Fitness and Exercise tips 6 - How to Avoid Becoming a Fat Thin Person

Whether your goal is to lose weight or just "tone up," your objective should be the same: to lose fat without sacrificing muscle. Otherwise, you'll just end up as a fat thin person. In past issues of ETR, we've told you exactly how to do this: Base all your meals around a healthy source of protein and add resistance exercise to your workout routine. Recent research published in the Journal of Nutrition confirms this approach.

Researchers at the University of Illinois divided 48 obese women into two groups. One group was put on a higher-protein diet, while the other group consumed more carbohydrates. (Both diets contained the same number of calories.) All of the women walked several times a week, but the "high-protein" group added two sessions of resistance exercise.

When the study concluded, the high-protein group had lost an average of 22 pounds - almost all of it from fat. The women on the high-carbohydrate diet lost only 15 pounds, and more than two pounds of that was muscle. In other words, 15% of their weight loss was from muscle!

Dr. Donald Layman, the author of the study, summed it up this way: "Both diets work because, when you restrict calories, you lose weight. But the people on the higher-protein diet lost more weight. There's an additive, interactive effect when a protein-rich diet is combined with exercise. The two work together to correct body composition; dieters lose more weight, and they lose fat, not muscle."

To maximize your fat loss while maintaining or building muscle, cut back on carbs, base all your meals around a healthy source of protein, and combine interval training with resistance exercise. You won't believe how quickly your body will respond.

Source: www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com

Fitness and Exercise tips 5 - Okay… Who Doesn’t Have Time to Exercise Now?

What if you could get the same results with six minutes of cardio exercise each week, as opposed to six hours? Well, if recent research is any indication, you can.

In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, 23 reasonably fit men and women were timed to see how fast they could cycle 18 miles. They were then divided into three groups. One group cycled two hours a day at a moderate pace. Another group biked 10 minutes a day in one-minute bursts. The third group biked for a total of two minutes a day - an all-out sprint for 30 seconds, followed by several minutes of rest (repeated four times).

After two weeks, the subjects repeated the 18-mile test - and all of their times improved to virtually the same degree. Additional tests showed that their muscle enzymes (essential for preventing diabetes) and the ability of their muscles to absorb oxygen also improved to the same degree.

Granted, this is a small study. But it does show that you can reduce your workout time (and get the same or better results) if you're willing to endure some discomfort.

Source: www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com

Fitness and Exercise tips 4 - Fitness Tips for Travelers

A few ideas that I've gathered from reading, from fellow travelers, and from trial and error:

• Other than a glass of wine or beer with dinner, don't drink on the plane. It will dehydrate you, which may give you a headache. (And besides, only obnoxious, loud people drink heavily on planes.)
• Force yourself to exercise while you're away from home. Although I exercise like crazy when I'm in my regular routine, I find it very difficult to exercise when traveling. I've gotten better recently by making it easier. My new routine is 10 minutes of yoga movements in the morning (before showering), and 10 minutes of Hindu squats and push ups in the early evening (before dressing for dinner). By asking less of myself, I've been able to do more.
• Eating well is another challenge when traveling. Between the rush, the junk food that's being pushed at you during meetings, and the tendency to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings, I tend to put on weight. The only solution I've found is to stick to a zero-carb diet until dinner. It doesn't work all the time (it's tough to keep saying no to those cookies), but when I fail I don't worry about it. I know I'll take the extra pounds off right away when I get back.
• Get some sunshine. It's easy to get into a routine where you are out of the sun for a week when traveling for business. That's not good for you. Schedule some time to get out and walk in the sun every day.

Source: www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com

Fitness and Exercise tips 3 - The Cardio Myth

Most fitness books and magazines will tell you that the way to shed fat is to increase the time and distance that you exercise. While endurance exercise does burn a lot of calories, it is not the best way to decrease body fat.

During moderate-intensity exercise, the body burns fat for energy. And by engaging in that type of activity over and over, you are effectively telling your body that you need that fat. So, to prepare for the next time it is called on to repeat the activity, your body will store more fat.

Conversely, when you engage in short bursts of high-intensity exercise, your body uses glycogen stored in the muscle tissues for energy. Over time, this conditions your body to store energy in the muscles - rather than as fat. Exercising this way will also cause you to burn more fat during your recovery period, as the glycogen in the muscles is restored.

Consider this study performed by the University of Quebec. One group of exercisers cycled for 45 minutes without stopping. Another group exercised for short bursts lasting from 15 seconds to over a minute, with rests in between. The long-duration exercisers burned more calories, but the short-duration exercisers lost more fat. In fact, nine times more fat for every calorie burned.

This is why many endurance athletes have body fat percentages ranging from 10% to 20%, while sprinters have a well-muscled physique and usually carry only 4% to 8% body fat.

If you want to increase the health and strength of your heart, you don't need to spend hours on a treadmill or run for miles and miles. In fact, doing that can be counterproductive.

Endurance exercise actually makes the heart, lungs, and muscles smaller, so they can perform longer with less energy. But what you gain in efficiency, you lose in reserve capacity. In other words, while you might be able to handle an hour-long jog, you compromise your ability to produce bursts of energy. In your later years, it is this reserve capacity that provides protection from heart attacks.

So if you want to improve the health and strength of your heart, focus on short intervals of intense exercise punctuated by brief periods of recovery.

Source: www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com