Have you reached a plateau in your workout, weight loss routine? Do you just want to get 10 more pounds off? I've got a great suggestion for you... INTERVAL TRAINING.
Just a few months I was feeling stuck in my routine of running 30 minutes three times a week* (with weight training interspersed on other days). I substituted interval training for one of my 30 minute cardio workouts, and dropped 10 pounds quickly. My other runs during the week got faster, too.
The fitness guru pediatrician at my work says he tells marathon runners that they aren't really in shape unless they do anaerobic exercise. I wouldn't go that far, but it really does make a big difference.
Anaerobic exercise means it can't be sustained for extended periods of time without resting to breathe. (As opposed to aerobic exercise that theoretically can be maintained indefinitely - jogging, aerobics, etc). Here's where interval training comes in. Interval training is mixing in high intesity workouts sporadically (in intervals) with low intesity workouts. Some explanation and suggested workouts can be found here.
I personally run around a squarish park with 4 equal sides (not perfectly, but close). We'll say each side has distance of X. I sprint at about 80% of my max for 2X (two sides) and then walk one. I do this for 30 minutes and get a great workout.
If you haven't tried it, give it a try. It doesn't take any more time, just takes more calories.
*For the record, most health providers are recommending 5 cardio workouts a week (including myself). Yes, I usually only can make it to 3 a week, but I'm working on it, too!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Meat is Murder
Now on to the next of my diet reviews. I'll just clump all of these in the same bunch: Protein diet, low carb diet, Atkins diet, South Beach diet, etc.
They are basically all built around a basic concept: increase the protein and decrease the carbs. What you do with 'fat' varies from one diet to the other. Here's the secret (and the thing you can really take away from these diets when coming up with your own personal diet): protein/meat has relatively low calorie density (compared to carbs and fat) but helps you feel satisfied sooner and stay full longer. So in other words, this is another low calorie diet 'in disguise'. You'll see that ALL weight loss diets are just way to get you to eat less calories.
Ease of following: In the short term, not too difficult, especially if you are a carnivore. Due to the popularity of these diets, there are tons of recipe books and frozen dinners available. In the long term, some people have hard time staying on a diet with so many rules. Some are more strict than others on the amount of carbs you can take. The 'no carb' diets can be very difficult, because carbs actually make up a high percentage of Americans' diets and are difficult to avoid.
Medical safety: Pretty safe. There are some concerns about the extreme diets that force your body into ketoacidosis (due to no carbs) which is basically a form of starvation. WARNING: any time your body thinks its starving the metabolism slows down, and you NEED exercise to keep it up. All weight loss diets cause your metabolism to go down to some extent, but these tend to do so a little more (theoretically). Also there are some that feel so much protein can be hard on the kidneys if the diet is maintained for an extended time, but I haven't heard that this has shown to be true when studied.
Chance of keeping weight off: If you stay on the diet, it will. But if you come off of the diet, you will likely gain the weight back and more (due to decreased metabolism) if the diet was done without exercise. The best practice would be to transition to a more 'regular' diet that still keeps the calories down enought to maintain your weight.
Conclusion: It works... But long term is rarely successful.
What you should take from this diet: LEARN about calorie content in your food. Eat foods you like, but limit your portions to limit your calories (see previous posts on this). But feel free to add some additional protein in if you are finding it difficult to stay satisfied/not hungry before your next meal.
They are basically all built around a basic concept: increase the protein and decrease the carbs. What you do with 'fat' varies from one diet to the other. Here's the secret (and the thing you can really take away from these diets when coming up with your own personal diet): protein/meat has relatively low calorie density (compared to carbs and fat) but helps you feel satisfied sooner and stay full longer. So in other words, this is another low calorie diet 'in disguise'. You'll see that ALL weight loss diets are just way to get you to eat less calories.
Ease of following: In the short term, not too difficult, especially if you are a carnivore. Due to the popularity of these diets, there are tons of recipe books and frozen dinners available. In the long term, some people have hard time staying on a diet with so many rules. Some are more strict than others on the amount of carbs you can take. The 'no carb' diets can be very difficult, because carbs actually make up a high percentage of Americans' diets and are difficult to avoid.
Medical safety: Pretty safe. There are some concerns about the extreme diets that force your body into ketoacidosis (due to no carbs) which is basically a form of starvation. WARNING: any time your body thinks its starving the metabolism slows down, and you NEED exercise to keep it up. All weight loss diets cause your metabolism to go down to some extent, but these tend to do so a little more (theoretically). Also there are some that feel so much protein can be hard on the kidneys if the diet is maintained for an extended time, but I haven't heard that this has shown to be true when studied.
Chance of keeping weight off: If you stay on the diet, it will. But if you come off of the diet, you will likely gain the weight back and more (due to decreased metabolism) if the diet was done without exercise. The best practice would be to transition to a more 'regular' diet that still keeps the calories down enought to maintain your weight.
Conclusion: It works... But long term is rarely successful.
What you should take from this diet: LEARN about calorie content in your food. Eat foods you like, but limit your portions to limit your calories (see previous posts on this). But feel free to add some additional protein in if you are finding it difficult to stay satisfied/not hungry before your next meal.
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