HELP, MY 6 PACK IS MAKING ME LOSE MY LIBIDO AND MY FRIENDS!

Nowadays everybody seems to want to improve their appearance, not necessarily their health but certainly their appearance. This is obvious when you consider the alarming regularity in which many women undergo cosmetic procedures. So much so, boob jobs have become as common as cauliflower ears on rugby player!

The male equivalent seems to be attaining the much fabled ‘6 pack’. For some men with large abdominal muscles and reasonably low body fat, this can be not too difficult a task, however for others it can mean losing ridiculous amounts of body fat so as to reveal the abs lying underneath. This, when taken to extreme levels, is known in gym circles as getting ‘shredded’. And with so many ‘shredded’ models appearing on front covers and on social media everywhere this look has become accepted as the new gold-standard in healthy. But is it really? I’ll leave you to decide…

THE PHYSICAL DOWNSIDE TO LOW BODY FAT LEVELS...  

As well as being constantly cold, and having energy levels lower than a sausage dog’s belly, extremely low body fat levels can cause your workouts to be rubbish too. Not only that, but your recovery between workouts can be poor as well. Low body fat levels go hand in hand with low levels of stored carbohydrate in the muscles and liver, and this stored carbohydrate is vital to help you recover from exercise. This leads to almost no improvements in strength or hypertrophy and in all likelihood ,muscle mass and strength will be reduced.

If this weren’t enough, low levels of the hormone leptin causes you to be constantly hungry. And to add insult to injury, extremely low levels of bodyfat can also lead to reduced levels of testosterone which in turn can reduce your sperm count. In some cases, the reproductive system begins shutting down all together so you may end up like a novice boy scout attempting to put up a tent…struggling to get an erection!

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DOWNSIDE TO LOW BODY FAT LEVELS…

If that weren’t bad enough the psychological drawbacks may be even worse. Achieving extremely low body fat levels whilst retaining a muscled physique requires some quite difficult lifestyle changes. For most people, it requires tracking every single calorie that passes your lips. Which may sound easy enough, but in reality, it is much harder than you think (a bit like having to sit through a 1 Direction concert). It often means spending endless hours preparing your own food and stressing over its exact macronutrient composition, almost never eating out with friends or family and almost certainly not drinking any alcohol! Heck you may look ‘good’ but end up becoming a bit of a bore!

And if this social isolation weren’t enough to make you feel bad, the reduced levels of essential fatty acids in the brain will probably make you irritable and prone to severe mood swings anyway! It may also leave you less able to concentrate and suffer from general mental fatigue!  

IN CONCLUSION…

Extremely low levels of body fat combined with relatively large muscles may make for an impressive looking physique, however it’s not without its drawbacks. For the dedicated few who can endure what is required to achieve this, many of them are only able to maintain it for a very short period before they ‘break’ and return to somewhere near normal levels of body fat. And as for those who manage to maintain such well-muscled, low fat physique all year round, they are one of two things: either genetically gifted or, a real pain in the bum to live with!

TO BOOK YOUR FREE TRIAL PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

 matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

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THE ‘GOOGLE IT’ APPROACH TO WEIGHT LOSS

Remember your school days when life seemed so joyful and carefree? Yet unburdened with the harsh realities of adulthood, your heart still had space for dreams and aspirations. Everything seemed so simple.

The only major issue, apart from finding out who was the second hardest in the infants; and if Mrs Smith (the popular and attractive music teacher) really was dating Mr Jones (the intellectually brilliant, yet socially awkward science teacher) was getting your homework in on time.

For me, the rigours of homework followed a similar yet effective pattern: 1, ask mum and dad their knowledge on the given topic. 2, Research the topic further utilising the family’s set of encyclopedias (as a family from the aspirational working classes this consisted of consulting the ‘Joy of Knowledge’. For the more middle class amongst you it probably meant using the family’s set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and as for the upper classes it probably didn’t apply. After all, what’s the point of homework when you stand to inherit a sprawling 100-acre estate some day! Anyway, I digress) 3, Assimilate all the information and rewrite it, by hand, using my own thoughts and ideas. 4, (if there was time) include a nice pretty, hand drawn picture to go with it.    

Now as you can imagine this took a considerable amount of time especially whilst simultaneously watching Saved By The Bell (no self-respecting ‘90’s kid dared miss it) or Big Break (man I loved John Virgo’s no dad waist coats).

And this is completely different to today’s kids. Set them homework and they don’t have to go through the same rigmarole. They simply ‘google’ and ‘cut and paste’. Heck if you ask them to print it out they think they’re doing you a favour! And I say this on good authority having been a teacher for well over a decade!

The trouble is this bodge it and cutting corners approach has crept it into the fitness industry too.  Some people might even say that it dominates it!

For example, fad diets grow ever more popular by the day because ‘they work’ as I’m reliably informed by the ill-informed! Of course they blimmin’ work. Any diet which cuts out entire food groups or drastically reduces your food choices will work, because it causes you to eat dramatically less calories and surprise, surprise lose the weight.

And don’t even get me started on the ‘detoxes’ or ‘cleanses’. Heck there seems more of them on the market than a there are Premier League footballers with tattoos!

IF NOTHING ELSE, REMEMBER THIS…

All fad diets, detoxes and cleanses work in the short term but not the long term (a bit like Jennifer Aniston’s relationships) because they simply are unsustainable. People simply can’t handle how restrictive they are and they soon return to their old eating habits. The weight flies off at first (but just like a distant relative trying to get hold of some inheritance) it soon comes back.

I’m left baffled when people bang on about losing incredible amounts of weight in a few days through some sort of cleanse or fad diet only to put it all back on again almost as quick. And then repeat this cycle again in only a few short weeks’ time. Flippin’ ‘eck if these diet products were that good wouldn’t the weight stay off longer?

The cynic in me might say that these weight loss companies deliberately design products that cause dramatic weight loss followed by almost as impressive weight gain as a way of ensuring repeat custom!  

SO WHATS THE ANSWER?

The answer won’t make me rich but it means I can sleep easier at night. The answer is to look at weight loss in a more sustainable way. Make dietary changes that require little effort, but cumulatively have a big impact.  A simple example that has worked well with my clients is eating meals from a smaller plate. You don’t have to change the type of food you eat, or the times of when you eat it. You simply eat smaller portions which in turn ensures less calorie consumption!

For more pragmatic, evidence based advice on weight loss please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you’re after a silver bullet solution to weight loss don’t bother getting in touch, as I (nor anyone else) will be able to provide it. But who knows, with Easter just around the corner maybe the Easter bunny can! (I presume if you believe in one, you must believe in the other!)

Thanks for reading,

Matt

TO BOOK YOUR FREE PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

    matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this please click on the icons below and share with your friends!