Motivating Amy Part 3

Part 1

Part 2
(which will also explain why these posts are called 'Motivating Amy'!)

3) THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSCLE WHEN LOSING WEIGHT

This is one of my favourite subjects, because I like lifting weights. But even if you don't want to go to a gym and fight for space in the free weight area, maintaining and/or building muscle is important, especially when you're dieting.

Here's some maths for you:

A 60kg, 5ft 6 woman uses roughly 1345 calories a day just to survive - heart, lung, kidney, brain etc functions - the important stuff!
Add in a 'light' level of activity - commuting, working in an office, working out a couple of times a week - and this daily requirement increases to 1880 calories.
(Here's the calculator I used but a search of 'calorie requirements' will bring up many others)

So far, so good. I'll assume this woman - I'll call her Amy - is eating 1880 calories because her weight is stable - her calorie intake is matching her calorie output. But she would like to lose weight, and reads about a fad diet  in a magazine which claims 1000 calories a day, plus some strange moves with a couple of cans of baked beans, will help her lose a dress size.

This calorie count is 345 calories less than she needs to survive. Initially her body will rely on body fat and muscle for fuel, but after a couple of weeks (maybe less, maybe more, it depends on the individual) her body will realise it's being starved and cling on to the body fat. Muscle, however, will still be used - it's a rich source of fuel but it also needs fuel to exist, fuel that's very much in short supply. Also, as muscles uses energy for its own purposes it makes sense for the body to get rid of it.

After a few more weeks, Amy's body will have got used to living on 1000 calories (including being a bit more careful how it uses her heart, lungs and other vital organs) and because she is no longer in calorie deficit (ie. her intake is matching her output again) her weight plateaus. Now, either Amy will cut down more calories, or she'll give up the diet because a) it's not working and b) she's hungry and wants to eat proper food again.

Cutting down more will repeat the process I outlined above, but with increasingly serious consequences, so I'll focus on giving up the diet. Amy returns to eating 1880 calories a day, but - BUT! - her body thinks she's overeating by 880 calories because it's been used to living on 1000 calories, and her muscle has been stripped. It takes 3500 extra calories to put on one pound of body fat - which will be about four days!

I hope this makes sense, because it is the reason why NO DIET WILL EVER WORK. Moderation with food and exercise is the best way. If Amy had been maintaining her muscle mass the excess would not have been so extreme when she came off the diet.

Stay tuned for Part 4, when I'll be explaining how to build muscle when you don't

lift weights, or want to lift weights, or have weights to lift!

Motivating Amy Part 2

In Part 1, I talked about how to stay motivated, in response to a comment by Amy. If you didn't read that post, have a quick look now... It's okay, I'll wait for you...

2) PROGRESSION
I love going to the gym, but I understand that for lots of people it's not an option, through cost or availability or sheer opposition to working out in a crowded, air-conditioned gym when there are hundreds of other things to do. For some of these people, exercising at home is the perfect solution... and yes, it can be. But only if you do it right.

Progression is something that happens naturally in a gym. When one level on the bike or cross trainer gets easy, you move up. If you're lifting an easy weight, you choose a heavier one next time. But some home exercise equipment doesn't have that option, or they only have a couple of settings. Or people who like to run always take the same 4 mile route and never deviate or speed up. Can you see the problem?

When you start a new exercise programme, especially if you've been previously inactive, your body is shocked into making huge changes: it has to get fitter very quickly, the lungs and heart have to become stronger to keep the air and blood circulating. Your body requires more fuel, so as long as you're not eating more you start to lose weight.

But when your body reaches the perfect state where it can efficiently match your requirement, using less fuel and muscle power because it's figured out the easiest way to do it, you simply ask it to do the same thing again and again.

Your body will respond (get fitter, lose weight) if you keep pushing it. Here are some great ways to progress:

For runners:

• Interval training - find a slope/hill, sprint up it, walk down it x 10 (or 20, depending on length of slope)
• Run your normal route the other way around
• Lengthen your run
• Shorten your run, but run faster

For people with exercise bikes/cross trainers:

• If you listen to music, try speeding up a little when each new song starts until you can't go any faster, then slow back down to your original speed and start again
• If you watch soaps, sprint at the start of a new scene, then slow down at the start of the next, and repeat
• If you always cycle for 20 minutes, do one session a week that's twice as long
• If you're short of time, sprint for 10 minutes

For people who do exercise DVDs:

• Buy a new one!
• Take the moves you've learnt from the DVDs and make up your own circuit - time yourself for 30 seconds each station with 10 seconds recovery time:
• Jog on the spot
• Squat
• Star jumps
• Lunges
• etc...

Hopefully that's given you a few ideas. Don't forget Part 3 in a couple of days' time.
I'll be talking about how to build muscle and why it's important.

Motivating Amy Part 1

In response to my last post, Amy replied:

I have the motivation problem, I'm afraid. I managed to lose about 12lbs last year - which is about half what I aimed to lose - and then stalled. In the couple of weeks before Christmas I was down below 60kg after trying for a while to lose an extra bit, but now I have frustratingly gone just over 60 again even after thinking I'd try not to put weight back on over Christmas.

I think what made the difference when I did lose weight was keeping a food diary coupled with exercising a bit more (exercise bike at home), but when work got busier I found it harder to find the time and energy to exercise and plan food ahead.

... and without realising it, she's given me enough subject matter for the next few posts.

1) MOTIVATION
When you first start losing weight, it comes off quite quickly. Any change to diet and exercise gets you off to a great start, but mostly you're losing water not body fat. Seeing the scales changing every week keeps us going. But it doesn't last, for reasons I'll go into in Part 2.

Here are my top tips to keep going when you hit a plateau:

• Try measuring yourself instead of relying on the scales. Chest/bust, waist and hips are good areas to measure. Don't get hung up on the numbers, just the difference between the previous measurements. Or, have a skirt/shirt/pair of trousers that you can try on each week. Your shape might keep changing even when your weight stabilises.
• Look beyond just losing weight. If you've been exercising at the same time as dieting, then you're fitter than when you started. See how many times you can walk up and down the stairs until you're exhausted, and try to do more each week? If your exercise bike measures distance, try to go further in the same time, or do intervals - 1 minute normal cycling, 30 seconds very fast, and see if you can do more intervals every week.
• Add more activity into every day life. Everyone says it, but it's true. If you can, walk or cycle to work. If you already do that, walk quicker! Get out and about at lunchtime. If you work in a tower block, walk up and down the stairs on wet days (great for your bum!) I'm not sure if I want to admit this, but I jump on the spot or do star-jumps when I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. Or I balance on one leg, which is great for activating your stomach muscles.

Please pop back for Part 2 tomorrow.

New Year, new start!

I started this blog at the beginning of 2012, and then promptly forgot about it except for random postings. In hindsight, 2012 would have been a great year for a fitness blog...

Never mind, 2013 is a new year, and I'm sure there will be lots more fantastic things I can write about. The name of this blog has changed slightly - I've added the word Revived! I'm hoping this will motivate me to write about my other great love - fitness!

So, to get this blog properly revived, I need your help. What would you like to know? Is there a burning fitness question you're dying to ask? Do you need motivation? Are you bored with your routine and looking for a change?

Are you looking to lose weight in 2013? Or gain it?

Or do you have a great tip you want to share with other people?

It's over to you... for a little while, at least!!

Today's training

Today was a good day for training. I've been suffering a rotator cuff injury which - when I finally realised I needed to rest properly and do no upper body weights at all - has started to recover. As a result of focusing solely on cardio for the past month, my cardio has perked up a bit - my love of running is having a resurgence, albeit just on the treadmill at the moment. I'm hoping I'll get back to running outside again soon.

So, I thought I'd share what I did today:

Warm up - a race on the Trixter Xdream bike

Treadmill -  intervals - walking at 4mph for 30 seconds, running at 5.8mph for 1 min. I started at a 3% incline, and added half a percent after every run. I made it all the way to 7% - although as it got higher, I dropped down to running for 30 seconds too.

Weights - rehab weights for shoulder
Cable chest press @ 6.25kg per arm x 12/10/8
Inverted row x 5/5/5/4
Reverse fly @ 4kg per arm x 10/10/10
Dumbbell bench press @ 6kg per arm x 10/10 (as a rehab technique, when my arms are straight up I allow my shoulders to lie flat against the bench, using the weights in my hand to push my shoulders down - and I do the exercise much slower than in the video, to make sure I'm not putting any excess strain on my shoulder)
Walking lunges @ 6kg per arm x 8/8/8
Leg press @ 75kg x 10/8/8
Lateral raise @ 4kg per arm x 10/8 (similar to this video, but starting with my palms facing my thighs, which activates the rhomboids and encourages the deltoids[shoulder] to relax)
Bicep curls @ 6kg x 10/10/8
Tricep pulldown @ 8.75kg x 8/8/8

All of these exercises were only performed until I could feel my shoulder pulling/hurting. This was only my second session lifting weights that were more than 2kg, and it felt good. I'm looking forward to slowly increasing the amount of weight I can lift... but when I say slowly, I mean r e a l l y slowly - I don't plan on getting injured again any time soon.

So, that was my training, what does yours look like?

Updated 'About Me' Page

As I tweeted about this blog, I ought to write a post. I'm cheating slightly, because I'm just going to point you towards my 'About Me' page, located somewhere on that left hand column (unless I change the layout of this blog in the months to come, in which case it could be anywhere!)

Please say hello and tell me a bit about yourself!

How to push yourself at the gym

If you're following me - and I know there are five of you out there - you've probably forgotten you follow me, because it's been a while since I posted. I've averaged about one post every 7 or 8 weeks of this year so far, but my plan is to at least try for a weekly post.

As I was pushing myself on the treadmill today ( I'd already done 10 minutes cycling, and followed the run with 20 minutes on the cross-trainer) I looked around and noticed how other people weren't sweating buckets and glowing bright red. These people come to the gym - mostly women, I'm sad to say - potter about on a couple of machines, maybe lift a dumbbell or two, and leave. Some of them leave with their make-up fully in tact - whereas I do not, ever ever wear make-up to the gym because it wouldn't last two minutes.

These ladies, who look lovely and are able to catch up on their reading while cycling, will find that in a couple of months they will still have the same levels of fitness as they did today. They will still weigh the same, even though they're convinced they should be losing tens of pounds because they come to the gym three times a week. After a while, they'll become disillusioned and give up.

I don't want you to give up. I want everyone who walks into a gym for the first time to achieve their goals eventually. I want them to enjoy working out, to even grow to love it like I do!








So, what's the right way to push yourself?

• Workout at the right heart rate -we use the Karvonen formula, which allows for a higher working heart rate zone. This link is interesting, because it compares different formulas.
• If you haven't increased the levels on your cardio machines for a few weeks, just increase it by one. You can always lower it back down half-way through the programme, but you should find that after a couple of sessions you won't need to.
• Increase the weight you lift by the smallest increment available and see if you can complete the same number of reps. If you can, do the same after another couple of sessions until you have to reduce your reps a little bit.
• Do not be afraid to sweat.
• Don't worry whether other people are watching you. They'll be stares of admiration.
• At our gym, we offer regular reviews of your programme. I know some gyms don't offer that service or charge - if that's the case, get an instructor to check your technique periodically. It's very easy to fall into bad practices.
• Use the mirrors to check your technique - that's what they are there for.

These are just a few ways to make sure you are always pushing yourself. Although it might not be what you want to hear, working out should never be easy. But, as your fitness, endurance and strength increase, you'll be able to handle it better!