Greetings!
November marks the kick-off of the holiday season and, while the winter holidays are wonderful, they can also be very stressful. First, there's all that rushing around. Our lives all of a sudden move at warp speed. Impossible as it may seem, it is vital to schedule some down time for yourself over the holidays. Stress is not only bad for your health, it's bad for your waistline.
Second, we are more prone to gain weight during the holidays, what with the many parties and rich, decadent food (on top of the extra stress). If you have struggled with holiday weight gain in the past, try mapping out your "cheats" this year. Planning ahead will help insure that you don't go above your allowed 20% indulgence. It's a good idea to build in "spur of the moment", non-scheduled indulgences, as well, for those times you just can't resist. If your particular health goals have you on a more restricted 90%/10% diet, you might want to consider relaxing that to a 85%/15% or 80%/20% for the holiday season. This may be a more realistic goal, thereby a more achievable goal.
The BEST way to keep your waistline from expanding, besides good nutrition habits, is to STRENGTH TRAIN. Strength training and building lean muscle mass will turn your body into a fat-burning machine. Read on to learn more!
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Strength Training & Fat Loss
The Hierarchy of Fat Loss:
1. Proper nutrition. (You can't out-train a bad diet.)
2. See number one. (Yes, nutrition is that important.)
3. STRENGTH TRAINING
Why is strength training the most important exercise component to fat loss? It has to do with your RMR - resting metabolic rate. RMR burns the bulk of your daily calories. The number of calories you burn outside of your RMR (through exercising, the thermic effect of feeding, daily activity, etc.) contributes less than your resting metabolic rate to the overall calories burned daily. This is not to discount those calories, because they will contribute and they do add up. In the hierarchy of fat loss, however, they don't contribute as much as raising your RMR does.
The BEST way, hands down, to raise your RMR is to STRENGTH TRAIN, since your RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have in your body and how hard that muscle works.
A 1999 research study hammers home this hierarchy of fat loss. In the study, overweight participants were broken up into 3 groups: diet only, diet + aerobic training, & diet + aerobic training + weight training. The diet group lost 14.6 lbs of fat in 12 weeks. The diet + aerobic training group lost 15.6 lbs of fat in the same 12 weeks. The aerobic training was 3 workouts a week, starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes each workout. That's a lot of work for only 1 lb difference.
The diet + aerobics + weight training group lost 21.1 lbs of fat over the 12 weeks! By far, the best results of all three groups.
Strength Training for Fat Loss
Tips & Strategies
- If you only have 3 hours / week to exercise, all your workouts should be dedicated to strength training. If you have more than 3 hours to workout in a given week, feel free to move down the hierarchy of fat loss to number 4: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). (It is possible, by the way, to build cardiovascular training into your strength training workouts. All of our classes at Evolution Fitness are designed this way, with both strength training and HIIT incorporated. Click here to learn more about our classes. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is not only better for fat loss, it is also better for cardiovascular health.)
- All strength training workouts should be TOTAL BODY workouts, utilizing all your muscles.
- Compound exercises recruit more muscle and burn more calories than isolation exercises.
- Bodyweight exercises, exercises using free weights rather than machines, and functional exercises that keep you on your feet, training movements instead of muscle groups, are the best exercises to utilize in your TOTAL BODY workouts. The primary human movement patterns are squatting, lunging, bending, pushing, pulling, and twisting.
- You'll get better results working out 3x / week or more for shorter durations rather than 1x - 2x / week for longer durations.
- Your 2 BIGGEST ENEMIES for burning fat from your strength training workouts are efficiency and adaptation. Therefore, keep your workouts fresh! Just when your body becomes efficient at an exercise or workout, change it up! Unfamiliar exercises get the most out of your fat burning system and are the most effective for fat loss results from strength training.
- Periodization of your workouts is key to keeping them fresh, along with changing your exercise program design every 4 - 6 weeks. The most efficient periodization is undulating periodization vs a linear one. A linear periodization of a 6 week program would go something like this: First 2 weeks, do 12-15 reps/set. Second 2 weeks, do 8-12 reps/set. Third and final 2 weeks, do 4-8 reps/set. An undulating periodization, on the other hand, would be more of a constant change-up, such as: Monday, do 4-8 reps/set. Wednesday, do 8-12 reps/set. Friday, do 12-15 reps/set.
- Get the most out of your workout by employing the Sherrington Law of Reciprocal Innervation: "For every neural activation of a muscle, there is a corresponding inhibition of the opposing muscle." In other words, while you do an exercise that works your chest muscles, the opposite back muscles are forced to relax, thereby resting. So, instead of waiting 2 minutes between sets of push-ups, you can rest 1 minute, do a set of bent-over rows, rest another minute and go back to the push-ups. Using this law to your advantage allows you to do more in less time.
- Resting between sets is as important as the sets themselves. For the best fat loss results, take shorter rest periods as you progress through your program.
- FORM is KING and INTENSITY is QUEEN. A less-than-stellar exercise program done with good form and intensity will outperform the perfect, periodized routine done with bad form and zero intensity. THE BEST RESULTS, of course, come when an AWESOME, INDIVIDUALIZED exercise program is performed with good form and intensity.
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The NEW Total Body
CHANGE is the key to any successful fitness program! Change in intensity, frequency, reps, weights, sets, order of exercises, or even the exercises themselves must change on a regular cycle to continue to get the best results. Here at Evolution Fitness, we're changing the way fitness is done - always evolving and always on the cutting edge because, that's right ... CHANGE IS NOW!
The New Format
Total Body will now comprise of two 10 minute circuits. Each circuit will have 4 primary exercises, performed for a specific number of repetitions ( this may change month to month). As you know, "Form is King", especially when it comes to Strength and Fat Loss, which is what Total Body is all about! That is why each exercise in the circuit will also have a selection of exercise variations of the same movement patterns. This allows participants to modify an exercise as needed when moving through the circuit, keeping their body challenged while maintaining safe, quality Form.
The new TOTAL BODY creates an environment for success, allowing each individual to work at their own pace. Now, on any given day, if you are feeling great you can kick it up a gear or two. Or, on days you're feeling less than stellar and just want to decompress some stress, you can dial it down a notch. The new format allows each individual to choose the appropriate challenge for them that day.
Keep in mind, Quality always supersedes Quantity. If you lose Quality in Form, you lose Quantity in Results! Work hard, but also work SMART! | |
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November
Shake of the Month
Pumpkin Pie
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If you like pumpkin pie, you'll LOVE our Pumpkin Pie Shake! It is made with your choice of Skim, Soy, Almond, or Coconut milk, and mixed with Pumpkin Puree, 20g Vanilla Whey Protein, Chai Tea spices, and a dash of cinnamon. Our Pumpkin Pie shake is sure to delight your taste buds and make you SO GLAD it's pumpkin season! |
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Since this time of year is all about the pumpkin, and it's featured in our shake of the month, we thought it fitting to make Pumpkin our Nutrition Spotlight. Here are some of the top health benefits of the ALMIGHTY PUMPKIN:
- Pumpkin is very high in beta carotene, a powerful anti-oxidant that helps prevent cancer and is great for the skin and eyes. Our bodies covert beta carotene into Vitamin A.
- Pumpkin is low-calorie, nutrient dense, and high in fiber. A great food source for anyone looking to shed some pounds.
- Pumpkin is a great post-workout food because, like the banana, it is high in potassium.
- Pumpkin is also a good source of immune-boosting Vitamin C.
Don't forget about the seeds...
- Pumpkin seeds contain phytosterols, which lower LDL "bad" cholesterol.
- Pumpkin seeds are rich in the amino acid tryptophan, essential in the production of serotonin, making pumpkin seeds a natural mood booster.
- Pumpkin / pumpkin seeds are a great source of much-needed minerals like magnesium, zinc and iron.
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Pumpkin Spice Latte Oatmeal
Recipe courtesy of healthytippingpoint.com
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/4 cup vanilla rice milk
- 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee
- 1/2 cup sliced banana, separated in 2
- 5 chopped almonds
- Squirt agave nectar
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 375
- Mix all ingredients with first portion of banana
- Pour batter into a mini casserole dish
- Top batter with the remaining banana slices
- Bake for 20 minutes
Enjoy!
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