Cardio, Calories, and the Starvation Response Most of the time, when someone decides that they want to lose fat, they inevitably head for the nearest fad diet. However, 95% (closer to 100%) of the time, these fad diets fail. The reason they fail is because exercise is rarely incorporated into the program. In order to lose fat, there essential be a deficit of calories in the diet. In other words, your body essential use more calories than you eat in order to use its fat stores for energy. This seems simple enough; however, it becomes a bit more complicated. There are two ways a calorie deficit can be accomplished. The first one is to eat fewer calories. The ordinal one is to use much calories (exercise). The unsurpassed way to accomplish fat loss without hitting a plateau and failing is a combination of both. You must eat less calories and burn much calories. If you try to accomplish a calorie deficit only by eating less calories, then you're body thinks it's starving, and will go into a "starvation mode" where it lowers its metabolism in order to prepare for a period of little food (this is more than likely a prophylactic response from years ago when food actually did become scarce, unlike today). Another reason that the metabolism is lowered is because when there is a period of little food, your body tries its unsurpassed to protect the brain. The brain always requires glucose (carbohydrates that are in the body) to run; however, glucose can not be stored in the body. Therefore, the only way for the body to get glucose is to eat its own muscle (muscle can be converted to glucose) - which lowers your metabolism and causes the starvation response. So, the body accomplishes two things by eating its own muscle: it provides glucose for the brain and causes your body to require little food, since less muscle equals a lower metabolism. When the starvation response is elicited, you smack into the blubbery loss plateau and the fad diet fails. When you incorporate exercise into your routine, your body feels more comfortable with not cloudy your metabolism. If you are exercising frequently, then your body thinks, "I'm actually doing something, so there is probably an abundance of food now, and I shouldn't worry too much." Therefore, the starvation response is mostly avoided. Two important forms of exercise to produce this affect are weight training and aerobic exercise (cardio). However, this article is mostly about cardio. The goal of cardio is to burn calories while avoiding the starvation response. Many times when you mention "exercise" or "cardio", people immediately get negative thoughts in their head about the intense difficulty of doing such exercise, but these thoughts are misguided. Cardio gets easier as your body adapts, is precise rewarding, and can even be fun. How Cardio Becomes Easier While nonmoving Burning the Same Amount of Calories As you do cardio more and more, you body begins to adapt and become better at performing the same work, but with less perceived effort. The body becomes able to move nutrients and oxygen around faster because you build radical capillaries, the cells produce much mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell), your heart becomes much powerful, your body produces much blood, and a host of other adaptations that would cover a whole textbook. The main thing to note present is that you still burn the same amount of calories, even after your body adapts and cardio becomes easier. However, with your new, much adapted body, you will be able to accomplish exercise that burns even more calories subsequent in even more fat loss. For instance, in order to burn 300 calories, you would have to walk for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. In contrast, jogging for about 25-30 minutes (the amount of time will vary depending upon your speed) will burn 300 calories. Obviously, the last one is much practical unless you just have a huge amount of time on your hands. close also doesn't elicit the endorphin high that running/jogging does either (discussed later). The Overload Principle When you begin a cardio program, your first goal should probably be to adapt to the point where you can burn a sufficient amount of calories. This involves the overload principle. The overload principle is simple: in order to initiate adaptations within your body you must exercise with either a greater intensity, duration, or frequency. Depending upon the type you decide to overload (intensity, duration, or frequency), you will adapt to that type. For instance, if you want to run faster in the same amount of distance, you should run faster, and your body will adapt to that. If you want to run farther, you should run farther, and your body will adapt to that. There is a high degree of specificy that goals along with this principle, but that is the topic for another article. beautiful much, the overload principle reveals that doing the same regular every time without trying to push yourself harder will result in no adaptations. For instance, if you do the same aerobics tape everyday, past your body will never adapt any further - since there is no need for it to. However, if you were to get a much advanced tape and do it, this would initiate an adaptation in your body, but past you would have to find an even harder tape to initiate any further adaptations. Keep in mind though, if you decide to stay at the same level of fitness and do the same routine, then you will still burn the same amount of calories, and if your goal is just fat loss this may be a potential option for you. antimonopoly Get Started! If you haven’t done some cardio for a while, you should obviously start out small. Start out with antimonopoly a brisk walk, then sporadic jogs while you are jogging, then finally, you will be able to jog the entire time, and then increase your times/speed to the point where you are happy. The hardest part is really antimonopoly to start doing something. Once you get your momentum going by exercising for the first time, even if you have to start out small, you have already accomplished the hardest part. Your Body's Reward to You: An Endorphin High In addition to painful off unwanted fat, doing cardio gives you something called an "endorphin high". This complete natural high induces a feeling of well-being, relaxation, improvement in mood, and increase in your ability to think more clearly. It's theorized that this is the reason why many long-life distance runners are "addicted" to running - they love the high they get afterwards! Once you've experienced one of these, you're even more possible to continue your regime and therefore continue to burn unsatisfactory fat. Cardio in the Morning? Although calories are the most important thing when considering fat loss; you must also realize that not all calories are created equal. When you wake up in the morning, you body is debased on something called glycogen. Glycogen is essentially another word for stored carbohydrates in the body. When exercising, glycogen is a more preferred fuel source to the body in comparison to fat. Your body always uses a mixture of glycogen and fat to run, but the ratio is many times dependant upon the availability of these fuel sources. So, when your body is low on glycogen in the morning, it is involuntary to burn fat at a higher ratio than if you had just eaten. Therefore, doing cardio in a fasted state will burn more blubbery than doing it in a non-fasted state. In cardinal study, the researchers concluded that this method can burn 17% more fat in comparison to if you had just eaten (1). Another study agrees with this by stating, "our results support the hypothesis that endurance training enhances lipid oxidation (lipid oxidation means the painful of fat) in men aft a 12-h fast at debased relative exercise intensities" (2). If you decide to perform cardio in the morning, remember to drink lots of water before-hand (you'll be dehydrated aft waking up), and if you want the extra fat painful response, you'll have to avoid breakfast until after you're done. Another reason to exercise in the morning is due to the fact that it will allow you to be in a finer mood and to think much clearly for the rest of the day due to the endorphin high. You are also probably more likely to perform cardio in the morning in comparison to the afternoon when you could just blow it off because you are "too tired". Make Sure You're Hydrated Before starting on your new cardio regime, make sure you are properly hydrated. Water increases your capacity to think and exercise much efficiently. Water is necessary for nearly every reaction internal of your body. Most people walk around in a state of semi-dehydration. Exercising can cause you to get dizzy and pass-out (this author has experienced this), suffer a heat injury, or in intense cases, cause death. Ever had that thick, cotton-like feeling in your mouth while exercising? Cotton-mouth is an evident sign that you are dehydrated; if you ever get cotton-mouth while performing aerobic exercise, please realize that you could be performing much better and reducing your risk of experiencing dehydration's nasty side effects if you only had drank more water beforehand. It is unsurpassed to drink water throughout the day rather than only around the time you exercise. Music! One sure fire way to get you pumped up and associate cardio with something positive is to listen to some music before and while doing it. You'll be surprised at how much finer you perform and how more more fun cardio seems. As explicit before, the hardest part about a cardio regime is starting. Remember to incorporate the overload principle when trying to cause an adaptative response, to stay hydrated, and to listen to music while performing your cardio regime. Also, you may even decide that you want to perform your cardio in the morning to feel good and be able to think more clearly for the rest of the day and to burn even more fat. Once you get passed that point and experience some of cardio's effects such as blubbery loss without hitting a plateau, a feeling of accomplishment, and that awesome endorphin high, you'll become addicted. However, no exercise routine is complete without the proper support from an intelligent nutritional program; for much information on this you can visit http://www.weight-loss-resources.com. 1. Brehm, B.A., and Gutin, B. Recovery energy expenditure for steady state exercise in runners and non-exercisers. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. (1986) 18: 205. 2. Bergman, BC, Brooks, GA. Respiratory gas-exchange ratios during graded exercise in fed and fasted trained and undisciplined men. Journal of Applied Physiology. (1999) 86: 2.
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