This is the time of the year when we all look forward and backward at where we have been (literally and spiritually). Gratefully we have our health and are getting excited about how we plan to pursue our outdoor and hunting passions this coming year. Nowhere can the planning activity be as much fun and as fruitful as the annual SCI convention that is almost upon us. If you have never been then you really owe it to yourself to come to Reno. If you have been then you know exactly what we mean.
SCI members seem to always come to the show with a list of a few specific hunting experiences that we want to pursue and leave with several more bookings on exciting adventures then we expected. No self imposed rule will work here at the convention because of the overwhelming number of enticing options on display. Trust me, you will give in to another interesting hunt that wasn’t on the “agenda” this January, but hey, you only live once!
Booking these “future” hunts as dates on our calendars and PDA’s is the easy part. To truly maximize these experiences, planning has to begin in earnest as soon as possible. Organizing the gear and the web shopping at Cabela’s and other fine outfitters is the kind of shopping most of us tolerate very well indeed. Often, however, we neglect the physical requirements of our future adventure until the last moment. Ironically, it is this physical preparation that determines how much of the hunt is pleasure and how much is pain; much more so than the gear and gadgets we tow along.
Ah, getting in shape.
Now here is a subject we have all deceived ourselves about frequently. Part of the self delusion springs from the fact that we will really have to do things that most of us find less than enjoyable and certainly not off season priorities to get in shape. Compound this with our human tendencies toward a distaste for delayed gratification and it is easy to see why so many of us aren’t in the physical condition we would like (and are capable) of being in. Since it is around the holiday season, a lot of us will have already made a New Year’s resolutions along these lines.
Maybe this year we can help you accomplish that resolution. We are going to start with weight loss. Later on this year we will discuss the role of cardiovascular fitness, strength training (muscle mass building) and its effect on your health and energy spreadsheet. Also we plan to bring to you exciting real science research on how nutrition can enhance both your health and your hunting skills!
In a famous movie moment a character Jack Nicholson played blurted out “You can’t handle the truth”. We have found that many of our patients must believe they can’t handle the truth about physical conditioning and weight loss. So many folks cave into so much pseudo-science Madison Avenue manure that it is often difficult to keep a straight face on at work.
We hate to break it to you, but feel SCI members can handle the truth. Ready? There are no fast acting schemes to lose weight, nor a super-pill that just melts the fat right off us while we sit on the couch watching hunting shows and eating Twinkies. Read the fine print on these gimmicks and they all say use this product, eat way too few calories for your health and exercise a lot and you will lose weight. The worst offenders are powerful laxatives that promise weight loss over the weekend that we can assure you will be right back by the time you re-hydrate yourself Monday afternoon.
What we will give you is the truth about weight loss, metabolism and hopefully put all these myths to rest forever. So put the Twinkie down and back away from the kitchen table slowly and let’s start with the basics.
(LESSON ONE) A calorie is a merely a measure of energy. Technically it is the amount of energy needed to raise 1cc of water one degree Celsius. We “burn” (oxidize actually) energy in everything we do, from thinking (not much, less for others) to lifting weights to digesting food. Our body weight is an energy spreadsheet of input and output. Now some basic science; there are approximately 4 calories per gram of protein or carbohydrate but there are approximately 9 calories per gram of fat. Fat has a full 225% more calories by weight than protein or carbohydrate. Madison Avenue execs have a clever technique to obscure this calorie reality from us. Say you read a claim on the front of the packaging that a particular food item is only 30% fat. What is not often disclosed is the 30% is by weight. Now with simple arithmetic (9 vs. 4 vs. 4) we realize this food is actually is 50% fat by calories. If you want the truth, look on the back and compare the fat calories to the total calories.
You must remember that there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat in the human body.
(LESSON TWO) In general an average 150 pound person that is not taking weight loss medication can only metabolize/burn about two pounds of fat/adipose tissue per week.
So what does that tell you about any claim or add that promises to help you lose 30 pounds in a month’s time. Let me enlighten you, you will lose about 22 pounds of water and muscle weight with at most 8 pounds being fat weight.
This is very easy to prove since muscle weighs a lot more then fat because it is a much denser tissue. All we have to do is put someone in a float tank and measure how high they float for their given weight and we will know how much of their weight is fat. Well if you lose 30 pounds in a month and I put you in a float tank before and after your weight loss, you will float like a cork after the weight loss because you have lost so much more lean muscle mass then fat. That is why all your doctors are calculating your Body Mass Index because it is a direct indication of your percentage of body fat make-up. All things being equal, any more then 10 pounds of weight loss per month and you are losing muscle mass as well.
The next point should be easy to understand but no one really talks about it. We all hear of the next newest and best diet ever when it comes out. It usually is some ridiculous food type like a beets only diet and revolves around a very low calorie intake of about 600 to 800 calories per day. You see people who go on it and lose weight rapidly for a short term then fail to lose any more even though they are sticking to the diet. Then when they finally get sick and tired of eating beets and not losing any more weight they go off of the diet and then watch out.
Not only do they gain everything they had lost but they gain more weight and end up heavier then when they started with a higher percentage of body fat.
(LESSON THREE) Here is the reason, if you rapidly reduce your caloric intake to a very low level your body’s natural starvation defense mechanism begins to slow your metabolism down till it matches your intake of calories but this process takes a few weeks. So you slowly stop losing weight and get fed up with the diet. So you go off the diet and resume a normal diet but your metabolism is down at a very low level so you start storing all the extra calories as fat and start gaining pounds fast.
Unfortunately, the slowing of your metabolism in periods of starvation is a genetically ingrained protective mechanism and will take longer to finally speed up then it took to slow down. How do you think the prisoners of war in concentration camps survived for years on almost no food? Do not go onto a severely reduced caloric diet without proper planning which we will address below.
Now let’s look at the things to do instead of not do.
(LESSON FOUR) Understanding that the crux of weight loss boils down to this, you must burn more calories then you take in, period. Here is the slightly hard part; you must know how many calories you are taking in before you start a serious weight loss program. All that is involved is getting one of those cheap food calorie pocket sized books at the check-out of most grocery stores. Then add up everything you eat for a week and divide by seven and you have it. Now simply reduce the daily intake by 500 calories and you are in very little risk of slowing your metabolism and it is much easier to comply with since 500 calories is not much more then a big Snickers candy bar. Then in a couple of weeks reduce the daily caloric intake again and continue to repeat this till you get the daily intake to where you want it to be.
Let’s now turn to the part we all hate, if you do it right, and that is the exercise.
(LESSON FIVE) First of all, let’s dispense with the fallacy that you burn a lot of calories with exercise. The truth is that you actually burn many, many fewer calories then you think even with heavy exercise. As an example, the average 150 pound person who runs two and one half miles in 30 minutes (5mph) will only burn 360 calories. That means you have to run 30 minutes to burn off a small Snickers candy bar.
The reality behind the weight loss that occurs secondary to exercise is this; you spike your metabolism upwards after an aerobic exercise activity in which your heart rate is in the target zone for at least 20 minutes which we will get to shortly. Basically, for the next 24 to 36 hours after an aerobic exercise program you begin to burn/metabolize 20-40 more calories per hour then you were previously, causing you to utilize/burn more calories per day without doing any more activity. Now the amount of increase in the spike of your metabolism is directly related to the length and vigor of the exercise program you undertake.
The two points to take away from this is that you need an exercise program that lasts at least 20 minutes and at least every other day if you want to maintain the increase in your metabolism continuously. So add it up. If you burned just 20 calories more per hour for a week that adds up to an additional 3360 calories which is almost one pound of fat doing nothing extra and that is in addition to the calories burned during the actual exercise.
The way this is all figured out scientifically is as follows. All one must do is measure the amount of carbon dioxide you produce/breath out in a given time and that directly relates to calories per hour you are burning/metabolizing. The more carbon dioxide you produce the more calories you are utilizing.
A simple formula that all doctors use to calculate what range your heart rate should be in while exercising to ensure a good aerobic activity is as follows.
(LESSON SIX) 220-your age X .7 to .8 and that equals the range your heart rate should be in per minute. Example a 50 year old person would be 220 – 50 which is 170 then X .7 and then .8 equals a range of 119 to 136 beats per minute. So any activity that you can consistently do for 20 plus minutes and keep your heart rate in that range is fine which means anything from digging a hole with a shovel and then filling it back in to running to backpacking with a heavy load or any other activity that meets that criteria is fine. The idea that exercise is fun is another fallacy because it is not fun if what you are doing meets the above recommendations unless you like being hot, sweaty and short of breath but that is what it takes.
So now with this knowledge it is easy to see that all it takes is to burn 500 calories more per day total and reduce your intake by 500 calories per day and that after one week you will lose 7000 calories which is two pounds of body fat.
I know on your mind is the question of what one should eat on a diet has come up especially with all these low fat and low carb diets floating all around. First of all ...
(LESSON SEVEN) let’s understand that 2500 calories made up of five Twinkie rolls and 2500 calories made up of some eight pounds of lettuce is still 2500 pounds, you just get to eat a whole lot more lettuce. So if you are allowing yourself 1500 calories per day when you get to that you are finished eating for that day.
Now I must admit that there are certain genetic traits that have been identified and can be tested with a simple blood test from your doctor’s office that can tell you if you are one of those people that will do much better with a low fat or low carb diet. The test is an Apo E genotype through Berkley Heart Lab in California. About half of the population will do better on a specific diet but all will do well on a reduced calorie diet as defined above.
(LESSON EIGHT) The most important thing to remember is that before undertaking any new rigorous exercise program everyone should be cleared for that activity by their primary care doctor. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and half of all people that die of heart disease do so on their first event/MI without ever having any symptoms.
So let’s put this all together. First, find out how much you are eating per day and reduce it by 500 calories. Second, make sure your doctor says it is OK to undertake the exercise program you are considering. Third, calculate the range your heart rate should be in. Forth, set up an exercise program that will maintain your heart rate in that range for at least 20 minutes and plan to do it every other day. Fifth, expect to adjust your calorie intake and your exercise program as you get used to it to keep weight loss program maximally effective. Sixth, do not try to lose more then 10 pounds per month so you not only maintain all your muscle mass but actually increase it to some degree. A side note to dispel another myth is that you women out there will not turn into the HULK because you exercise or lift weights. You simply lack the amount of testosterone needed to gain very significant muscle mass.
The bottom line to weight loss is that there is no SECRET to it. If you follow the above advice, you WILL lose weight. It is simple math and physics so do not let anyone tell you any different. You might as well start now since it will only make you healthier and allow you to hunt more and hopefully live longer so, you guessed it, you can hunt more.
As always be safe, enjoy the outdoors and visit our website (www.thehuntdoctors.com) for any questions you may have or products mentioned.
