Is Strength Training Really the Key to Weight Management?

It’s not uncommon to hear or read claims that, “if you gain one pound of muscle you will burn about 50 extra calories per day.” If only it were that easy...

In fact, the resting metabolic rate of skeletal muscle is frequently confused with the resting metabolic rate of the lean body mass as a whole. Lean body mass however includes all our organs (liver, brain, heart, and kidneys) which burn 15 to 33 times more calories by weight than skeletal muscle.

Click to read more ...

What do You Really Know About Your Metabolism?

You may not be aware that the resting metabolic rate (RMR) associated with a given body weight can vary ±20%. Like many things in nature metabolic rates fall into a "normal" bell curve. The middle of the bell curve is the "expected" or average metabolic rate.

Another way of saying this is that 80% of you have a metabolic rate that is ±10% of the middle of the bell curve (for your gender, height, weight, and age).

Where you fall on the curve is based (mainly) on the genetic "hand" you were dealt.

The chart here shows an example for a 150-lb. 32-year-old female, using the World Health Organization's formula for metabolic rate

Click to read more ...

Does Yo-yo Dieting Ruin Your Metabolism?

The majority of clients I’ve worked with over the years had matter-of-factly accepted the notion that they had a “low metabolism,” possibly secondary to yo-yo dieting.

Several comprehensive reviews of the literature (including one by a National Institutes of Health expert panel), however, have concluded that the negative metabolic and body composition side-effects frequently attributed to yo-yo dieting are not supported by careful review of the data. The conclusions: yo-yo dieting does not have a lasting negative effect on resting energy expenditure (REE), or muscle tissue/lean body mass (LBM), and does not make future attempts at weight loss more difficult (at least from a physiological standpoint).

Click to read more ...