Muscle

• “One pound of muscle requires your body to burn up to 50 extra calories a day just to maintain that muscle.” The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker) Page xv
• “When you combine exercise with the foods that most promote lean muscle growth, the ones that keep you full, and the ones that give your body a well-balanced supply of nutrients, you’ll be in the sweet spot, doing what this plan is all about. You’ll change the shape of your body by stripping away your fat and showing off your lean muscle.” The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker) Page xv
• “Most diets are about eating less food or about restricting you to certain kinds of food. Most of them work in the short term because if you reduce your calorie intake, your body starts to burn itself off in order to keep itself alive. Presto, you lose weight. But here’s the problem: The first thing your body does when it’s short of calories is to dump the body tissue that takes the most calories to maintain. That’s muscle. So on a low-calorie diet, your body burns away muscle and tries to store fat. Sure, you’ll lose weight, and you’ll eventually start losing fat as well. But when you “go off” your diet, you’ll start to put weight back on. And guess what kind of weight you’ll gain? Pure fat. Because you’ve taught your body a harsh lesson: It has to be on the lookout for potential low-calorie periods in the future, so it had better store fat just in case. You’ve also used up valuable calorie-burning muscle, so you’re likely to end up fatter than you were before your diet. That’s why people who try diet after diet not only don’t lose weight but also gain” The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker). Paige xvi
• “Another new study demonstrated the belly-fat-frying benefit of adding weight training to a vigorous walking or jogging routine. In the 12-week experiment at Skidmore College, exercisers who did a high-intensity total-body resistance workout along with cardio lost four times as much belly fat when compared with exercisers who only did cardio workouts. The researchers attribute the extra fat loss to two things: the stepped-up calorie burn you get immediately after lifting weights and later when you increase your lean muscle mass. Whenever you lose weight, it typically comes from both fat and muscle tissue. Resistance training helps you maintain muscle, which prevents a slowdown in your metabolism. A 2009 study from The College of New Jersey offers further support: Participants who performed an intense weight workout before riding a stationary bike burned more fat during the cardio session than other subjects who pedaled but skipped the weight workout. TCNJ researchers speculate that weight training triggers the release of hormones that burn fat.” The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker). Paige 11
• “Michael Jenson, MD, a professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the Mayo Clinic, calculated this breakdown of how your body processes food. 10 percent to the kidneys. Kidneys work to make sure the blood is balanced with the right amounts of water and nutrients. 5-10 percent to the heart. The heart gets most of its energy from fat, which provides more long-term energy for the hardworking heart than glucose can. 23 percent to the liver, pancreas, spleen, and adrenal glands. After the liver pulls out nutrients, it stores excess calories as glycogen. 25 percent to muscles. Muscles require a constant source of energy just to maintain their mass, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. 10 percent to the brain. Glucose is brain fuel. It can’t be stored long term, which is why people often feel faint if they skip a meal. 10 percent to thermogenesis. The simple act of breaking down the food you just ate takes up one-tenth of your calories. 2-3 percent to fat cells. Your fat cells grow and eventually divide as more and more calories are deposited. 10 percent to no one knows where. Your body’s a big place, and some calories go unaccounted for.”  The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker).
• “Fat’s role is that it can impede muscles that inflate and ventilate the lungs, forcing you to work harder to get enough air. When Australian researchers studied 313 patients with severe obesity, they found that 62 percent of them with a waist circumference of 49 inches or more had a serious sleep disturbance and that 28 percent of obese patients with smaller waists (35 to 49 inches) had sleep problems.”  The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker).  Page14
• “Because most back pain is related to weak muscles in your trunk, maintaining a strong midsection can help resolve many back issues. The muscles that crisscross your midsection don’t function in isolation; they weave through your torso like a spiderweb, even attaching to your spine. When your abdominal muscles are weak, the muscles in your butt (your glutes) and along the backs of your legs (your hamstrings) have to compensate for the work your abs should be doing. The effect, besides promoting bad company morale for the muscles picking up the slack, is that it destabilizes the spine and eventually leads to back pain and strain—or even more serious back problems.”  The New Abs Diet: The 6-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life (The Abs Diet) (David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker).  Page 19