This post is a little late but a Father’s Day post is so important that it is better late than never. Father’s Day should be a time for celebrating what our father’s have sacrificed to allow us to lead the lives of our dreams. For some it should be a rude awakening.
Look, I hate to be Debbie Downer, but someone has to say something already.
Our father’s are now in the worst shape of their lives, many suffering from a very scary condition called Metabolic Syndrome X.
One of the main indicators of someone who has metabolic disorder is abdominal obesity, as clearly demonstrated in the picture above. The scary part is that many of our father’s look just like this!
Please read below for an excellent description of Metabolic Syndrome from www.MedicineNet.com:
What is metabolic syndrome?
An association between certain metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease has been known since the 1940s. In the 1980s this association became more clearly defined and the term metabolic syndrome (also known as syndrome X or the dysmetabolic syndrome) was coined to designate a cluster of metabolic risk factors that come together in a single individual. In more current times, the term metabolic syndrome is found throughout medical literature and in the lay press as well. There are slight differences in the criteria of diagnosis – depending on which authority is quoted. Regardless, the concept of a clustering of risks factors leading to cardiovascular disease is well accepted.
The main features of metabolic syndrome include insulin resistance, hypertension (high blood pressure), cholesterol abnormalities, and an increased risk for clotting. Patients are most often overweight or obese.
Insulin resistance refers to the diminished ability of cells to respond to the action of insulin in promoting the transport of the sugar glucose, from blood into muscles and other tissues. Because of the central role that insulin resistance plays in the metabolic syndrome, a separate article is devoted to insulin resistance.
How is metabolic syndrome defined?
The definition of metabolic syndrome depends on which group of experts is doing the defining. Based on the guidelines from the 2001 National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III), any three of the following traits in the same individual meet the criteria for the metabolic syndrome:
1. Abdominal obesity: a waist circumference over 102 cm (40 in) in men and over 88 cm (35 inches) in women.
2. Serum triglycerides 150 mg/dl or above.
3. HDL cholesterol 40mg/dl or lower in men and 50mg/dl or lower in women.
4. Blood pressure of 130/85 or more.
5. Fasting blood glucose of 110 mg/dl or above. (Some groups say 100mg/dl)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has slightly different criteria for the metabolic syndrome:
1. High insulin levels, an elevated fasting blood glucose or an elevated post meal glucose alone with at least 2 of the following criteria:
2. Abdominal obesity as defined by a waist to hip ratio of greater than 0.9, a body mass index of at least 30 kg/m2 or a waist measurement over 37 inches.
3. Cholesterol panel showing a triglyceride level of at least 150 mg/dl or an HDL cholesterol lower than 35 mg/dl.
4. Blood pressure of 140/90 or above (or on treatment for high blood pressure).
And though Metabolic Syndrome affects more women than men, there is certainly no shortage of men 40 years and older who have that “deadly beer gut”, or “spare tire” that literally makes them a ticking time bomb for a slew of serious medical conditions.
But there is good news amongst this frightening reality: The most common cause of metabolic disorder is of course a vicious combination of a lack of exercise and poor diet.
See below for the top 7 fitness tips to help save our father’s lives:
1.) Accept the fact that you probably need some professional fitness advice:
My dad has been overweight for most of his life, but recently he lost over 100 lbs, but he didn’t accomplish this till he started following some professional advice and start exercising smart and eating right.
Dustin Lyons, a soon to be father of 3 and business owner lost close to 40 lbs (6% body fat) following the Precision Nutrition program and doing boot camps. What do my dad and Dustin have in common? They both swallowed their pride and realized that just because they are men doesn’t mean they are not endowed from on high with the knowledge of how to eat healthy and workout correctly. I concur, it’s not cool to ask for driving directions, but it is smart to ask for nutrition and fitness advice;)
Dads- quit being so stubborn and macho. It doesn’t make you any less of a man to hire a personal trainer or join a boot camp because your wife and her lady friends do it. In reality, your wife (and women in general) are simply smarter than you because they effectively outsource their fitness needs to an expert whereby you try to re-invent the wheel on your own with little to no results.
If you want to lose your gut, follow the lead of the ladies 
2.) Quite watching so many sports get up and actually play more sports
Get active. Even if it’s just getting out and playing a round of golf, it’s more activity than you’re getting on the couch watching the Masters. Pass on the golf cart and walk or jog in between holes. The average golfer on a 18 hole golf course walks about 5 miles. The University of Kalmar did a study involving 31,000 indivudual and found that both men and women between the ages of 20-40 need over 12,000 steps a day to promote weight loss. That translates to roughly 6 miles (University of Kalmar, January 13, 2008). So play a few rounds a week and turn some of that inactive TV time into some calorie burning time. Heck if you’re a golf hack like me, you’ll probably be walking twice that distance;)
A few games of hoops can also help keep the metabolism ticking. Take advantage of our great outdoors and take a hike or a bike ride. The key here is just to get more active and replace some of your ineffective TV time. That being said these activities should not replace your regular strength training and cardio programs, especially if fat loss is a goal.
3.) Don’t starve yourself
Cutting calories often times seems like the logical option to lose weight. In fact, dads are bombarded everyday with TV ads promising weight loss eating the same foods they love. Sounds good at first, but what they don’t tell you is that the serving size is so small it wouldn’t fill the stomach of a small child. Adherence to this meal plan is challenging because of starvation, but even if dad does have the mental fortitude to control his hunger, when he goes off his diet and retunrs to a “normal” eating routine he’ll end up taking on weight like your backpack takes on gear when going on an over-nighter backpacking trip with your son’s Boy Scout Troop.
Dad, my pack is too heavy. Can you carry my...?
Look- if you honestly think you can keep eating the same foods that blessed you with that gut in the first place, then I’m not sure how much more I can help you. You can lose weight eating less of the same foods, but you risk losing muscle tissue and it does nothing for your health to keep eating empty calories. Do yourself a favor and eat 40-60 gr of protein with every meal along with 2-3 servings of vegetables and a serving of healthy fat. And yes, there is portion control within those systems, but to me it’s a like a big terd versus a small terd… IT’S STILL A TERD!
4.) The “no pain-no gain” attitude will leave you a bitter, crippled, and grumpy old man
The “no pain, no gain” methodology is quite possibly the most abused practice in fitness. Pain is a good thing as long as it’s the right type of pain as outlined below:
When exercise BURNS YOUR MUSCLES that’s a good pain- this means you are pushing past your comfort zone to inspire change, working with intensity to torch calories and build muscle, and burning sugar so your body can burn fat for hours and hours after your workout.
When exercise HURTS YOUR JOINTS that’s a bad pain- it means you are quickly wearing down the structural integrity of your joints and will soon be unable to do anything without pain or stiffness. This is most often caused by a combination of using too heavy of loads, poor exercise form and technique, strength imbalances, and lack of mobility and/or flexibility- more reason to heed Tip#1 and seek professional help!
I have worked with too many dads who have beaten their bodies down and nothing’s more depressing than a dad who can’t play with his kids or participate in recreational activities with his buddies. Do yourself and your family a favor and stop being such a meathead when it comes to exercise. Exercise doesn’t have to hurt to get results and nobody wants another grumpy AND injured old man
5.) Make the time for a 5-minute warm-up
You simply can’t afford NOT to warm-up. It’s like pushing the pedal to the medal in the dead of winter in your frozen car- things just don’t work right and you’re not going anywhere.
A cold body, like a cold car, doesn’t run on all cylinders
It only takes about 3-5 minutes to lengthen your muscles and lubricate your joints to best prevent injury and ready your body for a more effective workout, so don’t skip the warm-up!
Below is a great 5-minute body weight warm:
Alternate between 50 s of work and 10 seconds of rest for each exercise in the following warm-up circuit:
1- Stationary Running
2- Jumping Jacks
3- Lunge, Reach and Twist (left leg)
4- Lunge, Reach and Twist (right leg)
5- Handwalks with a Push Up
6.) Stop just working the “mirror” muscles. Hit your legs and your back
Most dads just want to do the typical meathead workout that emphasizes the upper body only. If you are going for the Johnny Bravo look where you are built up top with chicken legs for wheels, then keep doing what you’re doing.
However, it is important to note that strong, muscular legs are the key to torching your gut. After all, the majority of your body’s muscle mass, and thus metabolism, is contained within your lower body. Not working your legs is like going to a gun fight without a gun, and here’s why:
a.) Training your whole body (legs included) not only helps you burn more calories each workout, it also maximally depletes your body’s glycogen stores (the sugar in your muscles) to allow for more total body fat burning
b.) The more lean muscle mass you have in your lower body the more calories your body will be burning 24-7-365 outside of your workouts
c.) Whenever you work your legs you generate the largest increases in natural anabolic hormone levels which translates into more total body muscle and less ugly, unwanted body fat
So if you want better abs, you better start using those legs! This can be easily accomplished with 3 total body workouts per week that train your upper body, lower body, and core within the same workout.
So do something besides bench presses and curls.
This guy is waaay too happy and ebullient doing curls.
Look- I get why guys don’t want to train their legs. Unless you are wearing a speedo, no one is going to see them! So there is simply not as much motivation to put the time and effort into your lower body as there is for your upper body which is always on full display at the beach or poolside.
However, if you are trying to develop a really nice upper body, you need to start venturing outside the realm of bench presses and curls. Don’t forget, you do have muscles on the backside of your body too!
In fact, your lats (the wings that extend from your arm pit to the bottom of your rib cage) are the biggest muscles in your upper body and when developed they really help promote that V-shaped torso that both makes your waist look smaller and your wife happy
Start doing at least the same if not more amount of pulling exercises as pushing unless you want to end up like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Lastly, only do isolation movements like bicep curls if you have extra time after your main workout. Compound movements like rows and pull-ups work your biceps just as hard and since they allow for the use of heavier loads, they also provide a better growth stimulus to maximize results in minimal time.
7.) Lay off the Brewskis
It’s no wonder why our dads have more of a keg for a gut than a six-pack. See below for the best way I know of explaining how detrimental alcohol can be on your body composition:
How Alcohol Makes You Fat
-Alcohol first passes through the esophagus as it travels to your stomach.
-From there, 20% of the alcohol is absorbed immediately by your bloodstream.
-The remaining alcohol travels to your intestines and is absorbed from there.
-The alcohol in your bloodstream then travels directly to your liver. It is here that
the body breaks the alcohol down, something that is absolutely essential since
alcohol is toxic to the body.
-Alcohol breaks down into acetate and acetaldehyde which IMMEDIATELY
signals to your body to stop burning fat. Even worse, another waste product of
alcohol, acetyl CoA, actually starts to make more body fat.
Yeah, thumbs up dude!
What Does this Mean?
-Your body can only effectively process 0.5 to 1 ounce of alcohol per hour
-How much damage? A 12-ounce beer contains about 0.6 ounces of alcohol. If
you consumed 5 of these, your body would be inhibited from fat burning for up to
6 hours. This is aside from the fact that your body will actually be storing fat
during these 6 hours! The more you drink, the longer your body is inhibited from
burning fat in addition to a greater fat build up from excess acetyl CoA. As you
can see, one day of binge drinking can set you back days if not a full week when
it comes to fat loss!
-What’s the worst-case scenario? Mixing alcohol with sugary beverages
promotes even further fat gain due to the resulting insulin surge that triggers fat
storage (e.g. regular beer or cocktails mixed with regular soda and/or fruit juice)
The Bottom Line
If you want to be lean, you must minimize ALCOHOL consumption!
If you must drink:
a.) Choose wine or hard liquor and “light” beer
b.) Limit alcohol consumption to 1-2 days per week with a 1-2 drink per day max
There you have it, a few tips to help prolong the life of the big guy (dad) in our life. Thanks, Dad for all you’ve taught me. Love ya Pops.
Stay Fit
Mat “the trainer”
PS- Feel free to make a comment on your dad’s fitness level or how important it for dads to stay fit.
PSS- as always feel free to share this blog post with your dad anyone looking to shed some fat, get stronger and feel more energy.
PSSS- Word of the Day: ebullient; adj. overflowing with fervor, enthusiasm or excitement.
To book Mat to speak at your Utah Valley company, club, or organizations please contact him by email at matgover@mac.com or by phone at (801) 836.7185. For a free one-week trial to his Orem boot camp to experience the best personal training in Utah Valley please call Mat or drop by the gym (1623 N State St, Orem right next to Costa Vida).
References:
Campbell and Volek, “TNT Diet: Targeted Nutrition Tactics”
University of Kalmar, January 13, 2008. For Weight Control You Will Need To Walk More Than 10,000 Steps A Day. ScienceDaily
One of the most common questions I get asked is, “What do you eat, Mat?” I get asked this as if the answer should take 1 minute to answer. This typifies America’s attitude towards food. My mother-in-law has a saying up in her kitchen that describes it best, “If we are what we eat then I’m either fast, cheap or easy.” Nutrition needs to be a priority in our lives, and I’ve said this before, it can’t be an after thought. Grabbing a bagel or yogurt on the way out the door in the morning or lunch through a fast food drive thru shows little effort to actively participate in your health and longevity, not to mention your physique. So, what do I eat? Without going into my 4 month course where I teach the Precision Nutrition principles, I’ll answer that question one tip and a time. Within these tips I will also share some of my favorite recipes. Most of these tips are written by 
In a previous post (The 5th Fitness Tip) I discussed nutrient timing, and more specifically the workout/recovery shake. A workout/recovery shake assists in maintaining adequate blood sugar to ensure high intensity workouts and also assists in getting a jumpstart on recovery to aid in muscle maintenance/gain and energy recovery for your next workout.
The Problem with Traditional Cardio Training and the Modern-day Solution for Endurance Athletes
