Author Archive: Courtney D

About Courtney D

A 20-something year old fitness nerd and medical student trying to spread the truth about health and fitness.

The Myth of “The One”

Trying to lose weight? Run faster? Lift heavier? Then you’ve probably heard the myth of “The One.”

The one exercise to torch belly fat!

The one diet to cure all your ills!

The one to x. The one to y!

The Myth of the One is perpetuated through the media, social networking, your friends, your personal trainer, etc. Let’s break down the myth of “The One.”

– The Myth of One Exercise to Rule Them All

There are no shortages of this myth. It’s the one TYPE of fitness that is superior to others, or the one EXERCISE that will suddenly turn you into a Victoria’s Secret model. It’s also the ONE exercise to bring you glory above all glories.

There is no “ONE.” No two people have the same body, the same goals, the same diet and nutrition, the same cellular response to that exercise. To say that one exercise – or type of fitness – will work for everyone is a myth. If there were really ONE exercise that would eliminate all body fat, build large biceps, sculpt your gluteus, etc. we’d all be doing it. Incessantly.

– The Myth of One Diet of Superiority

It cites complex studies, makes documentaries, shows the cruelty of a given industry, claims to be a miracle cure. That’s how you can spot a ONE diet of superiority. It often uses straw man logic to create its theories, or ignores certain studies for its own purpose. It will create a cult of followers that are hell bent on making you believe the One True Diet exists. They’ll parrot about cancer, heart disease, brain starvation, carbohydrate depletion, and a myriad of other symptoms you’ll encounter if you’re not on The One True Diet.

Much like the exercise myth, there is no One True Diet. If there were one pill to take, or one way to eat, that would magically make you look a certain way we’d be on it. Someone would have discovered it and its results would resonate through the entire industry. Soon we’d all be on the Crossfit Games or in Bikini or Figure competitions and we’d all shed the baby weight within 6 weeks of birth. This doesn’t happen, because it doesn’t exist.

– The Truth: The ONE That Works For You

Break through the myth of The One and go to the truth of The One. This is The One That Works For You. No shortcuts, no gimmicks. This is based on trial and error, personal preference, individual goals, body type, genetics and a litany of other seemingly unrelated things. The One That Works For You is YOUR miracle drug. Some things to remember about The One That Works For You…

1. It’s your body, it works for you. It may not work for your twin sister or your best friend. Offering advice is one thing, but falling into The One trap is dangerous.

2. It’s your body, no one can tell you it doesn’t work for you. Ignore the naysayers, the haters, the whatevers. If you’ve found what works for you don’t let someone else take that from you.

DO NOT LET THE MYTH OF “THE ONE” DEFINE YOU! 

July 10, 2012 Myths Read more >

Gym Lingo 101

Barbell: A long metal pole that allows you to attach weighted plates to either end of it to increase the weight of the pole. The standard weight of an Olympic barbell is 45 lbs, though they come in different sizes and weights.

Bench: Bench Press. This exercise is performed by lying on your back on a bench and lowering a weight onto your chest, then pushing it back up into the air to fully extend your arms.

Body Weight: Body weight exercises refer to exercises that are done without any additional weights. They are typically done to practice good form before adding weights or as cardio. Some examples include squats, lunges, jump rope, etc.

Box: “The Box” is typically a Crossfit term used to describe a Crossfit gym. Majority of Crossfit gyms are located in warehouses or other large warehouse like buildings.

Bumper Plates: These plates are all the same size regardless of their weight. They’re designed for Olympic lifting so the athlete becomes accustomed to using plates of a certain size, generally 45 lbs.

Cardio: A classification for any sort of cardiovascular activity that increases your heart rate. This includes running, zumba, kickboxing, rowing, etc.

Compound lift: An exercise that involves more than one group of muscles at a time. Some examples are squats, dead lifts, snatches, etc.

Crossfit: A type of fitness that involves cross training – hence the name. Crossfit is usually performed in a “box” in a warehouse using WODs that are typically named after people. They involve a variety of different exercises from pushing sleds to overhead squats to jump roping.

Deadlift: A compound movement that involves picking up a heavy weight off the floor and returning it there. Please don’t use this description to attempt the move.

Dropset: After completing and exercise with a certain weight, you drop the weight and continue the exercise. For example, you start with 20 pound weights for a certain amount of reps, then use 17.5 pound weights, then 15 pound weights, all without a break in between.

Dumbbell: A weight designed to be held with one hand. These vary in weight and size and often have the weight written on the side of the dumbbell.

Free Weights: This refers to the dumbbells and barbells located throughout the gym.

Machines: Just like what it sounds like: machines located throughout a gym that helps isolate certain muscles. They’re good for accessory work but are often looked down upon because they fail to help build stabilizing muscles like free weights do.

Oly: Short for Olympic lifting. These include many compound movements such as squats, snatches, jerks, etc.

PR: Personal Record. This can be the fastest mile that person has run, their heaviest deadlift, the highest reps of a weight, etc.

Plates: Circular weights that can be attached to the end of barbells to increase the weight of the barbell. Plates can also be used on their own without a barbell to add weight to any exercise.

Rack: The Rack, The Cage, The Power Rack, etc. are all names for an assistance piece of equipment. These are usually over 6 feet in height and designed to allow people to add weights to their barbells for movements like squats or overhead presses. They’re ideal for this because often a person can squat very heavy weights but cannot lift that weight onto their back without assistance.

Rep: Repetition. This is how many times an exercise is performed in a set. For example, if you did 10 lunges you would have performed 10 reps.

Set: Sets of an exercise. For example, if you did 10 lunges in a row, rested a few seconds, then did another 10 lunges in a row you would have performed two sets of 10 reps of lunges.

Sprint: A cardio term used when someone goes as fast as they can for a limited amount of time. This can be done in running, on a bicycle, etc.

Supersets: Pairing two exercises together and doing them back to back. For example, if you’re supersetting push ups and pull ups you would perform a set of push ups and immediately follow it with a set of pull ups and then rest.

WOD: Workout of the Day. If you’re a Crossfitter these are normally named after people and involve a series of exercises that are performed for time.

July 5, 2012 Exercise Read more >

People tend to overestimate the amount of calories they burn

People tend to overestimate the amount of calories they burn. Period.

Ever been to a spin/zumba/fitness class and overheard this: “I just burned 600 calories on the elliptical and now I’m going to burn another 600 in this class!” I have. These same people in my life tend to complain about their inability to lose weight, barely break a sweat during these exercises and/or become frustrated that despite their hours at the gym nothing is budging. I was one of these girls once. I would hop on the elliptical and plug away for an hour then subtract 600 calories from my daily intake, and eat that 600 calories back.

Problem? Machines lie. Yep. I did this exercise above wearing a heart rate monitor and I clocked 21 calories. 21! That’s a far cry from 100 calories. This lies the same way that an elliptical says that the girl reading Cosmo without breaking a sweat burns the same amount of calories as the girl going HAM on the machine next to her. There has to be a conspiracy here.

These machines do not know how hard these exercises are for you. They’re also automatically set for a 150 pound female. They also can’t judge your heart rate. They can’t tell that you’re a marathon runner and you’re cross training on the elliptical, or that you’ve never so much as run a mile in your entire life. Without knowing your heart rate these machines are, at best, a guestimate.

This is a very common theme. It may not seem like a big deal to overestimate how many calories you burn going to a spin class or just running around the block, but over time it can be. Take me for example: I burn about 342 calories during my spin class, according to my HRM. I’ve heard an instructor claim, “How was that for a 600 calorie burn!” after a class. What? First of all, there is no way everyone was at the same level of fitness. Second of all, no. And I know for a fact that some people take these words as law and go home and subtract 600 calories from their intake for the day then eat it back. That’s almost 300 calories overestimating. 300 calories 3 times a week = 900 calories a week. That’s detrimental to weight loss and maintenance.

Machines, websites and people always will overestimate how many calories they burn. Invest in a heart rate monitor or pay attention to how you feel when you exercise if you’re tracking calories. If you’re not sweating during cardio, if your heart rate is not up, chances are you’re not working as hard as the machine thinks you are.

July 4, 2012 Exercise, Fat Loss, , Read more >

What is lean body mass?

Lean body mass is the total weight of your organs, muscles and bones – essentially the weight of everything in your body MINUS fat.

How do you figure out lean body mass?

Simple. Body weight – (body weight x fat %). If you know your body fat percentage then you can subtract the amount of fat you have off of your body weight and figure out how much lean body mass you have.

Example: I am 134 pounds and have 22% body fat. 134 – (134 x .22) = 104.6 or so. I have 104.6 pounds of lean body mass.

Why is this important?

There are a lot of reasons that lean body mass is tracked. First of all, if you’re trying to build muscle you want to make sure that your weight gain is due to an increase in muscle and not fat. Vice versa, if you’re trying to lose fat you can use it to ensure that you’re losing fat and not muscle.

You’ve also heard the adage that muscle burns more calories than fat. Recently science has proven that a pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day vs. fat burning 2 calories per day. Knowing your lean body mass and tracking it can be beneficial to understanding the metabolic needs of your body.

So is this my ideal weight?

Nope. If your lean body mass was your ideal weight, you’d *theoretically* be aiming for 0% body fat. 0% body fat is an unlivable condition. Lean body mass is simply another indicator of weight, much like body fat percentage, weight, measurements, etc.

July 4, 2012 Fat Loss, Read more >

Why get a heart rate monitor?

Wrong!

Why get one?

If you go to the gym and use cardio machines you’ve seen the little “Calories burned” display. This display is usually auto set for a 30 year old 150 lb woman with average fitness. Meaning that me, a 22 year old 140 lb woman with above average fitness, would burn less calories than the machine says. Even putting in your weight, age and height still isn’t 100% accurate because very few people spent their time on their cardio machine with their hands attached to the heart rate calculator.

A heart rate monitor solves this. Depending on the type you get, a heart rate monitor can tell you everything from average heart rate per exercise, per interval, hourly chimes, interval timers, etc. It really depends on how fancy you want to get.

Do I need a fancy one?

Depends on your needs. For example, I’m a busy college student. I like to get the best out of my workouts. I like to do intervals where I spent 30 seconds in the upper portion of my target heart rate, and then a minute of recovery. Doing this on a treadmill is hard, because I am then sprinting with my hands glued to the machine. All I need is a monitor that tells me what my current heart rate is. Guess how much that costs? $5 on Amazon.com. This little baby even tells me my fat burn. Woohoo! Need one that you can see in the dark? How about a snazzy water proof one? All of these are less than $30.

I don’t even know what my target heart rate is.

I have a snazzy formula for that.

220 – your age = maximum heart rate

Your target heart rate is between 60 and 80% of that number. Any higher and you may be going into anaerobic threshold, which is a discussion for another day, but it doesn’t burn stored fat, so it’s not ideal for basic weight loss. Plus, AT is the culprit in those horrible lactic acid build ups that leave you immobilized for days. I don’t know about you, but I like to sit on the toilette the day after an intense work out and not feel like getting up will be death.

For me (again, a 22 year old woman) my maximum heart rate is 198. 60% of this is about 120, 80% of this is about 159. When I do low intensity long distance cardio I like to stay at about 130-140 beats per minute. If I’m trying to kick my ass, I get to 159-160 bpm and chill there. Again, according to your fitness plan depends on what you do with your target heart rate.

Long story short

For $5 a basic heart rate monitor is worth it! It takes the guess work out of walking the dog, spinning class, basic cardio, etc. It will help you to create a more ideal meal plan, and also help you gauge how effective your workouts really are. It will save you time in the long run.

July 4, 2012 Exercise Read more >