metabolism

Weight loss through massage therapy

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Women using fat belt machines in the 1950's

Source: Diettogo.com

It sounds too good to be true. Get a massage and lose weight. It reminds me of the images of the vibrating fat belt machines from the 1950′s. Certainly the notion of vibrating fat off the body has been debunked by now, yet I still read of spas and massage therapists claiming to be able to break up fat cells through massage therapy or some other technique that “melts” off the inches.

Well here’s the skinny about metabolism. Food is potential energy in the form of calories. When we eat, the body breaks down the energy from food and directly uses it for all functions of living including: breathing; heart pumping; thinking; maintaining body temperature; all muscular movement; cellular and tissue repair; and the digestion of more food. The human body over hundreds of thousands of years has evolved a very efficient method of storing excess energy for sustaining life in between meals, whether that is a few days or only a few hours. Energy not immediately needed to sustain life gets stored as fat.

Fat is a very dense supply of stored energy. Each pound of fat contains about 3500 calories. That’s more than the average adult requires for living a normal, active lifestyle for an entire day! Still, fat is not the body’s preferred energy source. Carbohydrate is where the body likes to get it’s energy first. If carbs (sugars, starches, alcohols) are not available, only then will the body begin to metabolize fat.

So when a particular massage technique is touted as able to break up subcutaneous fat tissue allowing the fat to be re-absorbed into the body, I wonder how that “freed up” fat is expected to be metabolized. Without a way to metabolize this fat, the body will simply re-store it again, most likely in the same location that it was freed from.

There is researched and documented evidence of the diuretic effect of some massage therapy techniques like lymphatic drainage which can temporally achieve a reduction in body weight, but this is lost water, not lost fat. Losing the excess fat is what will improve physical health for most people.

The only way I know to metabolize stored body fat is to create a negative caloric balance by decreasing food intake and at the same time increasing physical activity. This is where massage therapy does help.

The positive effects of massage therapy for facilitating recovery from physical activity have been well researched and documented. Massage therapy has a direct impact on the circulatory system as it loosens muscle and tissue fibers and moves fluids into those spaces, which allows for greater amounts of oxygen and nutrients to reach those cells for metabolism. This loosening of the muscle fibers also restores the plastic and elastic function of the muscle itself which aids in its recovery from physical activity. This allows you to resume your physical activity sooner and at the same or higher intensity, helping you burn more fat!

Let’s not also discount the fact that massage therapy just plain feels good and creates a sense of emotional well-being. This feeling is not just a “fat-free reward” for your efforts to lose weight. It is the doorway to reconnecting a positive state of awareness about your body, which reinforces your resolve to improve your fitness through more physical activity. Physiologically, this good feeling arises from the activation of the para-sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for inducing the sleep state where the body repairs itself from your workout during the day. Massage therapy therefore can also help you achieve better sleep overnight so you can resume your physical activity and burn more fat in the morning!

So yes, massage therapy can help you lose weight, but only in support of the efforts you make in choosing low calorie/nutrient rich foods along with daily physical activity that exceeds the amount of calorie you eat.

Resources

Massagetherapy.com:  Weight Loss and Bodywork

EHow.com: Massage & Weight Loss

Livestrong.com: Lymphatic Massage for Weight Loss

About

Paul Kulpinski is a licensed massage therapist, holistic wellness educator and co-founder of Mountain Waves Healing Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. Information contained in this blog should not be taken as medical advice. Readers are advised to validate the information presented here with other sources including your personal physician for information specific to you.

Counting Thanksgiving Calories

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Graphic: Eating and ExercisingThe 2011 holiday season is upon us, so it’s time to remind ourselves how those holiday feasts can really pack on the pounds if your aren’t paying attention. Sure the holiday season is a time to indulge, so go ahead and treat yourself. But if you do it with the right intention, you’ll be able to enjoy the festivities and still feel good about yourself.

First, remember that the body works on a simple formula: energy in minus energy out equals energy stored. Or put another way: food eaten – activity = fat stored. Now, fat can either be stored or lost depending on the balance of the other side of the equation. If activity exceeds food eaten, there will be a negative result in the fat stored, or a net fat loss. Let’s look at some real numbers, but first let’s better understand what the activity part of the equation really means.

By “activity”, I’m referring to the body’s Total Metabolic Rate (TMR).  The TMR is the sum of the Basil Metabolic Rate (BMR), plus exercise and all physical activity, plus the energy used in digesting food, plus the energy used to adjust to external temperature.   For most people the TMR for women is around 2000 calories per day and for men is about 2500 calories per day.  (Calculate your personal TMR here)  So basically, if you consume more food calories than your TMR in a day, you’ll start storing fat.  If you consume fewer food calories than your TMR in a day, you’ll start losing fat.

Remember, that a pound of fat is about 3500 calories.  That’s way more than most people’s daily TMR and part of the reason that fat loss takes time.  However,  just 100 extra calories a day is enough to add a pound of fat by the end of a month!  Now, granted body metabolism is a bit more complicated than I’m illustrating here, but I hope you get the idea, especially when faced with the variety of holiday food choice ahead of you over the next month.

My suggestion:  instead of focusing only on one meal, like Thanksgiving, look at your total caloric intake and total metabolic rate over the course of a week.  This gives you much more flexibility to make adjustments on either side of the minus sign.  That way you can increase your weekly physical activity to compensate for a big Thanksgiving meal.

Just for fun, here’s a neat little holiday calorie counter to help illustrate the balance between calories in and calories out.  Enjoy it, and enjoy your holiday season with lots of festivities and lots of fun physical activity to balance your equation.

About

Paul Kulpinski is a licensed massage therapist, holistic wellness educator and co-founder of Mountain Waves Healing Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. Information contained in this blog should not be taken as medical advice. Readers are advised to validate the information presented here with other sources including your personal physician for information specific to you.

Avoiding the New Year’s Day Weight Loss Resolution

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Holiday TreatsAs I write this we are only one week into the holiday season of feasts, office parties, and sugar plum treats and just 31 days away from the New Year and the popular resolution to lose some weight.  Maybe this year could be different.  Maybe this year, we could avoid adding the pounds during the next 31 days that we will resolve to remove 32 days from now.

First, let’s face some facts.  When we use the term weight as in “I’ve gained 15 pounds just from Thanksgiving” or “I need to lose some weight from all those holiday parties,”  what we’re really talking about is fat. We make the mistake of substituting our fat gain with the notion of weight gain.  Granted, if you add fat to your body, you will gain some weight.  But if we are only focused on weight, we are missing the mark.

Fat is by design the most efficient mechanism for our body to store energy.  It is so efficient that fat can hold 2.25 times the number of calories (energy) per pound than either carbohydrate or protein.  That’s why the human body evolved the ability to efficiently store energy in this very portable structure.  Look at it this way, 1 pound of fat contains 3500 calories.  That’s easily a two day’s supply of energy in just one pound!

In a balanced diet, we take in calories from three sources:  protein (lean meat, beans, eggs, dairy, soy), fat (animal, plant, nut), carbohydrate (vegetables, fruits, grains, sugar and everything else that isn’t protein or fat).  The body burns up the calories from each of these food sources  in two ways:

  • Basic Body Function (Basil Metabolism):  breathing, heart and circulatory function, glandular activity, cellular activity, digesting food, regulating body temperature and such.
  • Physical Activity:  walking, climbing stairs, dusting, mopping, bicycling, swimming, rugby playing, climbing Mt. Everest, and so on.

You’ll notice that you don’t have much control over your basil metabolism.  These functions are pretty automatic.  What you do have control over however are your voluntary physical activities.  These are activities that use skeletal muscle to initiate the physical movement.  The only difference is the type and intensity of the physical activity you choose.   You are free to make your physical activity housecleaning or climbing Mt. Everest, yet the Himalayan trek will burn up a whole lot more calories than applying the floor wax even though they both are using many of the same muscles.

So if you are only mopping the kitchen, but eating like your on the summit team for Everest, you’ll be eating more calories than your muscles need.  Since the body never lets a good calorie go to waste, it automatically puts it around your waist for future use.  After all, your body never knows when your mind might actually force it to attempt a summit of Everest.  That’s how we become over-fat and during the holidays we are at the greatest risk for this pattern.

During the month of December, the average person will add about 1-2 pounds of fat.  That’s equivalent to eating an extra 225 calories per day that isn’t burned off by physical activity.

The reason is all of those holiday parties, feasts and snacks provide enough calories to climb mountains, while at the same time we are slowly decreasing our physical activity (if we were active at all).  Our physical activity decreases for a variety of reasons, like less daylight, colder temperatures, and less time in general because we are attending all of those holiday parties.  So it’s not just about too many calories, it’s also about less activity which allows our muscles to weaken and atrophy which reduces their ability to burn calories.  Do you see the vicious cycle?

So now, more than at any other time of the year, it’s critical to keep up your exercise routine to maintain the muscle mass that will burn the calories you eat.   If you’ve already begun to lighten your workout, don’t fret, just get back onto the routine before you get any further into the holiday season.

Secondly, don’t obsess about all of the temptations.  Go ahead and indulge a bit and don’t deny yourself.  Do keep it in moderation however.  Ask yourself before you eat:  “am I hungry?”  If you are, what do you want to spend your calories on?  Choose well and you’ll feel good about what you are eating and you’ll be honoring your body without overloading it with excess energy that will have to be stored for tomorrow.

By maintaining or even increasing your physical activity now, you’ll be less likely to add the additional fat that prompts the New Year’s weight loss resolution.  More on that one next month.

Happy Holidays!

Resources:

Covert Baily Fitness

Boost Your Metabolism with Weight Lifting

Why Food Turns into Body Fat

The Confusing Calorie

How Calories Work

About

Paul Kulpinski is a licensed massage therapist, holistic wellness educator and co-founder of Mountain Waves Healing Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. Information contained in this blog should not be taken as medical advice. Readers are advised to validate the information presented here with other sources including your personal physician for information specific to you.

Benefits of Exercise Reduced by Vitamins

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Our quest for eternal youth is a funny thing.   We exercise to stay youthful and supplement with vitamins loaded with anti-oxidants to minimize the effects of aging.  Well, here’s some new research that indicates that this combination of exercise and vitamins may create an interaction that is undesirable.

Our bodies burn sugar in the cells of our muscles to create movement and normal function.   This is the foundation of metabolism.   There’s one catch, the muscle cell can’t recognize the presence of the sugar molecule on its own.  The sugar molecule is like a package left on the front porch by UPS, but no one rang the door bell to let you know that the package arrived so you can bring it into the house.  So enter insulin, a wonderful hormone manufactured by the pancreas that delivers a package of sugar to each muscle cell and rings the bell so the cell opens up and receives the sugar from the front porch.

It’s an amazing design, unless the cell stops answering the door when the bell rings.  This is what happens with type II diabetes, or insulin resistance, which  is nearly epidemic in our culture.   The cell stops recognizing the ringing door bell and the sugar packages start piling up on the front porch while the cell starves because of a lack of sugar that is just on the other side of the door.

Research has shown that the best way to reverse the process of type II diabetes insulin resistance is exercise.   Regular exercise has the ability to keep the cell listening for the door bell when insulin leaves a sugar package and even to reverse the process when the cell has lost the ability to hear the bell as with type II diabetes.   This is a good thing.  However, the universe has a sense of humor, because all of this burning sugar of our metabolism produces some highly reactive oxygen molecules (free radicals) that can cause damage to our cells the main reason behind our present theories on aging.  So what to do?  All this good stuff that keeps us healthy – exercise and oxygen -  is causing us to die!  Did I mention that the universe has a sense of humor?   Being the vain species that we are, we’ve found a simple solution by taking supplements of vitamins loaded with anti-oxidants to counteract the effects of all this sugar burning that we need to live.

Well not so fast.   Researchers at the University of Jena in Germany and the Harvard Medical School in Boston have found that when people take anti-oxidant supplements, specifically vitamin C and E, the beneficial effects of increased insulin sensitivity (hearing the door bell) is reduced if not eliminated by the anti-oxidants.  The researchers took 40 men placed them on a 4 week exercise regimen.  Half of the group took supplemental vitamin C (500 mg twice daily)  and vitamin E (400 iu once daily), while the other half did not supplement.   The study showed that the men who supplemented, saw no improvement in insulin sensitivity, while the men who did not supplement saw a significant increase in their body’s ability to respond to insulin.  This means that for someone trying to re-mediate a type II diabetes condition, the anti-oxidants prevented the proven benefits of exercise from occuring.

Additionally, the body seems to have a natural defense mechanism to the oxidative free radicals produced by metabolism and sugar burning.  Researchers also found that because the anti-oxidants were cleaning up all the free radicals, the body’s natural mechanism to handle the free radicals was suppressed.    Researchers also noted that this anti-oxidant conflict only happens with supplementation and does not happen with anti-oxidants consumed from fruits and vegetables.   Apparently there are other bio-active compounds in the complete fruit or vegetable that create a more complex synergy that promotes the optimum scenario – exercise and anti-oxidants working together.

So my conclusion to all of this:  if you are going to exercise, skip the vitamins and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.  If you are not going to exercise – do what ever you want, because with out the exercise it really won’t matter much while your insulin keeps ringing the door bell and no one answers.

Sources:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

New York Times

About

Paul Kulpinski is a licensed massage therapist, holistic wellness educator and co-founder of Mountain Waves Healing Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. Information contained in this blog should not be taken as medical advice. Readers are advised to validate the information presented here with other sources including your personal physician for information specific to you.