Is it Better to be Overweight?

Is it Better to be Overweight?

This is one study that everyone should be aware of, and this is especially true if you work in the fitness or health field. The study is a collection of studies and looked at the association between BMI and deaths (or mortality).

What is BMI or Body Mass Index?

BMI or Body Mass Index is commonly used as a measure of your body fat. It is calculated by having your weight divided by height square (kg/m-square). You can calculate your BMI using this calculator. Once you find your BMI, you can see from the chart below if you are normal weight, overweight or obese. And this is true no matter which country you live in. So what is your BMI?

What was the study?

The study published in 2013 in JAMA was done to see how BMI is associated or related to death (or mortality). Or to answer the question who lives the longest? Normal weight, overweight or obese people?

What is unique about this study is that that for the first time they looked at more than 7000 studies all over the globe. After this comprehensive analysis, 97 studies were included in the study which looked at more than 2.88 million individuals and 270,000 deaths. This is by far the largest meta-analysis done on this topic.

What were the results?

Now here is the fun part: If I plot the BMI ( 18-40) on the x axis and mortality on the y-axis, how would the curve look like? It should be an linear relationship suggesting as BMI goes up, mortality goes up, right?

WRONG.

As you can see from the graph below,

• Compared to normal weight, overweight has a 6% decrease in mortality. How is that for a surprise?
• The mortality rate for obese was similar to normal weight
• The mortality rate for obese (>35 BMI) was much higher than normal as expected.
• The mortality rate for underweight (<18.5) was much higher than normal as expected.
• The results are strikingly consistent across all ages, gender and population

Now what were the criticisms?

As expected, the article garnered a lot of opinion and criticism from both researchers and the press. For me the worst part was none of the experts were specifically responding to the criticisms; they were just beating around the bush. 

1.The loudest and harshest of all of them were Dr. Walter Willett, a leading nutrition and epidemiology researcher and the chair of Nutrition department at the Harvard school. He wrote “This study is really a pile of rubbish, and no one should waste their time reading it”. Specifically, he wrote that the study is flawed because the normal weight group contains persons who are lean and active, heavy smokers, frail and elderly, and seriously ill with weight loss due to their disease so there were more deaths in the normal weight.

• My Comment: His criticism was picked by a lot of bloggers and even researchers and just ran with it. If people take 10 minutes to read the study than just blindly following what other prominent people say, this criticism would have never came up. From the original article, “The results presented herein provide little support for the suggestion that smoking and preexisting illness are important causes of bias. Most studies that addressed the issue found that adjustments or exclusions for these factors had little or no effect.” Basically, it means almost all the studies included in the analysis were adjusted for smoking, age related weight loss, smoking, and illness related weight loss..

2. The results are very controversial and hence needs to be replicated.

• My Comment: This is not one study, but a collection of multiple studies (called meta-analysis)These results are only controversial, if you are unaware of the literature. These results are consistent with previous studies. For example, the same author published a meta-analysis in 2005 showing no increase in mortality in overweight people (2). This was repeatedly shown in other meta-analysis done by other authors too (3,4) . It is now pretty much established that in the presence of chronic conditions like heart disease or diabetes or older age, being overweight or slightly obese can be protective or the excess body weight makes them live longer. We even have a name for it called the ‘obesity paradox’.

3. The study only looks at mortality and not morbidity (sickness). Morbidity goes up as BMI increases.

• My comment: This is a valid point but is not a criticism of the study per se. The study aim was to look at mortality and not morbidity. It is true that as BMI increases there is an increase in disability, medication, health care costs, and unhealthy life years. And they do mention it in the study as a limitation.

4. The authors are biased and have got the statistics wrong.

• My Comment: The author is Katherine Flegal and works for the health statistics department at CDC (Center for Disease Control & Prevention). These people have the best bio statisticians in the country.What most people are unaware is that, she is the very same author who publishes all the ‘good’ news about the obesity prevalence in America. If there is any researcher in this world, who wants to see mortality goes up with BMI, I reckon it might be here since she is the one who showed/showing us how America is getting fatter.
  
  On a personal note, she is one of those fantastic researchers that everyone can look upto. Even when she was pummelled with personal criticisms (and this dates back to 2005), she has responded very professionally everytime and left out the personal attacks and remarks that could have easily been justified. He letter responding to article comments in JAMA is just a beautiful example of how to respond to criticisms. I personally wrote a thank you letter which she gracefully replied and forwarded to her co-authors. In fact, the prestigious science journalNature wrote an extraordinary editorial literally scolding Dr.Walter Willet for taking his criticisms too far against fellow researchers who don’t agree with his conclusions. 

What could be the explanations?

Now what could explain why being a little fat helps people live longer? Keep in mind that study shows only an association and the decrease in mortality may not have much to do with the extra weight. Here are some of the major reasons quoted (7):

• Deaths from obesity or being fat is mainly due to heart disease. But now with all the new prescription drugs available for blood pressure and cholesterol, there is a dramatic decrease in heart disease deaths. It has been shown that the levels of risk factors are now way lower than that of lean individuals 20-30 years ago. Further, it is been known that obese and overweight people are more likely to visit doctors, be screened for disease and be treated compared to lean folks.
• BMI is not an accurate indicator of body fat or the location of body fat. People with normal BMI can also have body fat percentage consistent with obese folks. Likewise, folks with higher BMI can have body fat levels comparable to a normal BMI individual. It is also now known that the location of body fat plays an important role in predicting health risks; abdominal fat posing the greater health risks This is why waist circumference is usually recommended as an additional marker among with BMI for health risks associated with excess body fat. BMI is also not an accurate indicator of the presence or absence of risk factors like cholesterol, blood pressure. and diabetes (8).
• Cardio respiratory fitness has now been shown to be an independent predictor of mortality. Studies have shown mortality risk of people who are fat, but fit to be twice lower than lean, but unfit folks. So you can be fat and still be fit and healthy, and live longer. This is the popular fit vs fat concept by Dr. Steven blair.
• As mentioned previously, presence of chronic conditions like heart disease or diabetes or older age, being overweight or slightly obese can be protective. This could be due toThe optimal BMI for people with chronic disease could be within overweight and obese level (5). As shown in this study, this maybe true for the population without any chronic disease, but needs to be further investigated.

Now what is this 6% decrease in mortality mean?

This study showed a hazard ratio of .96 for the overweight group or a 6% decrease in mortality in the overweight group. But what the heck does this 6% mean to you? This is one important question that almost all articles reporting this study have ignored or missed.

One way to communicate risk is in the form of life-expectancy. For example, a hazard ratio of .96 for a 35 year old means he may add 6 months to his life-expectancy by staying overweight or he may gain 15 min extra everyday. If you are obese (>35), you lose an hour and half everyday. So even if it shows a decrease in mortality with being overweight, it is just very a small effect. This is is the concept of microlives (1 microlife = 30 minutes of your life expectancy) developed by David Spiegelhalter (a very good biostatistician)  to communicate health risks to the public (6).

Practical Recommendations

• BMI is just one risk factor and a minor one in the assessment of health risk factors.  BMI should not be used as a sole determinant for health risk assessment. If you are overweight or obese (less than 35) you need to look at other risk factors such as waist circumference, cardiovascular fitness, blood profile (cholesterol, blood pressure,..) before you start panicking about your weight.
• Although, there is no increase in mortality with being overweight or obese (<35) BMI, there is an increase in morbidity or sickness with BMI ( decline in function, disease,long-term medication, medical costs and so forth). So your quality of life or health is better if you can stay around normal weight.
• As Dr. Flegal, the author of the study, puts it: We are absolutely not recommending people overeat. We intended our research to give a little perspective – to counter the view that if you weigh a bit less you will live forever or if you weigh more you are doomed. The relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think.

If you want to get updates or alerts about new articles, please do subscribe to the website facebook, twitter, RSS or email. As always, exercise biology will always serve you the latest, unbiased scientific info on health and fitness unlike any other website out there.

Read More

MY JULY EVIL WORK OUT FOR 2014.

                                         MY JULY EVIL WORK OUT FOR 2014.

I don't really know how its going to be but am sure it will hard and nice in a way. look at the workout and tell me what you think.we could  put heads together and workout something aii.

Day	Body Part	Exercise	Sets	Repetitions
Monday
	Chest, Triceps, Abs
		Weighted Wide Push-Ups	3	6 – 12
		Dumbbell Pullovers	3	6 – 12
		Incline Flyes	3	6 – 12
		Close-Grip Bench Presses	3	6 – 12
		Lying Triceps Extensions	3	6 – 12
		Triceps Kickbacks	3	6 – 12
		Crunches	3	6 – 12
Tuesday	Cardio, 60 minutes
Wednesday
	Back, Biceps, Abs
		Weighted Pull-Ups	3	6 – 12
		Barbell Rows	3	6 – 12
		Barbell Pullovers	3	6 – 12
		Dumbbell Curls	3	6 – 12
		Concentration Curls	3	6 – 12 (5 – 8)
		Chin-ups	3	To failure
		Lying Leg Raises	3	6 – 12
Thursday	Cardio, 60 minutes
Friday
	Shoulders, Legs, Abs
		Military Presses	3	6 – 12
		Rear Delt Rows	3	6 – 12
		Lying Side Raises	3	6 – 12
		Hack Squats	3	6 – 12 (3 – 5)
		Good Mornings	3	6 – 12
		Crunches	3	6 – 12
Saturday	Rest
Sunday	Rest

 Mondays Explained

So what’s the combination I’m suspicious of?

After a lot more pondering on how I can give my front delts some respite, I decided to go for something I’m not so sure of: introducing both dumbbell and barbell pullovers into my workout. Exrx lists the first as chest-centric, the second as lat-centric, and I always doubted that. I’ll have to pay a lot of attention to check if it’s really the case.

The dumbbell pullovers replace the regular flyes, while I keep the inclined flyes in. That’s because the weighted push-ups and the pullovers both train the sternal chest portion and I’d otherwise have very little work coming from the clavicular (upper) part.

Wednesdays Explained

The t-bar rows have done their stuff for now and I’m back to barbell rows for back training. Not that the t-bar rows stopped working; I just got a bit tired of them.

True stalling happened on the barbell curls, no matter how I experimented with different rep ranges and drop sets. For home biceps isolations your choices aren’t that big, so I’m back to dumbbell curls. I’m a little wary of those, as their twisting motion tends to cause problems with my forearms. But if you leave out that rotation you can as well stay with barbell curls. I’ll see how it goes.

Fridays Explained

After making very sure that my front delts get little involvement I decided to reintroduce military presses. They are an old favorite of mine and had stalled. As they are a great compound exercise I missed them a lot.

The rear delt rows I put in last month still work, but I have to make very sure that I do them in good form. It is very easy to lose concentration on these and halfway slip into doing regular rows.

Read More

Don’t Be a Cardio Bunny

“Cardio Bunny”—an individual whose exercise of choice is a long, droning, low-intensity cardio “workout”.  Often seen on an elliptical trainer, without a single sweat broken, watching the Food Network or TLC for excessive periods of time.  Don’t be a cardio bunny.

Before I say anything else, let me clear the air right now: cardio bunnies are not confined to only one gender.  Cardio bunnies come in all shapes and sizes. They are among us, as seemingly normal as you or me.

But don’t be fooled.

The way to a better body is not through endless hours of hair-down cardio.  Surprise, ladies and gentlemen: it’s through strength training.

Strength training boosts the metabolism to create long-term, fat-burning metabolic changes.  Did you know that just one pound of muscle burns about 50 calories every day in order to nourish itself?  Ten pounds of muscle, then, burns about 500 calories every day.  To burn these 500 calories through exercise, every day, you’d need to do about an hour of Zumba or walk more than 7 miles.  It’s your choice: would you rather do a full hour of cardio every day for the rest of your life, or would you rather build ten pounds of lean muscle and let your body do the rest?

Ironically, though, an hour of Zumba every day for the rest of your life won’t even be able to keep the fat off you.  As you go about your cardio bunny ways and gradually lose body fat, your overall body weight will decrease, requiring your body to do less work to move you around throughout the day.  As a result, the more body fat you lose, the slower your metabolism becomes…that is, unless you replace those fat pounds with lean muscle.

Lean muscle is not as scary as it seems.  For all those who may be concerned, rest assured that you can’t “get bulky” by accident.  If your dream body is a lean and trim one, know that 10 pounds of muscle would be distributed throughout your entire body, covering up your body fat at each area and making you look leaner all around.  Don’t believe me?  Just Google “Will strength training make me bulky?” and see for yourself.

Good luck, everyone.  It’s time to hop off that elliptical and get into the weight room.  A natural, healthy, easy-to-maintain body is waiting for you.

Read More

Dive Into Summer with 5 Pool Exercises

It’s too hot outside to work out! That seems to be the number one excuse for summer workouts. Now you don’t have one! Here are five pool moves to get that toned body bikini ready, while staying cool in the water. Not only are you constantly refreshed in the water, but pool workouts can actually burn fat faster than cardio on land. In addition to those benefits, swimming exercises are much easier on your knees and other joints, preventing injuries. Don’t worry if you’re no Michael Phelps, you don’t need to be with these simple moves. So what are you waiting for? Dive in! 

1. Water cardio 
While keeping proper running form, start jogging through the water. You will begin to create currents in the water, and by running through them you are stabilizing your core and other muscles. Remember, run with your head up and your shoulders and hips in one line. 

2. Swimmer arms 
Begin in a lunge position (right knee bent in 90 degrees with your left leg bent behind you). Reach your arms straight in front of you with your palms sandwiched together and your thumbs up. Open your arms straight out to your side, as if you are about to give someone a giant hug, and close them again. Complete 10 reps. 

3. Leg lifts 
While gently grasping onto the pool wall, face your hips to the wall, and kick out your right leg to the side as high as it can go with your toes pointed. Repeat ten times then switch to your left leg. 

4. Water Squats 
If you think squats on land get you quick results, try adding a little resistance in the water, for double the effect! With your feet hip distance apart and knees behind your toes, squat down in the water and use your glutes to push you back up to standing position. Complete 10 reps. 

5. Leg lifts 
Leaning back on the pool edge, put your legs straight out in front of you. While keeping your abs tight, lift your legs up and then lower them back down. Complete 10 reps.

Read More

Getting the Gist of Juicing (My Routine and Recipes)

Juicing has been a trendy health craze for quite some time now, but not everybody may know where to begin. When you hear the word “juicing” you might associate it with the word “cleansing”. Although I have personally done a few cleanses myself, this article is focused on how you can incorporate juicing into your everyday life, whereas cleanses should be done sparingly and carefully. This is perfect for people who are preparing for a big upcoming vacation this spring break. First things first, it is recommended not to mix fruits and vegetables, which is why I make them separately. Fruits and vegetables require different enzymes for digestion. Combining the two can hinder the digestive process. Apples are the only exception. The picture displayed on the left shows three juices that I will be talking about today – all of which I make at the same time, and drink throughout the day.   In order from left to right: Breakfast – Roots and greens juice 

Before lunch – Pine(green) apple, coconut juice Throughout the day – Cayenne pepper lemonade The first one I make is a the cayenne pepper lemonade. Since I make them all at the same time, lemonade is the most neutral thing to juice without having to worry about mixing flavors. This delicious concoction serves as a detox, anti-inflammatory, metabolism and immunity boost! To make this cayenne pepper lemonade, you need:

• 2 peeled lemons
• 1/6 tsp of cayenne pepper
• Agave, stevia, maple syrup or sugar to sweeten
• 12 oz of water

The next one is a pine(green) apple, coconut juice. This combination serves as a great anti-inflammatory, loaded with fiber and potassium. To make this, you need:

• 1 green apple
• 1 – 2 cups of chopped pineapple
• 6 – 8 oz of coconut water (or water)

The last juice I make, but the first one I drink, is a roots and greens juice. This is LOADED with multiple nutrients that will keep you satisfied. Keep in mind that the body is hungry for nutrients, not necessarily just solids. You will need:

• 1/2 – 1 beet
• 2 – 3 carrots
• 1/2 a lemon
• A variety of your favorite greens. In this case, I use:

1. Broccoli 
2. Chard
3. Kale
4. Cucumber

The great thing about juicing is that you can customize them to your liking and try out a routine that works for you!

Read More

HERE ARE MY TOP 30 BODY TRANSFORMATION tips!!!

Here are my Top 30 body transformation tips. 

My recommendation is to take the ones that resonate with you the most and discard what you don’t deem necessary. 

Best way to use this is to PRINT out this page, choose one or two principles to apply to your life every week.  Making one small improvement every single week leads to 30 improvements for the year.

Imagine what your life would look like with 30 awesome improvements.  It would be life changing.  So are you ready?  Let’s go. 

1. Use Metabolic Resistance Training as your main workout at least 3x a week.

2. Challenge yourself by using heavy weights that you can do with perfect form

3. Build your workouts around the big 5 (Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press, Pull Ups and Military presses)

4. Build your workouts around weights being the primary mode of working with cardio being secondary.

5. Do the ultimate fat loss cardio program by doing 10-12 minutes of interval training followed by a nice 20 minute jog.

The interval training releases free fatty acids into your body while the long cardio run burns them off.  If you want an amazing cardio program for fat loss, you can use my Total Fat Loss Plan program

6. Change up everything in your workouts from the tempo you do the exercises to the exercises themselves to the sets, reps…everything. The more inefficient we make your body during the workouts the more it will be challenged to deal with the new stress.

7. Try working out in a fasted state. Again, to know how to utilize fasting for weight loss, let my 25-Day Fast Weight Loss Diet program help you with that.

8. GRIP your weights like they owe you money. The grip is super important because it keeps your shoulder capsule locked in thus avoiding injury. When doing any exercise make sure you grip as hard as you can. Do this and feel the difference it makes for your body.

9. When training save your joints by stopping one rep before failure 95% of the time.

10. Use Mobility Warm Ups before each training session

11. Reduce the size of the meals you eat at night or in the evenings as our body energy reserves are already full at that time. Any excess results in weight gain or belly fat

12. Drink a litre of water first thing in the morning. Bonus points for putting a slice of lemon for detox and alkalizing effects

13. Replace all caloric drinks with water while you are at it.

14. Get yourself under a regular eating schedule and train your hunger like a dog

15. If it jives with you then skip your breakfast. To see how to utilize fasting or skipping breakfast for weight loss. 

16. Keep alcohol intake to a couple drinks a week. You cannot change your body if you’re binging on alcohol every single week. You just can’t. 

17. If you intend on drinking on a particular day then minimize the damage better by keeping your diet as low fat as possible.

18. Eat fat burning Nigerian meals, NOT fat storing ones. For examples of a fat burning meal and recipe.

19. Get rid of all of the toxic people in your life.  ’Nuff said.

20. Use the acronym #NFE in your life. NFE means “No Freaking Excuses”. If you want to put just any word in the middle then by all means go ahead.

Sure you’re a little tired. Sure you have 3 kids and work a 9 to 5 job. But I’m sure you can find someone on this world who has the same situation as you do that is achieving the goals you want to achieve. If you want something bad enough in life stop making excuses and start doing something about it.

 21. Eat high fat high protein breakfasts for greater satiety and more energy. I talk a great deal about fat burning foods

22. Surround yourself with people who are focused on achieving the same goal you are. You are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most. Choose them wisely.

23. Love your body. No seriously …LOVE your body. Your results will be in direct reflection to how much you love your own blessed body.

24. Celebrate the small successes. You don’t realize it but you’re getting better every single day. Start celebrating each and every little (or big) success in your life.

25. Learn from your failure. Failure is not final. Neither is success. Learn from both and realize that nothing is ever final unless you make it so. “Don’t let your successes go to your head & don’t let your failures go to your heart.” ~ Will Smith

26. Own yourself and your results. Take responsibility for everything that has happened thus far in life and take total 100% responsibility. Meaning, you look the way you are because you caused it. Now DO something about it. 

27. If you are up to it then do a 24 hour fast once a week. The benefits of fasting are too much to put into this blog post. Do yourself a favour and get the 25-Day Fast Weight Loss Diet program.

28. There is no “secret” or “diet pill” to transforming your body. It takes a good plan, plenty of support and A LOT of hard work. Look at this Ghanaian actress (Nadia Buari) for instance. You see her on the screen looking all hot and “ajebutter”, THIS is what she does to look that way. It takes work and dedication. Understand that transforming your body is an evolution.

When you reach one goal you’ll most likely start to reach for another one. It’s all about evolving yourself, your knowledge and your body. Wherever you are start now.

Stop procrastinating and take the first step to go after the things you want in life.

29. Don’t take this fitness and nutrition stuff so seriously.

Avoid getting into arguments about which diet is best because they all work.  Stop criticizing other people based on their way of eating.  Everyone deserves to do what they think is best to change their bodies.  Let them be and focus on yourself.

 30. Repeated for emphasis. Own yourself and your results. Take responsibility for everything that has happened thus far in life and take total 100% responsibility.

Meaning, you look the way you are because you caused it. Now DO something about it.

This is all folks.

Take *some* of these 30 ways to transform your body and start applying it right now. Take that first step and then the next step after that. This is a wake up call.

Realize that you’re an amazing human being. Start acting like it.

In the end this is all about being The Best YOU you can possibly be. You don’t need six pack abs or need to be skinny to be loved. Be in love with yourself.

If you have some changes to make then take action and start the process to making your goals a reality. No one is going to do it for you. You gotta get up and get going.

Read More