OK were two weeks into the new year and a few of you may have committed yourself to a exercise program “AWESOME” I just want to make sure you are focusing on the important aspects and not wasting your time with things that aren't as important, this will help you obtain that goal in a faster & more productive manor, I want you to see results..This will help you stay committed.
First off I just want to say before your start your workout program you need to understand one important thing and let it sink in deep! Your doing this for your health! take your mind off losing fat, once you get your health dialed in the fat will come off, most people think they need to lose fat to get healthy but it's quite the opposite "you need to get healthy to lose fat"
Body fat isn't just something to be worried about for vanity reasons, there's numerous reasons why you shouldn't have an excess amount. Fat is a very interesting tissue, scientist to this day are discovering new things about it, take
Leptin for example, Leptin is a hormone that your fat cells send to the brain (hypothalamus) it tells the brain to stop eating. This process is compermised when there is an excess amount of body fat, there's just too much
Leptin being produced and over time you become
Leptin resistant, this means a person who has this condition can eat thousands of calories at one sitting and
never get that "OK your full and satisfied, stop eating message" this will only lead to the storage of more excess fat. Being resistant to messenger hormones are not uncommon take
diabetes for example, excess amounts of blood glucose (sugar) over time will either make you resistant to
insulin or your pancreas will simply stop making it, it all comes down to hormones
, OK moving on.
I'm sure you've heard terms like BMI (body mass index) or BMR (basal metabolic rate) albeit these terms are valid calculations and can be useful tools but they aren't as important as RMR (resting metabolic rate) this is what you need to focus on, now the number itself shouldn't concern you as much as the meaning so don’t stress on the equations; RMR also known a REE (resting energy expenditure) is the amount of calories your body burns doing nothing ( watching TV, breathing, working on the computer etc..) Just know this, you want to rev up that RMR and I’ll tell you how to achieve that later on.
I’ve always heard people say " oh he/ she is lucky, they can eat anything they want and not gain weight, they must have a high metabolism" well they're right, people do have high metabolisms it doesn’t mean you can’t! Having a high metabolism is completely obtainable by you and me, at this point you may be wondering HOW?
You see our body has this tissue that requires calories just to exist and many more when conditions are prime, the more of this tissue we have the more fat you burn, care to guess what this tissue is called...it's called muscle and it is a metabolic tissue! Studies have shown that 1 pound of muscle can burn 30-50 calories a day so let’s say you pack on 10 pounds of extra muscle, that’s 300 to 500 calories a day; There's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, you’re looking at 1 pound of actual FAT gone in 7-10 days or 5 pounds in about 7 weeks and that's real fat not fluid loss "that's my term for scale weight"
Starting a weight training program is paramount to loosing body fat! I'm not talking about those multi colored paper weights you get at Wal-Mart. I'm talking about a weight you can barley lift (safely) 10-12 times “for starters” you should be working 2-3 muscle groups a day for 4-5 days a week and take weekends off recovery is vital to muscle growth, you should let the muscle you worked rest for 4-5 days before your work it out again. There is no substitute for weight training
this is a proven way to add on muscle that will gobble up your excess storage of body fat. Weight training has huge benefits in overall health not to mention the anti aging effect human growth hormone
(HGH)has but yeah you’re going to turn back the clock, I hope your OK with looking younger. There are many variations of weight training programs, I would suggest you keep it simple and stick with basic compound exercises…don’t get tricky, I'll post some compound exercises you can do in a different blog.
CARDIO:
DO NOT! I REPEAT ...DO NOT DO more than 20 minutes. The main focus here is to pack on muscle, muscle is going to raise your RMR and Metabolism so you must avoid anything that will decrease your muscle mass, running for a long period can and will strip you of muscle.
You will see people on a tread mill for an hour or more, looking at the display so see how many calories they’re burning thinking they’re burning off the lunch they had just hours before…this is far from what’s is really happening! Another thing people tend to do is set distance goals and actually hope the run will get easier for example; Joe starts on the tread mill one day and shoots for 5 miles, on day one he is huffing and puffing with side aches, he knows in his mind this run will get easier with time…2 months later he’s doing the 5 mile run nice and easy steady pace and thinks he has it made, goal reached…WRONG!
What’s happening to Joe is a common mistake people make when trying to lose fat. Your body needs energy to run for that hour on the treadmill and in a perfect world your body could just tap into that excess storage of fat for energy after all that’s what it is. Sorry! It doesn’t work that way. Your body is going to use your glucose in your blood stream & stored glucose (glycogen) from other places like your liver for energy and once that’s depleted it’s going to start tearing down your muscle for energy this is called (muscle catabolization) have you ever seen the difference between a long distance runner and a sprinter?
When a person is on the treadmill for a long period of time they will lose a little bit of fat but not nearly the amount they may think and the fat they do loose only happens there in the gym, that’s what they’re hoping and telling their body to do with a long steady run, almost no fat loss takes place when they’re doing day to day activities, in fact their body is only going try and put on what it lost, this is why you see the typical cardio junkie take a week off and come back 7 pounds heavier, if you have a person who weight trains take a week off that person will come back stronger with less fat!
To add insult to injury, while spending all this time on the treadmill their adrenal glands are working overtime producing
cortisol to deal with the stress that their body is going through and at the same time lactic acid is building up in the muscle to extreme levels, hormones are all out of whack at this point, this is not good. This is the perfect storm to keep them from loosing excess body fat and in no way does it increase their metabolism now for the icing on the cake, all that excess
cortisol can suppress their immune system and cortisol is also catabolic (breaks down muscle)
this is also why it so important to work on your stress, don't let anything negative effect your life. I know it's easy for me to say but its important to the success of the program, if your always stressed out forget about losing fat, stress elevates your
cortisol and now your imbalanced. I’m not going to go any further into this area but feel free to do some research in fact I encourage you to do so.
DON'T STRESS OUT
Just remember and don’t forget! You do not want your body to go into a catabolic state it’s only going to take you away from what you’re trying to achieve unless what you’re trying to achieve is to run far, loose muscle, prime your body for fat storage while trashing your adrenal glands
(Adrenal Fatigue) and suppressing your immune system but that’s a whole other topic for discussion.
CARDIO THE RIGHT WAY:
Your cardio on your weight training program will consist of high intensity training (HIT) for 16-20 minutes a day for 3-5 days a week, whether it’s riding a stationary bike, treadmill or sprinting on a track. You’re going to give it all you got for that time and you’re going to do it as if your life depended on it, I want you to get sick just thinking about it. Sticking to this time will prevent muscle catabolism and you will initiate a
HGH response (human growth hormone) shortly after your cardio, the intensity will have you burning calories for hours and hours after your workout even while you’re watching Glee or whatever you do when your decompressing.
Option two is High intensity interval training (HITT) this is the same as the first but but instead your going to go all out for 45sec to 1 minute stop and rest for 1-2 minutes, when I say go all out I mean you put every last bit of energy you have into what ever cardio exercise you choose. What your aiming for is the feeling of your heart wanting to explode! Do this 6-8 times.
NUTRITION:
I would love to spend a couple of hours on this subject but I’ll keep it short and sweet for now. This part of your program is the most important of them all; it will be the deciding factor between success and failure! Nutrition is 80-85% of a workout program and if you want to reach that fat loss goal you need to stick to your plan, no one is going to hold your hand and do it for you. Working out is easy compared to eating healthy, it takes a little time to understand what is good and what is bad, you’re not going to be counting calories or points or looking at food pyramids, most people today still think a calorie is a calorie across the board and that is simply not true….all calories are different and your body reacts to them in different ways.
OK here it is..DON’T EAT GARBAGE! I’m talking about fast food and empty calories; Try to stick with natural real unprocessed foods. Only eat it if it came from the ground, walked on the ground or swam in water, it’s so simple right? If it has a ingredient you can’t pronounce don’t eat it! If it’s been altered in anyway don’t eat it! Don’t use processed oils to cook (canola oil, vegetable oil or soy) Avoid foods with flour, white sugar and especially high fructose corn syrup (it’s in most processed foods) read your labels.
Make sure your eating within 30 minutes upon rising and every 3-4 hours after that 5-6 times a day, don’t skip meals, you’re not going to lose fat by eating less. Your body is going to require more calories when you weight train, remember you want your body to want more calories the more calories it needs the more fat you’ll lose when you’re at rest…remember resting metabolic rate (RMR) you’ll keep that metabolism stoked as you feed your body.
You want to eat Protein at every meal along with low glycemic carbs (good complex carbs) and good fat. Every meal is going to consist of 40% Carbohydrates/ 30% protein/ 30% fat remember don’t forget the fat. It’s important in making good hormones and it suppresses the production of
Ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates hunger) and help you reach a state of satiety, we need to consume fat for optimum health period!
PRE & POST workout meal.
It’s time to work out and you’re going to have a small pre workout meal that consist of protein and carbs (no fat) and immediately following your workout have a post workout meal consisting of protein and carbs “meal replacement drink or whole food” this is the only two times you are able to have high glycemic carbs, this is the time you want the sugar to rush into your blood stream, you’re looking for quick energy to carry you through your workout once your done tearing it up in the gym you want to replenish and nourish, once your done working out you’ll start to lose fat! when you were busting your ass working out your body was using glucose and stored glycogen and not fat so once your done working out you need to put back what you lost, now the magic begins, your body will turn to stored fat for energy, given you consume your balanced meals consisting of low glycemic carbs, protein and fat...that's the real deal formula!
Eating a balance meal like this will ensure you maintain balanced blood sugar levels and keep your hormones in check after all its hormones that dictate the storage of fat. Too much sugar in your blood stream will stimulate an
Insulin response from your pancreas,
Insulin is thee fat storage hormone, you want to avoid this so stay away from all sugar unless it wrapped in fiber, that’s called fruit..in moderation if that.
SLEEP: This is the last factor and it’s as important as the rest if not more, many important things take place when we sleep, so many beneficial processes happen at this time, too many to list, this is the time we rebuild, regenerate. I’m not going to get too deep in this area because you might fall asleep if you’re not asleep already. I will tell you this: you need to do what you can to try and get 7-8 hours of solid sleep..all the hard work you put in the gym and hard work it takes to eat right etc.etc is going to all come together here, this is the time when your muscles actually grow, your brain will function better with rest causing you to be more focused and ready for the day to come, having more sleep will prime you to do it all over again.
I said it once and I’ll say it again this is just a broad overview, this information is given to you in a nutshell so to speak now that the seed is planted it’s your job to nurture it with reserch and practice, I’ll be more than happy to answer any questions about this subject or wellness in general, I find this subject fascinating and enjoy discussing it.
I just want to leave you with this food for thought; there’s 24 hours in a day, let’s say you workout for 1 hour a day. Would you want to be on a workout program that promotes fat loss for that 1 hour you work out or for the 23 hours you’re not working out??? Hummm.I’ll take 23 hours. Workout smart and you can change the way your metabolism works and I guarantee you will melt fat away and watch your waist line shrink and this is where it counts not some fluctuating number on a scale caused by body fluid that only depresses you with false weight readings.
Next week I'll say a few words about supplements....yes you need them, everyone is deficient in something.
