I hope you enjoyed the Will Smith video I shared with you on our personal trainers Toronto blog last week. It’s truly exciting when someone at such a high echelon of success shares their success secrets.
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it here:
Awesome, inspirational Will Smith video
Ok, let’s talk some fat loss now…
I explained in my last email about the importance of maintaining lean muscle tissue as you lose weight, because that’s what keeps your metabolic rate high.
Maintaining (or preferrably building) lean muscle tissue is the key to rapid and sustainable fat loss, and the #1 secret to the long term success of your personal trainers Toronto weight loss program.
You can reduce the loss of muscle mass when you are losing weight by adding the exercise component – particularly resistance training.
But exercise can’t do it all. What you eat is important as well. This is where leucine comes in.
“What is leucine?”, you might ask.
Leucine is an essential amino acid. It’s also what we call a “branched chain” amino acid, a term that refers to its chemical structure.
Leucine has been used by bodybuilders for years to increase muscle mass when they are working out.
And there is good evidence that it is effective for that purpose. According to a friend of personal trainers Toronto, Dr. Stephen Chaney from the University of North Carolina:
“It has just been in the last few years that evidence started to accumulate that leucine can also help preserve muscle mass when people are losing weight.
This research was spearheaded by Dr. D.K. Layman and colleagues at the University of Illinois.
Their early studies showed that leucine stimulates the synthesis of new protein in the muscle, suppresses appetite and results in better blood sugar control. They then showed that leucine supplementation during weight loss in animals resulted in greater overall weight loss and better retention of lean muscle mass.
Dr. Layman had discovered in preliminary studies that leucine was most effective in preserving muscle mass when the carbohydrate to protein ratio was 1.5:1 (For comparison, current dietary guidelines recommend a carbohydrate to protein ration of 3.5:1, and that is the formula most weight loss diets follow).
Thus, the experimental diet designed by Dr. Layman provided 10 g of leucine/day in a diet with an overall carbohydrate to protein ratio of 1.5:1. The control diet only provided 5 g of leucine in a diet with an overall carbohydrate to protein ratio of 3.5:1.
The first study lasted for 10 weeks and did not have an exercise component. The second study lasted for 16 weeks and both groups in that study exercised 5 days/week using an exercise program designed to create an energy deficit of 300 calories/day.
In the study with the exercise component only 4% of the weight loss came from muscle in the high leucine – high protein group compared to 16% from muscle in the control group.
As you might expect, the group that didn’t exercise didn’t do as well. In that study 11% of the weight loss came from muscle in the high leucine – high protein group compared to 18% from muscle in the control group.
You may have noticed that exercise had only a modest effect on preserving muscle mass for the subjects on a standard weight loss diet (16% loss of muscle mass with exercise compared to 18% muscle loss without).
In contrast exercise was much more effective in preserving muscle mass in the high leucine – high protein group (4% loss of muscle mass with exercise compared to 11% loss of muscle mass without exercise).
The bottom line is that weight loss diets providing around 10 g of leucine/day coupled with a 1.5:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein are more effective at preserving muscle mass than the kind of weight loss diet that most people follow.”
Cool, huh?
But you’re probably wondering how this can help you…
Our personal trainers Toronto nutrition company of choice, Shaklee, offers a unique inch loss plan which provides 12 g of leucine/day and the carbohydrate to protein ratio is 1.4:1 for the Cinch Shake Mix and 1.6:1 for the Cinch Meal Bar.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that in Shaklee’s 12 week clinical study of people on the Cinch Inch Loss Plan the average weight loss was 15.4 pounds – and none of that came from muscle!
To be clear, I don’t believe supplements should be considered as the basis for any personal trainers Toronto program (that’s why they’re called “supplements”, which, by definition means “extra”), but they certainly do make a huge difference, and can accelerate your results dramatically.
If you’d like to learn more about what supplements are right for you given your unique requirements, call us at (416) 220-7883 to schedule your complimentary Personal Trainers Toronto Nutrition and Supplementation consultation.
There is no obligation to buy anything – just to get the education you need to get closer to your goals.
Education + systems = RESULTS!!!
Live Strong and Healthy,
Conor Kelly
EVOLUTION FITNESS – PERSONAL TRAINERS TORONTO
(416) 220-7883
P.S. Here are our references:
Layman, J. Nutr, 133: 216S-267S, 2003.
Layman and Walker, J. Nutr., 133: 405-410, 2003
Layman et al, J. Nutr., 133: 411-417, 2003
Layman and Walker, J. Nutr., 136: 319S-323S, 2006
Jitomer and Willoughby, J. Med. Food, 11: 606-609, 2008
Posted under Fitness/Nutrition Tips
This post was written by Conor Kelly on February 10, 2010
