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Najakcharmer -> RE: A few Extra Pounds or More (2/27/2008 4:33:26 PM)
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Ya. Cardio is good, but too much steady-state cardio combined with dropping your calories too low or not eating often enough is an absolute killer of metabolism. Your body adapts to steady-state cardio as well as to caloric deprivation by dropping your metabolic rate through the floor as it activates your "thrifty genes" in a conservation response to what it has evolved to interpret as life threatening famine. You will lose lean body mass (muscle tissue) before your body gives up precious fat stores under those circumstances.
HIIT (high intensity interval training where you alternate running as hard as you can with walking and jogging) for two 10 to 15 minute sessions a day, or lower intensity interval training (alternating walking and jogging) for 20-30 minutes once a day is fine for your cardio. Do HITT if you can, basic intervals if you can't. You spend much less time running like a hamster on a treadmill and your body does not have a chance to adapt as it does with steady state cardio. But if you have time only to do either weight lifting or cardio in a given day, then lift and screw the cardio. Cardio is good and you should definitely increase your general level of physical fitness and activity, but for body sculpting it's definitely the weights you want.
Regular weight lifting is your friend, since it signals your body to keep your lean body mass and keep your metabolism high, and burn your fat. Focus on full body, compound or multi joint exercises like squats and presses, not small movements like bicep curls. If you're a woman you should still be lifting like a man. Don't worry, you won't bulk up, and that *is* the right way to accomplish your body sculpting goals even if it seems counterintuitive. Most women aren't willing to knuckle down and do the program, preferring to stick to dainty feminine exercises, and it makes it much harder for them to get results.
Eat protein and eat it 4-6 times a day. Add some slow burn carbs in the morning, tapering the carbs off towards the evening and slightly raising your fat intake. Eat a big ass breakfast. Have a grapefruit with Splenda, some oats or whole grain cereal, and some scrambled egg whites or Egg Beaters - that's carbs, protein and little to no fat. Have a midmorning snack of a hardboiled egg and some yogurt, or a slice of whole grain bread with turkey ham, mustard and thin slices of apple. Lunch can be as much green veg or salad as you like (easy on the dressing there) with chicken, fish or lean red meat, maybe with some almonds sprinkled over it for crunch. How about a bowl of cottage cheese with a couple of berries as your afternoon snack, or maybe some luscious salmon spread (nonfat cream cheese and salmon in a blender with some garlic and a dash of lemon or lime juice) on thick cucumber rounds? Or maybe half an avocado with a creamy dressing. I like nonfat mayonnaise and balsamic vinegar with a dash of garlic. We're starting to drop the carbs here and add healthy fats. Red meat is good for dinner if you can get a nice healthy source for relatively lean cuts, but you can shake it up some and enjoy meatless entrees as long as you keep the protein high. Pile on the veggies and drop the starchy carbs, unless your workout is planned for after dinner, in which case you can enjoy a sweet potato with cinnamon and Splenda.
Eating healthy isn't as hard as it seems, and you really don't feel deprived on a diet like that. There are many good ways to combine healthy, nutritious foods to fuel your body for exercise and fitness, and you can tweak around with your percentages of protein, carbs and fats at each meal depending on what your goals are for the next three hours. If you need to fuel for a hard workout, you want carbs with some fast digesting protein (like whey) and no fat. If you need to stay full and nourished for awhile, you want to drop the carbs and stick to good quality slow digesting protein (like meat or casein) and some fats, preferably the healthy kinds of fats you get from fish, avocados, nuts and olive oil.
Lots more info and general fitness/health/weight loss chat on alt_fitness over on Yahoogroups.
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