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.
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.
07983570574
