Extreme Makeover, Body Edition: Learn What Exercise Can Do For You

There are 3 main principles of weight loss that I discuss in our Basics section. These underlying “laws” regulate your ability to lose body fat. The 3 important keys to weight loss are:

• Negative Calorie Balance – You need to expend more calories than you take in.
• Metabolism Boost - A sluggish metabolism can slow down your weight loss efforts.
• Insulin Control – When insulin levels are high, your body has trouble burning fat for fuel. Until you improve your sensitivity to insulin, your spare tire will remain.

In order to lose weight successfully, you need to use all 3 Weight Loss Principles.

The beauty of exercise? You can improve your body’s ability to fight fat on all 3 fronts, all at the same time, by increasing your activity. How?

• Exercise burns calories.
• Exercise builds muscle, which boosts metabolism.
• Exercise increases insulin sensitivity, and therefore improves your body’s hormonal environment. With lower insulin, your body can burn fat for energy.

With the right kind of exercise and diet, you can get rid of the midriff bulge and beer belly. You will breathe better, look better, and feel better.

What’s more, exercise can relax you and help you control your stress, assist with sleep, improve energy levels and fight fatigue, improve circulation to your brain and heart, improve immune system function, and improve your mood.

So, why aren’t you realizing all of these benefits of exercise?

The biggest excuse for not exercising is too little time. I know, because I have used this justification myself at times. But let’s face it. The majority of highly successful people in this world do find the time to exercise. In fact most of those high-achievers would say that exercise is one of the keys to their success.

The energy and zest for life that you gain from regular exercise translates into other areas of your life. You suddenly become a more focused and productive worker. The feeling of achievement you have with improving your body and your health can carry over to your job or career. You have more energy to be active with your children and grandchildren. You can have more fun when you participate in physical activities.

The psychological benefits of exercise can be enormous. Your body has the ability to make endorphins when you exercise with some intensity. These morphine-like compounds not only dull pain, but can make you feel happier.

Exercise is also remarkably relaxing. You feel calm yet become more alert and alive. When you feel stressed, you can avoid the dull effects of alcohol and drugs when you recharge with exercise instead.

If you are a newbie you will see immediate and dramatic benefits from the start of an exercise program. The health benefits you receive when you transform yourself from a couch potato into a regular exerciser are significant.

Maybe you are already exercising on a regular basis. Good for you! Are you achieving the results you want? Perhaps it is time to step it up a notch. Or just make a few changes here and there.

Get Out of Your Rut

You need to avoid the "same old, same old" type of exercise. In order to see dramatic body composition changes, you will need to use the principle of progressive overload. You may already be familiar with this concept yet may not be using it to your full advantage.

What is progressive overload? Your body has the remarkable ability to adapt to challenges. For example, an exercise that was once very difficult to perform, or caused muscle pain and soreness that lasted for days, may become easy to do with practice.

The Greek myth of Milo illustrates the extraordinary power of the body to grow and change in response to new demands. The story goes like this: As a young boy, Milo carried his pet calf draped over his shoulder. Initially, Milo was small, but so was the calf. As the calf grew, Milo’s strength increased as well. In fact, Milo grew so strong that he continued to shoulder the fully-grown ox with ease and amazed everyone with his feats of strength.

Like Milo, you will need to gradually increase your exercise challenge as you become more fit. If you want to continue to improve, don’t become stuck in a rut. Avoid performing the same routine day after day. Add new challenges or change your whole regimen.

Mixing it up, trying new forms of exercise, or just ramping up your current weight lifting program will give you a fat loss boost. Be sure that you add muscle-building routines to your work-out. Increasing muscle mass, strength, and endurance all raise your metabolic rate.

Aerobic vs Anaerobic Exercise

You may think that aerobic exercise is most important – for fat loss as well as for cardiovascular training. But do you need to start jogging to lose weight? Is endurance running the most effective form of exercise?

The usual dogma is that you need to keep the cardio going for at least 20 minutes. Many enthusiasts feel that longer is better. They enjoy long distance running or cycling, or decide that training for a marathon is the key to fitness and weight loss.

Most fitness gurus will tell you that you need some cardio to lose weight and improve cardiovascular fitness. However, resistance training often works better than cardio to get you lean and strong. You can burn more body fat and get thinner faster if you add muscle-building anaerobic exercise.

What is the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise? Aerobic exercise is a steady-state type of exercise that increases your heart rate and keeps it there for the duration.

Anaerobic Exercise Can Transform Your Body

Anaerobic exercise, on the other hand, tends to be briefer and more intense. The muscles worked suffer an oxygen debt during this activity. Since there is not enough oxygen in the muscle to sustain aerobic metabolism, lactic acid accumulates. You may feel a “muscle burn” when you perform higher intensity exercise like sprinting or resistance training. As the lactic acid is flushed away, the muscle is able to resume working.

The challenge that your muscles receive from the anaerobic activity is the trigger for them to get stronger and reshape themselves. Growth hormone is released from the brain in response to the stress. You have now unleashed a secret weapon to burn fat.

In fact, you can totally transform your body in a relatively short time with the use of high-intensity, muscle building exercise. The speed with which you can do this depends not only on the type of exercise program you do. It also is affected by your age, sex, and the type of diet you choose to eat. An extreme makeover for a formerly sedentary 52-year old woman may need a little more time than for a high-school football player at his hormonal peak. But it can be done!

Anaerobic Exercise Boosts Metabolic Rate

Although the typical cardio routines burn calories while you are performing them, anaerobic exercise offers certain metabolic advantages.

1. High intensity exercise – where the heart rate is above 85% of maximum -- leads to an afterburn of calories, long after the exercise is finished. Some of this is due to activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Epinephrine (adrenalin) is released, stimulating the breakdown of fat.
2. Resistance training has been shown to increase metabolism over the next 24-hour period by 4 – 7%. If an individual weight trains several days per week, these additional calories can be significant.
3. Strength training also adds valuable muscle which increases the metabolic rate – every day. If you add 5 pounds of muscle, you may be able to burn over 1000 calories extra per week!

Let’s Get Started

If you have been a couch potato for some time, then the first step you need to take is get off your behind and start moving. Walking is easy and available to almost anyone. In addition, it’s a great way to invigorate in the morning or to unwind after a hectic day.

However, once you can walk around the block a few times without gasping for air, it’s time to add some muscle-building moves. If you don’t know how to get started, you might need to read a book or enlist the aid of a personal trainer.

The biggest drawback of a personal trainer is the cost. If you don’t have the financial resources of Oprah or Brad, you might want to look at a great online program, Global Health & Fitness.

With GHF, members get the training and education they need to meet their weight loss or bodybuilding goals. You can even obtain the services of an online personal trainer, for no extra charge. A coach can not only teach you proper form but can help you develop new and more challenging routines. It takes knowledge to build an effective exercise program that will achieve the results you want.

GHF has helped many ordinary men and women of all ages, shapes, and sizes build muscle, change their body shape, and lose weight. Run by fitness expert, Chad Tackett, the program prides itself on its personalized service. Chad has recruited a number of exercise, medical, and nutritional experts as contributors. What’s more, you can receive personalized workout programs, customized to your goals, abilities, and equipment available.

Chad just contacted me about a new 2 week FREE program he’s offering. You get an individualized workout plan as well as access to his newest e-book called 27 Essential Strength Training Exercises, all at no charge. All you need to do is go to Free Workouts and select 1) what you want to achieve, 2) your fitness level, 3) how often you want to train, and 4) the equipment you have access to.

This is a great offer coming from one of the most popular weight loss and bodybuilding resources on the web. Global Health and Fitness may be just what you need to jump-start your exercise and weight loss efforts.