In my health and wellness facility we pride ourselves on taking a multifaceted approach to helping people achieve healthy and lean bodies. Beyond the mental side of things we do focus on two other aspects that help people create a well–rounded approach to changing their health and body–the physical (resistance training, cardiovascular training, and a muscular balancing technique known as Muscle Activation Technique) and the chemical (addressing the micronutrient needs, like vitamins and minerals).
Since so many people have New Year´s resolutions to take care of their body and health, I will give you some helpful tips in regard the physical and chemical side of things–that is, assuming you are also tending to the mental side. Taking action without tending to the mental side will more than likely reduce the effectiveness of the action. And why work harder than you have to? In the first part I will share the physical tips, followed by the chemical in part two below.
Part One
One of things we now understand about exercise (resistance training and cardio activity) is that is has the potential to re-create signals that tell the body to reduce body weight for its own safety. Research has shown that the body is designed to survive, and if you were to put your body under a stress that replicated the same stress like that of being chased or attacked by a predator, your body would want to lose weight in order to survive the next ordeal. A lighter, stronger body has a lot better chance of getting away from and protecting itself from predators. You see, the part of our brain that regulates these responses does not know the difference between you sprinting on the treadmill and you running from a bear, or you failing at doing a pushup and you pushing a boulder off you. All the body knows is that when under physical stress the body could not complete its task–meaning by coming to a point of exhaustion the body would see this as a threat to its ability to escape at some point. After surviving the ordeal it now needs to create a plan to make sure you can handle your next ordeal (as your body may not think you will be so lucky to walk away alive the next time).
The two major types of exercise people do in order to lose weight are resistance training (like weight training) and cardiovascular training (like running). There are a few things people can do with their resistance training to maximize their time and effort. The biggest one is to drastically slow your repetition speed down so you can include more muscle fiber types into your workload. I play with two variations of this.
One is going slow in both directions of a movement. Let´s take a pushup, for example. I would take about five to seven seconds to lower myself down (called the eccentric part of the movement) and the same amount of time to push myself back up (the concentric part)–note: the bigger the arc (like side raises) the longer it takes to go through the entire motion, which is why I say "five to seven seconds." I do this until I have completely lost the ability to push myself up anymore (the first thing to go will be the concentric), and I continue to push for about ten more seconds to finish out the set. (That is, I continue to try to push, but since I have gotten to a place of failure I usually stay in the same place until I lower myself down–my effort and the resistance is an equal match at this point.) I only do two sets for each body part I do: one is a warm–up and the other is my work set. I also time myself so I know how long it took me to get to complete failure.
The other way I do this is increase the speed of the concentric motion (this would be the pushing up in a pushup–the resisting of the force of pull) so it takes about a second or two so as to mimic how we might use our muscles in a survival situation. On the eccentric I slow the motion down to ten to twelve seconds. I time this as well. Using time is a great way to see if you have progressed in the next workout. If you can´t go for the same duration or longer, then you might not have given yourself enough rest between workouts–meaning you might have done enough damage that it´s taking you longer to fully recover. If you do things in either one of these slower ways you will only need to do one set once a week or so as working out this way will cause enough damage to the tissue that you won´t need to do more.
As for cardiovascular training, research has shown that the old–school method of doing cardio in your fat burning zone (working at about 65–70 percent of your target heart rate)–like jogging at a constant pace for thirty minutes–may actually work against you in the long run. Not only does your body start to get used to using fat as its resource for energy and starts to store more fat to prepare, but this type of cardio can actually reduce your heart and lungs as well as the muscles you are using for the exercise. This is because the body is meant to be efficient, and smaller muscles are more energy efficient than bigger muscles (like a four cylinder engine burns less gas than a six cylinder). What I recommend is doing interval training where you increase your level of intensity for anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes, making sure whatever time you choose that you have reached your cardiovascular threshold by the end of the time frame–meaning if you chose to do two minutes you should be ready to stop just before that two minute mark. Once you have finished your workload, go as slow as you can until your heart rate returns back down to about 100 bpm. If it takes you longer than five minutes to recover then you are done with your cardio for the day–meaning your body is in a state of recovery still and will be working long after you are done. This type of recovery is called &after burn." Doing cardio in this fashion, whether you do one set or you do as many as five (I don´t recommend doing more than five intervals), will cause your body to be in a higher state of recovery for hours, if not a full day, causing your metabolism to skyrocket.
Both of these types of exercising (resistance and cardiovascular) not only take less time to do, but they both send the signals that your body is under specific survival stress that will cause your body to want to be lean–meaning, based on the information the body is getting it will think it is in its best interest to be leaner and stronger in order to keep itself alive.
Part Two
As for the chemical side of things I am going to make this really easy. There are five rules I tell all my clients.
First, stay away from sugar–this means table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). They are both made of the same things–glucose and fructose–and the body cannot easily break down fructose when it is out of its normal "package" (when it comes within a fruit, it has fiber that helps the breakdown and digestion). At least a third of the calories that come from fructose are converted into fat, and since fructose doesn´t initially stimulate insulin, your brain doesn´t get the signal it has ingested calories. Also, the body actually treats fructose like ethanol (drinking alcohol) so if you thought alcohol contributed to your weight then stay away from sugar and HFCS–and know that it is in everything (ketchup, barbecue sauce, baked goods, yogurt, etc.). If you are going to eat sugar just make sure you include a fiber with it.
Second, try to stay away from processed foods. Anything that has to be put together has to be broken down in the body, and the easier the food is broken down the better off you will be. The body can compensate for most things, but why make it work harder than it needs to? Eating things that are as close as possible to how they occur in nature is your best bet.
Third, make sure you are getting omega 3 fatty acids. At least 10 percent of all your cell walls are made from omega 3 fatty acids, so this is an essential nutrient for your body. You can find omega 3s in things like fish, flax seeds (I grind these up and put them on my granola cereal and my salads), and walnuts. You can also supplement your intake through fish oil tablets. You can do a search on the Internet to find other foods high in omega 3s.
Fourth, pay attention to how you feel after you eat. Your body knows what is best for it. It will tell you at all times how well it liked what you ate. Not to mention it will tell you how much food you need while you are eating. Your body should tell you when it is getting full, but most of us are preoccupied with something else (TV, computer, phone, conversation, reading, etc.) while we eat so we lose attention on our body´s digestion process and don´t hear the call of being full until we are way past it. So pay attention to how you feel while you eat and after you eat. It is also very helpful to take the time to chew and taste your food rather than wolfing it down. The slower you eat, the more you enjoy the food you are eating, and you give your body a chance to respond accordingly.
Fifth, make peace with the food you eat. If you are going to eat something you believe is "bad" for you then either don´t eat it or try to find some way of looking at this food in a positive way before you eat it. Your body has the potential to deal with anything you put in it, but it can´t do its job if you are bombarding the body with negative chemicals from your feeling of remorse, guilt, disappointment, etc.
