The term aerobic exercise means you are causing the body to utilize oxygen to create energy. The oxygen is needed to break down glucose. Glucose is the fuel needed to create energy. Anaerobic is the opposite of aerobic in that it creates energy without oxygen. The body’s demad for energy is greater, so it finds natural body chemicals to fuel it. To determine whether you are doing aerobic or anaerobic exercises you will need to monitor your heart rate while exercising. For men, the maximum heart rate is 220 less your age. For women it is 225 less your age.
The goal rate for exercising should be 70% of your maximum rate. When your heart rate reaches over 70% you are doing aerobic exercises. Any movement your body makes requires energy. You don’t have to do just aerobic exercise to lose weight or maintain a desired weight. Aerobic exercise has more of an impact on the cardiovascular and circulatory systems.
I have patients that walk every day on a treadmill or outside and cannot lose weight. Light to moderate aerobic exercise can help start you off on a weight loss course. This type of exercise includes classes, treadmills, exercise bikes, ski machines, air gliders, and jogging. When you start the day with aerobic exercise you will burn glucose for the first fifteen to twenty-five minutes before any fat is used up. Aerobic exercise will burn 25% muscle and 75% fat only while you’re exercising. Once you stop exercising the fat burning stops.
Are you Healthy enough to exercise?
Most people think all they need to do is exercise to lose weight. The truth is your body may not be healthy enough to exercise. When your body is not balanced in the area of digestion and elimination of toxins you can put additional stress on your body. Additional stress to your body affects the adrenals, which in the case of negative stress will release cortisol. Remember, cortisol is a fat making hormone. This is why you need to consult a doctor that understands the different levels of exercise to see if you’re healthy enough to start an exercise program.
Don’t get down on yourself because you go to the gym every day and see nothing change on your body. Most people that go to the gym are on the cardio machines. Very few are hitting the weights. Why would lifting weight help you to lose more weight? First of all, we all know how to walk. That’s why you see more people in the gym performing activities they know how to do. The weights and weight machines may look intimidating to say the least. What if I do it wrong? I don’t want anybody to see me over there because I might look stupid. That’s why gym have trainers to help you on the weight machines until you feel comfortable with them.
The King of all Exercises!
It has been said that performing anaerobic exercises like weight lifting, using machines that offer resistance, and dumbbells can burn more calories on a ration of five to one–even as much as seven to one has been reported. This type of exercise burns up to 100% fat in the body. This type of exercise will also help to produce lean muscle mass which decreases body fat. The great thing about performing anaerobic exercise is that when you’re done you’re still burning fat 24 to 48 hours later.
To successfully benefit from anaerobic exercise you need to have healthy adrenal glands. If you do too much anaerobic with a weekend adrenal gland you can stop fat burning. Recovering after working out is vital to your success. Here at Lean Healthy Life we can check to see if your adrenals are able to handle any workout or to see why you have not benefited from your current workouts. We also have a supplement that can help to support the adrenals.
Donna’s and P90X
In an earlier weekly newsletter I talked about the great success Donna has on a 20 day program. What I did not mention was having to cut her off from exercise early in her program. When Donna came in and we evaluated her we found her Adrenals were very stressed out. She had currently been doing P90X at home. By the way I think P90X is a great program. However she needed to take a break from all exercises because she had abnormally high Adrenal numbers. She really did not want to stop but I told her she would have better results if she took a short time off. The rest is history. Over the next 3 weeks she lost 14lbs and continued to lose after the program. Many times we try so hard and then we can get frustrated when we don’t get results. Donna was frustrated when we saw her. She had been eating a good diet exercising faithfully and the weight was not coming off. That is why it is so important to have a full evaluation to see what may be causing your health problem or weight issue.
Remember whether you are just trying to lose that extra weight or get over chronic health issues, take time to attend one of our free seminars on Wednesday evenings. I am currently giving every one who attends a copy of my new book, “Improve the Quality of Your Life – Why Live in Pain?” We look forward to seeing you.
Earlier this week I wrote a blog about attitude. I will summarize it for you.
It was titled Attitude Adjustment Checklist.
1) Accept what IS…..IS–STOP complaining about it.
2) STOP wishing it was different.
3) STOP blaming yourself or others about it.
4) Focus on what you have and not what you don’t have.
5) Focus on what you want and not on what you don’t want.
6) Focus on Solutions.
7) Say “Yes,” “Please”, and “Thank You” more.
If something doesn’t go your way, just say, “Next!” Create a “No Drama” life. It really is that simple. As I have stated many times in this newsletter. One of the greatest gifts we have been given is the freedom to choose no matter what happens to us. You can change and you will change your current condition is you only DECIDE too. Have a great week.
