Does High Intensity Training Help with Fat Loss?

[susani]

I agree with bits from both of you!

I don’t find that WHAT I eat matters in the least. I thrive on junk food. But my weight tends to sit at a fairly healthy 20% fat. In fact, for the first half of my life I struggled to keep it above 10%! Interestingly, starting to train put my appetite UP and that’s when I started to reach more healthy fat levels.

It’s important to get enough nutrients. But apparently that’s not hard - if you’re able to consume a decent number of calories without getting fat then chances are you’ll get enough nutrients. It becomes more of an issue if you have to restrict calories in order to keep weight down. In that case it’s important to make sure most of what you eat is nutrient dense.

So, my conclusion is that eating junk doesn’t much matter - provided you don’t get fat. Being fat is what’s unhealthy. You can stay lean and healthy through diet, exercise or a combination of the two. If you’ve got good genes it’ll happen without even thinking about it. If not (or if you’ve developed unhealthy eating/exercise habits - eating as an emotional crutch for example) then it can be extremely difficult.

Where I’m at now is I’m wanting to drop below healthy fat levels (due to my interest in gymnastics type training). To go lower than where my body wants to be. I’m not going to mess with diet - I self regulate well so I don’t want to risk messing that up. So I’m experimenting with different ways of training to see which combination gets my fat levels to dip down lower. Fat levels have been reducing slowly for the past few months - but weight has been going up. I think I can get better results by tweaking my training.

That’s my interest in this topic.

I do agree that probably the main benefit from high intensity training is something to do with hormones - my thought has always been the increase in growth hormone. I imagine I FEEL it coursing through my veins when I’m training flat out! But research has shown that spike in growth hormone isn’t burning more fat, so what is it doing? I’m pretty sure it’s playing a part - but indirectly somehow.

[killerDIRK]

I ran pure Keto for 15 days, (less than 30 net grams carbs per day) with NO Conditioning/cardio and ended up SHREDDED far greater than when I was putting in 350 miles a week as a competitive Cyclist ! WHAT you eat has a Definitive Effect on BodyFat, Period !

I also went on Westside from 31oct2010 to 31oct 2012 and put on a Solid 40 Pound of muscle while keeping my bodyfat a respectable
11-13%. So I guess to say to susani that you can only put on 1 pound every two months is a bit of a falsehood. Granted I am male and put on 2 pounds per month consistently over 24, so I do not see how a focused female could not put on 1 pound per month with Good Training and Good Nutrition as Chris Colucci has said !

How you train and What you eat have a Definite effect on body composition.

As has been beating into everyone on this site: You can not out train bad Nutrition !

[LoRez]

[quote]susani wrote:
So, my conclusion is that eating junk doesn’t much matter - provided you don’t get fat. Being fat is what’s unhealthy.[/quote]

Doesn’t much matter for what? Health, strength gains, size gains, performance gains?

If I’m following correctly, for you, eating junk (while training) helped you gain a “healthy” amount of fat.

How does this have relevance in a discussion about diet and training’s role in fat loss?

[susani]

[quote]killerDIRK wrote:
I ran pure Keto for 15 days, (less than 30 net grams carbs per day) with NO Conditioning/cardio and ended up SHREDDED far greater than when I was putting in 350 miles a week as a competitive Cyclist ! WHAT you eat has a Definitive Effect on BodyFat, Period !

I also went on Westside from 31oct2010 to 31oct 2012 and put on a Solid 40 Pound of muscle while keeping my bodyfat a respectable
11-13%. So I guess to say to susani that you can only put on 1 pound every two months is a bit of a falsehood. Granted I am male and put on 2 pounds per month consistently over 24, so I do not see how a focused female could not put on 1 pound per month with Good Training and Good Nutrition as Chris Colucci has said !

How you train and What you eat have a Definite effect on body composition.

As has been beating into everyone on this site: You can not out train bad Nutrition ![/quote]

I’m out to maximise relative strength - I don’t want to increase mass. I’m all about functionality - not aesthetics.

It’s an interesting point though - how much muscle can a typical woman expect to gain over her lifetime. I mentioned in another thread that during the 30 years that I’ve been training I’ve gained 30lbs of lean mass (less than 1lb a year on average).

I’ve NEVER tried to gain muscle mass. It’s just happened as a result of sports / training for sports / lifestyle. But that hasn’t been a steady increase. It comes in spurts - when I switch to a new strength activity I’ll gain some more mass for a while then it levels out and weight stays constant for months - years even.

This 2lbs a month you talk of. That’s 24 lbs a year. 240 lbs in 10 years. 720 lbs in 30 years…which would make me around 830 lbs by now. Trust me - it’s not going to happen. Even on steroids!!! LOL

What’s considered ‘clean eating’ by some I see as an eating disorder! (In fact it’s called Orthorexia). If I can get my body to want to carry a couple of pounds less fat through varying volume and intensity of my conditioning then great - it’ll get me a couple more pullups. But I draw the line at dieting. I can’t believe that people are seeing being on a diet as ‘normal’ nowadays. I really am getting old!!! LOL

[susani]

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]susani wrote:
So, my conclusion is that eating junk doesn’t much matter - provided you don’t get fat. Being fat is what’s unhealthy.[/quote]

Doesn’t much matter for what? Health, strength gains, size gains, performance gains?
[/quote]

In my experience it doesn’t matter for health, strength gains or performance gains. I don’t want size gains and have never worked for them so can’t comment on that.

[quote]LoRez wrote:
If I’m following correctly, for you, eating junk (while training) helped you gain a “healthy” amount of fat.[/quote]

No you’re not following me correctly. For me diet makes no difference. Eating junk food neither helped nor hindered. I have in the past tried other diets - it made no difference - positive or negative. For me how I train is everything. It keeps me lean, strong and training hard day in and day out. It keeps me healthy (according to recent health checks). Changes to training has impact on body composition, performance and (because fat levels can go up) presumably health.

[quote]LoRez wrote:
How does this have relevance in a discussion about diet and training’s role in fat loss?[/quote]

The discussion is not actually about diet. It’s about the role of high intensity training with fat loss. But some people find that diet is the key factor when it comes to everything from health, performance to body composition and understandably wanted to change the subject to something they wanted to talk about. So I shared my experience in response to that. That happens with discussions - people tend to focus on what they want to focus on rather than what the opening poster (me) intended It’s cool

[LoRez]

[quote]susani wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]susani wrote:
So, my conclusion is that eating junk doesn’t much matter - provided you don’t get fat. Being fat is what’s unhealthy.[/quote]
Doesn’t much matter for what? Health, strength gains, size gains, performance gains?
[/quote]
In my experience it doesn’t matter for health, strength gains or performance gains. I don’t want size gains and have never worked for them so can’t comment on that.[/quote]
When you say “junk”, what are you referring to?

I think a diet of Paydays and beef jerky will produce better results than a diet of Milky Ways and Coke. But “junk” can mean anything from candybars and soda to “stuff that wasn’t homemade” to “stuff that used white flour, homemade or not”.

[quote]susani wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
How does this have relevance in a discussion about diet and training’s role in fat loss?[/quote]
The discussion is not actually about diet. It’s about the role of high intensity training with fat loss. But some people find that diet is the key factor when it comes to everything from health, performance to body composition and understandably wanted to change the subject to something they wanted to talk about. So I shared my experience in response to that. That happens with discussions - people tend to focus on what they want to focus on rather than what the opening poster (me) intended It’s cool :)[/quote]
Related to the original topic, all I know is that many people have had success with both HIIT and LISS, or a combination of both. I also know that many people have switched between them as a way to break “plateaus”. My personal experience has shown that carb-fasted incline walking works for me when combined with a calorie deficit.

While either/or thinking makes for good discussion in an academic/theoretical sense, I think a more varied approach is better when applying the ideas. Everything has pros and cons, success comes from balancing them well.

[ryanbCXG]

[quote]killerDIRK wrote:
I ran pure Keto for 15 days, (less than 30 net grams carbs per day) with NO Conditioning/cardio and ended up SHREDDED far greater than when I was putting in 350 miles a week as a competitive Cyclist ! WHAT you eat has a Definitive Effect on BodyFat, Period !

I also went on Westside from 31oct2010 to 31oct 2012 and put on a Solid 40 Pound of muscle while keeping my bodyfat a respectable
11-13%. So I guess to say to susani that you can only put on 1 pound every two months is a bit of a falsehood. Granted I am male and put on 2 pounds per month consistently over 24, so I do not see how a focused female could not put on 1 pound per month with Good Training and Good Nutrition as Chris Colucci has said !

How you train and What you eat have a Definite effect on body composition.

As has been beating into everyone on this site: You can not out train bad Nutrition ![/quote]

You do realize how ridiculous amaizng 2lbs of muscle every month for 2 years is right. And I will bet you anything you want it wasn’t 40lbs of muscle. Go grab 4 10lb roasts and try and find a way to put that on your body. You’d look like the hulk. This assuming you weren’t anorexic thin before. But even then you’d look so dramatically different that your before and after a would be jaw dropping. So what I am saying pics plz for proof of this amaizng progress

You got shredded with keto. I wasn’t shredded I just got semi lean for my AVI pic and that was eating ice cream and cereal everyday and walking was my only cardio…so there are many ways to skin a cat. Please don’t try and make it sounds like keto and exactly what you put in your mouth matter. I’ve also done keto dieting and felt and looked like shit relative dieting high carbs. And shit or “clean”'carbs don’t matter looked just as good. In fact with some of the water retaining “clean” carbs I looked worse.

[Magnetic88]

Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.

[susani]

I agree completely regarding your second point.

My ‘junk food’ diet…

I aim to eat when truly hungry. So I try to listen to my body and decide whether it’s hunger I’m feeling or just an urge to eat for pleasure, boredom etc.

For the most part I eat exactly what I fancy. I have no idea how many calories, how much protein and so on.

I try to stop eating when full - so again, listening to my body.

I eat a lot of pizza, burgers (LOVE McDonalds!), chips (fries), cheese, toast & butter, crisps - LOADS of crisps (or chips as Americans call them). But some times I will ‘crave’ something healthy - a salad or fruit. That’s usually after running interestingly! I happen to prefer wholemeal bread so don’t eat much white flour - but that’s not a deliberate thing. But mostly it’s what people consider junk. I don’t have too much of a sweet tooth, but I do eat cakes, icecream, chocolate or biscuits most days. I’m not keen on cooking so eat a lot of frozen ready meals too. Convenience food I guess.

I do a couple of things to help me not overeat. So for example, after a hard workout I drink chocolate milk as that stops me from getting ravenous later on. But mostly I just eat what I want, when I want. It’s certainly not healthy according to what the UK government advise. Nor is it healthy according to most of the diet trends. But I’m obviously getting enough nutrients as I train hard and recover fast and maintain around 20% fat (which is pretty healthy and desirable for a non-bodybuilding woman).

Health checks (cholesterol and so on) came back perfect a few months back (as in the doctor commented on how good the results were). I’ve no idea how many calories a day but most people comment that I eat a lot. Although that said I can go all day without eating if I’m preoccupied so it might balance out lower than I think.

So - sure, it could be causing all sorts of health problems under the surface. But so too could the paelo, low carb, high carb, vegetarian [insert your preferred diet here] - there just isn’t enough research to know. All any of us can do is decide what seems to be working for us.

[susani]

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I think I’m mostly fast twitch. As a kid I was always a sprinter rather than distance runner.

So just thinking then about why that would help you to loose fat. After all, research shows that there is no significant increase in fat burn - either during or after high intensity exercise. And on another thread I posted research that showed that, contrary to popular belief, greater muscle mass DOESN’T result in significant increase in metabolism. So the idea that replacing fat with muscle makes you burn more calories at rest isn’t really true (it’s true, but the difference is insignificant).

The only thing I can think is that if HIIT causes you to build more muscle mass (due to hormonal response) then your calorie requirements will increase. So you’re not burning more calories - you’re simply using the fuel you eat to build muscle. Which means fat needs to be burned for energy.

This would explain why it works better for some than others, and why it’s only a short term benefit for some. The moment you stop building muscle (or if you never start) your calorie requirement returns to normal.

Just a thought ?

[Ecchastang]

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I will disagree with your first point. From observation, people that have a hard time putting on weight are generally lean AND with not much muscle. Since fast twitch fibers have the greatest growth potential I would guess that the skinny guys and gals that can eat anything and stay rail thin are predominately slow twitch.

As to your second point, yes HIIT does a better job of shifting towards type IIb than does LISS.

[Magnetic88]

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I will disagree with your first point. From observation, people that have a hard time putting on weight are generally lean AND with not much muscle. Since fast twitch fibers have the greatest growth potential I would guess that the skinny guys and gals that can eat anything and stay rail thin are predominately slow twitch.

As to your second point, yes HIIT does a better job of shifting towards type IIb than does LISS.
[/quote]

Correction: I should’ve said “the greater concentration of type-IIb a person has, the easier it is to stay lean”. Overall muscle mass doesn’t matter as much as the ratio that you have.

Again, this is just based on me observing other people and myself, but I think that it has to do with the signaling of fat storage. Fast-twitch muscle has less use for fat as a fuel than slow-twitch.

[susani]

I get what you’re saying now. That does make sense. I’ll have little search over the next couple of days and see if I can find any info or research relating to it.

What about glycogen stores? Presumably high intensity training would increase glycogen stores - perhaps making the muscles seem bigger and the fat less obvious?

That gives me a few things to search for - thanks

[OldFatGuy2]

I’m a bit confused about some of the statements made here about afterburn. Everything I’ve read about afterburn says that it’s very effective in burning fat, but that it comes from lack of adaptation to a particular exercise, not necessarily from the intensity of the exercise itself. By the end of 4 weeks your body has adjusted to the new routine and found ways to do it more efficiently (although I think I read that your body can’t adapt to HIIT for some reason).

The afterburn, as I understand it, comes from the adjustments that your body makes to handle the new routines, not from the exercise itself. As a result, at least in the materials I’ve read, it’s recommended that a particular routine be followed for no more than 4 weeks, before switching to something else.

So my understanding is that doing the same thing over and over again at high intensity won’t produce an afterburn (except possibly for HIIT). Switching routines on a regular basis though will produce it.

Is this correct, or am I missing something?

[susani]

I think you are pretty much correct. The reason that you won’t adapt to very high intensity training is simply because the fitter you get the harder you push - you’re always pushing beyond what you’re capable of. That is the nature of the beast. It NEVER gets easy.

Contrast that with running where recreational runners tend to start out huffing and puffing and near killing themselves just to half run /half jog for 30 minutes (requiring lots of recovery and bigger afterburn effect). As they get fitter rather than keeping up the intensity they tend to lower the intensity (because running is now becoming easier and easier) and increase the duration (either for performance reasons or just to increase the number of caloreis burned). It reaches the point where running is as easy as walking - you can spend hours doing it with no significant calorie burn during or after.

It doesn’t need to be that way though. For example, someone that’s serious about getting their 5k or 10k time down will regularly run at a very high intensity burning lots of calories during the run AND getting a decent afterburn.

However, the big thing about the afterburn is that whilst it exists, more recent (and it seems very reliable and accurate) research has shown that it’s insignificant. The idea that you can do 10 minutes of very high intensity intervals and burn a lot of calories just isn’t true.

[ryanbCXG]

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I will disagree with your first point. From observation, people that have a hard time putting on weight are generally lean AND with not much muscle. Since fast twitch fibers have the greatest growth potential I would guess that the skinny guys and gals that can eat anything and stay rail thin are predominately slow twitch.

As to your second point, yes HIIT does a better job of shifting towards type IIb than does LISS.
[/quote]

Why would type 2 fibers help you stay lean? They burn glucose where as type one burn fat. I believe if I am not mistaken studies support that higher type one help people stay lean as they burn fat efficiently which is a good reason to cultivate some and they can still grow

[ryanbCXG]

[quote]OldFatGuy2 wrote:
I’m a bit confused about some of the statements made here about afterburn. Everything I’ve read about afterburn says that it’s very effective in burning fat, but that it comes from lack of adaptation to a particular exercise, not necessarily from the intensity of the exercise itself. By the end of 4 weeks your body has adjusted to the new routine and found ways to do it more efficiently (although I think I read that your body can’t adapt to HIIT for some reason).

The afterburn, as I understand it, comes from the adjustments that your body makes to handle the new routines, not from the exercise itself. As a result, at least in the materials I’ve read, it’s recommended that a particular routine be followed for no more than 4 weeks, before switching to something else.

So my understanding is that doing the same thing over and over again at high intensity won’t produce an afterburn (except possibly for HIIT). Switching routines on a regular basis though will produce it.

Is this correct, or am I missing something?[/quote]

I think the point is that after burn or epoc has been shown to only burn an extra 50-100 cals in 24hrs after hiit. So that is obv not the reason for fat loss

[Ecchastang]

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I will disagree with your first point. From observation, people that have a hard time putting on weight are generally lean AND with not much muscle. Since fast twitch fibers have the greatest growth potential I would guess that the skinny guys and gals that can eat anything and stay rail thin are predominately slow twitch.

As to your second point, yes HIIT does a better job of shifting towards type IIb than does LISS.
[/quote]

Why would type 2 fibers help you stay lean? They burn glucose where as type one burn fat. I believe if I am not mistaken studies support that higher type one help people stay lean as they burn fat efficiently which is a good reason to cultivate some and they can still grow [/quote]

I am not sure which helps you stay lean, but burning fat efficiently isn’t necessarily the goal. Creating ATP anaerobically is far LESS efficient than through fat oxidation, so calorie expenditure is greater per unit of ATP created.

What I said is in casual observation of people that are naturally lean, without training, they have the look of lacking in the more growth and power potential type 2 fibers.

[ryanbCXG]

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]Magnetic88 wrote:
Susani, I think the key to your question/paradox lies in the amount of Type IIb muscle fibers a person’s body is composed of. The more fast-twitch you have, the easier it is to stay lean. I base this not on science but on a lifetime of observations and instinct. I believe we’ll find it to be true in a few years though.

High intensity training causes a shift toward more type-IIb.[/quote]

I will disagree with your first point. From observation, people that have a hard time putting on weight are generally lean AND with not much muscle. Since fast twitch fibers have the greatest growth potential I would guess that the skinny guys and gals that can eat anything and stay rail thin are predominately slow twitch.

As to your second point, yes HIIT does a better job of shifting towards type IIb than does LISS.
[/quote]

Why would type 2 fibers help you stay lean? They burn glucose where as type one burn fat. I believe if I am not mistaken studies support that higher type one help people stay lean as they burn fat efficiently which is a good reason to cultivate some and they can still grow [/quote]

I am not sure which helps you stay lean, but burning fat efficiently isn’t necessarily the goal. Creating ATP anaerobically is far LESS efficient than through fat oxidation, so calorie expenditure is greater per unit of ATP created.

What I said is in casual observation of people that are naturally lean, without training, they have the look of lacking in the more growth and power potential type 2 fibers. [/quote]

I was truly resounding to mag as my response doesn’t fit what you had said

[Magnetic88]

Maybe I should try to explain the reasoning a little better (and please, be as critical as possible here as it’s just a theory):

I’m not saying that fast-twitch muscle concentration efficiently burns fat. Yes slow-twitch fibers use fat for fuel so it would stand to reason that having more of them would burn more fat… BUT…

Consider that your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis. When you see runners who at first see great results in fat loss and then develop a rail-body with a “loose covering”, I think what is happening there is that most of their muscle fibers have switched to slow-twitch. Now consider their situation: they are constantly in need of fats for fuel and yet they do not have it. What is the body to do? It stands to reason that it will try to self regulate. It will make you crave fatty foods and/or it will try to retain as much fat as possible since it knows that it will be needed for your 7-days-a-week 3am marathon training. It thinks that your running is the new normal and so it will try to adjust to this new normal by giving you a normal bodyfat percentage in whatever way it can. If you weren’t using your type-1 fibers so much, the body wouldn’t really care whether you have fat or not, but you do and it does. When you stop running, you are screwed.

Now lets take weight training: you are using far more fast-twitch muscles and they are utilizing your glucose. This, in theory, would effect fat composition in three ways. Firstly, it is using those sugars as energy and therefore it doesn’t get stored in the body as fat (so in that respect, you MIGHT AS WELL be burning straight fat). Secondly, your body doesn’t have the NEED for fat in order for it to successfully do what you’re telling it to do. Thirdly, it is causing a shift toward more fast-twitch muscle, by high intensity training, you are setting up a positive feedback loop rather than a situation that the body is always trying to correct. AGAIN: this is just one guy’s hypothesis.

I have a high concentration of fast-twitch muscle and have always found it nearly impossible to get fat. A friend of mine is a typical “skinny-fat” person. If you asked him to throw a punch you would be singing christmas carols before it landed. Another friend was very fat and very slow… however he got very skinny around age 19 and stayed that way into his 30’s. It would be logical that he would now be quite quick and strong since he isn’t wearing a fat-suit, but no, he couldn’t generate an explosive movement if his life depended on it. Thinking back, I think he was one of those sad people that are cursed with almost no fast-twitch muscle. Is it that fat people are slow because they’re fat, like we have always thought, OR could it be that they are fat because they’re slow… hmmm…

We know that sprinters have some of the highest concentrations of fast-twitch muscle. I don’t know any fat sprinters. Yes they do alot of training but I would say that they don’t necessarily train any harder than a marathoner. Not that marathoners are fat… but some of them have a harder time losing weight.

Looking around, it seems that the more explosive a person is, the leaner they tend to be. Correlation is not causation of course!

Sorry for the essay, I just wanted to put forth the reasoning behind previous statements related to muscle fibers. I apologize susani if this qualifies as thread hijacking.