|
"Faster
Fat Loss That's Healthy"
copyright 2003 by Greg Landry, M.S.
I received a telephone call from a lady
last week. Her first word was "heeeelp"!
She was on a weight loss program and only
losing about one half pound per week. She
wanted to speed things up but didn't want
to do anything that was unhealthy. Here's
what I told her:
If you're interested in losing fat, you're
objective is to create a daily caloric deficit.
For example, If you're consuming 1700 calories
per day, and expending 2000 calories per
day, your caloric deficit is 300 calories.
So, if you'd like to increase your daily
caloric deficit, you have two options; to
decrease your caloric intake by eating fewer
calories, or increase your caloric expenditure
via more activity / exercise.
However, you cannot decrease your daily
caloric intake much lower than 1200 to 1500
or so without potentially creating health
and metabolism problems. So, the remaining
factor in the deficit equation is caloric
expenditure through increased activity /
exercise.
The good news is that you can substantially
increase your caloric expenditure. For example,
if you're exercising for 30 minutes three
days per week, over a period of several
weeks you can increase your exercise to
60 to 90 minutes per day, six to seven days
per week. An example of this would be 60
minutes of aerobic exercise, six to seven
days per week and 30 minutes of weight training
three days per week.
So, in this example, you would increase
your monthly exercise minutes from about
360 to 1800. Plus, in addition to the calories
that you're expending during exercise, you
would also substantially increase the number
of calories you're burning 24 hours-a-day,
yes, you'll even burn more calories while
you're sleeping. You can't beat that, can
you?
So, if you want to speed-up your fat loss,
here's your game plan:
1. Tone your muscles with weight training
three days per week. Toned muscles supercharge
your metabolism! This should be done just
after your aerobic exercise session.
2. Do some type of aerobic exercise (walking,
jogging, swimming, stationary cycling, aerobic
dancing, etc.) on a DAILY basis (preferably
in the morning) for 30 to 60 minutes! Note:
If you haven't been exercising, be sure
to gradually increase your exercise time.
See my article on morning exercise: Greg@sportsministries.com
3. When you can, do an additional 15 to
30 minutes of less intense aerobic exercise
in the evening. Some people like to do this
just before their dinner meal to decrease
their appetite, but after dinner is fine
too. This can be as simple as a stroll around
your neighborhood.
In the interest of injury prevention and
not getting bored with your exercise, try
to alternate the type of exercise you do.
For example, walking in the morning and
aerobic dance in the evening.
4. Incorporate "intervals" into
most of your aerobic sessions. Intervals
are a powerful tool to help boost your metabolism.
they are explained in detail in my article,
"Intervals for Weight Loss"..
Greg@sportsministries.com
5. Develop a more active lifestyle. Look
for the "hard" way to do things
- the way that requires the most energy
expenditure. To be successful at losing
weight and keeping it off, you have to become
an "active person"!
6. Train for a local 5k or 10k walk or
run in your area or set higher goals and
train to walk or run a marathon. This can
be great motivation to exercise on a regular
basis.
Many of the people that are most successful
at weight loss have a specific goal of participating
in some type of race. Remember, achieving
the goal is not in winning the race but
in preparing for the race and participating!
I've seen many people transformed from
couch potatoes to lean, mean exercising
machines, because they decided to enter
and train for a competition. Don't think
you can't do it.. YOU CAN! See these activity
event resources:
http://www.Active.com
http://www.BeThePeople.com
http://www.MarathonGuide.com
Caution: Always make gradual changes in
the intensty and duration of your exercise
sessions.
Put this plan into action and you'll like
the results - you'll look better, feel better,
have less body fat and more muscle tone!
Get movin'! :)
Author and exercise physiologist, Greg
Landry, offers FREE weight loss success
stories and his "Fast, Healthy Weight
Loss" newsletter at his site: http://www.GregLandryFitness.com
copyright 2003 by Greg Landry, M.S.
|
