Nautilus North

REVOLUTIONARY NEW FAT LOSS PROGRAM

In February of 2006, 33 subjects, comprised of 22 women and 11 men (aged 25-64) agreed to take part in a radical experiment at Nautilus North Strength & Fitness Centre. After years of listening to “the latest thing” to come down the river of diet programs, we decided to conduct a study to determine just how little exercise was required to lose pure body fat, understanding that simply losing “weight” was relatively easy as some of that weight would be lean tissue. The study lasted 10-weeks. No supplements or special dietary restrictions were imposed, save for using a well-balanced but modestly reduced calorie diet in conjunction with a workout that lasted a mere two minutes and performed but once a week. Here are the results:

TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS: 442.4 lbs.

GREATEST WEIGHT LOSS (MEN): 43.2 lbs
GREATEST WEIGHT LOSS (WOMEN): 25.8 lbs
AVERAGE WEIGHT LOSS: 17.02 lbs.

TOTAL PURE FAT LOSS: 405 lbs.

Greatest Fat Loss (Men): 33.8 lbs
Average Fat Loss (Men): 20.9 lbs.
Greatest Fat Loss (Women): 23.6 lbs.
Average Fat Loss (Women): 13.2 lbs.

AVERAGE PURE FAT LOSS: 15.58 lbs

STRENGTH INCREASES
(After only 10 workouts!):

Lower Body (Men): 43.05%
Upper Body (Men): 30.42%

Lower Body (Women): 43.73
Upper Body (Women): 32.51%

AVERAGE OVERALL STRENGTH INCREASE: 35.46%

TOTAL LEAN (MUSCLE) INCREASE: + 132.8%

Average Lean Gain % (Men): + 6.21%
Average Lean Gain % (Women): + 4.52%

OVERALL AVERAGE LEAN (MUSCLE) GAIN: + 5.11%

Never in the history of fat loss and exercise (and that’s quite a history) has there ever been this much fat loss from this little amount of exercise – and all of the above results were achieved employing a workout that lasted (on average) a mere 2 minutes and was performed only once a week! Moreover, when the results were compared between groups that trained with more exercise versus those that trained with less, that those who trained the least lost more fat and gained more muscle by a ratio of 2-to-1! No 45-minute per day sessions on a treadmill were necessary – nor any other form of aerobic exercise.

Knowing this, think for a moment of the billions of man-hours that have been wasted over the years by people who believe they “have to” train several hours a week if they wish to lose body fat.

In terms of diet, the subjects on the study consumed regular food – three meals a day, plus two snacks; food that you can find in any supermarket. No drugs were involved. No supplements were employed, nor were they required. And, in case you were wondering, we are half way through another round of this program, this time with 65 subjects – and ALL of them are repeating the results of those on the first study.

HEALTH BENEFITS

Given the high numbers of injury and osteoarthritis from overuse of joints and connective tissues (please see Part One of our interview with Doug McGuff, MD in this issue), it is questionable that the present trend of performing “more” exercise outweighs its health risks. The ideal health prescription would be to perform the precise amount of exercise required, rather than trying to determine just how much exercise you can tolerate. The health benefits of our Fat Loss program are nothing short of remarkable: Blood pressure medications were found to be no longer necessary (a sure sign of cardiovascular improvement) for 30 percent of the subjects who took part in the study; cholesterol medications were also found to be no longer necessary for the same 30 percent, and individuals who had been diagnosed with diabetes were found to require 70% less insulin – that’s right, not a “little less” – but 70% less! Individuals who had come off of knee replacement surgery now found that they could literally “bound up” flights of stairs that otherwise had represented an insurmountable obstacle. Incredible results from a workout that lasted, literally, a fraction of the time that most individuals seeking to lose weight follow.

THE REASON?

In a word: Science. In the past individuals seeking to lose weight have looked to the suspect opinion of the fitness industry which exists to sell services and products, not to dispense valid scientific information (particularly when it is this simple). Consider the following medical facts:

Muscle is metabolically expensive tissue. It requires more calories at rest than any other tissue and is responsible for 70% of the calories burned on a daily basis. The more you have of it, the higher your resting metabolic rate (fat burning ability) will be.
Muscle is the first casualty on most diets and on most exercise programs. If you do not use resistance exercise, you will lose muscle. If you use resistance exercise but it is performed for too many exercises or too often, you will – again – lose muscle tissue.
To build muscle it must be trained within its anaerobic pathways (up to 70 seconds); any training beyond this point dilutes the potency of the training stimulus and could cost you muscle.
Training too frequently prevents your body from producing or even maintaining muscle tissue.

While the above facts have been known by exercise scientists for over 50 years, they have never been applied to people’s fat loss aspirations – until this program. The dramatic success of this program has resulted in it being added as a permanent part of the Nautilus North program (please see our new rate card). The program will provide all of the scientifically tried and true ammunition they require to realize their fat loss goals:

All the shopping lists
All the menus
All the recipes
Five support/education meetings
10 supervised workouts
Six body composition tests at Body Comp

UPDATE! A ONE-SET WORKOUT?

During the 10-week Nautilus North/Body Comp fat loss program we recognized that the clients would have to train as intensely as they could in order to preserve (and hopefully) increase their lean tissue levels during a negative calorie balance. Doing so would lead to an increased metabolic rate and cause them to burn more calories – even while at rest – at a more rapid rate. As the greater the intensity of effort, the briefer such effort can be, we quickly recognized that some clients were “out of gas” after performing only two sets in their weekly workouts. As a result, during the course of the study we created two groups: one group was kept at three exercises (performed once a week), while the training volume of the other group was reduced to a mere two sets (performed once a week). The results? The group that did less training (the 2-sets once a week group), gained more muscle and lost more fat – by a 2-to-1 ratio! This wasn’t an anomaly either, but rather the normal response for everyone right across the board. One of the clients in the 2-sets once a week group indicated that she was willing to experiment in reducing the volume of her workout even further. After the study had completed, she agreed to drop her weekly workout down from two sets to one high-intensity set per session performed but once a week. After four more weeks on a reduced calorie diet, and training on average for one minute per week, we re-tested her in the Bod Pod body composition tracking machine. We were stunned to learn that such a brief workout had resulted in her losing an additional 5 pounds of fat, and gaining an additional 3 pounds of muscle! We will be conducting another study in the near future where all of the subjects will perform but one set per week and will report the findings to our members at that time. Certainly the implications from this would completely revolutionize the fitness industry.