 It is possible to increase the amount of energy you burn and lose weight?
The question is - what is the best type of exercise? What is the best exercise intensity and the optimal duration? Walking and running shower higher amounts of fat oxidation (burning) but that doesn't necessarily mean more weight loss. Longer bouts of exercise at moderate intensity will increase energy burning the most but higher intensity short duration exercise can increase the afterburn effect. The afterburn effect is not as high as people think though and it quickly returns to baseline levels in most cases. The best approach is to include short duration high intensity exercise to increase calorie burning and longer more moderate intensity exercise to increase the amount of fat burned during a session. A Typical Week Might Look Like:
A typical interval program might look like this:
A typical moderate cardio program might be:
A typical weights program for fat loss might look like this: There you have it. All you have to do, is DO IT.
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 There are 1 million diet, fitness, weight loss books and methods out there but when we look at the big rocks, there are 3 main ways to lose weight.
Let's look at reducing your energy/calorie intake first. According to many experts and Asker Jeukendrup, currently a visiting Professor at Loughborough University, UK and the Director of mysportscience, reducing your energy/calorie intake is the most important factor for weight loss. Low-fat diets and energy restriction result in weight loss and are both effective over the long term. Against current guidelines, (think low-carb mania) reducing your dietary fat can be very effective for reducing overall calories in and promotes weight loss for several reasons. 1. Fat is very energy dense and has twice the amount of energy as the same weight in carbs or protein. 2. High-fat foods generally taste very good and can lead to a tendency to eat more. 3. Fat is less satiating (less filling) than either protein or carbs. 4. Fat is very efficiently stored and requires very little energy to digest. I know that a lot of people will say "but look a KETO diet, lots of people lose weight with that." They would be correct but only because there is a drastic reduction in carbs to make up for the increase in fat. Personally, if you follow KETO, PALEO, ATKINS, OKINAWA WAY, PIOPPI, DUKAN, I don't know really care. If it is working for you, keep with it. The key principle is that there is a reduction in energy into the body which makes weight loss possible.  The first step of any weight loss program is to define your weight loss goals.
They should be carefully considered and desirable. If you are in the healthy weight range for your height, your weight loss goals may be aesthetic. If you are overweight, it is purely health based. Ask yourself why you need/want to lose weight? Weight loss can be good in some cases but in others it will do more harm than good. Whether it is good or not depends on initial body fat percentage. A realistic weight loss goal is approx 1kg every 2 weeks. The more rapid the weight loss, the more likely it is to come back, the more likely you will lose more muscle and potentially decrease performance. I could argue here that this depends on personality. Maybe you are someone who needs to see quick results to get motivated. If so, quick weight loss is a good thing for you. But if you have a history of repeated attempts to lose weight and have tried multiple diets, quick weight loss that is unsustainable is not a good place for you to go. Also, it is perfectly fine to have weight loss goals for vanity. Just monitor the rate and type of weight you are losing. Take photos, use clothes as a marker, take measurements, get a DEXA scan. Use every measurement to ensure you are losing the right type of weight. Ideally we want muscle to stay the same or increase slightly and body fat to decrease to a healthy fit level. I'll be back tomorrow with the three main methods you can use to lose weight and you can decide what is the best approach for you. This weeks workout is a 10-20 Minute Rowing workout for fat loss. This can be adapted to any fitness level. Please see the video below for basic fitness rowing technique. The rower is a great cardio exercise that works your entire body from your shoulders to your calves. No muscle goes untouched and because of this, it burns a lot of calories. Best of all - it is low impact and easy on the joints. Perform this workout 1-2 times per week for quick fitness and fat loss results. Warm-Up: Perform a 500m row at a an easy pace or 5 mins on a cardio machine of your choice. You should feel slightly out of breath and pretty warm at the end. The Workout:
Cool Down with 5 mins walking or slow rowing. How To Adapt This Workout To Your Level: If you are unfit, it may take anywhere from 1min to 1:40mins to complete the 250m depending on the rower you use. The aim is to try and row for your best pace that matches your current fitness level. If you are really fit you will really feel this workout as you will have less recovery time. Please email [email protected] if you have questions. Here is a full body Kettle Bell fitness workout that can be performed indoors or outdoors. The workout has 5 exercises and you can perform as many rounds as you like for a period of time or pick a number of rounds and try to increase your weight every few workouts for 4-6 weeks. Warm up with 1 round of the exercises for 10 repetitions at a lighter weight. Check out the video below for a full description of the exercises. If you want a FREE weekly workout sent to your email every Sunday night - CLICK HERE  The Kettle bell Swing is now a hugely popular exercise and looks fantastic when performed correctly but it also has the potential to cause lower back pain if performed poorly.
Here are some tips and a good photo to help if you are some who gets back pain while doing this exercise. The picture above shows a good finishing position for the Kettle Bell Swing. I am showing this because normally people think it is the bottom of the swing where the back is most at risk but everyone seems to forget about the top position also. When you stop at the top of the movement you have two options. 1. You can do a strong, muscular contraction where you brace your abs and glutes and keep everything nice and tight - which is what we want. 2. Or you can do a soft ending where people sway their hips forward and kind of sag into their back joints. It looks like the person is bent outwards from the waist. Now, this might be okay for 10-20 swings but it can become a problem when you are doing 100's of reps every week. So here are some tips to help for the Kettle Bell Swing: 1. Your back should not be rounded at the bottom of the movement. 2. At the top you should not have your hips pushed was forward like many people do. 3. Your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles should be directly under each other and you should consciously squeeze your glute/bum muscles as can be seen in the photo above. If you sway forward you will compress your back joints together and eventually get pain. I have heard many people complain of this sort of pain and the finishing picture above is one of the best ways to stop that from happening. If you are unsure - get your form checked. This is a great exercise for many reasons. Hope these tips help.  When you set off on a fitness transformation it is wise to set yourself some meaningful personal specific goals.
This is key because there will be plenty of times when you feel like you are making ZERO progress and you'll feel like giving up. Also, it's important to have regular check ins with yourself to determine how you are going. Many people struggle to find a reason to even get started but then also measure progress. Asking yourself "What will be different?" Is a great question to determine how you will measure your success. Not everyone on Instagram/Facebook wants to look like a fitness model. Your goal might be as simple as:
Your goals might be performance based for example: Being able to perform your first chin up or running 10km sub 60 mins. Whenever you start a fitness journey - ask yourself "What will be different at the end of this journey?" It's a powerful question that will help massively with motivation. |
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