Fat Loss Performance Tip

Below is an abstract on how you can increase the calories you burn while working to drop body fat without a decrease in performance. As always, if you want to deflate the muffin top you need to take in fewer calories than you burn off. If you miss that part, you will not loose weight. But once you have that down, the tip below may help you out.

The take away is that a calorie free beverage during training, appears to help performance about 2-3%.  Nothing huge there, but since you did not take in any calories it might help a bit.

Our perception molds our reality, so if you THINK you are drinking calories, you can get a slight performance boost.  To quote Jodie L. Rummer “potential for pre-performance brain input could be huge!”   The biggest changes in performance will be advances in neuroscience, and we are just on the very edge of unraveling it.  I believe this study was one of the first to look at a performance change combined with fMRI (brain imaging) in relation to an ergogenic beverage.

Let me know what you think
Rock on
Mike T Nelson

Other References

Go rinse your mouth: a novel way to improve endurance performance? J Physiol June 1, 2009 587 (11) 2425-2426; published ahead of print March 30, 2009,

Carbohydrate sensing in the human mouth: effects on exercise performance and brain activity

1. E. S. Chambers1,

2. M. W. Bridge1 and

3. D. A. Jones1,2

Abstract

Exercise studies have suggested that the presence of carbohydrate in the human mouth activates regions of the brain that can enhance exercise performance but direct evidence of such a mechanism is limited. The first aim of the present study was to observe how rinsing the mouth with solutions containing glucose and maltodextrin, disguised with artificial sweetener, would affect exercise performance. The second aim was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify the brain regions activated by these substances. In Study 1A, eight endurance-trained cyclists (Graphic 60.8 ± 4.1 ml kg?1 min?1) completed a cycle time trial (total work = 914 ± 29 kJ) significantly faster when rinsing their mouths with a 6.4% glucose solution compared with a placebo containing saccharin (60.4 ± 3.7 and 61.6 ± 3.8 min, respectively, P = 0.007). The corresponding fMRI study (Study 1B) revealed that oral exposure to glucose activated reward-related brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex and striatum, which were unresponsive to saccharin. In Study 2A, eight endurance-trained cyclists (Graphic 57.8 ± 3.2 ml kg?1 min?1) tested the effect of rinsing with a 6.4% maltodextrin solution on exercise performance, showing it to significantly reduce the time to complete the cycle time trial (total work = 837 ± 68 kJ) compared to an artificially sweetened placebo (62.6 ± 4.7 and 64.6 ± 4.9 min, respectively, P = 0.012). The second neuroimaging study (Study 2B) compared the cortical response to oral maltodextrin and glucose, revealing a similar pattern of brain activation in response to the two carbohydrate solutions, including areas of the insula/frontal operculum, orbitofrontal cortex and striatum. The results suggest that the improvement in exercise performance that is observed when carbohydrate is present in the mouth may be due to the activation of brain regions believed to be involved in reward and motor control. The findings also suggest that there may be a class of so far unidentified oral receptors that respond to carbohydrate independently of those for sweetness.

Footnotes

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(Resubmitted 2 October 2008; accepted after revision 17 February 2009; first published online 23 February 2009)

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