1. Supportive Nutrition- Supportive Nutrition supports the bodies ability to burn fat through increasing its metabolism (how quickly we burn through food). When the body is being fed small frequent meals every 3 to 3 1/2 hours, supportive nutrition is providing several opportunities.Opportunities:
1. Consistent nutrients that the human body needs is being met through out the day.
2. The body is regulating blood sugar which allows stable energy levels. Cravings for sugary or processed foods become diminished.
3. The Body is regulating food hormones that increase the potential for fat loss.
4. The Body is increasing metabolism. Simply stated the speed with which your body burns through food.
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Several Beachbody programs make out your meal plan for you, and break each component of your diet down in a way that will help you understand how to eat for life.
The 2nd Component
2. Resistance (Weight)Training- I am not talking about bodybuilding, unless your goal is to have the biggest muscles, then we can discuss specific strategies for BIG MUSCLES! What I am talking about is using resistance training to work along with nutrition and aerobic training, to preserve lean muscle tissue as a added component, to increase metabolism to help burn fat. Study after study details that the use of resistance training increases metabolism longer then steady state cardio training (Ill discuss that a bit..but more in detail at my seminar.
IMPORTANT PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES:
1. Metabolism increases. Muscle maintenance requires more fuel than fat does; therefore the metabolic furnace is fired up. This means that even at rest, your muscles are burning more fuel (fat).
2. The density of the skeletal bones increases. Weight bearing exercise builds sturdier bones. This is of particular importance to women who may be prone to osteoporosis due to decreasing estrogen levels during menopause or a genetic predisposition.
3. Weight training develops stronger ligaments and tendons. These joint supports tend to weaken as we age. Strength training allows for continued enjoyment of the activities you love throughout all the stages of life.
4. Prevents atrophy.Unless you use them, your muscles gradually decrease in size and strength (atrophy). Without training, humans lose more than ½ pound of muscle every year after age 25!
Resistance training helps to develop bone mass and generates the round shape of the muscles within the body, giving your clothes something to hang from.
Weight training results in stamina and physical power to do the things that we need to do in our daily lives. Simple things like carrying the groceries up a flight of stairs without gasping for air or picking up your child without putting your back out.
- Results become apparent within days and as you progress along the journey you gain greater power and control over the way your body looks and feels
- Advanced exercisers will feel challenged and will benefit from enhanced recuperation time and those who are new to exercise will find a gradual progression allowing a sense of ease.
- The better shape you’re in, the more challenging the program becomes. The more apprehensive you are about exercise, the more modest the progression will appear. Based upon your fitness level, our synergistic program can be modified to meet your exercise experience, your physical condition, and your mindset.
The 3rd Component
3. Aerobic Training- You ever seen that commercial where the actor says “Your stuck on a treadmill”? My gosh… walk into gyms across America and people are walking like zombies watching T.V. They are putting more effort into using their eyes to view their favorite program. They all look like they are robotic. Its crazy! Then, they get off the treadmills or other exercise devices and stand on the scale and wonder why they are not losing weight or losing inches around their belly?
It kind of reminds me of a hamster spinning on its wheel..going no where.
I want to reteach you an aerobic movement that is more beneficial and I am sure you have heard of it, or maybe not..but I can almost guarantee you are not implementing it.
By definition, cardio workouts can be any exercise—jogging, running, biking, swimming, elliptical machine, stairs, even jumping rope—
Benefits:
- Increases metabolic rate
- Increases growth hormone secretion
- Reduces stress levels
- Increases blood flow to the brain increasing alertness
- Improve cholesterol levels
- Improves digestion
- Boosts immune-system function
High intensity cardio, including high intensity interval training (HIIT), is very effective and time efficient, although it’s not for beginners or those with certain health problems).
Bear with me…here..this is important!!!
It’s common sense if you think about it – work harder, burn more calories, right?
Here’s where the confusion has come from:
It’s well known that low intensity exercise utilizes primarily fat as fuel and high intensity exercise utilizes more carbohydrate as fuel.
In the past, this was the basis for the idea that low intensity, long duration aerobic exercise was superior for fat loss. Some people were were afraid to exercise too hard because they thought it would take them out of the “fat burning zone” and make them them burn only “sugar” and not body fat.
Today, research has proven that this belief in exercising at a low intensity to stay in the “fat burning zone” was false. At lower intensities, you burn more calories from fat, but you burn fewer total calories.
For example, a 1995 study conducted by Grediagin, et al, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (95(6):661-5) compared fat loss in two groups over a 12 week period.
One group performed exercise at 80% of VO2 max for a duration sufficient to burn 300 kcal, the other group performed exercise at 50% of VO2 max for a duration sufficient to burn 300 calories (took a lot longer, of course). Hydrostatic body composition testing revealed that…
***Each group lost an identical amount of fat.***
The authors concluded:
“This study suggests that fat loss is a function of energy expended rather than exercise intensity. Therefore, if fat loss is the goal and time is limited, persons should exercise safely at as high an intensity as tolerable to expend as much energy as possible during their allotted time.”
In my opinion, that conclusion pretty much hits the nail on the head when it comes to answering the questions, “How long and how hard should your cardio workouts be?”
Another study published by Ballard, et al in the same journal (51(2):142-6, 1990) showed identical findings. High (80-90% VO2max) versus low (40-50% VO2max) intensity rates were compared in two groups with duration carefully controlled to ensure each group burned the same number of calories.
The high intensity group exercised for only 25 minutes and the low intensity group for 50 minutes…
***Both groups lost the same amount of body fat! ***
Keep in mind BOTH approaches worked, but the high intensity group got it done in half the time!
Regardless of whether your cardio sessions are 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or whatever, the higher the intensity during that time period, the more TOTAL calories you will burn. The more TOTAL calories you burn, the more fat you burn.
It’s also important to consider energy expenditure after the workout, not just the calories burned during the workout. Higher intensities not only burn more calories per unit of time, but they also elevate your metabolism more at rest after the workout is over. This post workout increase in metabolic rate is known as “excess post exercise oxygen consumption” or EPOC for short.
It has been proposed, based on the results of several studies comparing the amount of calories burned at rest after low intensity versus high intensity exercise, that HIIT is a superior method of fat loss due to its effect on post workout metabolic rate.
However, it’s also logical that time permitting, more frequent and longer duration exercise might cause even greater overall fat loss if intensity is sufficient, simply because more total calories can be burned over the course of a week.
For example, if you do 20-25 minutes of very intense cardio, you might burn about 400 calories. That’s a lot of calories for such a brief workout. But it only adds up to 1200 total calories in one week if your frequency is only three days per week.
If you (gradually) built up your frequency to four, five, then even six days per week, you could double your caloric expenditure to 2400 calories per week.
Duration and intensity are inversely related, so the longer the workout, the lower the intensity. But that doesn’t mean a 30 or 45 minute workout necessarily has to be “low” in intensity.
A 30 or 45 minute steady state workout can be “moderate” or “moderately-high” in intensity. The combination of the highest intensity you can muster with a 30-45 minute duration can create an enormous calorie burn. Some of that calorie burn will occur after the workout as well, because studies have shown that EPOC is influenced not just by intensity, but also by duration.
Although infrequent and very brief (15-20 minutes or even less) HIIT workouts have recently gained great popularity (and deservedly so), that doesn’t mean you should never do steady state cardio, nor does it mean that certain individuals aren’t better off with longer, less intense cardio.
The bottom line is that a single cardio workout prescription, such as “three days a week for 20 minutes” will not work for everyone. Exercise programs must be developed on an individual basis and they are not static. The frequency, duration AND intensity all need to be adjusted based on your results.
4th Component.
Accountability
Accountability plays a vital role in Body Transformation. You need to be held accountable by someone other than yourself in order to maintain the consistency required to transform. Beachbody challenges are great for this!
Article found at: http://www.gablesfitness.com/
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