Getting Back in Shape
ByI'm sure you've gotten the same message: We're supposed to get in shape and stay in shape. But what if we're not sure how to get in shape? We've probably all seen a few neighbors working at getting back in shape... but the overwhelming majority of them seem to be in the same shape as the rest of us. Magazines with gorgeous people adorning their covers pitch one plan after another to "lose belly fat" or "get six pack abs today." Are they all saying the same thing? And, if there's such a big secret that is so readily accessible, why isn't everyone in already back in shape?
All the extra pounds we have been carrying around have been getting a lot of attention as of late. The most recent study released in late July 2009 found that medical spending by obese Americans averages $1400 more per year per person over a non-obese person’s. That translates to nearly $150 billion a year in extra medical expenditures that could be avoided if the obesity epidemic was halted.
What is anyone supposed to do to learn how to get back in shape and lose weight without hurting themselves? There always seems to be a magic pill or new exercise contraption that promises unbelievable results for little effort or incredibly little time on infomercials late at night and early in the morning. Do any of them work?
As always, one saying will certainly be true: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
One basic rule for weight loss is this: You have to expend more energy than you eat in order for your body to begin using its own reserves of fat for energy. Therefore analyzing your diet and your daily physical activity are the next logical steps.
Your diet may contain hidden sources of an abundance of calories. Fast food, soda, pretzels, and snacks are sources of way too many calories. It’s nearly impossible to make any noticeable progress when you regularly drink soda and eat fast food. Besides what is usually too many calories, this is due to the chemical and hormonal responses the human body has to various types of foods. Sugars and simple carbohydrates that quickly break down into simple sugars raise insulin levels. As a result our bodies quickly store extra calories as fat if our muscles do not require extra energy due to intense exercise. Besides the obvious, are you aware that plain white rice falls into the simple carbohydrate category? Not that it is bad, but can quickly undermine a good effort because of its high glycemic index, insulin-releasing effect.
Our diet must contain the right combination of low fat proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and mountains of vegetables.
Here's a quick guideline: When you prepare a meal, make your portions of lean protein and carbs equal in size and half of your meal. Make the other half of your meal all veggies. Eat six small meals like this every day instead of three large ones. This rough guideline will get you on a better path without the feeling of being starved.
Once we have the right food combination integrated into our lives, losing the extra weight we’ve put on over time still requires some effort.
Low impact cardio like walking will strengthen your heart gradually and is a great first step if you haven’t done much exercising in a long time. Elliptical trainers also are very popular for low-impact cardio. However, if you really want rapid fat loss, believe it or not, you should work on building muscle. And yes, this is for women reading this also.
Cardio exercises raise your metabolism for the duration of the exercise and for a short time after. For some people, this is all they will need to get back in shape. There are great fringe benefits to walking, running, and biking too, just for some time alone in a very busy world. Getting results via low impact exercise can take longer, though, and there never seems to be enough time. Nothing is more motivating than rapid progress.
So, why work on building muscle if you really want to burn fat fast? Muscles burn energy. More muscle mass will make it easier to burn calories. Not only that, your body expends energy to build and repair muscle, which breaks down during strength exercises.
Therefore, you burn energy during your strength exercise routine, and your body continues to burn energy, raising your metabolism, for a longer period afterward as muscles are repaired. Also, when you force your body to repair and build muscle tissue, it releases its own growth hormone. This may come as a surprise, but growth hormone is the best known catalyst for making your body burn its own fat reserves for energy. Really!
There are only two ways to get growth hormone in your blood stream. One is illegal, dangerous, expensive, stupid, and guaranteed to destroy your life eventually. The other is natural, and a result of working out using the right routines. The only catch to the whole concept is that you actually have to work hard to see results. This doesn’t mean 12 hours a week in the gym or that you must run like you're training for a marathon. With three workouts a week that may take an hour and a half at most, you can get fantastic results surprisingly fast.
The growth hormone theory was actually even put to the test by a blogger at who has been recording his journey to get in shape lifting weights--and he’s 48! His wife is doing it too, and she dropped three pants sizes in ten weeks. It worked because of the intensity of the workout. The intensity magnifies the impact on your body, and that triggers the release of all the right hormones that help burn fat and build muscle.
An intense strength building routine doesn’t mean doing 25 sets of exercises for each muscle every day! There is a big difference between intense workouts and overtraining! Remember, too, that intensity depends entirely on your level of physical fitness. What you will perceive as an intense workout will differ greatly from everyone else's!
The two keys to intensity are compound exercises and supersets.
A compound exercise involves many muscles for each repetition. Think about exercises like the dumbbell overhead press... Most of your muscles get involved to execute each repetition. A pushup works similarly: Besides the very obvious chest and triceps at work, nearly every other muscle in your body is involved in each repetition.
A superset is simply a set of exercises performed one right after the other with the absolute minimum rest possible between exercises. Typically, supersets are only discussed in the context of working one muscle, as in supersets for quads. However, you can work every muscle in body by doing only one superset of eight to ten different exercises.
If you have never done a full-body superset, you will be stunned at how difficult it becomes after only the first two to three exercises. Repeating the superset three to five times will then spike the intensity level. If you are in better shape, you can shorten the time between exercises and supersets to further jack up the intensity of your workout.
The intensity level your body feels is what triggers the biological mechanisms that make it try to adapt to new requirements you just imposed on it. So you don’t have to work each muscle to “failure” to experience the natural release of growth hormone and its benefits, but you will feel fatigue!
But what if you want to start getting back in shape at home and can't buy weights? Get creative to work all your muscles! For example, if you can't do pushups, try them on a flight of stairs, or pushing off a wall, until you build enough strength to do them normally. Get two one gallon jugs of water to use as your weights for bent-over rows or military presses. You get the idea.
Beware of any companies trying to sell you the next miracle supplement for losing weight with no effort. If you’ve read this far, you are realistic about losing weight and getting fit and are on the right track.
Congratulations!
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