Health Care

by: Tony Schwartz

Glutamine, also referred to as l-glutamine, is a conditionally-essential amino acid. This means that while glutamine is not considered an essential amino acid, under conditions of extreme stress such as a traumatic injury to the body, glutamine becomes essential.

Glutamine seems to be particularly important in the digestive, immune, and muscular systems. In fact, it is the most abundant amino acid in human muscle tissue. For this reason supplement companies have focused on offering glutamine pills and powders to supplement users.

The thought is that if glutamine is so prevalent in human muscle tissue that more glutamine will help us to build more muscle. To do this most supplement companies recommend a dose of 5-10 grams of glutamine.

It has also been hypothesized that glutamine will increase growth hormone levels. Although never sufficiently proven, supplement companies recommend a dose of 2-5 grams of glutamine before bed for this purpose.

From my work with athletes I have found a few interesting things with glutamine. The first is that it does seem to have a positive effect on the immune system. If an athlete is going through a stressful time (big competitions or an especially rigorous training cycle) it is very common for the athlete to get sick due to a weakened immune system. By adding in supplemental glutamine I have found that the athlete is much less likely to get sick.

This immune system boost is not as cool-sounding as increasing growth hormones levels, but just think of what getting sick does to your training. You will easily lose at least a few days of productive training, if not more. If supplemental glutamine gives you the ability to train hard for a few extra days then it makes it one of the best muscle building supplements in my book.

In addition to the immune system boosting properties, I have found that glutamine is one of the best muscle building supplements for speeding recovery after intense weight training. The trick is that the dose has to be high enough. I suggest at least 20 grams in your post-workout shake, and as high as 40 grams depending on your individual needs.

The problem is that most combination products only contain a few grams of glutamine along with a few grams of some other substances. What you end up with is a supplement that looks good because it has 100 different compounds in it. But the problem is that none of these compounds are at the correct dosage.

To avoid this I recommend purchasing a stand-alone glutamine powder. That way you are only paying for the important ingredient and you know you are getting the correct dosage.

As always, please remember that glutamine is just a supplement. Adding in 20 grams after your workout won't add pounds of muscle instantly. It must be combined with a properly designed training and nutrition program in order to work to its fullest potential.

Get more information on the best muscle building supplements and a FREE muscle building report on “The 13 Reasons You Suck at Gaining Muscle."

Tom Venuto

Most fitness conscious people know that there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, so if you create a deficit of 3500 calories in a week, you lose a pound of weight. If you create a deficit of 7000 calories in a week, you lose two pounds a week, and so on. Right? Well, not so fast...

Dr. Kevin Hall, an investigator at the National Institute of Health has done some interesting research about the mechanisms regulating human body weight. He recently published a new paper in the International Journal of Obesity that throws a wrench in works of the "3500 calories to lose a pound" idea...

Some of the equations in his paper made my head hurt, but despite the complex math he used to come to his conclusions, his article clearly prompts the question, "3500 calories to lose a pound of WHAT?" His paper also contained a lot of simple and practical tips you can use to properly balance your caloric intake with output, fine tune your calorie deficit and help you retain more muscle when you diet.

Below, I've distilled some of the information into a simple bullet-point summary that any non-scientist can understand. Then I wrap up with my interpretation of how you can apply this in your own fat loss program:

Calculating the calories required to lose a pound and fine-tuning your caloric deficit

* 3500 calories to lose a pound has always been the rule of thumb. However, this 3500 calories figure goes back to research which assumed that all the weight lost would be adipose tissue (which would be ideal, of course).

* But as we all know (unfortunately), lean body mass is lost along with body fat, which would indicate that the 3500 calorie figure could be an oversimplification.

* The amount of lean body mass lost is based on initial body fat level and size of the calorie deficit

* Lean people tend to lose more lean body mass and retain more fat.

* Fat people tend to lose more body fat and retain more lean tissue (revealing why obese people can tolerate aggressive low calorie diets better than already lean people)

* Very aggressive low calorie diets tend to erode lean body mass to a greater degree than more conservative diets.

* whether the weight loss is lean or fat gives you the real answer of what is the required energy deficit per unit of weight loss

* The metabolizable energy in fat is different than the metabolizable energy in muscle tissue. A pound of muscle is not 3500 calories. A pound of muscle yields about 600 calories. • If you lose lean body mass, then you lose more weight than if you lose fat.

* If you create a 3500 calorie deficit in one week and you lose 100% body fat, you will lose one pound. •

* But if you create a 3500 calorie weekly deficit and as a result of that deficit, lose 100% muscle, you would lose almost 6 pounds of body weight! (of course, if you manage to lose 100% muscle, you will be forced to wear the Dieter's Dunce cap)

* If you have a high initial body fat percentage, then you are going to lose more fat relative to lean, so you may need a larger deficit to lose the same amount of weight as compared to a lean person

* Creating a calorie deficit once at the beginning of a diet and maintaining that same caloric intake for the duration of the diet after major weight loss fails to account for how your body decreases energy expenditure with reduced body weight

* Weight loss typically slows down over time for a prescribed constant diet (the "plateau"). This is either due to the decreased metabolism mentioned above, or a relaxing of the diet compliance, or both (most people just can't hack aggressive calorie reductions for long)

* Progressive resistance training and or high protein diets can modify the proportion of weight lost from body fat versus lean tissue (which is why weight training and sufficient protein while on calorie restricted diets are absolute musts!)

So, based on this info, should you throw out the old calorie formulas?

Well, not necessarily. You can still use the standard calorie formulas to figure out how much you should eat, and you can use a 500-1000 calorie per day deficit (below maintenance) as a generic guideline to figure where to set your calories to lose one or two pounds per week respectively (at least that works "on paper" anyway).

Even better however, you could use this info to fine tune your caloric deficit using a percentage method and also base your deficit on your starting body fat level, to get a much more personalized and effective approach:

15-20% below maintenance calories = conservative deficit

20-25% below maintenance calories = moderate deficit

25-30% below maintenance calories = aggressive deficit

31-40% below maintenance calories = very aggressive deficit (risky)

50%+ below maintenance calories = semi starvation/starvation (potentially dangerous and unhealthy)

(Note: According to exercise physiologists Katch & Mcardle, the average female between the ages of 23 and 50 has a maintenance level of about 2000-2100 calories per day and the average male about 2700-2900 calories per day)

Usually, we would suggest starting with a conservative deficit of around 15-20% below maintenance. Based on this research, however, we see that there can be a big difference between lean and overweight people in how many calories they can or should cut.

If you have very high body fat to begin with, the typical rule of thumb on calorie deficits may underestimate the deficit required to lose a pound. It may also be too conservative, and you can probably use a more aggressive deficit safely without as much worry about muscle loss or metabolic slowdown.

If you are extremely lean, like a bodybuilder trying to get ready for competition, you would want to be very cautious about using aggressive calorie deficits. You'd be better off keeping the deficit conservative and starting your diet/cutting phase earlier to allow for a slow, but safe rate of fat loss, with maximum retention of muscle tissue.

The bottom line is that it's not quite so simple as 3,500 calories being the deficit to lose a pound. Like lots of other things in nutrition that vary from person to person, the ideal amount of calories to cut "depends"...

References:

Forbes GB. Body fat content influences the body composition response to nutrition and exercise. Ann NY Acad Sci. 904: 359-365. 2000

Hall, KD., What is the required energy deficit per unit of weight loss? Int J Obesity. 2007 Epub ahead of print.

McArdle WD. Exercise physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human performance. 4td ed. Williams & Wilkins. 1996.

Wishnofsky M. Caloric equivalents of gained or lost weight. Am J Clin Nutr. 6: 542-546.

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Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom teaches you how to lose fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting http://www.BurnTheFat.comhttp://www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.Com , the Internet's premier members-only fat loss support community. , home of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and