Dear weightwatchers

Dear weightwatchers

This is a bit of information on how exercise can greatly help with any weight loss plan, the information below was presented to local weight watchers groups in order to help them in their weight loss battle.

My name is Glenn Hill from itrainhard fitness and Ladies at Leisure Gym in Chester le Street and my aim is to help as many of the people in the North East get fit and healthy.

Personal Trainer Glenn Hill

Why fitness is essential when dieting ?

You see dieting on it’s own puts your body into a state of catabolism  (basically eating itself or using fat for fuel) during this process your body can use as much as 50% muscle too.   Keeping muscle is really important as muscle is directly linked to your metabolism.  Less muscle slower metabolism and more muscle a faster metabolism basically because muscle needs a lot of fuel (calories)to keep working.

So dieting or calorie restrictive dieting helps you lose weight, but so does exercise for example if you drop your calorie intake by 700 calories each day you  may lose 1lb a week.  If you work out and expend 700 calories each day with fitness your weight loss would double. 

Actually more than this because your body burns more fat in the hours and days after exercise through the after burn or EPOC.  Also progressively the more lean muscle you manage to put on the faster your metabolism and therefore more calories expended whilst watching the soaps.

I call it the fitness snowball, eventually your lean muscle keeps you fit and lean with very little effort.

EPOC Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption

After intense exercise, interval training and some classes your body needs lots of excess oxygen to repair the body this process can last from  a few hours to a few days and uses lots and lots of calories.  The more intense the exercise the longer the EPOC or after burn, long slow cardio does NOT have a good after burn.

This means that a short 4-minute 100% effort exercise can have a bigger effect than an hour of slow cardio.  Try my online 4-minute YouTube home sessions at youtube.com/glennhillfitness.

Metabolism (Basal Metabolic Rate)

Your BMR is how many calories your body needs to function properly, a reduction in your BMR means weight loss and an increase would mean fat gain or muscle gain if you where training hard.  There are lots of people including myself that eat more calories than my BMR to help feed muscle to keep myself in  shape.  Extra lean muscle is the most efficient way of increasing your BMR and therefore making weight loss permanent.

The Golden Hour

After a sustained exercise session your body is crying out for you to replace lost carbohydrates and repair damaged muscles.  Because of this need if you manage to eat within 30 minutes to 1 hour of training your body will replace lost fuel and repair damaged muscle rather than storing these calories as fat.  Not only does this mean you won’t  be as fat this also means your body will function better and get fitter quicker because you are giving it exactly what it needs.  The quality of food is important though as to repair damaged muscles and replace lost fuel a clean source of protein and carbs is absorbed more efficiently than a burger and chips for example.

My top tips for weight loss with exercise:

·      Do some exercise especially weights and interval training, with long slow cardio it could take you forever to see long term results.

·      Short and intense is much better than slow and long and more fun and over sooner.

·      Try and have something to eat after training.

·      Never do the same exercise, your body adapts to exercise quickly.  Between 4 and 8 weeks your body is using substantially less calories doing the same exercise.   So simply change how you train as often as you can, changing exercises, weights, intervals, rest, repetitions and effort.  “Do the same thing and get the same results”.

·      Train with a friend this is a great idea someone to help with motivation and to compete with.  Grab one of your weight watchers pals now and go and train together, maybe join a gym together.

·      Write down your training plan Write out a training plan with exercise 3 to 5 times a week understanding that more exercise equals better results.  If it is written down it is more likely that you will follow it.

·      Get outside  I know confidence could be stopping you from exercising outside however the extra vitamin D from the sun and the fresh air is a the best way to give you extra energy and make you feel happier.  Even 15 minutes sunshine a day has been proven to release hormones to make you feel a whole bunch happier.

·      Diet/Stress  You may have heard the saying “you can’t out train a bad diet” this is true, more importantly though is the fact you can’t out train stress.  If you have a number of stresses in your life they will be keeping you dumber and heavier.  Stress will help produce more of the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn stores more fat and destroys brain cells.  Whenever you are super stressed you feel anxious this feeling is letting you know your body is in the wrong nervous system.  You will be in the sympathetic nervous system and this means rather than repairing your body, replacing lost fuel and burning fat all of the blood which is normally used in the stomach for repair is shunted to the extremities ready to fight or run away therefore damaging your body day after day.

De-stressing can be as simple as slow box breathing before meals, when you are stressed and before bed.

 Any hoo i hope you have found some useful information here and good luck with your weight loss and exercise.  remember never have one without the other.

Glenn (the NE go to guy for fitness) Hill

07983570574