I received the following note in-world from good friend White Lebed, Burning Life Art Department Lead and the Curator of the Afterburn Art Program:

AM Radio Building Seminar: Effective Use of HTML on a Prim Part 1, took place in Burning Life, Afterburn Art program location. It was great to see the level of interest for highly technical educational material AM Radio presented. We all were aware that AM was one of the most talented skillful artists in SL. Now we also know that he is very generous with his time and knowledge when it comes to helping fellow artists. Instead of planned one-hour session, the class lasted two hours! AM made sure to answer every question from the audience, and if you couldn’t make it to the class or missed some part of it, you can find and study the class transcript here.

Also you can see some images taken during the class here.

Due to high interest in the material provided, AM agreed to continue the discussion. This Sunday, December 13th, he will cover more advanced topics in Part 2 of the class. To fully benefit from attending that session you should be familiar and comfortable with the material provided in Part 1. For those who are more interested in non technical general art discussion, we will have one more session with AM Radio when he will talk about himself and his art. The date and the time of that seminar will be announced later.

You can find class materials and transcripts from AM Radio and other art classes here:

To stay informed about Afterburn Art program make sure to remain in Burning Life group or join the Subscription board:

White Lebed – the Burning Life Art Department Lead; the Curator of Afterburn Art Program

white.lebed@gmail.com

http://twitter.com/white_lebed

What: AM Radio Building Seminar: Effective Use of HTML on a Prim.  Part 1.

When: December 5th, 2009 at Noon

Where: Burning Life Deep Hole

We are proud to present the first event of the Afterburn Art Program, Burninversity – AM Radio Seminar.

This is a two part seminar for Second life content creators and content presenters. This seminar will cover best practices when presenting web content within Second Life.

Part 1 Topics

How it works

Sizing with LSL

Memory concerns

How to present web media on a prim when a user arrives

Web page design considerations for Second Life

Stretching media across multiple prims

Part 2 Topics

Using PHP and jQuery to present FLICKR RSS Feeds in Second Life

Important: this seminar is intended as a serious educational class.  It is for builders and artists already  familiar with basics of SL.  During this session, AM will not talk about himself or his art.  The transcript of this class will be available on the board and will be distributed via the Subscription board.

AM Radio brings back his Burning Life-09 installation.  This artwork was part of the 12 Big Art plots project.  If you missed this installation during BL09, please, use this opportunity to explore one of the most popular interactive builds we had during the festival.  It will stay on the ground for a few weeks.

The class size will be limited to 40 people.  Please, arrive early, take a seat and remove all unnecessary attachments (especially your AO and scanners) to reduce lag.

Read more about the Afterburn program here.

Interval training has been shown to be the most effective cardiovascular training method for improving cardiovascular endurance, sport-specific performance, boosting metabolic rate, and burning fat!

With such amazing accolades to its name, interval training should be used by anyone and everyone interested in any of the aforementioned benefits.

But how do you start interval training? What cardio machines do you use? And what type of interval training protocol do you follow?

To make your life much easier, I’ve taken the time to answer these questions by providing you with some tried, tested, and true interval cardio programs that will spice up your workouts – and in less time!

Throw these interval workouts alongside your resistance training workouts 2-3 times per week and just watch how you’re going to look and feel. Ensure that you get a good 5-10 minute warm-up before beginning your interval workouts.

Running Workout #1

Purpose: burning fat

Interval protocol: 10 sec @ 100%: 30 sec @ 60% x 18 = 12 minutes

Running Workout #2

Purpose: speed/anaerobic running endurance (great for 5k runners)

Interval training protocol: 1 minute @ 85%: 2 minutes @ 60% x 5 = 15 minutes

Running Workout #3

Purpose: aerobic power endurance and metabolism boost for maximum post-workout calorie “afterburn”.

Interval protocol: 2 minutes @ 90%: 1 minute @ 60% x 4 = 12 minutes

Yuri Elkaim is one of the world’s leading fitness and sports conditioning experts. You can take his Treadmill Trainer interval training running programs for a free test spin by visiting mytreadmilltrainer.com and learn more about the best running workouts to get you fitter and running faster than ever before!

Jade Teta ND, CSCS

This post is a little more technical than usual and is geared mainly towards the science junkies and personal trainers who want to understand mechanisms to apply to their own training and that of their clients.  Lately we have been getting questions about the post-exercise elevation in calorie usage called EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). People are fascinated by this subject and want to know how it works. Others are skeptical of EPOC and feel its impact is marginal. This post reveals the inside scoop on EPOC, why it is important and why it falls short in detailing the full power of higher intensity exercise for fat loss.

First a brief review of EPOC. EPOC used to be called oxygen debt, which is a much better term to describe what it is. When you exercise at higher intensities, usually defined as greater than 55% Vo2 max for untrained individuals and 75% Vo2 max for trained persons (72% MHR and 85% MHR respectively. Based on equation= %MHR=.64X%Vo2+37), you will quickly begin to dip into your anaerobic energy systems. When this happens there is no longer a direct relationship between oxygen consumed and energy used.  In other words, using respiratory exchange ratios (CO2 vs O2) to determine fat vs. carbohydrate use becomes difficult.  To make up for this discrepancy, researchers use EPOC.  Once the body begins recovery after intense exertion, it will compensate by increasing oxygen consumption to make up for the “deficit” created during exercise. We all know what this feels like.  If you walk up a flight of steps, you experience and acute example of EPOC.  In this scenerio you will breathe harder after reaching the top of the stairs than you did while you are walking up.  This is a micro-example of the EPOC effect. By waiting until recovered from intense exercise to again to capture CO2 and O2 (carbon dioxide and oxygen) researchers can extrapolate the energy expenditure during the period of time during exercise that was lost. However, this is being shown to be only partially true.

This is where confusion about EPOC comes in.  The metabolic effect of exercise, also called the after-burn, is more than just EPOC.  EPOC is an important part, but it is not the whole story. We will get to that in a minute, but first lets define how big of an impact EPOC can have.  Some experts say that EPOC is normally 15% of total calories burned in a workout.  So if you burned 100 calories in your workout, the EPOC effect would be 15 calories for a grand total of 115 calories.  This leads many people to say that EPOC is insignificant and provides no real advantage.  However, it is impossible to make such a statement about EPOC because it is impacted by so many variables.  EPOC depends on the type of exercise done (cardio, intervals, weights), the weight and body composition of the person doing the exercise (the heavier the person the greater the EPOC), the gender (men have a greater EPOC then women), glycogen reserves (more glycogen reserves = less EPOC), the order of exercise (cardio before weights = increased EPOC), workout timing (2 short bouts of exercise in the same day have greater EPOC than 1 long one) exercise intensity (higher intensity = greater EPOC), exercise duration (longer workouts = greater EPOC), and training status (trained individuals have less EPOC compared to untrained). There are other factors as well, but you get the point. There are many ways to raise EPOC. If you look at low intensity aerobic exercise you will see EPOC magnitudes that are low and dont last long.  Ironically, this is where most of the insignificant claims about EPOC come from. However, if you look at interval training and resistance training exercise you will see EPOC values that are larger and last much longer.

How Long does it last and how significant is it?

There are several studies that challenge the notion that EPOC is insignificant.  One of the most important was published in  2002 in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. In this study Schuenke et. al. showed a circuit resistance training program utilizing heavy weights, short rest periods and lasting only thirty-one minutes was able to generate an EPOC that persisted for 48 hours (1). The results showed that metabolism 24 hours and 48 hours after the exercise session was increased by 21% and 19% respectively. The researchers point out that for a typical 180-pound individual “This equates to 773 calories expended post exercise”. This is far from insignificant and greatly exceeds the 15% number many researchers quote for EPOC.  Similar findings have been shown in women using a similar resistance training protocol. In women the elevation in metabolic rate lasted 16 hours (2). Women likely have a lower response due to lower muscle mass and decreased levels of testosterone.Similar findings have been seen with interval training as well with significant EPOC values lasting up to 24 hours (3-4).

Metabolic Effect’s after-burn is more than just EPOC

While the EPOC effect can be significant as demonstrated above, it does not explain the complete impact of a metabolic workout because standard methods for calculating energy use are ineffective. This is an important point and requires some explanation. When exercise researchers calculate energy use from a workout, they cannot measure it directly so they use respiration to indirectly measure the amount of energy burned as well as the type of fuel (sugar or fat).  The ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen, called the respiratory exchange ratio or RER in research studies, is used by researchers to make these calculations.  This works very nicely at low intensity exercise done at steady state. However, once the exercise intensity goes above the anaerobic threshold, the Co2 and O2 measurements can no longer predict calorie use or substrate metabolism.

Dr. Christopher Scott of the University of Southern Maine is an expert in the full contribution of energy from both anaerobic metabolism, aerobic exercise and EPOC. Where as many people use EPOC to extrapolate the anaerobic energy use during exercise, Dr. Scott has shown this approach leaves 30-70% of the actual calories burned uncounted (5-9).  Dr. Scott emphasizes that to fully account for calories burned during intense exercise three components must be measured: calories burned aerobically during exercise, calories burned aerobically after exercise (EPOC), and anaerobic calories burned from exercise (5-9). The latter point is not insignificant and requires a measures of blood lactic acid to quantify. It is this anaerobic measurement through lactic acid that is left out in calorie calculations of intense exercise. EPOC and the anaerobic lactic acid measurements for exercise are considered separate by Dr Scott. While I understand this discussion is getting very technical, it is important to understand these issues to fully understand Metabolic Effect.

The major take home message in regards to the metabolic after-burn of intense exercise is this, EPOC is not only more significant than we may think, but it cannot fully explain the metabolic advantage of metabolic conditioning.  A full 30% or more of calories burned during intense exercise will be neglected if only EPOC is used to measure the after-burn of exercise. If EPOC  is also left out of the calculation, as some researchers are still doing, over 90% of calories burned during a higher intensity metabolic conditioning workout will be neglected and uncounted. This explains why so many practitioners of metabolic exercise see such a drastic change in their body’s compared to standard exercise programs.

How can you generate the greatest metabolic effect?

Using this new understanding of exercise and following what the research says, there are 4 reliable ways to stimulate the maximum caloric burn both during and after the exercise session. We call these the “Bs” and the “Hs”, breathless, burning, heavy and heat. Each workout should work to genrate all four of these components.

1. Get Breathless- you have to be panting for breath in order to reap the full benefits of a metabolic workout.  If you can talk, you are not doing metabolic conditioning. This aspect correlates with the degree of EPOC and anaerobic calorie burn. It is important to minimize pacing yourself which is why we have developed a system of exercise we call rest-based training that allows each exerciser to generate the correct intensity required for their unique metabolism to reap the rewards…hence the ME acronym.

2. You need to get Burning- You have to get to the point of “metabolic failure”.  Metabolic failure is a term I use to describe the need to stop exercise because of an intense burn in the muscles, not necessarily because the weight is too heavy to lift.  This is directly related to the lactate generation in a workout and how much growth hormone and testosterone you will generate from the workout (more a HGH determining factor than a testosterone one).  What many people are unaware of is that lactic acid acts like a hormone and may actually cause/contribute to the release of HGH and testosterone (10-14). In other words the degree of burn in your muscles is directly correlated to the proper hormone response for increased muscle building and fat burning.

3. You need to lift heavy- if you are not incorporating heavy weighted movements into your workout you are missing a key component of the after-burn.  In the 2002 research by Schuenke the weights used were very heavy (a 10 rep max) and the exercises were full body movements.  Heavy barbell squats, explosive power cleans, and maximal dead lifts or similar full body exercises are key to the metabolic effect.  If you don’t have access to heavy weights, then you need to use body-weight exercises and explosive movements that come close to mimicking the same effect (single leg squats, pull-ups, push-ups, explosive jumps, and other plyometrics).  This one is all about the type IIb muscle fibers.  Heavy weights trigger HGH and testosterone (more testosterone than HGH).  This is what I call “mechanical failure”.  As opposed to metabolic failure, this is when the weight just gets to heavy to overcome gravity and go no longer be lifted.

4. You need to generate heat- the final parameter is heat. One of the biggest contributors to EPOC and anaerobic energy use is heat. If you are not sweating, your body is not getting hot enough.  As a matter of fact, I use the ability to sweat as a biofeedback tool into how sensitive the body is to its catecholamine response.  If your not sweating in a workout, you are missing out on this heat effect and the after-burn will suffer.

References:

1. Schuenke, et. al. Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: Implicationsfor body mass management European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2002;86:411-417.
2. Osterberg, et. al. Effect of acute resistance exercise on postexercise oxygen consumption and resting metabolic rate in young women. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. 2000;10(1):71-81.
3. Tremblay, et. al. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Metabolism. 1994;43:814-818
4. Treuth, et. al. Effects of exercise intensity on 24-h energy expenditure and substrate oxidation. Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise. 1996;28:1138-1143
5. Scott, et. al. Misconceptions about aerobic and anaerobic energy expenditure. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2005;2:32-37.
6. Scott et. al. Estimating total energy expenditure for brief bouts of exercise with acute recovery.  Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism. 2006;31:144-149.
7. Scott, et. al. Contribution of blood lactate to the interpretation of total energy expenditure for weight lifting. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2006;20:21-28.
8. Scott et. al. Contributions of Anaerobic Energy Expenditure to Whole-body Thermogenesis. Nutrition and Metabolism. 2005;2:14.
9. Scott, et. al. Direct and indirect calorimetry of lactate oxidation: implications for whole-body energy expenditure. Journal of Sports Science. 2005;23:15-19.
10. Turner ET AL. (1995). Effect of graded epinephrine infusion on blood lactate response to exercise. J Appl Physiol,79(4):1206-11.
11. Takahashi ET AL.(1995). Relationship among blood lactate and plasma catecholamine levels during exercise in acute hypoxia. Applied Human Sci,14(1):49-53.
12. Kaiser ET AL. (1983). Effects of acute beta-adrenergic blockade on blood and muscle lactate concentration during submaximal exercise. International Journal Sports Med, 4(4):275-7.
13. Godfrey Et. Al. The role of lactate in the exercise-induced human growth hormone response: evidence from McArdle disease. British Journal of Sports Medicine. July 2009;43(7):521-525.
14. Lin Et. Al. Stimulatory effect of lactate on testosterone production by rat leydig cells. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. June 2001;83(1):147-154.

Whenever rendering a smoke (atmospheric) pass, a simple way to control the lighting in comp is to create 3 lights in the scene, the color of each light should be Red, Green, and Blue respectively.
煙(大気中の)をレンダリングして、場面で3つのライトの照明を制御する簡単な方法があり、それぞれの照明の色を赤と、緑と、青にする。

Red = RGB 255 0 0
Green = RGB 0 255 0
Blue = RGB 0 0 255

Here’s the Render Result:
これが、レンダリング結果です：

Afterburn 4.0 Render Result

And here are the results after dropping it in a compositing package, extracting only the Red, Green, and Blue colors.
そして、赤、緑、青を抽出して、After Effectの中に落とした結果がこれです。

Channels shifted to Red, Green, and Blue

The sample above was done in Adobe After Effects using the Channel Shift Effect.
For example, to get the red channel, just set the RGB to Red, leave the alpha just as it is.

I learned the technique from Brandon Davis over at the Particle Flow thread at CGTalk:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3192900#post3192900
It’s post #3116.

Thanks to パンチ鈴木 for the translations.

In Part 1, we looked at why the TIME magazine article entitled “Exercise Can’t Make You Thin” may not have been entirely true. In the first part, I addressed why interval training exercises were far superior to steady state cardio exercises such as jogging, swimming or cycling.

In this article, I will elaborate on the many benefits provided by weight resistance exercises for weight loss.

Weight resistance training are exercises which stress your muscles against heavy loads. These loads can be dumbbells or even your own bodyweight. Resistance exercises that utilize your own body weight include push-ups, squats or even pull-ups.

Resistance exercises build your muscle mass. While this may excite most men, it should not frighten women away. Men tend to build bulky large muscles. Women on the other hand can never build bulky muscles. Women build muscles that are dense and compact.

The hulking women with bowling ball sized biceps that you would have seen in magazines are on steroids. A woman on a normal weight resistance exercise regime will find it extremely difficult to build any biceps at all. I would love to meet any woman out there who can build large muscles without taking steroids. I will pay you for your secret formula as I have been trying to do this for years.

Instead of building bulking muscles, these exercise are able to sculpt and shape a woman’s body as if a master sculptor was sculpting the statue of a Greek goddess. For ladies needing more information on weight resistance training, please read “Women & Weight Resistance Training“.

Courtesy of SXC.hu

Why are weight resistance exercises so effective for losing weight. Its mainly due to the vast amounts of energy required to build and maintain muscles. In the scientific world, this energy to build and sustain muscle mass is known as Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption or EPOC for short. It can be scientifically defined as the “recovery of the metabolic rate back to pre-exercise-levels”. It can take several minutes for light exercise and several hours for resistance or interval training type exercises.

In layman’s terms, it means that you continue burning calories at an increased rate after an interval or resistance training workout. This is what raises your metabolic rate. It literally means continuing to burn fat while you paint your nails (ladies), watch TV or even as you gobble down your dinner. Its some times also called the “afterburn” effect.

TIME Magazine should have referred to the study conducted by Schuenke in 2002 published in Eur J Appl Physiol. The study looked at the effects of weight training on EPOC. The exercises only took a total of 31 minutes. The researchers found that EPOC was elevated for 38 hours post workout. It could have possibly been longer but this is when the researchers stopped measuring. It means that after 31 minutes of exercise, the metabolic rate remained elevated for a whopping 38 hours.

In other words, that is 38 hours of continuous fat burn for 31 minutes of work. Isn’t this the best way to lose weight? Spend 31 minutes on exercise and enjoy a continuous 38 hours of fat burning?

Exercise definitely works for weight loss but it’s not just any exercise. It must be the correct exercises. The correct exercises for correct weight loss are interval training and weight resistance training irrespective of your gender. The studies referred to in the TIME magazine article were focused on cardio type exercises which are proven to be ineffective for long term weight loss.

For more information, please read “Why Resistance Training is More Effective that Jogging/Swimming for Sculpting Your Body“.

Tags: TIME Magazine, afterburn, afterburn effect, cardio, EPOC, exercise, interval exercises, interval training, steady state cardio, weight resistance exercises, TIME Magazine article on weight loss

David Cronenberg (or David Lynch) and Junichiro Tanizaki. Spike Lee and Charles Mingus. Carroll Ballard and John Steinbeck. After three pairings like that, the next one should be obvious.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Afterburn, by Colin Harrison.

Now that Quentin Tarantino’s done his men-on-a-wartime-mission-movie (Inglourious Basterds, out later this month) and his kung-fu-revenge-movie (Kill Bill) and his grindhouse-tribute-movie (Death Proof), maybe he’d like to take a crack at another heist-gone-wrong movie (or maybe a Mafia movie), this one with an A-list critical pedigree and a much wider focus: Colin Harrison’s 2000 thriller, Afterburn.

I certainly wouldn’t want anybody else casting the role of Christina Welles, an Ivy League dropout and math whiz doing time for her part in a Mafia-run truck theft ring. Paroled suspiciously early, Christina is trying to keep clear of mob boss Tony Verducci (who suspects her of cheating him out of several million dollars) and ex-lover Ricky Bocca (who feels guilty for her arrest and incarceration) when she runs into Charlie Ravich, a multimillionaire and former Vietnam POW who wants to father a child in order to keep the family line going.

Her parole had been so far off that she hadn’t allowed herself to think about what it would be like to live in Manhattan again. But now, after only a few hours, all kinds of things crowded her mind. She’d need money, that was certain. She had just over three hundred dollars in her prison account, and if she could somehow live on that for a couple of weeks, she’d be okay. She’d get a job and rent a room downtown, near First or Second Avenue. Start all over. No flashy moves. Be careful what she said to people. You could live on almost nothing if you had to. You spent every dollar carefully, that’s all. She wanted to walk along the streets, look in the store windows. She’d buy a small radio and lie on her bed and listen to WCBS-FM, the oldies station. She’d read magazines in the bookstore. She missed all the magazines, even the trashy ones. She’d go to the movies, sink into one of those seats with a Coke and some popcorn. She wanted to see a Jack Nicholson movie. Anything he was in. Yes. She wold take a bath, her first in four years. Watch the water go down the drain and fill it up again, hot as she could stand it. She’d watch the beautiful little babies in the park and think, Where has the time gone? She would try to find the next version of herself.

Harrison, like Tarantino, is incapable of self-editing. Long stretches of Afterburn read like what we old newspaper hands used to call a notebook-dump: instead of using his impressive research to tell the story, choosing the most pertinent details, Harrison packs the narrative with every scrap of information he managed to find. The novel tops four hundred pages but could have worked better and faster at three hundred.

But despite the longueurs, Afterburn works like gangbusters, and Harrison blends guilt, regret, sex, and high-finance with some of the most outrageous violence I’ve ever read, the last delivered by Verducci’s “go-to guy,” Morris, a former paramedic who puts his knowledge of the human body to some appalling uses. Tarantino may even want to play him, if only for the climax, in which a man must conduct an international business transaction under local anesthetic while Morris surgically dismantles the steel cage holding his spine together.

If Tarantino isn’t answering his phone, have my people call Steven Soderbergh’s people. This movie needs to get made, like, yesterday.

by Julianna Squicciarini

As I was just discussing with one of my friends, the attractions of one’s own city are often overlooked. For instance, you’ll find that many people who live in Asheville have never been to Biltmore Estate. Why not!? Because they live there. They recognize it for the tourist trap that it is. Whereas, I, being the naive and gullible type, will drive hours to get there, spend inordinate amounts of money to stay as long as I can and eat whatever I want, and take an obscene amount of pictures.

The same holds true for the great amusement park here in the Charlotte area – Carowinds. For some reason, although I’ve lived in Charlotte my entire life, Carowinds never figured into the family plans. Granted, our family has never been the amusement park type. But you’d think that with people driving hundreds of miles just to visit this amusement park, we would have found time to do the same. Once. But not so.

Now, this being 2009 – The Year I’m Going Crazy – I decided that a trip to Carowinds was finally in order. I have never been on a true rollercoaster, and if I visited an amusement park in my life, it was so long ago and I was so young, I don’t remember anything about it. I hate height, speed, and that feeling you get when you jump off a cliff and your stomach stays at the top and you drop to the bottom. Obviously, it was time for me to be pulled out of my box.

To that end, I mentioned my desire to my friend Katelyn Fletcher. Katelyn, gem that she is, took the ball and ran with it. She sent me all the pertinent information, told me what days she was available, and waited (for quite a while) for me to get back to her. Eventually, I did. Feeling carefree and reckless, I got myself a WOW Pass, which is a great deal right now, because Katelyn predicted I would want to go back at least once.

The ONE DAY that worked for both Katelyn and I didn’t work for too many of my other friends. You wouldn’t believe how many people skipped town around July 16. I would have thought the sight of me on a rollercoaster was enough of a draw for everyone to want to drop any preplanned vacations/trips. But apparently not. As it happened, though, we had a group of seven, which was pretty perfect. Especially since we wanted to carpool in Goose (Christine’s silver minivan), which only seats seven. So it’s all good

Katelyn had planned the entire day for us, going from one rollercoaster to the next, getting more and more intense throughout the day. We started with the Carolina Goldrusher, where I died. My stomach was churning, I was scared to death, etc. For the next two rides, I kept my eyes tightly shut and my teeth gritted together in panic. My life flashed in front of my eyes, and I silently wondered what in the world I was doing there. For the record, I hadn’t had any breakfast – if I had, I would have lost it on the first ride.

Anyway, things started to get a little better. We took a few breaks, drank some water, laughed, talked…you get the picture. Then we got on the newest ride, the Carolina Cobra. Basically, it’s a fast ride with three inversions and a 360-degree loop. Then they fake you out, slow down, pull you up a hill, and send you through the whole ride again – BACKWARDS. Pretty scary stuff. You can almost hear the maniacal laughter as they release the rollercoaster at the top of the second hill. I almost passed out. I could barely walk when we got off. I don’t remember breathing for about four minutes.

But like I said – things were getting better. I was really trying to relax, because I didn’t want Katelyn to feel bad, or like she was dragging me all over the place. Although…that’s exactly what she was doing. Because honestly – I was having fun! It was just a super-intense, scary kind of fun. And I’m not used to that.

At the beginning of the day, I was positive I would ride every rollercoaster once, just so I could say I did it. You know – get it over with. But by the end of the day, we rode Top Gun four times, the Carolina Cobra twice (!), and Hurler twice – and I did one of those with no hands. This was a huge step for me, as my certainty of death had to decrease a significant amount for me to let go. But I did. Are you shocked? You should be. I was.

Oh, and for the record: WE DID NOT GO ON DROP ZONE. That is, three of our party did, but Christine, Mary, Katelyn, and I decided this was not the time for that. We were focused on rollercoasters. Perhaps when we return. But no promises.

To sum things up, we had an absolute blast. It was the *perfect* first-time Carowinds experience, and this is due almost entirely to Katelyn Fletcher’s forethought, preplanning, and willingness to put up with my reluctance to tackle the rides. My hat is off to you, Katelyn – you’re the best!

So…who’s up for next time?

1. A 2004 diet study that shows a simple change can increase dietary compliance and fat loss (by 96%) — (and it’s not “eat less”!)
2. A 1998 study that showed that the addition of 45 minutes of hard aerobic training, 5 times a week for twelve weeks – had no effect on fat loss A 2007 study – that showed the addition of 50 minutes of aerobic training, 5 times per week for six months – also had no effect on fat loss
3. A 2008 study showing 40 mins of aerobic exercise three times per week for 15 weeks actually resulted in the participants gaining fat!
4. A study from 1994 showed a specific cardio training method that when adjusted for calories burned – actually reduced body fat (actual skinfold measurements) nine times more than traditional cardio training — despite taking less time, and actually burning less calories per session!
5. Another study (1999) showed that the addition of a specific resistance training program increased fat loss by 35% over diet and aerobic training. That same study also showed that 3 aerobic sessions of up to 50 mins, for 12 weeks (36 sessions) only increased fat loss by one pound over dieting alone
6. A 2002 study used an Afterburn-type approach to training – and showed an elevation of metabolism for 38 hours post workout.
7. A 2008 study showing an increased loss of visceral abdominal fat with a high intensity program – and no change with a low intensity program.

I want to set up a table outside the portajohns at various events I go to, don a tuxedo, and offer moist towels, tampons, combs, etc. This would go nicely with that:

Jade Teta ND, CSCS.

This blog is going to be a little bit more technical than usual and is geared mostly to our readers who are in the field of exercise.  That being said, I think it is important to help us all understand what exercise can and cant do. Recent media reports have stated that a recent review by Dr. Edward Melanson published in Exercise and Sport Science Reviews (8) has been interpreted by the popular media that exercise DOES NOT increase the amount of fat a person will burn over the course of a day. Is it true? Well, not exactly, but  it was a very useful and well done study and provides key insights into what it takes to really lose fat. There are three important concepts I believe come out of this study that are helpful for fat loss seekers and personal trainers

1. Diet may be more important for fat loss than exercise.

First and foremost this study makes very clear that diet is most important for fat loss and directly impacts the ability of exercise to have a fat burning effect or not.  This study shows convincingly that diet has a tremendous amount of power in managing fat loss.  Many trainers have been telling their clients for years that diet is key.  We all know people who workout like crazy but have a difficult time seeing changes. I usually tell my clients that greater than 75% of initial fat loss will come from diet. This has been a mantra of physique athletes (bodybuilders, figure competitors, etc) for years.  This study used typical dietary patterns/meals currently recommended by most medical and nutrition experts.  In my opinion from looking at the meals the participants were fed, you could have predicted what would happen. All the diets consisted of over 50% carbohydrate.  All were also lower in protein than many fat loss nutritionists, myself included, would prescribe (15% protein).  And, the fat composition was too high in many of the diets (30% or greater).  This dietary piece of information is the first gem of this study in my opinion. To me this highlights a major issue that is frequently ignored in our profession. And that is that the hormonal impact of foods are as important, if not more so, than calories. It was shown back in 1997 in the American Journal of Physiology (Vol 273 #4), and more recent studies have confirmed it, that the hormone insulin can completely eliminate or significantly blunt fat oxidation in response to exercise. (1,9)  This has been shown to be the case if insulin producing foods are eaten prior to or immediately after a workout.  The authors of this study are aware of this and rightly pointed this fact out as well as quoted the above study. Insulin, is produced by higher carbohydrate diets.  In my opinion, a diet made up of more than 50% carbohydrates is a high carbohydrate diet, and would create a significant impediment to fat loss regardless of exercise due to the insulin effect. Indeed, studies have previously shown that exercising in a glycogen depleted state does indeed raise 24-hr fat metabolism (10). Most successful trainers and physique athletes use 40% or less carbohydrate in their fat loss diets while elevating protein to 30% or more with fat remaining 20% or less. It would be interesting to see how this significant dietary change, would impact 24-hr fat usage in response to exercise.  I strongly suspect it would dramatically increase it.

2. The most popular form of exercise (moderate intensity aerobics) DOES NOT increase 24 hour fat burning.

The other important thing we need to be clear about is what this review actually analyzed.  It looked primarily at cycling exercise done in the aerobic zone (i.e. moderate intensity exercise) and its impact on 24-hour fat use in men vs women, athletes vs. sedentary, and obese vs lean.  The authors did set up different groups in their studies having a control (no exercise), a low intensity exercise group (LI), and a high intensity exercise group (HI).  However, when examining the intensity of the HI group, you see they exercised at a 70% V02 max intensity. This is well within the aerobic zone recommended by ACSM. (2,7) Based on research by Swain et. al. (3) an intensity of 70% V02 max corresponds to a percent max heart rate (MHR) of 81% (i.e. %MHR=.64 X %V02max + 37).  This is below the anaerobic threshold usually defined as greater than 85% V02max or 91% MHR.  Why is this important? Because it has already been shown in several other studies that moderate intensity exercise provides little metabolic advantage post workout compared to anaerobic exercises such as intense weight training, sprint training, and anaerobic interval training.  Since this review focused on moderate intensity aerobic exercise and spent little time analyzing higher intensity anaerobic exercise, the only conclusion we can draw is that moderate intensity aerobic exercise provides little metabolic advantage aside from the calories it burns during activity.  This is something that the research has been showing for sometime, and many top minds in the fitness world have already been emphasizing.  There are many studies showing an enhanced metabolic fat use post workout for hours and even days after a workout has ended.  However, these types of workouts were almost non-existent in this review. One study completed in 2002 by Schuenke Et. Al. (5) showed a significant metabolic elevation for 48 hours post workout.  The workout was a very intense weight training protocol using free weights, heavy resistance, full body exercises, and relatively short rest periods.  The authors of this study did look at resistance training as did another study by Treuth, Et. Al. (4)  The results were mixed with this current study showing no impact on 24 hour fat burning and the latter study showing there was a positive effect.  It is interesting to note that both of these studies were far less intense (lighter weights, more isolated vs. compound exercises, and greater amounts of recovery between sets) compared to the 2002 study by Schuenke. So, what we have is a study confirming that cardiovascular exercise done in the aerobic zone DOES NOT increase the rate of fat loss over a 24 hour period.  However, anaerobic exercise training and resistance exercise very well may. Hopefully more studies will continue to elucidate what is the best approach.

3. Indirect calorimetry is a poor tool to assess true energy usage.

The final thing this study teaches us is that the caloric model of fat loss leaves more questions than answers. While it is true that the body needs to have a negative energy balance to lose weight, it is also true that weight loss does not necessarily equal fat loss and that indirect calorimetry may underestimate both calorie usage and fat burning during exercise.  The authors of this study freely admit that exercise definitely does impact fat loss with people who exercise more having less body fat than those who do not.  Here is a direct quote from the authors’ conclusion: “The evidence that level of exercise affects body weight is strong, but our incomplete understanding of why could limit our ability to develop optimum strategies for using exercise to address the current epidemic of obesity.” The previous statement is an acknowledgment that we are currently working with an incomplete model of how fat loss works and that calories may not be the only determining factor. It is interesting to note that indirect calorimetry as used in this study is not a direct measure of fat oxidation, but rather an approximation based on respiratory exchanges of carbon dioxide (C02) vs. oxygen (02). Recently this model has been shown to break down at higher intensity exercise since once the body goes anaerobic the oxygen kinetics become constant.  Exercise research tries to account for this by measuring EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), but this still completely neglects the amount of energy lost as heat (which can be significant). As a matter of fact, a study by Scott (6) shows that calorimetry can underestimate the energy usage of aerobic exercise by 10% and anaerobic exercise by 40%!! This calls into question the validity of any study that uses calorimetry to measure energy and fat usage in response to a workout and highlights a need to began to include a more thorough model of energy usage.

In all, this review is a very well done study and a great opportunity to understand what works and what may not. The key take home messages from this study for any trainer or fat loss seeker should be 1. Realize how important diet is in driving the results of your workouts.  Remember this not just a caloric phenomenon but a hormonal one.  We need to all work harder to understand the optimal diet for fat loss. 2) Moderate intensity aerobic exercise may burn calories and have health benefits, but it is doing little if anything to increase fat usage post workout. Higher intensity and higher duration exercise as well as an equal emphasis placed on weight training may be the best bet in this regard. Many studies indeed show this to be the case. And more importantly clinical results of trainers using these techniques bare this out. 3) Realize exercise science is a long way off from knowing everything about how exercise works to burn fat. In addition to paying close attention to the latest research, it is important to pay close attention to the clinical experience of our colleagues in the field who often have mastered aspects of fat loss the scientists have yet to study.  Remember, the tools and techniques that work today are the ones that are usually studied tomorrow. 4) Finally, we already know, and the research has been very clear, that chronic exercise of any type will impact body composition. This study looked at acute effects of exercise under controlled conditions with neutral energy balance and standard dietary practices. It gives us great insight into what works and what may not.  It is a great opportunity to reassess our dietary habits and those of our clients. Often we will need to adjust both our own as well as our client;s exercise habits to improve results.  This is usually a tough sell since the majority of people are unwilling to give up their aerobic centered model of fat loss.  There is a tremendous bias against higher protein diets as well.  The combination of these two things (low protein and high aerobics) is the problem in my opinion.  If you talk to physique athletes (the leanest athletes on the planet), their approach is the exact opposite…i.e., lower carb, higher protein, lower fat, and a resistance training  focused approach.

1. Horowitz, Et. Al. Lipolytic suppression following carbohydrate ingestion limits fat oxidation during exercise. Am. J. Physiol. 1997; 273(4):768–75.

2. ACSM Position Stand. The recommended quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness in healthy adults. Medicine & Science in Sports &  Exercise. 1991;22: 265-274

3. Swain, Et. Al. Target HR for the development of CV fitness. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 1994;26(1):112-116

4. Treuth, Et. Al. Energy expenditure and substrate utilization in older women after strength training: 24-h calorimeter results. Journal. Applied.Physiology.1995;78(6):2140–6.

5. Schuenke, Et. Al. Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management. European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2002;86:411-417.

6. Scott, Christopher. Misconceptions about Aerobic and Anaerobic Energy Expenditure  Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2005;2(2):32-37.

7. ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing & Prescription (2000). ACSM. 6th Ed.  Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia.

8. Melanson, Et. Al. Exercise improves fat metabolism in muscle but does not increase 24-hr fat oxidation. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews. 2009;37(2):93-101.

9. Montain, Et. Al. Exercise 0.metabolism at different time intervals after a meal. J. Appl. Physiol. 1991; 70(2): 882–8.

10. Schrauwen Et. Al. Role of glycogen-lowering exercise in the change of fat oxidation in response to a high-fat diet. Am. J. Physiol. 1997; 273(3Pt. 1):E623–9.

It seems once a year, we celebrate the birth and resurrection of the prophet Jesus Christ, but when it comes to acknowledging his actual death, we choose to remind ourselves not annually, but daily – by displaying or wearing totems of the apparatus that was used to kill execute him. Like wearing a pistol-shaped amulet to commemorate the life of Gandhi, or lighting a torch to honor Joan of Arc.

Let us not forget that we must indeed die (sometimes horrible, painful deaths) before we can be resurrected. Sometimes we must burn our nations and buildings to the ground in order to build new ones, eradicate ideas in order for new philosophies to sprout, completely destroy ourselves to be born again (most times figuratively, sometimes literally). The mythic quality of the phoenix rising from the ashes or the boulder being rolled away comes from the fact that you never know what new form will arise.

What we are guaranteed is that it will never be what came before. It will not be the same old thing. It might be leaner, bigger, stronger, smaller, uglier or more beautiful, but it will have learned to adapt in new ways and it will transcend and include its previous incarnation.

Samsara – the death dance, the dramatic deterioration and burning pain that is the material world – is, after all, what challenges, tempts you and makes you stronger. Be conscious of this in choosing what things you let go of (daily, annually, every minute). Too many social “burning rituals” (Pre Heat, Afterburn) have become nothing more than a communal, albeit Utopian, reason to party, leaving the interpretation (or lack of one) up to the individual. They have lost the ceremony and meaning found in events such as Zozobra or Burning Man.

In all things, make as many changes as you deem necessary, and never be afraid to consciously burn that motherfucker to the ground and compassionately build it back up again.

- Easter 2009

Guardate al minuto 5:20…

Resistance training is one of the best ways to burn off excess body fat. Let me explain why.  Resistance training (also called weight training) uses the anaerobic energy system to provide energy during the workout. Anaerobic means “without oxygen”. This means that primarily carbohydrates are used for energy and burned without the use of oxygen.

These carbohydrates, in the form of glycogen, are stored in the liver and muscle and can only supply energy to the muscle in an anaerobic state for a short time – usually 1-2 minutes for each exercise set. During a resistance training workout you expend a sizeable quantity of carbohydrate energy.  Depending upon your exercise intensity, bodyweight and muscle mass, this energy expenditure can range from 150 to 800 calories per workout.

Besides the energy expended during the workout, there are additional energy expenditures occurring after the workout.  After the Resistance Training workout, you’re in a recovery mode.  During this recovery, the body delivers glycogen, enzymes, and amino acids to the muscle.  Now your body is in an aerobic state and burns mostly fat.  This process has been nicknamed the “afterburn”.  Depending on the duration and intensity of the workout, this “afterburn” can last several hours.  

Studies have reported a 4-7% increase in metabolic rate over a 24-hr period following a resistance training workout.  So, if you have a daily caloric expenditure of 2,500/day, you could expend 100-175 calories of fat after resistance training – this in addition to the 150 to 800 carbohydrate calories you’ve used during the workout.  Again, your actual energy expenditure depends upon your bodyweight, muscle mass, daily caloric expenditure and exercise intensity. 

To maximize the benefits of the “afterburn”, studies have shown that higher fat burning rates are achieved if you exercise to “near failure” or “failure” on the last set of each Resistance Training exercise.  Reaching “failure” means that you’re not able to finish an attempted repetition.  “Near Failure” means that you’re barely able to finish the last attempted repetition.  Both of these conditions mean that you pushed the muscle to its limit during the last repetition of the last set of the exercise. 

In Resistance Training, “failure is good”, because you exhausted the muscle during a maximum effort.  This “near failure or failure” maximum effort will increase the “afterburn” or post-exercise fat burning rate higher.  After your initial conditioning phase, progressively increase your resistance in the last set of each exercise to achieve your maximum fat burning capacity.

Check out my website www.resultzpersonaltraining.com for more information on my “Inches Away” Fat Loss Program, which uses resistance training to help you burn excess body fat.

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