« December 2008 | Main | February 2009 »
Posted by Craig Knight on 26/01/2009 in Diet, Fat Loss | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never…. In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions or honour and good sense!”-Sir Winston Churchill
Posted by Craig Knight on 15/01/2009 in Exercise, Fat Loss, Strength Training | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
When it comes to exercise, we have been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, "Which exercise burns the most calories?" we should be asking, "Which exercise increases calorie-burning power?"
"The reason 95 percent of today’s diets fail to keep your weight off", say Vash, Zak, and Carlin, in their book ‘The Fat to Muscle Diet’, "is that they cause you to lose muscle tissue along with your fat. These muscle losses are critical. They slow down your metabolism and reduce your calorie-burning power."
The solution to this problem is to prevent muscle loss so your metabolism doesn’t have a chance to slow down. Strength training is the only exercise that can do this.
Strength Training Increases Metabolism
Strength training not only prevents muscle loss, it can also promote muscle gain. When you gain muscle, you increase your calorie-burning power.
What about combining strength training with aerobics to increase the calorie-burning benefits? Unfortunately, this causes overtraining and leads to muscle loss.
A more effective way of building muscle and cardiovascular fitness is high-intensity strength training with short rest periods between sets.
My Fat Loss Workout
Here’s the high-intensity strength training workout I used to shed over 140lb of fat:
Leg Press
Chest Press
Pulldown
Shoulder Press
Biceps Curl
Abdominal Crunch
On Mondays and Fridays, I performed one set of 3 to 5 slow repetitions on each exercise. Anytime I got 5 repetitions on an exercise, I increased the resistance.
At first, this workout took 30-minutes to complete. I can now complete the same workout in 15-minutes using more resistance on each exercise.
This workout, along with a reduction in food, led to consistent weekly fat losses. My weight didn’t plateau, and I didn’t need to reduce my food further. I was able to do this because I increased my calorie-burning power by getting stronger.
My Weekly Weight Loss
An Elegant Solution
If you ask the wrong question you might get the wrong solution. To be able to ask the right question, you need to understand the problem. The problem is not a lack of aerobics; the problem is diet-induced muscle loss. The solution is strength training.
Posted by Craig Knight on 12/01/2009 in Aerobics, Diet, Exercise, Fat Loss, Strength Training | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Craig Knight on 01/01/2009 in Diet, Exercise, Fat Loss | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)