplete your glycogen reserves because you can not refuel as quickly as needed from energy- drinks, bars or gels.

A study performed in Switzerland by Michael Vogt showed that a diet of 53 percent fat for five weeks doubled the IMT stores without compromising muscle glycogen stores. So, a higher fat diet (from mostly poly- and monounsaturated fats) can definitely give you an edge in these scenarios.
It’s also known among coaches and athletes that a diet higher in fat and lower in carbohydrates promotes a metabolic shift towards fat for fuel (and thus sparing carbohydrates during exercise).
I’ve used this “higher fat” approach on several athletes with great success. I usually recommend a year-round diet of about 25 to 35 percent fat because of all the health and performance benefits. And if you’re a really hardcore endurance fan, you might give an ever higher fat diet a try for five to six weeks prior to a race and see how it works out.

Today is/was my scheduled re-fuel (or re-feed) day. That meant about 4000 to 4500 kcal with about 1000 kcal from protein and the rest from carbs. To tell you the truth, after my morning training session and a big post recovery protein-drink followed by some beef and pasta, I wasn’t really that hungry. I followed up with some bread and buns, which was a big mistake. Those darn starches and simple sugars filled me up bad with my insulin spiking trough the roof, only to end up way down in the ground. In simple terms; I’ve felt like a zombie on sedatives all day. So, if my English suck more than usual today, you know why. And yes, I can’t wait to go back to meat and veggies again tomorrow!

Anyway, that’s not really interesting, is it? So, how has the progress been this last week? Well, the fat loss is slowing down a little, but I re-gained some muscle. The week hasn’t been perfect, but pretty good all in all. No cardio at all, but four productive weight training sessions (upper- and lower body split).
Well, about the fat loss. The thing is that most of the fat I have left is “old stubborn interspersed fat” that I’ve collected since my younger years. After being very sick as a child I ballooned into a fat kid in my teenage years. I lost most of it between 16 and 17 (I went from a fat 187lbs to a skinny 123lbs). I re-gained some of it in my twenties, lost most of it again in the late 90’s; and was quite fit and muscular at 155lbs. Then I bulked up a bit over 200 lbs in 2000, which wasn’t very clever. After that I’ve been between 172lbs and 202 lbs, pretty fit at times, but never really lean (below 10% BF).
Anyway, I’m closing in on my goal. But I still have some fat around the shoulders, a little on the lower chest, some on my upper legs and some between my abs. And of course, some in my lower back as most men. So, it’s time to change things around a little to keep the fat coming off.

But first, the results after 29 days (since the last change in the diet) and a total of seven weeks (49 days), August 5:

Morning body weight: 166.1lbs (75,5kg), down another 0.7lbs (0.3kg) from last week and a total of 17.9lbs (8.1kg).
Body fat percentage: 7.4%, down from 7.96% last week and from 14.8% at the start.
Fat weight: 12.29lbs (5.59kg), down another 1.01lbs (0.44kg) from last week and a total of 14.9lbs (6.77kg).
Lean body weight: 153.81lbs (69.91kg), up 0.31lbs (0.14kg) from last week.
Waist measurement: 33.46” (85cm), down another 0.08” (0.2cm) from last week and a total of 3.34” (8.4cm)

And this is how I looked this morning (notice that I trimmed my belly, which just made me look fatter).

And a comparison of the progress (click to open)

Well, what I will do now is to add some carbs during and after my weight training sessions. Not much, only about 60 grams in all so I will get about 90 grams of carbs total on training days. My energy intake will be slightly higher on training days a well; about 1800 kcal. On other (rest) days, I will only consume about 40 grams of carbs from veggies only, just like the previous weeks. My energy intake will be a bit lower on rest days; about 1600 kcal.
Let’s see how this work out in numbers.

This is how the macronutrient breakdown has looked like for the last month:

Carbs: 40g (9 E%)
Protein: 160g (38 E%) (including 20g BCAA)
Fat: 105g (53 E%)
Energy: 1744kcal

And now it will look like this on training days:

Energy: 1800kcal
Carbs: 88g (20 E%)
Protein: 175g (40 E%) (including 20g BCAA)
Fat: 82g (40 E%)

And on rest days:

Energy: 1600kcal
Carbs: 39g (10 E%) (only veggies, mostly fiber)
Protein: 156g (40 E%) (including 20g BCAA)
Fat: 91g (50 E%)

That’s it for now. Next update on OP Lean Bastard will be in one or two weeks.

Glutamine is probably one of the most controversial supplements in the fitness industry. Most people use it to build muscle or to aid in fat loss. There have been a lot of studies on glutamine in humans lately and all of them have shown that it has no effect on protein synthesis and protein turnover. So, if you think glutamine can help you to build muscle, forget it. The same goes with altering the exercise-induced suppression of the immune system; glutamine does nothing in that department either. There are however, some warranted uses of glutamine supplementation.

Here are five possible applications:

1. For severe ill patients, or people treated with corticosteroids, or people suffering from wasting conditions to aid in preventing muscle breakdown: 3 to 30 grams a day.
2. For people with Gastrointestinal (GI) Disorders such as Crohn’s, Colitis and irritable bowel or after bowel surgery/treatment: 10 to 30 grams a day.
3. As an acute GI healing protocol in people who’ve had bad eating habits for a long time and can’t seem to gain weight: 40 to 80 grams a day for 3 to 4 days. It helps to repair the gut lining so they can absorb food better.
4. For a quick spike in insulin together (synergistic) with BCAA, protein and carbs: 3 to 5 grams post workout.
5. To use it with obese people during weight loss as a substitute to carbohydrates in order to replace glycogens after a workout. Charles Poliquin uses this strategy a lot, and he recommends about 60 grams post-workout with no carbs whatsoever.

So, there you have it. Now consider your own situation. Is glutamine really worth your money? You decide.