Everything I Though Was Wrong

Okay, so, we restarted this adventure last week.

Barely.

I made some good choices, but not great ones.

Also, the little exercising I did, wasn't enough.

The food I ate, some was good, most was not.

I started to get back into the swing of things. Which is good, but not good enough.

Last week was beta-GetFitTommy.

This week starts the real adventure.

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Here is a post on the Facebook discussion page by my dear friend Eric.

He's kindly illuminated somethings for me. Not just in this post, but in some of our discussions.

So, lets all give a round of applause for my dear friend, ERIC!

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"You have to do continuous cardio for between 30 to 45 minutes to burn fat. I recommend running as it provides the most bang for your buck. If joint problems get you down, try an elliptical; much lower impact.

This is the ONLY way your body utilizes it as fuel (ie. burns it). It's human physiology I'm afraid. Your crunches and leg lifts might help you tone up a bit, but you won't be able to see most of it because it will be "hidden."

And when I give you that range of 30-45 minutes, I would try to head to far end of it. As unfair as it seems, its the fit people who burn fat quicker (cross country runners have been shown in some studies start burning it as quickly as 15 minutes), so go for as long as you can. You'll have to build up to things, but implicit in what I'm saying is PACE YOURSELF. You need to pick a pace where you can jog for at least a half hour without stopping. The upside is that after you hit that point, your body will keep burning fat for around a half hour.

Also you have to do it consistently. Your body has to have regular enough stimulus to change its pathways and energy utilization. You have to stress your system to make it more efficient. So this means you can't be a weekend warrior; 3-5 times a week.

As for limiting your caloric intake, by all means, do so, but your body will want to STORE more fat if you starve yourself. This means you can't starve yourself because when you inevitably splurge, your body will react by storing as much of it as fat as it can because it doesn't know the next time its going to get this sort of thing. It's actually much worse. This is why diet's don't work. Eat small portions at your big meals (regular intervals, and for God's sake, eat breakfast!) and have small, healthy snacks to tide you over (apples are fantastic). You'll have to keep doing the exercise too, because if you stop using those calories to exercise to your fat burning level, you'll start packing on pounds again.

If you do a half hour of cardio 5 times a week, and keep your diet healthy, you'll see the pounds melt away. Trust me. I'm going to be a doctor someday... It's science."

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All The Love My Massive Heart Can Give,
tommy