The state of the fitness industry and your part in it
Tags: Goal Setting, Fitness Industry, Healthy Lifestyle, Hiit Workout, Responsibility

The state of the fitness industry and your part in it Fitchain Jan 21·11 min read

Forgetting COVID-19 with its continuous number of disruptive lockdowns, the fitness industry, for all of its benefits, has always had its faults. There has always been the everlasting ‘latest fad’ for doing the least amount of work to get the most amazing results.

If we compare this to our health service which has been built upon this premise, whereby everyone wants a ‘pill’ to solve all of their problems ‘mother’s little helper’ as The Rolling Stones so eloquently would sing. It is all too easy for all of us to sit and point fingers at the big pharma companies for creating a market that supplies us with this ‘magic pill’. In reality, WE all are the only reason this market exists in the first place. It is much harder to work at our health ourselves and much easier to rely on a pill to do it for us.

I digress, this article isn’t about the rights and wrongs of the big pharma industry for all of its benefits and problems (yes, I did say benefits, as there are huge amounts of benefits to our lives due to the medical advancements of big pharma and medical research).

The point I am trying to make is that actually the fitness industry is simply the new and improved ‘big pharma’ selling a little pill in a bottle or the latest fad to lose fat fast!!!

In truth all of these marketing gimmicks do have a role to play but I would argue horribly misused.

If you had a nail would you use a drill to hammer it home? No, obviously not, well this is analogous to the current fitness industry.

Let’s start with the lowest hanging fruit… diets. By asking a simple question;

What is the best diet in the world?

Without sounding cheesy, it’s the diet that works (for you). But this gets increasingly difficult when you have completely moronic unintelligent fitness gurus like (INSERT NAME HERE) spouting off about how this (INSERT NAME OF DIET) is “A load of shit” which only ends up confusing people for the sake of their own vanity. And all they end up doing is to show us their complete lack of knowledge of how the human body actually works.

There are always the constant discussions (in some cases outright arguments) about how ‘this diet is better than that diet’ for whatever made up reason, but if we take each diet and measure calorie for calorie, we have seen in multiple studies that ALL diets are pretty much like for like. Let me reiterate. Every single diet, whether it is Keto, Vegan, low fat, intermittent fasting, all ended up reducing the number of calories consumed and therefore all reduce the subject’s weight over time. Even if your preferred guru tells you that you will never have to count your calories.

But like anything there are nuances. I myself prefer a low carb diet with relatively high fat and reasonably high protein (30% protein/10% carbs/60% fats). This is my personal OPINION! I find ‘anecdotally’, I do not get as many hunger pains, nor do I get as miserable as when I am on any other calorie restricted diet. Over the years I have tried multiple diets, including the typical bodybuilder diet — High protein low fat with medium carbs. I have tried a vegan diet. I have tried a full-on keto diet (10% protein/5% carbs/85% fats). And many more. All of the diets I tried were for longer than 3 months each ensuring my body had time to adapt to each of the diets. I still find that the most beneficial diet for me is still the low carb, high protein and high fat version that seems to fit best with my lifestyle and my aims.

The keys to any diet are;

1. What diet is manageable and you can stick to

2. You feel comfortable within reason

3. It fits in best with your goals.

Point №1. What diet is manageable and you can stick to.

It goes without saying that if you are completely miserable on your diet and you cannot eat any foods you like then you are unlikely to stay on it for a period of time. This does not include face feeding. Remember to eat for fuel not just because ‘you fancy it’. Let’s say you absolutely love bread and pasta more than anything in life. Just me writing about it gets your tastebuds flowing, then believe me the keto diet is NOT for you. You may last a week or two, but after that you will weaken and you’ll start eating bread which will kick you out of ketosis so you’ll have to start all over again. In my opinion there is no such thing as WILL POWER. This is from my own life experiences; I broke my back in 2 places and still completed the Royal Marines Commando training, I hate running and have completed endurance running such as David Goggin’s 48hour challenge where you have to run 4 hours every 4 hours for 48 hours. I constantly put myself into difficult situations like ice swimming and cold exposure meditation. And yet I still believe there is no such thing as WILL POWER. There is only a well-designed plan using all of the tools available to help you reach your goals.

Pick a diet that works for you. All studies show the most health benefits from ANY diet stem from the reduction in calories and very few from the actual type of food consumed.

Point №2. You feel comfortable within reason.

Many times, when you are on a restrictive calorie diet you will feel a hunger feeling creeping in (especially on a high carb, low fat-medium protein diet). The stronger this feeling and the more miserable you feel on the diet the higher the chances you will fail. There may be some discomfort on any diet- which you should just suck it up. But know your limits.

Point №3. It fits in best with your goals.

This for me is the most important point of all. Let’s say you want to go into power lifting; Is the keto diet the best diet for you? I would say probably not (although it’s down to each individual’s preference). The reason I say that is because of the mechanism in which our bodies produce energy. Our bodies can utilise energy from glucose (carbs) and from fatty acids. The process the body takes and creates energy would seem to prefer carbs for a fast short explosive type of sport such as power lifting.

On the other hand, if you were into endurance running (longer than marathons) it would seem as though a low carb-higher fat diet utilising keto bodies would be *beneficial.

*There have been studies carried out comparing carb loaded athletes versus keto athletes and the carb athletes outperformed the keto athletes in nearly all events. The issue I have with these studies is that on each occasion none of the keto athletes were what we call ‘properly fat adapted’. This means that the athletes hadn’t spent enough time to allow their bodies to fully adapt to a high fat diet which forces the body to use ketone bodies instead of glucose. It is of my belief that the human body can and will adapt to using ketone bodies as their main fuel source over a certain period of time instead of wanting glucose and settling for ketones as a substitute. Until we have better studies in place we simply will not know.

I like to carry out a thought experiment regarding ancient man — hunter gatherers. I imagine that it would have been very difficult for them to be in a fully fed state much of the time i.e., full stores of glycogen. Therefore, their bodies would have naturally adapted to utilising keto bodies as a possible main source of energy instead of a survival mechanism. Then when they were fully fed their bodies would have utilised all of the carbs and stored them as glycogen. We see this from studies whereby the body in a fasted ketosis state strips the glycerol backbone from triglycerides and creates glycogen to be stored in our muscles. I believe that our modern lifestyles whether we go to the gym or not are not sufficient to maintain ultimate health. Our bodies should easily be able to change between the 2 energy sources over time, whether it be fatty acids or glucose. Due to our constant feeding with carbs and glucose, our bodies are spoilt and therefore do not want to use the fatty acids with a sign that says (ONLY USE IN TIMES OF SURVIVAL). Your body will send out hormone messages for you to keep feeding it as long as there is food readily available. Just ask anyone that has undergone a 7day water fast. Ask them how they felt on day 2? They will tell you that their hunger cravings went away and they felt amazingly energised. I always do.

I am not advocating for a Keto diet as even I myself do not follow a Keto diet as such. Nor any such diet for that matter. Each diet has its own benefits and they can ALL work as a tool to benefit your lifestyle. They are a tool to benefit you, how well you use that tool is up to you. Try to understand the mechanisms of how each diet affects your body, your lifestyle choices and what are your personal preferences.

This leads me nicely onto my other point; How much responsibility do YOU take for your OWN health? I don’t mean by just exercising on a daily basis and following a ‘clean’ diet. There are many people training and following fitness trainers, PT’s fitness gurus, Social media influencers, etc. but how many of you are taking the time out to actually study why or what it is you are doing to get healthy?

Let’s take a look at the current fad of HIIT-High Intensity Interval Training. How many of you actually know its origins? Know what benefits it provides? And even know why you are doing HIIT or even whether you are actually doing HIIT?

Let’s break it down. HIIT High Intensity, meaning that you are working out at a very high intensity. It should be difficult to perform this exercise for a period of time without fatiguing. To increase the volume and time of workout we include Intervals into the training. This means that the exercise you are performing should be too difficult for you to perform for longer than about 60 seconds. By adding in short breaks or lower intensity exercise you can perform the exercise again — intervals, increasing the overall length of time that you exercise.

A key point here is that if you can perform any of the exercises for longer than maximum of 60 seconds then the exercise is NOT really of a High intensity!

What is the benefit of HIIT? Ideally the exercise you perform should be for no longer than 20 seconds and should be at maximum effort, to really be classified as HIIT (in my humble opinion. Because you are working at higher intensities you will be mostly using your ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate) (0–3 seconds), PC (Phosphocreatine)(3–10 seconds) and Lactate (60 seconds) cycles — ie. Fast explosive energy sources. These energy cycles use energy mainly from your glycogen stores and do not utilise much in the way of your fat storage. (Although not completely linear).

Therefore, the most obvious question would be; is HIIT best for fat loss? Simple answer is… no.

However, (nuance alert) if you perform HIIT correctly as in the ‘Tabata’ study whereby a Japanese scientist, Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo took fully trained professional cycling athletes and had them perform a program whereby they trained at 100% effort on a stationary bike for 20 seconds followed by a 10 seconds rest between sets and then repeated these intervals for a total of 4 minutes. The study found that his athletes increased their VO2 max by as much as 15%. For some reason each of the athlete’s basal metabolism was also at a raised level (as much as 10%) for up to 8 hours following the training due to the overload factor placed onto the athletes during the 100% effort phase of the training. The scientists did also note that the increase in VO2 max was only significant for 6 weeks of training and then plateaued.

What can we learn from this?

1. Most people and trainers DO NOT have their class perform this type of HIIT because it’s so difficult.

2. HIIT is NOT the most effective method of losing fat. Although there are some increased benefits if performed at shorter periods at 100% maximum effort.

3. The difference between an average 30minute ‘HIIT class’ and 30 minutes of jogging at a steady pace is about 2 to 4 extra calories per minute at best whereas the steady jogging may utilise more fat storage.

Here comes the nuance again. If you really enjoy blasting yourself and want to get fitter (increase your VO2 max) and time is a factor, then obviously HIIT or a version of HIIT is ideal for you. If you want to lose body fat and are following a calorie restricted diet then understand that HIIT may not be your best bet. If you are losing weight with a HIIT class just understand that it’s most likely NOT the HIIT class that’s giving you weight loss, it’s your total calorific intake versus your calorie expenditure. If, your lifestyle dictates that HIIT is the only option you have for exercise then once again great.

Summary

Any type of diet, exercise routine, lifestyle choice are just tools that need to be firstly understood (studied) and then once understood, utilised to meet your life goals and your preferences. Start with your own end in mind and work backwards from there. Don’t just blindly start exercising or dieting in the hope you will get your dream body (which is the last thing you should even be bothered about). Have a clear goal, a clear timeline, find the best method for you to reach you goal, achieve your goal, set a new goal = great lifestyle.

Take more control over your life, study in greater detail how each of these tools actually work. You don’t need to leave your PT or HIIT class as these are fantastic ways of motivating us to do what we need to do and they are also great ways of socialising in these weird times. But do study and when someone tells you that you should do this or that because of this, ask yourself, why? Go out and study it for yourself, take responsibility for your own health and your own body.

One last thing; When you do start studying be careful to take the first person’s advice even if they are an ‘expert’. Try to learn the actual mechanisms on how things truly do work or at least how much we think they work.

“If there’s one thing that I know for sure, it’s that I know nothing”. Socrates.

Some things to start you off with;

1. How does your body use energy? — from ATP through to basic Krebs cycle -don’t get too caught up with the Krebs cycle and Electron transport chain-complete brain ache. Focus on what exercise utilises what energy source so you can design the best program for yourself.

2. If (ketosis is so great/Carbs are so great) why does your body use each of them so well and for what reason?

3. What are the most efficient ways to;

- Lose fat

- Build muscle

- Build strength

- Increase cardiovascular capacity (VO2 max)

A great book to start learning how your body works with an aim of building it towards whatever goal you have in mind is Ross Edgley’s “The World’s fittest book”. Well worth a read and should end up as your bible for training for years to come. Good luck