We use cookies to improve your experience. To find out more or disable the cookies on your browser click here.

AVAILABLE ON
Weight loss

AFFAIRS OF THE HART – “MINE’S A SKINNY LATTE”

12/11/2014
by

AFFAIRS OF THE HART – “MINE’S A SKINNY LATTE”

(This feature originally appeared in the June 2014 issue of Windsurf Magazine. To read more features like this first, Print and Digital subscriptions are available. Prices include delivery globally for 10 x issues a year!)

Harty peruses the controversial subject of weight loss.

To the question “What can I do to improve my windsurfing?” I would, if polite society permitted, almost always reply: “Lose weight.” Losing even a couple of pounds, suddenly you tack without crushing the cockroach. You can uphaul that 95L FSW, you have more energy and, of course, you will plane earlier. And as I mentioned elsewhere in this magazine, being able to plane early is your passport to windsurfing’s most exotic avenues. 

STRENGTH TO WEIGHT RATIOS
In all sports that require dramatic movement, what is most important is your strength to weight ratio. In broad terms it describes your ability to move, support and lift yourself. There is a graph. Small people are more likely to have better ratios. Flyweight weight lifters for example can lift over two and half times their bodyweight – heavyweights only one and a half.

The support team worked out that the already skeletal, ‘lungs-on-legs’ Bradley Wiggins, would have to lose 5 kg. if he were to have a chance of winning the Tour de France. The top 10 male competitors of the male Olympic fleet at the London Olympics were all over 6’, but none weighed more than 72 kg. In sub and semi planing conditions, they basically have to row themselves around the course. The scientists have worked out that for every kg. they carry over about 70 kg., they have to exponentially be a lot stronger to justify the extra weight.  Yes, the top slalom sailors, the likes of Dunkerbeck, Albeau and our own Ross Williams, are 90-95 kg., or more, but they always compete on the plane where the weight acts dynamically. And they are all fiercely strong. There is no blubbery excess. The old adage, ‘fat is fast’, coined unsurprisingly by fat fellas, is nonsense. My fellow speedster Dave White has constantly said he was fastest when he was lightest (by ‘lightest’ we mean 104 kg …)

When it comes to improving your lot, the simple truth is that it’s easier to lose weight than it is to gain strength.” But how?

THE WEIGHT LOSS MYSTERY
The first step on the way to Skinny Central is surely to take more exercise? However, one of the riddles of physiology is that exercise alone is not a guarantee of weight loss. In a recent study in Australia where 58 obese men and women were put on the same 12-week fitness regime without changing their diets, some actually gained weight. So much depends on day-to-day living and the nature and intensity of the exercise. Why in the 500 words left in this article I should have the answers that have eluded the weight loss industry for centuries is a mystery. However, let me at least pick out nuggets from recent studies that may shed a little light – and a few pounds (not that you need to of course …)

WEIGHT LOSS BY ACCIDENT
You can lose a lot of weight windsurfing – and not just from falling in open-mouthed near a sewerage outlet. I lost 7 kg. in one week following a pretty disastrous speed/slalom even in Fuerte. It turned out that unwittingly I had adhered to the perfect modern weight loss regime. The wind was brutal. I was racing up to 7 hours a day. I kept breaking things and repeatedly had to sprint the 1 km back to the rigging tent. I was wearing a weight jacket. I didn’t have access to food in the morning or early evening. This is why it worked (I say ‘worked’ – I really didn’t want to lose weight.)

Energy deficit and the sneaky body.
‘Burn more than you put back in’ remains the over-riding diet principle. However studies have shown that when the body goes into energy deficit, it‘s ever so clever at clawing back the calories. For example, in anticipation of an exercise session, studies have shown that people rest and become sedentary and they stock up on fuel. In Fuerte I could do neither of those. You use twice as much energy standing as you do sitting. Don’t be sedentary and don’t snack!

Intensity, fat burn and hunger.
There is a fat burn myth perpetuated in gyms that low intensity exerczise burns fat. It doesn’t. Muscles turn to carbohydrate as their preferred energy source. And a 20-30 minute session on a step machine will only burn about 300 calories. Eat one Mars Bar as a reward for your effort and it’s all back on – and a little bit more. It’s only by really pushing yourself that you burn calories. Repeated long sessions teach your muscles to burn fat.  And resistance exercise (weights) burns a lot more than aerobic exercise. Sailing over-powered is resistance training on a grand scale.

Hunger.
And on the subject of intensity, after exercise, hormones are released to increase appetite and replace calories (more so in women unfairly). However, when the exercise is lengthy (over an hour) and intense, leptin is released into the blood and decreases appetite. In Fuerte, despite the exertion, I just wasn’t hungry. If you can, do your thing before breakfast. Exercising in a fasted state burns more fat. And after exercise, protein assuages hunger better than carbs. Eat one Jaffa cake and you’ll definitely scoff the whole packet.

But of course we’re fighting a losing battle. Most windsurfers do it because it makes them hungry and thirsty.

PH  23 May 2014

You must be logged in to post a comment.