Whats your exercise plan?

[Furrykins]

I'm trying to implement exercise into my everyday life more often but I get so lazy sometimes, so I'm making a promise to workout a MINIMUM of 5 days a week ( I used to work out 6 days a week for 2-3 hours! have no idea how I had that much time haha) starting from today.

Today - 20 mins pilates
Thurs- Day off
Fri - 20 mins pilates + 30 mins cardio DVD
Saturday - 30 mins pilates
Sunday - Few hours at gym + Zumba class
Mon- 45 minutes cardio DVD
Tues- Off

Hope I can stick to this!

 

[Fatshionista]

Wow, you guys' regimens are amazing. I want to join the gym but I'm petrified!

 

[BarbaraG]

There are two types of exercise. Aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is typically low intensity training, so your heart rate is pushed to between 60 and 70% of your maximum heart rate threshold (your maximum heart rate threshold is approximately 220 minus your age). When you train in this heart rate range, studies have shown that you burn the highest percentage of fat.
For example, it is estimated the exercise of walking burns approximately 55-60% fat, depending on your intensity. The reason that you burn a higher percentage of fat, is that your body combines oxygen with your fat stores to fuel your muscles. As long as you stay in the low threshold range, you will continue to burn fat. However, long aerobic sessions can actually start to burn muscle as well, which is the opposite of what we need.
Anaerobic exercise burns more fat in total
Anaerobic exercise on the other hand, is high intensity training. Your body burns fuel quicker than the oxygen and fat can supply it, so glycogen (commonly known as carbohydrates) which is stored in the muscles and liver, is called on. Therefore the percentage of fat burned decreases, compared to aerobic exercise, but the total amount of fat burned increases, because so much more fuel is required to provide energy for the high intensity burst. So you are actually burning more fat with high intensity exercise. That is what matters. More fat burned means more calories burned (a calorie is a unit measure of energy). The more calories you burn, the faster you lose weight, given that your calorie intake is lower than the calories burned.

To add to this excellent explanation, anaerobic exercise also comes basically in two forms. Strength training involves challenging your muscles to work hard against resistance, e.g. By lifting weights, doing exercises such as pushups and pull-ups or working against your own body weight. Interval training consists of doing "cardio" exercises (running, swimming, cycling, rowing etc) at such high speed that you can't sustain it for very long, i.e. sprinting or running up hills rather than running at a steady speed which you can maintain for a long time. By definition, these sprints have to be interspersed with periods of less intense activity, hence the name intervals.

While intervals have benefits for fat burning and fitness compared to steady-state cardio (aerobic training), strength training has the added benefit of building strength, balance, coordination and protecting against losing muscle mass while losing weight. So if time is limited, your best use of it is to do a couple of sessions of strength training and 2-3 sessions of high intensity intervals each week.

That said, any exercise is better than none, and the exercise that will work best for you is the one you will do regularly and enjoy

Barbara

 

[BarbaraG]

Wow, you guys' regimens are amazing. I want to join the gym but I'm petrified!

What are you afraid of?

Barbara

 

[sammyzip50]

Yoga is becoming intense with belts and Van Damme moves! It's Hatha rather than yin yoga as I have found out I will be trying out TRX for the first time on Tuesday.

Anyway weight STS despite doing all I need to do but this might be explained by biochemistry now. Hoping in a couple of weeks that things will start moving forward with some changes. Still eating and exercising well. Sorted my wardrobe out and chucked a few things out. Did measurements and photo and a physical assessment this week.

Have a good week ahead.