Surgeon General’s Warning: DH.com Is Known To Cause Radioactive Superpowers

November 25, 2011 By 37 Comments

To me, a super hero is not only someone who does the amazing, but does it easily. Superman’s not super because he can lift a car—I’ve seen a guy lift a car before—Superman’s impressive because he lifts a car without effort. Superman wouldn’t seem so super if he strained with every feat of strength, blew a hernia every-now-and-again and had to take a week off from superheroing.

My superpower, what I make look asininely simple, is not getting fat. Sure, everybody and their brother knows how to help someone lose fat, and I know how to make fat loss simpler than the next guy, but my ability to eat whatever I want, almost seemingly as often as I want without adding body fat astonishes everyone, almost as if I picked up a car and threw it four blocks. And think about it: how much more super could you be than eating whatever you want without getting fat.

I’m more like The Hulk than Superman—I had to acquire my super ability—which means I can pass it on to others.  Assemble the list of necessary items before reading further: a gamma-ray source, femto-second-pulse control circuit, a solid-state red-laser source (you can strip this from the guts of your CD player; blue is okay if all you have is a BluRay player) and a little bit of lead shielding to protect your pets—trust me, you don’t want a chinchilla with superpowers.

Caution: Avoid anyone of childbearing years for a few weeks after performing this procedure. You’ll be emitting low-grade radiation that may cause sterility in others.

Continued reading without first acquiring a gamma-ray source, didn’t you? Doesn’t matter: all you really need is a little discipline and a spin cycle or a track.

No one in this industry talks about how carbs get turned into fat and everyone seems to accept it on faith that it just happens. But something has to convert carbs into fats; that something is an enzyme called fatty acid synthase (FAS), which is the main carb-to-fat converting enzyme in the body. If we eliminate FAS, or lower levels significantly, then excess carbs from eating ice cream, cookies or cake can’t be stored as fat[1-3].

We’re going to take a radically different approach. Instead of the hormone-focused road of fat-loss gurus, we’re going to target the body’s enzymatic system and avoid getting fat in the first place.

 

Forgot the lead shielding, huh? Now your chinchilla is using his mind-control powers to seduce your girlfriend. I warned you…

Superpower Development Step 1: Go Ultra-Low Carb

Some of you may already be developing your super powers as you’re reading this because one way to stop the production of FAS is to stop eating carbohydrates. It takes three to four days without eating carbs, but once you’re over this hump, the body shuts down FAS production[4]. This is why with The Carb Nite® Solution (CNS), foods like donuts and pastries can’t cause fat gain. The extended no-carb periods between carb feedings stops the production of FAS causing the body to waste all that sugary-goodness as heat instead of storing it as fat.  This is also why I recommend a carb-depleting phase when beginning Carb Back-Loading™.

It might seem that, void of FAS after a week of no carbs, you can eat carbs for an entire day. This is the wishful thinking of diet writers who failed to do their homework. The problem here is that within about 4 hours of eating carbs, the body skyrockets production of FAS making it possible to once again store fat[4].

I optimized Carb Nite to take this into account: it takes 6 hours of elevated insulin levels to kick-start fat burning hormones, so there’s a 2 hour overlap where carbs could, potentially be stored as fat, but as the body is also trying to restore glycogen reserves, you won’t gain fat. Compare this with all-day variants that suggest literally gorging from morning until evening: even if the weekday portion of the diet is low-carb, you will be storing fat for 9 to 10 hours of the day instead of not-at-all.

 

Superpower Development Step 2: Do Cardio

This one sucks. Cardio, undoubtedly decreases the production of FAS[5-9], one reason that endurance athletes can eat so many carbs and stay thin (the key word here is stay, because cardio devastates the metabolism and increases the ease of getting fat, as I explain here). But there is a way to get all the metabolic and enzymatic effects of cardio without the fat-inducing, muscle-destroying side effects: high-intensity interval training (HIIT)[10-17].

The problem with HIIT is all the different prescriptions. There’s sprint interval training (SIT), fartlek, standard HIIT, and my own creation, segmented sprint-endurance training™ (SSET), a radical fat-shredding version. Each acronym defines a high-output segment that specifies duration and intensity level, and an active-rest period. Different prescriptions amplify different goals. As we’re only concerned with stopping the production of fatty acid synthase, the simplest, lowest volume version works: 30 seconds of 100% power output separated by 2 to 4 minutes of active-recovery.

This is not what I meant by “spin cycle.”

Choose the rest period on how long it takes to regain breath control. If you’re still catching your breath after 2 minutes of recovery, then keep resting as long as needed or until 4 minutes total is up. Then hit it again. And rest means rest—you should be pedaling at a ridiculously easy rate. Remember, it’s the rest period, so rest.

Perform 6 to 8 bouts of this prescription but no more, and not more than 30 minutes total. I highly recommend using a spin bike. It’s easier on the knees and easier to go from 100% to pedaling at a super-slow rate. Wind-sprints on a track work as well, with easy walking for recovery. You’re probably thinking it already, so I’ll just warn you: the treadmill and elliptical suck for trying to hit 100% power output in 30 second bursts. Three times per week is plenty.

Incidentally, HIIT is the perfect type of fat-burning cardio on an ultra-low carb diet like Carb Nite.

 

Radioactivity Sold Separately

Sorry to say, this won’t make you radioactive, give you the ability to clear tall buildings in a single bound, out run bullets or seduce the opposite sex with chinchilla mind-control powers, but it will let you piss off your friends every time you gorge on a hamburger and fries, followed by a pizza that you finish off with a dozen cookies because the next day, you’ll look jacked, not fat. To me, there is no greater power in this world than carefree eating while looking like a superhero all year round.

 

References

  1. Chascione C, Elwyn DH, Davila M, Gil KM, Askanazi J, Kinney JM.  Effect of carbohydrate intake on de novo lipogenesis in human adipose tissue.  Am J Physiol. 1987 Dec;253(6 Pt 1):E664-9.
  2. Schwarz JM, Neese RA, Turner S, Dare D, Hellerstein MK.  Short-term alterations in carbohydrate energy intake in humans. Striking effects on hepatic glucose production, de novo lipogenesis, lipolysis, and whole-body fuel selection.  J Clin Invest. 1995 Dec;96(6):2735-43.
  3. Boll M, Weber LW, Stampfl A.  Nutritional regulation of the activities of lipogenic enzymes of rat liver and brown adipose tissue.  Z Naturforsch [C]. 1996 Nov-Dec;51(11-12):859-69.
  4. Wolf G.  Nutritional and hormonal regulation of fatty acid synthase.  Nutr Rev. 1996 Apr;54(4 Pt 1):122-3. Review.
  5. Savard R, Despres JP, Marcotte M, Theriault G, Tremblay A, Bouchard C.  Acute effects of endurance exercise on human adipose tissue metabolism.  Metabolism. 1987 May;36(5):480-5.
  6. Fiebig RG, Hollander JM, Ji LL.  Exercise down-regulates hepatic fatty acid synthase in streptozotocin-treated rats.  J Nutr. 2001 Sep;131(9):2252-9.
  7. Griffiths MA, Fiebig R, Gore MT, Baker DH, Esser K, Oscai L, Ji LL.  Exercise down-regulates hepatic lipogenic enzymes in food-deprived and refed rats.  J Nutr. 1996 Aug;126(8):1959-71.
  8. Fiebig RG, Hollander JM, Ney D, Boileau R, Jeffery E, Ji LL.  Training down-regulates fatty acid synthase and body fat in obese Zucker rats.  Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Jul;34(7):1106-14.
  9. Fiebig R, Gore MT, Ji LL.  Exercise attenuates nuclear protein binding to gene regulatory sequences of hepatic fatty acid synthase.  J Appl Physiol. 1999 Sep;87(3):1009-15.
  10. Perry CG, Heigenhauser GJ, Bonen A, Spriet LL. High-intensity aerobic interval training increases fat and carbohydrate metabolic capacities in human skeletal muscle. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2008 Dec;33(6):1112-23.
  11. Little JP, Safdar A, Wilkin GP, Tarnopolsky MA, Gibala MJ. A practical model of low-volume high-intensity interval training induces mitochondrial biogenesis in human skeletal muscle: potential mechanisms. J Physiol. 2010 Mar 15;588(Pt 6):1011-22.
  12. Burgomaster KA, Howarth KR, Phillips SM, Rakobowchuk M, Macdonald MJ, McGee SL, Gibala MJ. Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans. J Physiol. 2008 Jan 1;586(1):151-60.
  13. Gibala MJ, Little JP, van Essen M, Wilkin GP, Burgomaster KA, Safdar A, Raha S, Tarnopolsky MA. Short-term sprint interval versus traditional endurance training: similar initial adaptations in human skeletal muscle and exercise performance. J Physiol. 2006 Sep 15;575(Pt 3):901-11.
  14. Ross A, Leveritt M. Long-term metabolic and skeletal muscle adaptations to short-sprint training: implications for sprint training and tapering. Sports Med. 2001;31(15):1063-82. Review.
  15. Gibala MJ, McGee SL. Metabolic adaptations to short-term high-intensity interval training: a little pain for a lot of gain? Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2008 Apr;36(2):58-63. Review.
  16. MacDougall JD, Hicks AL, MacDonald JR, McKelvie RS, Green HJ, Smith KM. Muscle performance and enzymatic adaptations to sprint interval training. J Appl Physiol. 1998 Jun;84(6):2138-42.
  17. Barnett C, Carey M, Proietto J, Cerin E, Febbraio MA, Jenkins D. Muscle metabolism during sprint exercise in man: influence of sprint training. J Sci Med Sport. 2004 Sep;7(3):314-22.
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