At this time of year, almost everyone has aspirations to get fit and improve their health, and for good reason. Every day, new research proves the "Exercise is Medicine" mantra, and confirms that we all need to be more active. Does this mean you have to endure the high-intensity workouts of CrossFit and SoulCycle, or eat like a bird, to achieve advanced fitness and optimum body weight? No!

 The highest levels of fitness and the leanest, strongest bodies are what we help our clients achieve every day at Phase IV, and it is not with the insane workouts proposed by the fitness industry. Their approach is to sell people what they aspire to be, instead of the science-based approach that it really takes to get there. Let's first define the fitness that is needed for health, vitality, and the lean and strong body you desire. There are two broad aspects of your health that you need to be concerned with: metabolic health, and structural integrity:

Metabolic Efficiency

The ability of your body to use fats, and not carbohydrates, to make energy for daily tasks and during exercise is the key to good health. It's not how fast you can run, or how hard you can train, that defines your metabolic health or your fitness level. What's important is that your metabolism is trained to favor fat as the primary energy source for all your activities. This is called "metabolic efficiency," and this is what prevents illness and disease. Also known as aerobic fitness, it is the ability of your body to combine oxygen and fat in the cell to make energy that is tied to the prevention of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even some cancers.

Metabolic efficiency is achieved by any low-intensity activity that keeps you moving for 60 minutes at a time. This can including walking, hiking, swimming, easy cycling, or mellow elliptical workouts, to name a few. Things anyone can do. In response to these easy workouts, your heart and lungs function more effectively, and your body grows a more extensive and efficient circulatory system of blood vessels, which deliver fat and oxygen to your cells and remove waste products. Aerobic exercise also creates more energy-producing structures in your cells, called mitochondria. More mitochondria create more energy, and the result is less fatigue and better stamina for everything you do. Together, these physiological improvements help reduce body fat, eliminate health risk factors, and in some cases reverse disease. Additionally, they are easy on your joints.

Excerpt from Healthy Running, Step by Step, Chapter 5 

Nutritional Optimization

Real foods control your insulin, help you burn more fat as fuel, and help deliver optimal performance.

Training is only half the battle when it comes to achieving the body you desire.. Food is the other.

Just like with your training, a science-based approach to what you put in your body and when you do it has a great effect on your ability to achieve your athletic and health goals. My approach to health and fitness involves guided exercise and an easy-to-follow, "close-to-the- earth" diet. Both are designed for one singular goal: metabolic efficiency-to make you a better butter burner. We have discussed the importance of precision heart-rate training to develop your fat-burning metabolism in chapter 4; now it's time to dial in your diet to further serve this goal.

All of us, especially athletes, need to alter our relationship with food. We need to view daily nutrition as the source of our life energy and focus on foods that further health, not disease. In recent decades, we've been told more about what not to eat than what to eat to stay healthy. Slowly, our relationship with food is changing as our food supply is being exposed as corrupted and unnatural. We are realizing that we need natural foods to help keep us healthy and make us stronger, leaner, and more resistant to disease.