Most health professionals will tell you that cutting calories and exercising regularly are the keys to weight loss success. Can you accomplish more by choosing endurance exercise over weight lifting? A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiologysuggests the choice might not matter that much.

Researchers had 96 obese men and women between the ages of 18 and 50 consume 30% fewer calories than they burned each day. They were then assigned to endurance training (running, elliptical work or cycling), weight training (shoulder press, squats, barbell row, biceps curl, lateral split, front split, bench press and French press), a combination of endurance and strength training or 30 to 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise every day in accordance with physical activity guidelines. Subjects not in the daily guidelines group trained 3 times a week at between 50% and 60% of exercise capacity.

True Strength Moment: After 22 weeks, researchers discovered that all participants lost significant amounts of weight and body fat, reduced body mass index and waist circumference, and increased muscle mass. This suggests it’s not so much what exercise you do, but making sure you do it regularly.
via@optimumnutrition

Eat clean for five days and eat whatever you want on the weekend. Some fit active people adhere to this approach. After all, what could possibly happen over the course of just a couple days? More than you might imagine according to a study recently published in the journal Obesity.

Researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences found that in just 5 days, a high-fat diet can change the way your muscles process glucose after a meal. Muscles make up about 30% of the average person’s body weight and play an important part in glucose metabolism. Levels of glucose in your bloodstream rise after a meal, and muscles help determine whether this carbohydrate energy is used or stored.

True Strength Moment: For some perspective, in a normal diet about 30% of the calories come from fat. In the diet researchers used for this study, subjects consumed about 55% of their calories from fat. Their overall caloric intake didn’t change from normal to high-fat eating, so be careful about how you distribute macronutrients at mealtime.

via @optimumnutrition #ON #optimumnutrition @team_on