Some people are more predisposed to fat gain than others. However you have more control than you think, or maybe than you want to admit.

Studies have shown that multiple areas on a person’s DNA (genetic loci) identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) increase the susceptibility to obesity in a cumulative manner. That means the more obesity-related factors on your DNA, the more likely you are to accumulate body fat. However, it wasn’t known whether, and to what extent, this genetic susceptibility may be influenced by a physically active lifestyle.

A recent study in Europe examined over 20000 people over a 3.6-year period showed that living a physically active lifestyle is associated with a 40% reduction in the genetic predisposition to obesity.

In this study, the researchers examined the DNA areas that increase obesity-susceptibility in a sample of 20,430 individuals (aged 39-79 y) from the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk cohort with an average follow-up period of 3.6 y.

A genetic predisposition score was calculated for each individual by adding the body mass index (BMI)-increasing areas. Physical activity was assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Statistical analysis was used to examine the effects of the genetic predisposition score and its interaction with physical activity on BMI/obesity risk and BMI change over time.

Each additional BMI-increasing area increased the risk of obesity 1.116-fold in the whole population, but significantly more in inactive individuals than in active individuals.

What does this mean?

Some people inherit a predisposition to accumulating body fat than others. Others use genetics as a reason for their excess fat. What this study shows is that even if you are predisposed to getting fatter, if you have an active lifestyle, and exercise regularly and consistently, your chance of getting fat is significantly less.

Add to this the risk-reducing effects of exercise, regardless of body fat, and it makes sense to make exercise a part of your day; every day.

Reference: Li S, Zhao JH, Luan J, Ekelund U, Luben RN, et al. (2010) Physical Activity Attenuates the Genetic Predisposition to Obesity in 20,000 Men and Women from EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study. PLoS Med 7(8): e1000332. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000332

The best time of the day to exercise is the time that is most convenient for you and you are most likely to do. There is no point trying to exercise at a time that just doesn’t suit your routine.

When I was competing in triathlons I used to exercise after work, however once my second son arrived getting out in the afternoon became too hard. (With just one I could take him with me in a running stroller but two didn’t fit.)

I tend to exercise mostly in the morning and I often recommend people give early morning exercise a try.

Here are some reasons morning is the best time to exercise.

1. Many people believe that early morning exercise before breakfast burns more body fat than after eating later in the day.  Although there is still some debate, the evidence is growing that doing aerobic or cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is good for fat loss. The argument is that after an overnight 8-12 hour fast, your body’s stores of glycogen are reduced and you burn more fat when glycogen levels are low.
Eating breakfast causes a release of insulin which interferes with the mobilization of body fat. Less insulin is present in the morning; so more body fat is burned when exercise is done in the morning.
There is less carbohydrate (glucose) in the bloodstream when you wake up after an overnight fast. With less glucose available, you are likely to burn more fat.

2. If you eat breakfast immediately before exercising, you have to burn off what you have just eaten first before tapping into stored body fat (and insulin is elevated after a meal.)

3. When you exercise in the morning, it raises your metabolism from it’s lowest and it stays elevated for a period of time after the workout is over. If you exercise in the evening, you burn calories during the session, but you don’t get the same advantage of the “afterburn” effect because your metabolic rate drops dramatically as soon as you go to sleep.

4. Morning exercise gives you a feeling of accomplishment and makes you more productive the rest of the day.
Morning exercise “energizes” you and “wakes you up” by turning off melatonin (the sleep hormone) and turning on serotonin (the feel good hormone).

5. There is some evidence that morning exercise may help regulate your appetite for the rest of the day. You’re also more likely to make better eating choices if you have already done your exercise for the day.

6. Your body’s circadian rhythm adjusts to morning routine, making it easier to wake up at the same time every day.
You’re less likely to skip your workout when it’s out of the way early. After work there are more demands likely to get in the way, like working back late or you just feel too tired or someone invites you for a drink!

7. You can always “make time” for exercise by setting your alarm a bit earlier in the morning.

Getting into the habit of morning exercise takes a while, and even then some mornings can be a bit of a struggle to get out of bed (especially when it is cold).  For all the reasons above, however, I recommend you give it a try.

For fat loss, fitness, lifestyle and mental health, early morning exercise is a good habit to develop.

The study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is the first to examine these relationships in non-human primates.

While there is ample evidence of the beneficial effects of exercise on cognition in other animal models, such as the rat, it has been unclear whether the same holds true for people, said senior author Dr Judy Cameron.

Testing the hypothesis in monkeys provides information that is more comparable to human physiology.

“We found that monkeys who exercised regularly at an intensity that would improve fitness in middle-aged people learned to do tests of cognitive function faster and had greater blood volume in the brain’s motor cortex than their sedentary counterparts,” Dr. Cameron said. “This suggests people who exercise are getting similar benefits.”

To reach the conclusion, researchers trained adult female cynomolgus monkeys to run on a human-sized treadmill at 80 percent of their individual maximal aerobic capacity for one hour each day, five days per week, for five months.

Another group of monkeys remained sedentary, meaning they sat on the immobile treadmill, for a comparable time. Half of the runners went through a three-month sedentary period after the exercise period.

In all groups, half of the monkeys were middle aged (10 to 12 years old) and the others were more mature (15 to 17 years old). Initially, the middle-aged monkeys were in better shape than their older counterparts, but with exercise, all the runners became more fit. (It’s never too late to get fit!!)

During the fifth week of exercise training, standardized cognitive testing was initiated and then performed five days per week until week 24.

“Monkeys that exercised learned to do the cognitive tasks twice as quickly as control animals,” Dr. Cameron said. “They were also more engaged in the tasks and made more attempts to get the rewards, even though they made more mistakes.”

She noted that later in the testing period, learning rate and performance was similar among the groups, which could mean that practice at the task will eventually overshadow the impact of exercise on cognitive function.

When the researchers examined tissue samples from the brain’s motor cortex, they found that mature monkeys that ran had greater vascular volume than middle-aged runners or sedentary animals. However, those blood flow changes reversed in monkeys that were sedentary after exercising for five months.

These findings indicate that aerobic exercise at the recommended levels can have meaningful, beneficial effects on the brain.

It also shows that the benefits of exercise only last while the exercise is continued. After five months the benefits were lost.

So once you get fit, do enough to maintain your fitness.

Fortunately, it takes less exercise to stay fit than it does to get fit.

While there are numerous factors why someone might experience back pain, having weak core muscles increases your risk of getting a sore back.

Typically, when the word “core” is used, it is in reference to the six-pack abdominals and lower back. However, it actually includes a large number of muscles between the abdomen and the ribs. There are many muscles that work together so you need to keep all of them strong enough to do their particular job.

The role of the abdominal and back muscles

When most people think about training their ‘abs’ they focus on a muscle called the rectus abdominis. It’s the one that creates the six-pack look, so women love it and men crave it. Its role is to pull the shoulders towards the hips, but this is only a small proportion of what the core muscles do.

The best way to describe what the muscles of your core do is ‘posture’ and ‘support’. They are responsible for holding the upper body in the proper posture for whatever it is you’re doing, be that standing, lifting something, riding a bike or sitting at your desk. Posture, as in pulling your shoulders back and sitting or standing up tall is the easiest to see.

Support is another major role of these muscles. Think of picking up a bag of shopping, doing squats, or putting something on the top shelf in the kitchen. Your core muscles contract to hold the body rigid and support the spine. If you don’t or can’t contract the core muscles to support your upper body, you will either falter under the weight of whatever you are lifting or put additional pressure on the spine.

The core muscles are also responsible for efficient movement. Without effective core muscles, the upper body would flop about unnecessarily creating a lot more work for other muscles and joints in the body.

Why You Need A Strong Core

The key role of the core is to support the upper body, primarily to prevent injury to the spinal column. The spine is an amazing design with each joint allowing about four degrees of movement. If the muscles are not strong enough, the body may well push the boundaries of this limited range. If the limits are exceeded too much and/or too often, it can cause damage to the ligaments, facet joints or disc between the vertebra.

How most people train their core muscles

Sit-ups, sit-ups and more sit-ups or crunches, crunches and more crunches. Because the rectus abdominis is the most visible muscle it gets all the attention. However, strengthening just this muscle and forgetting the rest is dangerous. It only strengthens the front of the abdomen so there is little support on the sides and at the back. This doesn’t mean you should never do these exercises, but activities that include all the core muscles working together are important.

Examples of how to exercise the core muscles

Just tighten everything up

Get into the habit of tightening up all the muscles around your abdomen and stomach 10 times a day. Create cues, like the phone ringing or every time you have a drink of water to contract the muscles.

Plank or Bridge

This involves holding the body rigid and parallel to the floor, keeping everything from shoulders to ankles in a straight line. Start lying on your stomach then push up onto your toes and elbows, keeping your body straight. I do this when watching TV. Instead of sitting on the couch, I’ll lie on the floor and each time an ad comes on I’ll do a plank for as long as I can. You’ll realise how long the ad breaks are when you do this!

Side plank

This is similar to the plank except you are on one elbow and the outside of one foot. Hold your body in a straight line for as long as you can and make sure you do both sides.

Working on these three is a good start to strengthening your core muscles. Just a few minutes each day can make the difference and could potentially prevent you from experiencing the sort of pain my friend is going through. It is a lot easier to do these before you get a sore back, so don’t wait until something starts to hurt.

I can guess what you’re thinking… but I was actually waiting for a segment on health and fitness that was coming up soon.

Before that, an infomercial came on making grand claims about some new exercise equipment that would change your life without you having to do anything strenuous.

There were two attractive young women using this machine with big smiles on their faces, hardly breaking a sweat while the promoter claimed you only had to exercise for a few minutes a day and didn’t have to even get out of breath. Doing just a few minutes of gentle exercise you were guaranteed to lose kilos of weight, tone your abs and have long shapely legs and butt.

It sounded fantastic and they guaranteed that if you weren’t happy you could return the machine and get your money back. Then they had ‘happy customers’ making outrageous claims about how much weight they had lost, how many dress sizes they and dropped and how their whole life had turned around.

I get so frustrated when television channels run these advertisements. While the equipment might in itself be okay, anyone that claims you don’t have to put in some effort or breathe hard is kidding themselves and conning you.

As good as any exercise equipment is, the key to getting fitter is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and to do a variety of different exercise not just one action on a machine.

And while I have been telling you to exercise with more intensity for less time, you won’t get fit dong a few minutes a day if you aren’t prepared to push yourself.

So next time you are tempted to pick up the phone and order that wiz-bang exercise machine that is going to change your life, remember you still have to do the work and do a variety of different exercises.

And next time someone claims that this one piece of equipment is all you need, get off the couch and do some exercises. You’ll soon realize you don’t need buy anything to get fitter.

You just need to put in the effort.

I’m not just talking about when you don’t get there or get up because you just don’t feel like it; although I know that happens. I’m also talking about when, through no fault of your own, something gets in the way of you doing the exercise you planned to do. It can be frustrating, and in some cases be enough to get you out of your routine for a few days. It doesn’t take much to disrupt an exercise routine and change your mental focus; you miss one day and next thing you know it a week has gone by and you haven’t exercised.

I certainly recommend people stick to their routine as much as possible because we are creatures of habit. If you can’t however, having a Plan B is a good way to keep you mentally focused on getting some exercise in. What do I mean by Plan B? A plan B is an alternative exercise session that you can do when your normal activity isn’t possible. It might not be as strenuous or take as long as your normal exercise but that’s not so important. What is important is to do something so you stay in the habit of exercise.

I have a few Plan B’s, that I call on when my normal routine doesn’t happen. Here are some examples to give you some ideas for your Plan B:

• 15 minutes in the home gym (shed) doing as many different exercises as I can in that time.
• A twenty minute ride around a local park (in my case Kings Park) or any area close to home.
• Walking to the local shops and back (even if I don’t need to buy anything (I don’t recommend this one to my sister who loves to shop!))
• Push-ups, squats, shoulder presses and planks during the ads while I’m watching TV.
• Skipping for 10 minutes in the backyard.

It doesn’t matter what your Plan B is, as long as it gets you doing something and keeps you in the ‘exercise habit’. The law of inertia says that is takes a lot more effort to get something moving than it does to keep it moving. I think it is the same with regular exercise. It’s a lot easier to keep your exercise program going than it is to let it stop and try to get started again. Just doing something, even if it is only for a few minutes, can keep in the habit.
Staying fit is about being consistent; developing an exercise routine that works for you and making it a habit for life. Having a Plan B helps you stay in,or get back into, your routine quicker when other things get in the way.

Your TO DO – come up with four or five Plan B’s that you can use. Write them down and keep them ready for when you miss a session. If you have any great ideas for Plan Bs let me know and I’ll share them with others.

Note: I don’t think there is anything wrong with missing an exercise session. Certainly your fitness won’t fall apart if you miss the occasional workout. Plan B’s are designed to prevent you falling out of routine completely. They are more for your head than they are for your body!

While these may enhance performance, they don’t replace the need to do the work required to get and stay fit. Even the Tour de France cyclists, who used drugs to improve their performance, had to work extremely hard to get the results they did. (It’s not easy getting thrown out of the race or off your own team).

Supplements to boost growth hormone are commonly marketed to stave off the effects of ageing. However, without doubt the best way to boost your own production of human growth hormone is exercise, specifically strength training.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina found that compared to a 30 minute aerobic training session, a strength training workout resulted in significantly more growth hormone release.

And the good news is that you don’t need to do a lot of strength training to give your Growth Hormone a boost.

The best types of exercises to boost growth hormone are compound or multi-muscle exercises such as squats. These can be done with just your own body weight or using extra weights such as dumbbells in your hands. A good upper body exercise to do with the squats is push-ups, or bench press if you have weights. These both use a number of upper body muscles.

Doing just 3 sets of 8 repetitions two to three times per week gives you a fast, whole body workout that builds muscle, burns fat, and boosts growth hormone. Add this to some regular aerobic exercise and you have a great fitness program that doesn’t take up too much time.

So what is The Secret?

It’s a self help DVD based on the concept of attraction. It proposes that your thoughts and feelings will attract what you want into your life.

Now I agree that the law of attraction is real and can help you to get what you want in life, but just thinking about something doesn’t get it for you.

As a fitness expert, I see and hear this with people who want to be fit. Comments like “If I was that fit, I’d exercise that much” or “If I had a body like her, I’d go to the gym too.”

When it comes to fitness, too many people think or dream about being fit(ter) but that’s all they do.

Here’s the real secret about fitness. If you want to be fit, you have to do the work. Yes, that means exercise. And yes, that means you have to commit some time to exercise regularly and the fitter you want to be the more effort you have to put in.

Those people you see out walking, running or cycling didn’t wake up one day fit and able to do what they do. They had to work to get that fit and they have to keep doing what they do to stay fit.

Fortunately, once you are fit, it is easier to stay fit than it was to get fit, so it doesn’t seem like work, but you still have to keep at it or you’ll lose your fitness.

There are two parts to the answer.

Everyone has a six-pack, but for most of us, it’s well hidden under a layer of fat. To be able to see your stomach muscles means losing some of the fat covering it.

Unfortunately the body decides where fat will come off when we use it, so exercising a certain part of the body doesn’t mean the fat will come off that area. If it worked like that, tennis players would have one arm with no fat and the other would have fat on it. Clearly this isn’t the case.

The good news, especially for men, is that the fat around the middle is a preferred source of energy. So some men can reduce their “gut” quite quickly.

As I’ve stated in previous newsletters, the key to losing body fat is to eat less (if you are eating too much) and to burn more calories by exercising more and, more importantly, increasing your metabolism. The best way to increase your metabolism being strength training two or three times per week.

Reducing your body fat gives you a greater chance of seeing the muscles under there, but it is still important to strengthen them so here’s what I suggest.

Contrary to popular belief, sit-ups and crunches aren’t the best way to strengthen your abdominal muscles. In fact, doing too many might be counter-productive and could lead to injury.

I recommend doing exercises in which you use your abdominal muscles to stabilse your body, rather than move it. In effect you are holding your stomach tight.

Here’s a simple exercise to try. It’s called the Plank.

Lie on the floor on your stomach with your chest propped up on your elbows (like a sphynx).

Lift your legs and stomach up so the only parts touching the ground are you forearms and toes.

Hold it for 30-60 seconds. Repeat 3-5 times.

There are a lot of variations to this that can make it harder and use the stomach muscles slightly differently but do this to start with.

Try doing it while you watch TV at night or while reading a book (that you can lie flat on the floor). You could even do this in an airport while you are waiting for your flight!

This exercise builds core stability which helps to protect the back as well as flatten your stomach.

Do this every second day for a couple of weeks and see if you can feel the difference. I’m sure you will.