Watch the video to find out the fitness formula for fat-burning.
Video Transcript:
Okay, so I'm going to tell you the fitness formula for fat burning.
There are only two things you have to keep in mind.
Number one, move as much as you possibly can.
And number two, work smart, not hard.
So how do you choose movement over non-movement?
Well, this should be happening from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night.
So, make breakfast in the morning instead of going and getting in your car and getting some coffee. Do the little extra movements around your house, don't be lazy. Always be thinking, How can I move rather than be sedentary?
Of course, taking walks every day is fantastic. Parking far away from things and forcing yourself to walk in the parking lot, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, all of these little things throughout the day, will add up.
And what you want to be thinking in your mind is “I'm an active person, I'm an active person, I'm an active person.”
An active person is always ready to move. A sedentary person, “Do I have to?” “Oh, when you're upstairs can you grab that for me?” “Oh, while you're at the store can you do that for me?” Or, “Well, let me just do take-out because I don't feel like cooking.”
Now I know sometimes we're tired, and we're stressed. And we don't have the bandwidth to do these things. But as much as you can think of movement as your source of health.
Movement is your source of health.
I talked earlier in a blog post that movement is the fountain of youth.
And I really mean this.
So choose movement over non-movement. And that's going to improve your health.
Choose to live a sedentary life at your peril.
The second part of this is to work smart, not hard.
And this I'm really referring to your physical fitness - your exercise.
So the idea is not for you to be slogging it out of the gym for an hour, five or six days a week. That actually will probably backfire on you. Because you'll be overtraining, you'll be overtired, and over-stressing your body.
And you'll probably end up doing a lot of repetitive things, and the body acclimates pretty quickly to physical activity. So if you do the same class every day, five days a week, or even three days a week, month after month after month, your body's on to you.
And you're not going to get that same fat-burning effect that you would get if you switched it up.
So how do you work smart and not hard?
My first recommendation is always include at least three days, if not four days, of strength training a week. You can use your body weight, you can use bands, you can use weights, you can use a TRX and different types of equipment.
But you can switch it up every six to eight weeks, just switch up the whole routine, do something completely different.
And the strength training is really going to turn on your fat burning.
In addition to three to four days a week of strength training, I recommend two to three days of targeted cardio.
This is where the smart comes in.
Besides the strength training, of course, which is very smart. Targeted cardio means you're looking at your heart rate, you're not just, “Oh, well I was on the treadmill for an hour, I guess I’ve done my exercise for the day.”
You don't need to spend that much time, you may even be fine with just 12 or 15 minutes of interval training on a bike.
And that would be one day a week that you do cardio.
And on another day, maybe you get on the elliptical and you do 15 or 20 minutes of targeted heart rate training, meaning you want to keep your heart rate in a certain zone.
And I have another blog post that I did about this, you can learn more about that.
The point is, it's not about the amount of time you spend, it's about how well you spend that time.
You could be working out for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and get incredible results. It doesn't have to be 5-7-8 hours a week of exercise to get fat-burning results.
Now if you're barely working out right now, that's okay. Start small, start with gradual change.
Maybe you just start with a morning walk for 10 minutes and you do 10 push-ups every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and 10 squats on the other days.
It doesn't have to be this huge commitment because obviously if you're not exercising a lot right now, for you to go from doing that to working out five days a week consistently, that's a big stretch and no one should ever ask you to do that.
I'm talking about where you're going the direction you're going in and that's really three to four days a week of strength. training, very important for fat burning, plus two to three days a week of heart rate targeted cardio, where you're actually using specific zones, and you're training your body to be more efficient cardiovascularly.
And this can have an incredible effect on your metabolism.
Keep in mind, everybody's different. Listen to your body.
If you have injuries, seek out a corrective exercise specialist, you can ask me about that. I know some amazing trainers, you don't want to go with just any old trainer.
And one of the most important things, this is the mantra I want you to say in your head…..besides, “I'm an active person, I'm an active person, I'm an active person”, I want you to say that “consistency is king”.
So it's much better for you to be walking for five minutes, five days a week, then one day a week say well I'm gonna do 30 minutes today and then not do anything for another week.
Consistency is king.
You want to get your body used to being active, challenging your body a little bit every day a little bit more and more month over month over month.
And now you have the fitness formula for fat burning!
If you’re serious about improving your health and improving your relationship with your body but you’re not sure where to start, I recommend getting on a free clarity call with me. Click the link below.
