I was perusing some various boards and found this by Lyle. It's quite recent (July) and quite intriging (toss, that is spelled wrong, i know). I was curious of some feedback to see what you dishcloths think of it:
Well, the nice thing is that, sort of by definition, the successful bodybuilders and such don't have as much of a problem with stubborn fat (I like the term invincible) as the rest of us. It's semi-circular reasoning mind you but it still holds.
Basically, if they are successful, they don't have problems with it; if they had problems with it, they wouldn't be successful.
But yes, trying to get rid of taht last little stubborn fat (which just does NOT want to be mobilized for all kinds of annoying reasons) can lead to more muscle loss. Your body has to fulfill the caloric deficit from somewhere; if you can't mobilize fatty acids to do it, the calories will come from muscle.
But that's all kind of tangential, the question is what, if anything can be done about it.
The first question is why it's so stubborn and there are many different reasons. Part of it has to do with the receptor types on the fat cells (alpha-2 vs. beta-1,2). Stubborn fat has more alpha-2 receptors which send anti-fat mobilizing signals.
There is also a blood flow issue, stubborn fat has poor blood flow. So it's hard to get fat mobilizing hormones in or the fatty acids out. Unfortunately, the research can't seem to decide what's causing the blood flow problems exactly: that is what all is regulating it (it's a combination of alpha and beta adrenoreceptor but nobody seems to be sure which are involved exactly, nitric oxide plays a role, so does angiotensin, so do prostaglandins, there may be other factors).
There are other reasons too, but not as important.
Without going into the brutally long and complicated mental machinations that led me to this (and I'm still working on the overall scheme, but you can be a guinea pig), here's my current thoughts on how to approach it.
First and foremost, this is one of the places where morning/pre-breakfast cardio is probably crucially important.
An hour or two before cardio, take 200 mg caffeine (vivarin) with 1-3 grams of L-tyrosine (NO ephedrine).
there are two segments to the cardio.
The first segment is for mobilization, to get those stubborn fatty acids out of the fat cell.
The second segment is the oxidation part, to burn them off in the muscle.
For the first segment of the cardio, use a machine that you don't normally use. So if you normally do the treadmill, do the first segment on the stairmaster or bike or something. Just make it different.
First segment:
warmup: 3-5 minutes
go hard: 5-10 minutes. I mean hard, as hard as you can stand for the entire time. This will NOT be fun on lowered blood glucose. I've considered putting intervals here but haven't found the data I need to make up my mind. If you do intervals, go somethign like 5X1' all out wiht 1' break (10' total intervals)
Rest 5', just sit on your butt, drink water, try not to puke.
Go to your normal cardio machine. Do at least 30 minutes at moderate/high moderate intensity (below lactate threshold but decent intensity). I'd say 45' maximum here but I'm still making up my mind and looking at data.
Go home, an hour later, have a small protein meal (25-50 grams or so). No dietary fat.
2-3 hours later, go back to normal diet eating.
Your daily calories shouldn't be any different than they were already, they are just distributed differently, you only have 100-200 after cardio, and then the rest afterwards.
I'd do that maybe 3 days per week to start.
Quick reasons:
These two are the same answer: To get stubborn fat mobilized, you have to overcome fairly severe resistance in terms of both blood flow and lipolysis, this requires very high concentrations of catecholamines (adrenaline/noradrenaline). Sadly, jacking up levels of catecholamines (necessary for mobilization) limits burning in the muscle which is why you follow the high intensity with low intensity.
Basically, you jack up levels to get the fat mobilized, and then let them fall so that the fatty acid can be burned in the muscle.
I ahve a study showing that E before intense activity lowers the catecholamine response, that's the reason for avoiding it. Studies also show a lower than normla catecholamine response as people adapt to a given type of cardio; doing a different machine will result in a higher catecholamine response than you'd other wise get.