You might wonder why I’m asking this question.
Many of my subscribers ask questions regarding eating and exercise that fall under the general category of, “Is this right for me?”
To determine if an eating plan or exercise regime is right for you, ask yourself, “What is my goal and why did I choose that?”
If you ask me what diet I recommend, I’d have to say none(!). Eat healthy and you’re good. If you remove anything from your eating plan to lose weight and then bring it back in when you’ve lost the weight, be prepared to gain the weight back.
A perfect example of this is reducing the amount of “carbs” you take in. It is true that you will lose weight when you reduce your carb intake, but make sure you know the reason why. Carbs hold water, so when you reduce your carbs, you lose water weight. Once you re-introduce carbs, you gain the weight back. A better solution is to reduce the amount of processed carbs in your diet and make a healthy shift to carbs that are whole grain and high in fibre.
FACT: There’s hundreds of diet plans out there and many dieting (books) that make billions of sales every year, yet more of the population is overweight and obese!
Next step is to concentrate on what you’re doing when you’re watching what you eat. I’m talking resistance training. You ARE doing resistance training, right?!
Well if not, why? You don’t want to get huge, too muscular and bulky??? Are you afraid of what your dieting friends will think of you when you pick up those dumbbells and start building sexy, shapely, metabolically active muscle? When they see your shape improve (while dropping fat) they’ll wonder what the heck you’re doing to look so gooood!
When you’re looking at dropping a few pounds, your resistance training is just as important as your eating. For example, weight training consisting of only single joint exercises like arm curls and leg extensions are a waist of time. You might think differently, but hear me out. How many calories do you think you burn doing an arm curl? Take a look at the size of your biceps (arm) muscle, compared to all of your back and arms muscles when doing a heavy rowing exercise. You can see how the arm curl is not a very metabolically active exercise. To drop those pounds, pick an exercise that has a high metabolic cost, (high calorie expenditure).
Doing resistance training at a level that’s too low, also wont get the job done. An intensity level of about 50% is a warm up level. You have to be able to take it to a level of at least 70%. To increase the metabolic cost of your workout try switching from a pushing movement to a pulling movement then hit the legs. By doing this you’ll be able to keep up the intensity while hitting all the muscles of your body at a very high level.
Circuit training is a great way to increase the metabolic cost of your training times, but remember to choose your circuits wisely. If you try something like the Curves model, think again. After a few weeks of doing machine based circuits your results start to diminish. The better choice is to use your body weight, exercise bands, and dumbbells. Let your body do the stabilizing and move as quick as possible from one exercise to the other.
If you’re wondering where to find a circuit like this, try this months’ sponsor, TnT Boot Camp at Tansley Woods. The workout is based on body weight training, medicine balls, exercise bands and lots of fun. Give it a try if you think you can handle it… Every Wednesday from 6:30 – 7:30 PM, $15 drop-in cost. Sign up by emailing, MyFitnessTrainer@me.com.
Till next month, burn maximum calories in minimum time with metabolic circuits!
Remember to check out our web site at www.CustomFitness.ca
