Weight Loss Information |
Exercise: Essential
The only absolute truth in the area of exercise and weight loss is this: Becoming more physically active will burn calories, and as long as you don't absorb those calories back by eating more, you will lose weight. Getting active and getting your muscles to burn more calories is an essential part of a weight management program. It will improve your circulation and your nervous system more than any diet could. Regular exercise can fight all signs of aging, lower cholesterol ratings and reduce osteoporosis. But the question that fuels the multi-million dollar fitness industry is, "What exercise is best?" This is a very contentious area. Mr. Weightless will only tell the simple truth, so below is the information that has been proven to be true, but the final judgment is yours. Slow and Steady Wins the Race... Slow and steady exercise that raises your heart rate a significant amount, but that still allows you to breathe without struggling for at least 20 minutes will encourage fat loss. This is called aerobic exercise. The term aerobic means "with air", meaning that your muscles are burning sugar and fat in the presence of oxygen. To be able to burn calories in the presence of oxygen, you have to be taking regular breaths, so the activity you're doing must be a moderate pace, at most. For many people who are overweight, this can mean simply a fast walk. For many athletes, this may be a quick jog. It doesn't matter where you are along the spectrum as long as your heart rate is raised and you can breathe normally or carry on a conversation. Why 20 minutes? At first, your body will only burn blood-sugar because it is readily available. If you keep going long enough, your body realizes that blood-sugar won't be enough, so it starts burning fat as well. If you stop exercising before this happens, then your body will simply be tired and you will feel hungry because your blood-sugar will be low (see my article on Satiety, click here). Your body wants to retain the fat and avoid burning it. This is a survival mechanism... read my article on Adaptation that you can find on my website. ...Or Does Maximum Intensity? There is another school of thought that has had similar success with just as much good theory behind it. Vigorous exercise for 10-15 minutes will burn just as many calories from your blood-sugar as a longer duration exercise, but it will also raise your metabolism for many hours afterwards. In other words, you won't burn fat during your workout, but you will slowly burn fat for a period of time after finishing. This method has been shown to have more dramatic effects on lowering body-fat than the low-intensity exercise described above. This is anaerobic exercise, meaning "without air". You'll be going fast enough that your breathing won't be enough to fuel the calorie burning. Carbohydrates (blood sugar) will burn without oxygen, which leads to the creation of lactic acid. This is what accumulates in your muscles, and makes them feel like they're burning. However, there are serious drawbacks to this method, which make it difficult to recommend this strategy exclusively. Before embracing the high-intensity mindset, read below. First, if a person is just starting a program, they risk serious injury if they try to exercise too vigorously. Knees, hips and ankle joints are very common injury sites, and muscle cramping can be very painful even if it is short-lived. Don't exercise at your peak intensity until you're used to exercising! Secondly, high-energy activities tend to be high-impact on the body. Running fast, playing racketball, and jumping jacks wear down the connective tissues in the body, so even if a person is not directly injured, they are causing long-term damage. People who run road races often have chronic hip, knee and ankle pain. If you decide to pursue this type of high-energy program, I highly recommend a reclined stationary bike to reduce the strain on your joints. The third problem is: How vigorous does a person need to exercise? If you go at your absolute peak, you may only last three minutes, maybe less, and that won't be effective. It is difficult to gauge how much you can push yourself to be exhausted exactly at 12 minutes. Finally, though vigorous exercise technically takes less time, it requires changing into workout clothes, doing the exercise, then taking a shower and changing back again. That means scheduling more time for the preparation than for low-intensity activities, as well as having access to a place to change. On the other hand, going for a brisk walk you can do on a whim, maybe more than once a day, in your regular clothes. The Best of Both Worlds: Two Alternatives You can get good results using either method, but the best method is to combine the two. If you're in the gym using a stationary bike, your goal should be to do a warm-up of aerobic activity for about 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of anaerobic exercise. For many people, a 20 minute brisk walk followed by a 10 minute fast bicycling makes the most sense. For those who play high intensity sports like racketball, a light warm up on a stationary bike for 20 minutes before a match can kick-start the fat burning process. Everyone is different. That may be too much for someone who is just starting out, though. The best recommendation is to start at a low intensity activity like walking, and gradually increasing the intensity week to week. A good way to do this is to walk down the street directly away from your home for 20 minutes, then turn around and walk back at a slightly quicker pace. This low-intensity 40 minute exercise every day should be fine for the first week. Don't aim to run right from the start, start slow, be patient, and improve consistently every day. After a week or two, turn the "walk away" portion into a quick power-walk and try to jog all the way back. Remember to use time, not distance, as your measuring-stick. Making your workouts shorter is NOT the goal, we always want our fat-burning exercise to last 30 minutes, and our warm-up aerobics to last 20 minutes, regardless of distance. The best fat-burning work out is difficult to program into a stationary bike, and works best on the street. This is "interval training". This type of workout allows you to get the benefits of high-intensity exercise and make it last over 20 minutes to burn fat right away. The formula is simple: Walk for 2 minutes, then run for 1 minute. Then repeat. Use the walking portion to catch your breath and prepare for the next high-intensity interval. At first, your "high intensity" may simply be a jog, don't over do it. Over the weeks, increase the intensity of your high-intensity portion. When you get up to a run, do NOT try to increase the duration of the high-intensity portion. You'll benefit more by continuing to increase the pace to a sprint, if possible. Keep the duration of the entire work out to 30 minutes or more. As I mentioned above, with all street running, beware the impact on your joints. Frequency How regular should exercise be? Every day. Anyone can fit in one half hour into their schedule. You should look forward to the physical activity, so choose one that you like to do if walking isn't for you. Remember that you're training your body to lose weight. If you don't exercise every day, your body will think that when you do exercise, it's a minor exceptional change. Only by doing it every day will your body come to expect it, and will therefore prepare for it. Training your body to expect to burn calories is half the battle! If anything, take the stairs instead of the elevator. David McCormick is the founder of Weightless Products. His Mr. Weightless site is dedicated to free weight loss articles and advice. There are no banners, no pop-ups, and you will never be asked for your email address. Mr. Weightless: Wait Less for Weight Loss!
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Good Food/Bad Food Whats Left to Eat? We've entered the Twilight Zone when it comes to the multitude of diets being promoted today. Starting with the Atkins Diet, then the South Beach Diet, now the Hamptons Diet and more. Learning How to Become a Good Loser The Quest to Reach Your Ideal WeightIt was late in the day and my next patient I would be meeting for the first time. As the woman entered my office upon introduction I was surprised by her response to my question of how she heard about me. Maximize Your Fat Burning Potential Do you compete in sports for weight loss or fat burning? Are you frustrated by that stubborn fat that seems to stay with you no matter how hard you train?Many athletes are in the same boat. They train hard, lose some weight, but then hit a plateau and the fat loss stops. Weight Loss Tips: Get Effective Weight Loss Tips! Looking for Diet Programs on net is like looking for water in an Ocean. But trust me, looking for good Diet Program is like finding a pearl in the ocean. Diets Dont Work Any doctor worth their salt will tell you diets don't work.Plain and simple. Five Healthy Weight Loss Tips Revealed Are you tired of getting the same old advice when it comes to dieting? Are you looking for some quick tips to help motivate yourself during a diet? Why not follow along below to learn about some quick healthy weight loss tips?Tip # 1: Take off five pounds quickly before a big event!If you're generally in good shape, but you want to pare off a few pounds to look your best before a big event like a class reunion, one of the best ways to easy weight loss is to cleanse your system. For the week before, skip the breads and pastas, eat lots of raw vegetables and salads, and drink at least eight ounce glasses of water a day. A Warning of the Complications of Gastric Bypass Surgery Gastric bypass surgery involves stapling the stomach to make it smaller and reattaching the small intestine to bypass a portion responsible for the majority of calorie and nutrient absorption.The procedure is only available to the morbidly obese (more than 100 pounds overweight) who have been obese for more than 5 years and shown a serious effort to lose their excess weight through not surgical methods such as diet and exercise. How To Get Past a Weight Loss Plateau Everyone who has ever been on a diet has hit a plateau at some point. It is that point where no matter what you do, you cannot seem to lose any weight. Caution! Watch Out For The Net Carb Trap! As a low carb dieter, you have probablybeen bombarded with all sorts of newfood terminology. One of the phrasesyou've probably heard time and time again is"net carbs. Obesity & Weight Management Is a Social Issue Much has been written about obesity and globesity. Obesity is perhaps the biggest drain on any nations economic resources with a mind-boggling costs to which researchers are yet to put a final figure. The Simplest Diet Plan Ever - 3 Easy Steps to Healthy Living You've heard the popular advice on weight loss diets. Cut thefat! Cut the carbs! Cut the calories! Eat a balanced diet! Buthow can you cut though all of the confusion, and eat a dietthat's balanced and healthy?Here's the advice from nutritional science:Cut the JUNK fats: Most people do not need an ultra low fatdiet. Positive Imaging for Weight Loss Visualization is a powerful technique that can help you make lasting lifestyle changes. Just by "day dreaming", you can significantly improve your chances in achieving your goals. Weight Loss: Its Not About the Numbers, Its Your Approach! Today obesity, diabetes, and heart disease run through us at epidemic levels. Why? The answer lies not in thethousands of different kinds of diet, weight loss and workout programs offered, the answer lies in the approach. Weight Loss? 2 Skills You Need If you have been dieting, there is a good chance you have lost weight. Unfortunately, large numbers of successful dieters quickly regain the poundage. How Not To Lose Weight Who really wants to lose weight? None of us, right? How much fun is it to be on a diet, deprived of all you really want and need when there is a McDonald's, Krispy Kreme or Baskin and Robbins right around the corner calling out your name? Learn to love what you've got, get more (and bigger portions) out of life and let all the skinny people fend for themselves! Following is our guide to not losing weight:1. Drive Everywhere You Go. Ive Been Dieting for Five Minutes - Am I Thin Yet? When Instant Results Take TimeYesterday I decided to "get back in shape," and today I'm already checking in the mirror to see if there's a difference. Sound familiar? Everything else is instantly obtainable from microwave dinners to pay-on-demand TV, so why should weight loss take so long?Before microwave ovens people had to decide in the morning what to make for dinner because it took all day to thaw the meat. Lose Weight with One Simple Mindset Diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases today. One of the things dealing with diabetes is maintaining consistent sugar levels in the blood stream. Healthy Diet Answers: Want Fries With That Mister ? Yes, my healthy diet has at times suffered at the hands of fast food, I admit it - I am addicted to fast food - it makes me feel good, it makes us all feel good, that's why its everywhere and thats why the fast food chains make millions. But let's face it, it's not that simple to be disciplined and no one's going to go to a restaurant with friends and tell the restaurant that they can't eat that rice because its white rice and it'll send my blood sugar levels sky high and release insulin into my body, can I have basmati instead ? - well, maybe just the hardcore diet enthusiasts. How Dance Dance Revolution is Getting Kids Off the Couch Are you concerned about the lack of exercise your child is getting?Would you like to see them up and moving instead of sitting around so much?Dance Dance revolution is the lastest dance craze that is a fun and addictive way to help your child get get up and move without realizes they are even exercising.Our kids health and fitness is more important today than ever before since video games, tv and computers are turning our kids into couch potatoes. Bathing Suit Season - A Lifestyle Guide To prepare ourselves for the Summer Sun we want to do more for ourselves than just watch what we eat. We want to get every part of ourselves moving, metabolizing and breathing. |
home | site map | contact us |