How to reduce dangerous visceral fat

Visceral fat, found in and around the organs, can be a serious danger to your health. There is a hormone called adiponectin that will prompt the body to reduce visceral fat and increase lean tissue. 

A quote from The Secret Life of Fat:

"Exercise increases adiponectin, the hormone emitted by fat tissue that moves fat away from the viscera to the limbs and hips. It improves insulin sensitivity, too, leading to lower blood glucose and triglyceride levels. The added benefit of most of these hormones is that they won’t just burn fat, they’ll increase lean tissue, which also leads to higher metabolism. So even at rest, we’ll burn more calories."

The best way to increase adiponectin levels?   According to one study: “A progressive high intensity exercise program demonstrated increased adiponectin concentrations in overweight and obese children.”  Another study concluded: “The results show that high intensity interval training (HIIT) positively changes blood lipids and adiponectin variables in obese adolescent girls, resulting in improved insulin sensitivity, as attested by a lower HOMA-IR, and achieving better results compared to moderate-intensity exercise. “

The hormones of your endocrine system can work against your fat loss efforts, or they can make fat loss more achievable.   In addition to adiponectin, HIIT simulates a cascade of fat-burning hormones; among them testosterone, human growth hormone, and irisin.

HIIT is what we do at New Orleans Personal Trainers and Austin Personal Training.   For those who are extremely out of shape, all you have to do is a little more than you are used to handling.  Each week you will improve, and soon your hormones will work for you rather than against you.

Changing perceptions: From fit to fat in an instant

You are getting stronger and a bit heavier; surely most of that weight is muscle. Some refer to this phenomenon as bulking up. You might subconsciously have a bias when you look in the mirror, as you stand a little straighter, you suck your gut in a bit, and square your shoulders. You could be fooling yourself. 

Several years ago I used to weight myself at the health club where I worked. I was the heaviest I had ever been. No problem, I was the strongest I had ever been. Instead of asking if I once played basketball people would ask me if I had played football. 

Shortly after that I went to work at a different health club. They had no scale, but when they did get one I was told it was five pounds off. The scale indicated 250, so I subtracted five pounds to get 245 pounds. I had gained an additional five pounds. Still no problem, I was bulking up and getting stronger.

I was later informed that the scale registered a number that was five pounds too light. I was not 245 pounds as I had thought; I was really 255 pounds! Looking in the mirror I did not see the strong-bulking-up me; I was horrified to see the fat me. I was seeing myself without the bias. I did not have a pot belly; my fat was distributed over much of my body, mostly my back (See before picture), but still, I was fat.

A water immersion fat test determined that my fat percentage was 24.6%. That was my wake-up call to lose weight. I cut calories, did the right kind of exercise to lose weight, and got down to 8.8% body fat (see after picture).

When you cut calories the body, as an act of self-preservation, will lower its metabolism by consuming lean body mass. Strength training sends the opposite message - you need to maintain that lean body mass to survive the demands placed on it by strength training.

A stronger body will have a higher resting metabolism, and proper strength training will burn calories four ways. At New Orleans Fitness Training and Austin Fitness Training we can show you how to workout effectively and efficiently, get stronger, and burn more calories.

60 years of trials: Most common dieting outcome is weight regain or trivial loss

From this article, Oprah’s Investment in Weight Watchers Was Smart Because the Program Doesn’t Work, a quote:

“My lab reviewed 60 years of clinical trials of diets, and we found that people lose an average of 10 percent of their starting weight on most diets but within two to five years have gained back all but about two pounds.  So, in reality, despite the short-term effectiveness of certain diet regimes, themost common outcome of dieting itself, by a landslide, is either weight regain or trivial weight loss".

A diet is not a permanent fix. Three life style changes that are sustainable:

1. Make modest permanent changes in eating habits. For me that was no alcohol, no soda, and minimal grains and sweets.
2. Strength train for the highest marginal return – don’t waste time exercising. A full body HIT workout once a week to deep fatigue with no rest between exercises takes about 25 minutes.  A stronger body will have a higher metabolism and more energy. Mitochondria, found in most cells, is where respiration and energy production takes place. Six months of strength training partially reverses mitochondria impairments to a level consistent with a younger stage in life. It is like having a fountain of youth.
3. Do an activity you enjoy. Because of one and two you’ll be able to do activities longer with less chance of injury and more enjoyment.

Your life will profoundly change, and it does not required hours in the gym.   At Austin Strength Trainers and New Orleans Strength Trainers we have a program you can finally stick to.

Exercise shown to increase fat burning hormone Irisin

“High Intensity Training (HIT) enacts a hormonal cascade that is the antithesis of the metabolic syndrome.” - From the web site, Body By Science. 

Part of that cascade is Irisin, a hormone associated with fat burning that correlates positively with muscle mass. From this article, Exercise releases hormone that helps shed, prevent fat:

"Irisin has a positive effect by turning white fat into brown fat and that it increases the body's fat-burning ability." 

And from this article, Effects of Obesity, Diabetes and Exercise on Fndc5 Gene Expression and Irisin Release in Human Skeletal Muscle and Adipose Tissue: “Irisin was positively linked to muscle mass, strength and metabolism.”

While losing fat is primarily an eating-less proposition you can help it along by increasing irisin production. To produce more irisin it helps to do exercises that will increase strength and muscle. The high intensity training (HIT) we do at New Orleans Strength Trainers and at Austin Strength Trainers will do that.

Study finds lack of exercise is more deadly than obesity

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life” ~ Dean Wormer. He should amend that statement to include the lack of exercise. According to this study, the lack of exercise is more deadly than obesity.

A quote from the study:

“Using the most recent data on deaths in Europe, Ekelund's team estimated that 337,000 of the 9.2 million deaths of European men and women were linked to obesity. However, twice that number of deaths could be connected to lack of exercise.”

For many, exercise can be drudgery and few stick with it. The renewal rate at health clubs is 30 percent. With monthly bank drafts health clubs can end up being collection agencies disguised as health clubs.

Here is a prescription for exercise that you can stick to: Don’t see how much exercise you can withstand; find out what is the least amount that will produce the most change in all aspects of fitness, and do that each week. Make modest changes in your eating, and engage in activities you enjoy. A year from now you will be profoundly changed.

At  Austin Strength Training  and  New Orleans Strength Training our program is designed to improve all six commonly recognized aspects of fitness. It doesn't involve hours in the gym. Exercise should free you up to engage in those activities you enjoy and not be a source of drudgery.

Weight Watchers doesn’t work, but it is the perfect business model

From this article, Oprah’s Investment in Weight Watchers Was Smart Because the Program Doesn’t Work, this quote: 

“It’s the perfect business model. People give Weight Watchers the credit when they lose weight. Then they regain the weight and blame themselves. This sets them up to join Weight Watchers all over again, and they do.”

And this:

“According to Weight Watchers’ business plan from 2001, its members have “demonstrated a consistent pattern of repeat enrollment over a number of years,””

Fat is life-preserving energy for lean times. Whether those lean times are natural (famine) or self-induced (diet) our body’s gastric hormones are programmed to respond a certain way to restore those fat stores. Reporting on the follow-up of a diet study this NY Times article, The Fat Trap, stated:   

“A gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected.”

“It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.”

“Preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected.”

So the end result of the WW diet, or any diet for that matter, is a lower metabolism and increased hunger for a very long time, long enough to slowly gain back most or all that lost weight.

I have five years and four months to go; I am 35 pounds lighter for eight months now. My solution for the occasional hunger pangs is to keep telling myself that the dietary self-discipline is well worth being in a healthier state.

For a lower metabolism the solution is to increase your strength. A stronger body will burn more calories even at rest. The high intensity training (HIT) for strength offered at Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training effectively burns calories four ways. With modest changes in eating habits and increased strength you can lose fat, keep it off, and feel the best you have in decades.

Americans heavier than 20 years ago

According to this AOL article Americans weigh 15 more pounds than they did 20 years ago - AOL as the title says:

“According to a new federal report U.S. men and women weigh about 15 pounds more than they did 20 years ago!”

The number is for average adults, but the average adult has changed over the years. The average age of Americans has gone from 30 years of age in 1980 to 37.7 years of age in 2014, and 37 year olds tend to weigh more than 30 year olds.   

How much of that 15 pound gain is fat and how much is muscle? It may be that they actually lost muscle and gained even more fat.  The number might be accurate, but it’s not specific.

Here is a number that is specific: adults lose on average 5 pounds of muscle as decade as they age.  Less muscle means a lower metabolism leading to increased likelihood of fat gain.

At Austin Personal Trainers and New Orleans Fitness Training we can help you reverse that trend.  One of our clients, 65 years old, attends a fat lose clinic.  Her latest reading at the clinic indicated that in addition to losing fatshe was gaining muscle.

60 studies say exercising is not the key to weight loss

The opening lines from this article, Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies: "'I'm going to make you work hard', a blonde and perfectly muscled fitness instructor screamed at me in a recent spinning class, 'so you can have that second drink at happy hour!'

At the end of the 45-minute workout, my body was dripping with sweat. I felt like I had worked really, really hard. And according to my bike, I had burned more than 700 calories. Surely I had earned an extra margarita."  

She exercised “really, really hard”. It would be nice if all those calories burned on exercise translated into fat loss. That equation does not take into account that exercise can stimulate the appetite, or that strenuous exercise lends itself to less activity (compensatory behaviors) and fewer calories burned for the remainder of the day. It does not account for the body’s response to exercise. The body adapts to a daily dose of running or other aerobic activity by becoming more efficient. It is inefficient to lug around a lot of muscle on long runs; muscle is metabolically expensive to maintain. The body will catabolize calorie-consuming lean muscle tissue to conserve the body’s energy stores (metabolic compensation). One researcher called it part of the survival mechanism. A quote from the article: "A review of exercise intervention studies, published in 2001: It found that after 20 weeks, weight loss was less than expected, and that 'the amount of exercise energy expenditure had no correlation with weight loss in these longer studies." Other meta-studies reach similar conclusions. A quote: "Adding physical activity has a very modest effect on weight loss — 'a lesser effect than you'd mathematically predict'". Other quotes: “You cannot outrun a bad diet”, and “There are all kinds of reasons to exercise that are good for your health”.  

Good health is the reason. Our focus at New Orleans Personal Training and at Austin Personal Training is on the long list of health benefits provided by strength training. Additional calories burned are just an added bonus, and strength training produces the largest added bonus. Strength training burns calories four ways and burns calories long after exercise has been completed. For more on the subject of strength training and calorie burning go here.

The results of a study on the effectiveness of targeting fat loss

A woman did a quarter million leg raises in a year, and there was no change, not a scintilla.  There was no spot reduction of fat deposits from her amply marbled hips. Well, that is just one person, and a sample size of one has no statistical power.  Maybe a larger sample size and more accuracy (MRI assessments) would produce a result of statistically significant spot reduction of fat from the area targeted with exercise.

Maybe not, from this article, Targeted Fat Loss: Myth or Reality?, this quote from a study:

“Tennis players constitute a population whose right and left arms have been consistently subjected to very different amounts of exercise over several years. Consequently, if spot reduction were a valid concept, one would expect the players’ dominant arms to have thinner layers of subcutaneous fat compared to their non-dominant arms. When the researchers measured the thickness of subcutaneous fat at specific points along the players’ arms, however, they found no statistically significant difference between right and left arms.”

Fat burned as fuel during exercise or even resting can come from anywhere in your body, not just the part that is being worked the most.  You don’t have a say, your genetics do. It is best to choose a form of exercise that burns the most calories and will continue to burn calories long after the exercise session is completed.

Another quote:

“High-intensity interval training (alternating between brief periods of high-intensity and low-intensity exercise) can be particularly effective, due to the phenomenon of after-burn – that is, an increase in resting metabolic rate that occurs for up to 24 hours post-exercise. “

That after-burn is excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption, (EPOC), and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) results in more EPOC than any other form of exercise. HIIT is the type training we do at Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Personal Training. 

Bogus BMI Numbers

Take two numbers, height and weight, and come up with another number, Body Mass Index (BMI), and as an indicator of good health you have next to nothing.  The BMI fails to take into account physical features - as an example those with broad shoulders will have a higher BMI compared to those with narrow shoulders. There is no differentiation between fat, muscle, and bone, and it does not account for gender.

The BMI often changes as we age. For some it is lower, but that does not necessarily mean better health. Thirty years ago I was in peak physical condition and had more muscle mass than I do today; I regularly played rugby, two 40 minutes halves of pretty much non-stop strenuous exertion with no substitutions.  According to this BMI chart I would have been bordering on obesity and classified as unhealthy.

Today I have a lower BMI number, but I also have less muscle than I did 30 years ago. Losing muscle is part of the aging process; it happens to all of us.  I suppose I could sit back in comfort and point to my lower BMI number as an indicator of good health.

The BMI statistic is negatively biased against those who have more muscle, and the BMI statistic does not capture the positive health factor of strength. It is absolutely essential for good health to remain as strong as possible we age. Fortunately with a proper personal training program like the one we offer at Austin Personal Trainers and New Orleans Fitness Training those who are younger will increase strength and muscle mass, and those who are older can remain strong, slow down age-related muscle loss, and even reverse it.  When you add muscle your BMI number will rise, but you will be better for it.

More BMI posts here.

Losing weight and keeping it off - what you are up against

This New York Times article, The Fat Trap, explores how people lose weight, but almost without exception, gain it right back.

In one study, 50 obese men and women consumed just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks and lost an average of 30 pounds. A year after the study, subjects had regained an average of 11  pounds and reported feelingfar more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight. Yeah, I know the diet was too restrictive, but regardless, it is interesting to note what is going on hormonally. A quote from the article:

“A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.”

And this:

“How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected.”

Who wants to lose significant weight only to feel pangs of hunger more often than not and have a lower metabolism? That is kind of bleak, but there is a solution. To offset that undesirable metabolic adaptation begin strength training, preferably high intensity straining training.

High intensity training (HIT) for strength will burn more calories than other forms of strength training.HIT effectively burns calories four ways. HIT produces higher sustained excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) than any other form of exercise. Muscle is metabolically expensive. HIT will make you stronger, and a stronger body will burn more calories even at rest.

At Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training we offer high intensity training (HIT)that has been show effective for weight loss. All you have to do is stick with it and make modest changes in eating habits. You will lose fat and more likely keep it off.

Caloric restriction and longevity

A New York Times article, The Calorie-Restriction Experiment, details a study where researchers attempted to find out if eating less increased longevity. 132 men and women reduced their daily calories by 25 percent for two years to see if a Spartan diet affects the aging process and its associated diseases. 

Subjects experienced “astounding drops in cardiovascular risk factors”.

BUT, another quote:

“Ninety-nine percent can’t do it,” John Holloszy, a medical doctor who is the lead investigator at Washington University, told me. “The people in the study are not going to stick with it” after they leave.

Damn.  Two years to figure that out?

The study was about factors effecting longevity, but what I found interesting was that subjects lost about 15 % of their body weight and reached a plateau at a “weight stability” level. It is important to note that subjects were of normal weight to slightly-overweight to start. They did not have much to lose. I am guessing that weight loss was not all fat tissue. If you attempt to lose weight by calorie restriction your body will catabolize lean body mass to lower the body’s metabolism to compensate for the decreased caloric intake. Who wants a "weight stablity" level where you have to go through life under-muscled and hungry?

A more reasonable approach might be to cut back eating just a bit and exercise a bit more. A different study found that more muscle was positively associated with longevity. If you add proper strength training to the mix your body will make a positive adaption to withstand the stresses placed on it by the strength training. The body does so by maintaining or even adding muscle mass and thereby increasing metabolism.

At Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training we offer high intensity training (HIT) that has been show effective for weight loss. All you have to do is stick with it and make modest changes in eating habits.  You will lose fat and more likely keep it off.

The right kind of exercise to lose weight

A NYT article concluded that To Lose Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More:

Reasons for that mentioned in the article:

1. Exercise stimulates the appetite.
2. Exercise over time makes us more efficient.  A more efficient body burns less calories.
3. Exercise burns precious few calories.

You can eat three less Oreos or run an extra mile to have the same calorie deficit.  You can exercise strenuously for 30 minutes or drink two less 16 ounce cokes. That is an easy call for me.

The article states:

“When you lose weight, metabolism often slows. Many people believe that exercise can counter or even reverse that trend. Research, however, shows that the resting metabolic rate in all dieters slows significantly, regardless of whether they exercise. This is why weight loss, which might seem easy when you start, becomes harder over time.”

I think that depends on the type of exercise. For more on the right type of exercise go here.  The right kind of exercise can counter a diet-induced slowed metabolism. A stronger body will have a higher resting metabolism, and proper strength training will burn calories four ways.  When you restrict calories the body, as an act of self-preservation, will lower its metabolism by consuming lean body mass.  Strength training sends the opposite message -–you need to maintain that lean body mass to survive the demands placed on it.  

A stronger body will burn more calories even at rest. At New Orleans Fitness Trainers and at Austin Personal Training we can show you how to workout effectively and efficiently, get stronger, and even burn a few calories. 

Is exercising to lose weight a losing proposition?

Sorry about the pun. According to Wikipedia: A human being traveling on a bicycle at 16–24 km/h (10–15 mph), using only the power required to walk, is the most energy-efficient means of human transport generally available.  Just how energy efficient is the bicycle?

The LiveStrong web site has an article, Calories Burned Biking One Miledetailing how many calories one burns riding a bike. Looking at the numbers from that source and others sources as well, you can get a rough estimate of number of calories burned riding a bike. Depending how much you weigh and how fast you ride you are going to expend anywhere from @ 30 to 60 calories per mile riding a bike. For ease of computation let’s use an average of 45 calories per mile of bike riding.

Add two other factoids:  There are 31,500 food calories in a gallon of gas, and there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat.

A human would have burn off nine pounds of fat to equal to the calories in a gallon of gas, and burning calories at 45 calories per mile, could travel 700 miles. Biking is very efficient miles-per-calorie-wise biking, and exercise in general, do not burn that many calories.  You’d better of concentrating on eating less to lose that fat.

This NYT article, To Lose Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More discusses the subject in more detail.

High Intensity Strength training on the other hand effectively burns calories four ways  High intensity strength training is the type of personal training we do at Austin Fitness Training and at New Orleans Personal Training.

One study says exercise targets visceral fat

Belly fat is visceral deep fat, while subcutaneous fat settles just beneath your skin.  Visceral fat potentially increases the risk for many diseases; it produces biochemical signals that promote inflammation in the body. 

According to a NYT article, Ask Well: Reducing Belly Fat  sit-ups are useless for losing belly fat, and you would be better off taking a walk. That I knew.  What didn’t know was that exercise might actually target visceral fat more than subcutaneous fat.

One study showed that exercise disproportionately targets visceral fat,and a meta study concluded:

“A comprehensive 2013 review concluded that programs combining aerobic exercise and occasional sessions of weight training were superior to either type of exercise alone at reducing belly fat.”

At Austin Personal Trainer and New Orleans Personal Trainer we can get rid of the visceral fat with just the plan out-lined above.

BMI Versus Eyeballing

It used to be that to determine how fat a person was one took calipers and took anywhere from three to seven measurements of the body, came up with a total, and looked at a chart that took age into account to come up with a number for body fat percentage.  That might take a few minutes or a little longer if you did as recommended and checked it twice to make sure. 

Now BMI is the preferred measurement.  Take weight and height and look at a chart – you’re done, let’s golf. 

In his prime fighting weight Mike Tyson was 5’10’ and 220 pounds.  According to BMI charts Mike's BMI of 31.6 would classify Mike as clinically obese. BMI is wildly inaccurate.  Why is it used?  It is easy, that is why.  It takes few seconds instead of a few minutes.  What is worse, researchers base studies on the BMI. 

In the interest of science and saving time I propose another measurement for determining fat percentage.   I call it eyeballing.  Just look at the subject and say you are fat, skinny, or just right.  It would be at least as accurate as BMI. Mike Tyson (pictured here) would be obese according to the BMI method.  According to my eyeballing method I would say he is just right. Now which method would you say is more accurate?

In one study Can You Tell If Your Child Is Overweight? Most Parents Can't, Study Finds the parents are apparently using the eyeball method and it differs from the BMI result.  What to do to break the tie?  Perhaps use the magic eight ball to supply an answer. IMO it iwould be every bit as scientific as the BMI.

At Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Personal Training we can get you stronger so you can be fat just like Mike. 

Losing belly fat by strength training

From this article The best exercise for controlling belly fat, this quote: 

"Men who did regular weight-training had less gain in their waistline (-0.67 cm) over the 12-year period, compared with those who participated in moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise (-0.33 cm), or physical labor from daily life such as yard work or stair climbing (-0.16 cm)."

Losing muscle is part of the aging process. As adults we lose about 5 pounds of muscle a decade, and with that comes a lower metabolism. If you don’t cut back on the calories you will replace that muscle with fat.
If you attempt to lose weight with a severe caloric restriction your body received the message that it's not receiving enough calories to survive. The body will catabolize lean body mass to lower the body’s metabolism to compensate for the decreased caloric intake.
If you diet and also strength training the body, instead of losing muscle mass, you will maintain and even add to the muscle mass and thereby increase metabolism. 

At Austin Personal Trainers and New Orleans Fitness Training we offer high intensity training (HIT) that has been show effective for weight loss.  All you have do is stick with it, make modest changes in eating habits, and you will get to where you need to be. 

Sprint training for fat loss

From this study, High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss comes this: 
Dosage: A thirty second all-out sprint of on a bike, recover at a reduced RPM, repeat four to six times. Do this three times a week for two to six weeks. 
Results: 1. Increase both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. 2. Significantly lowers insulin resistance 3. Skeletal muscle adaptations that result in enhanced skeletal muscle fat oxidation 4. Improved glucose tolerance. 
From other studies the reported results: 1. High Intensity Inteval Training Lowers Appetite 2. Health and Physical Function Improves with High Intensity Training 3. Blood Pressure Reduced with High Intensity Interval Training 4. High-Intensity Strength Training Beneficial to Parkinson's Patients 5. High intensity training better for coronary artery disease patients 6. Brief Bouts of High Intensity Training Improves Maximal Oxygen Uptake 7. Studys Shows That HIT Exercise Lowers Blood Pressure 8. Long distance running lowers testosterone; sprint training increases it 
I have been doing this for over a year now. I can report the following additional change. At age 60 I feel the best I have felt in well over a decade. At Austin Personal Training and at New Orleans Fitness Trainerswe can help you gradually build up to a high intensity strength training or an aerobic high intensity training program that is safe, effective, and efficient for your age and condition. You need not spend hours in the gym to feel better, look better, and perform better.

Changes This New Year

I worked at quite a few different health clubs in my years in New Orleans. I am guessing that what goes on in New Orleans in no different than what goes on in other gyms around the country. In 34 years in the fitness business, this is what I have observed every January. The first two weeks, the gym is filled to capacity. There are a lot of new faces. I remember my first year working with a guy who was 290 pounds. He told me he would be doing the butterfly across the pool in six months. He came into gym for hours every single night for five nights in a row. The next week I didn't see him, and I never saw him again. The second two weeks, the gym thins out a bit. The second month, things are pretty much back to normal. There are the same faces you see the year round, plus there are some new faces.

The average renewal rate at health clubs is 30%. Those who use the club regularly are about 30% of the membership. The average stay with a personal trainer is about six months. People have good intentions, but very few people stay for the long haul. They have high expectations. When those expectations are not met they get frustrated and quit. They return to their former lifestyles.

They got out of shape gradually. One can easily gain five pounds of fat a year. Five pounds of fat for 20 years is easy enough to do. Pretty soon a 180 pound male will be 280 pounds and living a compromised lifestyle. During that 20 year period there were probably attempts to lose weight.

Try reversing the trend gradually. Lose 1 to 2 pounds of fat a month. Strength train once or twice a week for 25 minutes. Commit to sprint training on a stationary bike 8 to 15 minutes twice maybe three times a week. This will take a little over an hour of your time a week. Make modest changes in your eating.

A year from now you will have a lower resting pulse, lower blood sugar, lower blood pressure, you will be 15 to 20 pounds lighter, you will be wearing different clothes, you will look better, you will not tire as easily, and best of all you will feel much better. You could go for the big weight loss, but chances are you will gain it all back and then some.

High-intensity intermittent exercise effectively burns fat

From the Journal of Obesity from this study, High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss comes this quote:

“The effect of regular aerobic exercise on body fat is negligible; however, other forms of exercise may have a greater impact on body composition. For example, emerging research examining high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) indicates that it may be more effective at reducing subcutaneous and abdominal body fat than other types of exercise.”

And this quote:

“Regular HIIE produces significant increases in aerobic and anaerobic fitness and brings about significant skeletal muscle adaptations that are oxidative and glycolytic in nature. HIIE appears to have a dramatic acute and chronic effect on insulin sensitivity.”

The study goes on to say that the results are promising but more studies are needed. They study states that aerobic exercise has little effect on body fat, and that the potential for fat loss high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) is promising. There is a long list know benefits (see recent posts) plus potential benefits. That is good enough to start incorporating HIIE into a training training regimen.

High-intensity intermittent exercise is brief, intense exercise training with short rests in between the intense bouts of exercise. This can be accomplished on aerobic equipment or by doing a series of strength training exercises. We can show you how to both at New Orleans Fitness Trainersand at Austin Personal Training Both are safe, effective, and efficient. You won't need to spend hours in the gym.