New discovery suggests maybe you DO have time to exercise....

Today's Post: Thursday, 2-25-2010

Today AP online health news ran a story about a study confirming the work of Dr Al Sears who already has been promoting his PACE program and how effective it is for fat loss.

The bottom line is that properly done interval cardio (& similar strength training) are safe, effective, and can take an astonishingly short time to do at each session.

(See more from that story below. First, I include some information on why it’s so useful and beneficial and ways to make it even safer)

Dr Sears has said for quite a while now that the kind of interval cardio he teaches is far safer, uses much less time and is more effective at improving your health and getting fit than steady state cardio that takes far longer.

He literally has had patients unable to walk more than 45 seconds without stopping progress to very fit and dramatically more intense exercise while losing amazing amounts on the scale and from their initially overfat bellies.

His program, or a similar one, becomes intense by gradually making small improvements continuously even if you start out at a tiny bit of incredibly little exercise.

By doing this, and by progressing a bit on the slow and steady side in the early stages while progress comes easy, your body acclimates to the gradually more intense exercise well enough that studies show it’s quite safe.

The kind of exercise normally that can cause injury or worse is either going far too suddenly to very intense exercise such as someone who is unfit shoveling snow which is far more intense than they perceive it to be or someone who increases the amount or intensity they do by double each week instead of by closer to 5% per week. Yikes!

The other kind is pushing your body past it’s ability to recover by doing the exercise so long that you overdo your body’s current fitness and ability to adapt and not slowing down or resting between spurts of much more vigorous exercise that your body CAN handle.

Properly done interval cardio such as Dr Sears’ PACE program solves all those problems.

You do rest between the more intense exercise sections, particularly at first, and you slow down or rest each time BEFORE you overdo it, or burn out mentally.

You also limit the total amount of time you take each day to both allow for the exercise to be quite vigorous and to avoid overuse injuries.

This quite literally means that you can get effective fat loss and health benefits producing exercise in as little as 5 to 10 minutes a day on three days a week.

One study found that even a single one or two minute session a day works!

Bet you have time to do that! And, there are many ways to do interval cardio at home too.

That means you can actually fit exercise into your life even if you have very little time.

To be sure, a bit over 10 minutes a day 3 days a week of interval cardio and 20 or 30 minutes on the alternate days two or three days a week of strength training is better. But you CAN get an effective start in very little time by using interval cardio alone.

Here’s some info from the AP story today.:

Their title was: “Interval training can cut exercise hours sharply.” AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng wrote it; & it appeared earlier today, 2-25-2010, & was listed as coming from LONDON.

I loved their first line.: “People who complain they have no time to exercise may soon need another excuse.”

As you’ve seen and will see, that is quite literally true.

"High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise," said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.”

That actually understates the case once you build up to higher levels of intensity.

The AP story said that interval training means working very hard for a few minutes with rest periods in between sets.

That’s actually incomplete. You may need two or three minutes between sets at first even if you do only two or three sets. In fact, you want to be conservative at first in resting long enough. But one way to make the exercise progressive is to very gradually rest for shorter periods. You may get to where 30 seconds of rest is enough. You can even use slowing down or dropping the intensity instead of stopping in some kinds of interval cardio after you become fit and have done the exercises for a long enough period of time.

Jon Helgerud also was quoted with some advice for beginners, “…. try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you're an elite athlete, it shouldn't be an all-out effort.” – and, “"You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn't have the obvious feeling of exhaustion,"

Again that understates the case, you can start with TWO sessions and one rest period in between; and once you are fit, it’s OK to be pretty out of breath at the end of each session – but he’s correct that this is NOT a great idea at first.

Here’s a real life example.:

In my own new added interval cardio of doing jumping jacks two days a week and jumping rope two days a week, I was already moderately fit and started with just two sets of 14!

For someone less fit, even 2 or 3 times per set for two sets is an OK place to start.

I now do 3 sets of 21 on the jumping rope and am holding it there until I can do each of the 3 sets of 21 without a miss. I’m getting close! I’ve done 18 or 19 without a miss several times now.

And, I now do 5 sets of 42 jumping jacks. But I have built up to that gradually over many weeks.

I hope to get to where I can do 8 sets of 98 of each where each set is a minute or less and I only need to rest for 20 seconds or so between sets. That’s 794 times in 10 minutes and likely safe to do. But I started with TWO sets of 14 and a about a minute and a half rest in between.

The story noted that: “Helgerud says the time people spend in the gym could be slashed dramatically if they did interval training instead. He said officials have been too afraid of recommending intense training, fearing it might be too much for some people.” – and they quoted him as saying: "I'm much more afraid of people not exercising at all," he said. "Inactivity is what's killing us."

And, the truth makes the case even stronger because starting at very easy and progressing slowly enough and taking a break early enough in each set makes interval cardio SAFER than exercise that takes far longer and is less intense.

This quote from the story is significant.:

“When compared to people on a normal exercise routine, like jogging, research has shown those doing interval training can double their endurance, improve their oxygen use and strength by more than 10 percent, and their speed by at least 5 percent. Even studies in the elderly and in heart patients found they had better oxygen use and fitness after doing interval training.

The reporter also interviewed, Adamson Nicholls, a 36-year-old martial arts practitioner from London, who said that by using interval training, he got into top shape last year in about six weeks, using weekly 45-minute sessions and that his experience suggests the same level would have taken about three months via regular training. He also found that, just as other fitness experts said would be the case, he got much faster and stronger and more explosive in his ability to throw punches.

The story also quoted Stephen Bailey, a sports sciences expert from the University of Exeter. He said that the intense bursts of exercise in interval cardio help your body build more fast twitch muscle fiber and to cause your body to use oxygen more efficiently and become capable of exercising a lot longer.

In addition, with both progressive strength training and well done interval cardio, the after effects – including the extra calories burned by your body -- lasts for hours. That’s so even for a few minute session of interval cardio.

"You've exercised at such a high intensity that you're going to create a massive disturbance in your muscles," Bailey said. That creates a higher metabolism for several hours afterward, which the body will bring down by burning fat and carbohydrates.

"This is definitely the way forward to save time on your exercise," Nicholls said. And he added: "The results are worth it."

More effective at increasing fitness and strength and speed and fat loss while taking less far less time and even being safer if you do it right -- with interval cardio, there’s a LOT to like.

By the way, Dr Sears not only sells his PACE system on his website, he now has a video to make it really easy for someone new to interval cardio to see how to do it.

See, www.alsearsmd.com .

You can do it yourself if you have some background in exercise as I do and have done. But if you need someone to show you how, Dr Sears’ information is a decent place to start.

Best exercise for fat loss & fitness....

Today's post: Thursday, 4-2-2009

I’ve discovered something just a few days ago I thought might interest many of you also.

We’ve covered the many benefits and health benefits of exercise many times.

But what would qualify a fitness exercise as the best?

1. Many people today can only fit in a few minutes a day of exercise. But those who know what exercise does FOR them and NOT exercising would do TO them, fit in those few minutes almost every day.

But due to time pressure, this may be all they can do or may be all they can do more often than not. So for an exercise to be the best, it has to be doable in those few minutes. And, for the same reasons plus dollar cost, it needs to be something most people can do at home.

(Gyms have great equipment AND positive and knowledgeable people. If they work for you I think they are great. But to use them you have to have about twice the time due needing the time to exercise PLUS the time to go there & back. And, you have to pay their fee each month.)

So, to be the best an exercise must be doable in just a few minutes and doable at home.

2. To be a best fitness exercise, an exercise has to produce excellent fitness.

Interval cardio will get you in shape faster and more safely than steady state cardio; it can be done for shorter periods and be effective compared with steady state, lower intensity cardio; & if you work at improving, it can also get you into better shape than steady state cardio.

But you still have to pick an exercise to use for your interval cardio.

So, to be the best one for fitness an exercise has to reliably produce great results and often to usually better results than other kinds of cardio.

3. For many reasons progressive strength training is a key to fat loss and keeping it off. So for an exercise to be the best fat loss exercise, it has to produce really superb fat loss results to be worthy of considering in addition to strength training, let alone better if you could only do it OR strength training.

I’d heard skipping rope could be a good exercise that got results for some people. (It makes sense because lifting your body against gravity quickly for dozens of repetitions for even a few minutes takes a LOT of energy.) But not many people do it.

So despite knowing in theory it might be pretty good, it seems I rather badly underestimated how good it was.

THAT changed 2 days ago.

Here’s the article that I read in my TotalHealthBreakthroughs email.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Cutting Edge Fitness:

How to Train Like a Modern Gladiator

By Vince Palko

Rocky Marciano did it. Muhammad Ali did it. And many, many other old-time boxers (and old time wrestlers for that matter) did it too.

But maybe the most unique and unusual group to use this exercise -- that you never heard of -- were the Roman legions.

How do you train hundreds upon hundreds of men to be in tip-top physical shape to go into battle?

Good question.

History reveals these men twisted thin green grape vines together and used them as jump ropes.

Picture this... an aerial camera shot looking down on northern Rome and off in the distance are hundreds of men spinning twisted vines. The only noise you hear are twirling rope vines and thumping feet hitting the dirt.

Now why would these men use jump ropes to prepare for hand-to-hand or sword-to-sword combat?

Well, the jump rope is a fierce strength and wind-building mechanism. Back in ancient Roman times, running long distance was unheard of... and sliding metal weights on long bars for lifting didn't exist. So this unique exercise trained these fierce warriors to be in the best shape possible.

And today, many modern-day athletes have the Roman armies to thank for their little invention... because many top athletes use rope skipping to whip them into shape quickly.

Have you ever seen a boxer preparing for a fight where he might have to drop 20 lbs to reach his fighting weight? Chances are great you'll see a video clip of him spinning the rope. This will make him light on his feet, reduce his weight, and build endurance better than any treadmill or exercise bike.

Many other high-level athletes like pro football and basketball players use this exercise to get fit the quickest way possible. And be at the top of their game. The reason is that hopping is one of the best plyometric exercises you can do to build lung, leg and upper body strength and power.

How You Can Get Started

So you may be wondering, what's a good inexpensive jump rope for adults? Well, one idea is to grab the rope hanging in your mudroom or on your cellar stair case hook. You know the beaded one that has been in the family ever since you were a little kid. That's the cheapest one of all.

However, that short rope that worked when you were little might not fit your height nowadays.

If so, no problem. You can find a good quality rope at the local sporting goods store ranging from $15 to $30 depending on certain features. Some ropes are just that, ropes with handles. Others are hard plastic ropes with ball bearings in the handles, called ‘speed ropes.' Still other ropes have small metal rods (or weights) inside the handles to tone your arms and shoulders while you skip. I prefer the speed ropes because of the easy spinning action that allows you to jump as fast as you can twirl the rope.

Okay, now that we have covered what kind of rope you need to get started, let's talk about how much time is required for a good sweat-building exercise. For someone just starting out, who's not physically fit, I'd suggest just a few minutes a day before or after some brisk walking. If you walk every day, only skip rope 3 times a week (3-5 minutes per session). That's right, only 3-5 minutes! You'll discover that it only takes a few minutes to hear yourself huffing and puffing and to feel the fat burners kicking in. Gradually add more time as you experience less and less fatigue from practice.

For advanced exercise enthusiasts, consider skipping for 15-20 minutes. Add more time as the hopping and spinning becomes effortless. You can also mix circuit drills into your jump rope routine. Do this by incorporating body weight exercises in between sets of 100 skips. When you string 10 sets of 100 skips with body weight, push-ups, squats, and abdominal exercises -- you have one phenomenal fat-melting workout.

Now let's go have some fun and skip away that unwanted belly fat and cellulite.

[Ed. Note: Vince Palko is the author of Linebacker Fitness and creator of The Super Body Blitz and Triple Your Endurance. Vince has been enshrined in both his college, Bowling Green State University's and his high school's Hall of Fame for his performance on the football field. Vince has a FREE fitness newsletter you can sign up for at www.VincePalko.com .]”

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Because they followed this article with some ad copy to try his website to learn more, I went to it.

I read what skipping rope did for Vince Palko’s own fat loss. He’d somehow stopped when he retired from playing pro football in Europe. To be fair, because he was already somewhat fit and knew how to skip rope really well, he was able to ramp up the time and intensity to doing it hard for 10 minutes every day very quickly.

(For someone who is not fit yet or older, it would be more doable and much safer to start with 3 minutes 3 times a week as he suggests and build up to longer sessions or more days very gradually over a couple of months or more.)

But, that having been said, in 3 weeks he had lost more weight than most people on a restrictive diet would do in a whole year. And most of it came off his waist.

He’s not alone, some of the people he’s taught to jump rope have gotten similar results.

He features one on his website who already ate right but who still had a fat tummy as many of us do in this time of sedentary work. He wanted to lose several inches of his tummy fat. And, just like Vince himself in just a few weeks he did.

In short, by doing jumping rope or rope skipping, if you build up to doing it vigorously 10 minutes a day, it pulls off fat from your body BETTER than strength training would do.

(To help you keep off that fat and be strong and capable, I suggest doing strength training as well as doing rope skipping for cardio.)

But if like most people, you have very little time to exercise and need something you can do at home and would love to have the fat on your belly disappear quickly, rope skipping looks like your very best choice.

Separate note: What if even the small jumps in rope skipping are a bit too hard on your feet or knees? Is there something almost as good that is similar but has much less impact & related strains?

There is if you can invest a bit over $150. You can get a mini-trampoline for that from www.urbanrebounding.com . Their product is called the “Urban Rebounder.”

It consistently gets good reviews from people who use it and fitness experts who try various kinds of fitness products.

But if you can do rope skipping, it may be even more effective. And, it costs a lot less.

Build more muscle....

Today's post: Friday, 2-27-2009

Any exercise you do regularly in a way that avoids injury produces abundant health benefits as we have posted about here quite often. Live longer. Avoid Senility. Improve your sex life. Escape cancer. Make heart disease much less likely. Look younger because you’ve actually aged less and more slowly. Be less fat.

But two kinds of exercise build muscle best. They also help you remove or prevent excess fat the best. And, they can be done quickly enough you might actually have time to fit in doing them compared with less effective and slower kinds of exercise.

One is progressive strength training. The other is some form of interval cardio. Both of these kinds of exercise require some vigorous and focused effort. But they also build muscle; increase HDL cholesterol; and cause your body to release growth hormones including testosterone which builds muscle, helps improve your body’s ability to repair itself – including growing new brain cells --and slows aging.

Many of you are already doing these two kinds of exercise. But wouldn’t it be nice to get a bit more results in with the same effort and have some extra leverage in making progress?

There ARE some things that work.

There was a good article on some of them in the Early to Rise on Wednesday this week.

I’ll include the article below and then add my comments after it. There is extra supporting evidence for many of the recommendations in the article. But one may be safer to avoid. Then I include three more not listed in the article.

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.”

“Keep Your Muscle, Keep Your Youth

By Al Sears, MD

Unless you do something to prevent it, you'll lose muscle as you age. That makes you susceptible to a host of health problems, including fat gain, sexual dysfunction, and depression.

Here are two steps you can take to rebuild or maintain your muscle mass:

1. Eliminate Aerobics.

Research shows that low-exertion, long-duration aerobic exercise causes muscle loss and actually shrinks your heart and lungs. Instead, your exercise routine should include short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gradually changing intervals over time. It's the most effective way to burn fat and get a ripped body with functional strength.

2. Take Muscle-Supporting Nutrients.

You can also take nutrients daily to build and maintain muscle. Some of the best include:

Protein (as the main focus of every meal). Your body needs protein to maintain your muscles and support new muscle growth. Throw away carb-heavy snacks and snack on boiled eggs and nuts instead.

Creatine (5 mg a day). Creatine increases speed, performance, endurance, and strength. It increases the amount of muscle you build during resistance training.

L-Arginine (500-1,000 mg a day). L-arginine is an essential amino acid that builds strength and muscle mass. I've used it for 20 years.

Carnosine (500 mg a day). Made from two amino acids, carnosine helps protect the integrity of your muscles and make sure new muscle will be healthy and last.

Glutamine (5 g a day as a powder in a shake). This amino acid helps stabilize energy levels and boost the production of natural growth hormone in your body. That tells your body to shed fat and build muscle. It also helps prevent muscle breakdown.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears is a practicing physician and the author of the patented PACE program. He is also a nutritional expert, a fitness expert, and is board certified by the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine. The PACE program proves, once and for all, that a great body and vibrant health does NOT have to be difficult, time-consuming, or boring…..]”

You can get his PACE interval cardio program including a video to make it easy to learn at: www.alsearsmd.com .

And, Jon Benson, who also writes for ETR, has a time efficient strength training program at www.7minutemuscle.com .

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1. The trick with protein is to get it in the most health supporting and effective ways. Beef fed only grass, wild caught fish, eggs, whey supplements, nuts, nonfat and very lowfat dairy, pasture raised or very lean poultry, and beans and lentils are all such sources. Grain fed beef and farmed fish are more harmful than beneficial and should be avoided however. (Doctor Sears himself has written on how grass fed beef is far safer and dramatically better for your health than grain fed beef.) Whey and egg protein is the highest quality protein; and the other foods on this list are the healthiest way to get protein.

2. Creatine does work according to the researcher I spoke to at the Cooper exercise group in Texas. Taking it will make it easier to make progress in your strength training and build more muscle because of that. One caution. Be SURE to drink plenty of water if you take it on a hot day and exercise.

3. L-arginine also improves your endothelial function on the inside of your arteries; & because it does so it also can lower your blood pressure if it’s high and increases blood flow which can enhance your sex response. Taking l-arginine before you exercise and just before you go to bed also increases your growth hormone release. It tastes pretty bad. But Now supplements sells it in 500 mg capsules that solve that problem. It works better to take more than Al Sears suggests though. I take 6 capsules or 3,000 mg twice a day – once just before I exercise each morning and once just before bed.

Also, taking l-arginine can have a side effect; but you can usually prevent that by taking a bit of the amino acid lysine at a different time of day. I take 1,000 mg of lysine about mid-afternoon each day. (See below as this may also help build muscle.)

4. I read an article that revealed a study that showed that taking carnosine helped people build muscle mass even if they were over 60 years old. In addition, it not only does so by enhancing the repair process, it may also help protect you from highs in your blood sugar and help slow aging by helping to prevent a process called glycation. So carnosine is also an anti-aging supplement that can be good as well for people with high blood sugar.

5. Glutamine has some problems as it can interfere with some medications and can cause people sensitive to MSG to react to it as it is a similar compound albeit without the sodium content. Unfortunately, one of these effects is to make you fatter according to one doctor I read. So I do not recommend that one unless you take no medicines and are either recovering from being sick or are quite young and in either case are skinny and underweight.

6. DMG and TMG, aka as betaine, when taken with lysine allow cattle to add lean bodyweight so they are given regularly to grain fed cattle so they will sell for more later.

But in people adding lean bodyweight means building more muscle; and DMG and TMG are methyl group donors that protect your health including keeping your homocysteine low. And the one mild side effect of taking l-arginine is mostly cancelled by taking lysine.

So I take 500 mg of TMG and two 500 mg capsules of lysine on an empty stomach each mid afternoon.

These supplements can enhance your health and add to the amount of muscle you gain from your exercise.

Faster Fat Loss results....

Today's post: Thursday, 2-12-2009

In recent posts, we’ve covered that progressive strength training and interval cardio burn calories for up to several hours after you do them. We’ve also covered that doing both, some of each every week, gets you the best health protection and the most improvement in key health markers.

Just, last time, on Tuesday, we posted that fat loss works best with lots of exercise each week. One way to achieve that is to do both progressive strength training and interval cardio each week. So, if you do both, progressive strength training and interval cardio, you tend to do more exercise total each week. In addition, you have a more varied exercise program with less chance of injury or overtraining by doing that rather than doing twice as much as of either one alone. That makes doing both more sustainable. That way you keep exercising long enough to get good fat loss results; and you’ll be able to keep off the fat!

So, for those reasons, it’s clear that doing both progressive strength training and interval cardio each week is ideal for good fat loss results.

Plus, if you put that much into your exercise program, you don’t want to sabotage it by eating junk. So you are a bit more likely to make an effort to eat right also. Clearly, if you do both progressive strength training and interval cardio AND eat better, you’ll get faster fat loss results.

Now doing both progressive strength training and interval cardio has been shown to actually help people eat less calories in a study. It’s even possible it may make your appetite easier to control too.

I just found this in a recent Early To Rise issue.:

Here’s the article.:

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com .”

“An Exercise Combo for Faster Results

By Kelley Herring

Want to see faster weight-loss and fitness results? Do a combo!

A recent study published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine found that men who combined aerobic exercise with weight training for 16 weeks ate significantly fewer calories compared to men who did aerobics or weight training alone or who did no exercise at all.

And of course, eating fewer calories and burning more fat makes for a leaner, fitter you.

The researchers believe that the combo of cardio and strength exercises works by improving blood levels of fats, glucose, amino acids, and satiety hormones.

Get on the fast track to health by coupling this exercise combo with a low-glycemic, clean protein diet packed with antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies to fuel your fat-burning machine.”

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So, getting both progressive strength training and interval cardio each week may also cause you to eat less, or fewer, calories too.

So, faster fat loss is almost guaranteed.

In addition, by doing both, you’ll be strong AND fit – not just one or the other.

Here’s a short summary of eating right for fastest and most permanent fat loss also.:

1. The first eating key seems to be a high moderate intake of health OK protein foods such as nuts, beans, lentils, wild caught fish and seafood from unpolluted water, lean poultry, beef fed only grass, and some nonfat and very low fat dairy seems to be the best. Adding more protein with whey protein supplements can also help. (Jarrow makes one with no Stevia. Now that, in addition to tasting like artificial marshmallows, Stevia has been found to have health issues, that’s important.) These protein foods are quite effective in turning off hunger and MUCH more effective than high glycemic carbs. So eating them not only helps you stay healthy and build muscle from your exercise, they keep you from getting too hungry and help you to continue to eat right.

2. The second eating key is to get a moderate amount of extra virgin olive oil, avocados, or nuts each day and a moderate of wild caught fish high in omega 3 oil each week and NOT eat any vegetable oils, including canola, that are high in omega 6 oils. That is best for your health. But of most importance, including the health OK fats, also has been found to make eating right sustainable. People who restrict all fats and oils, including these health OK ones, are not as healthy as people who try to do without them. But of most importance, the people who eat a bit less AND include health OK fats and oils, are dramatically more likely to continue eating right. So they are more likely to do it long enough to lose fat and to keep it off.

3. The third key is to eat an abundance and variety of non-starchy vegetables. They fill you up and help keep you from feeling too hungry to keep eating right. So again, they help you keep doing it long enough to get good results and to keep doing it. As a result you keep losing fat long enough to get good results and keep it off. Some fresh fruit each day provides good health results and fiber, but you need to be moderate in your intake. It’s also essential to NOT eat refined grain foods, excessive sugar, or any high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. Those things tend to cause your body to store fat and make you MORE hungry. So avoid them for fastest and best results.

Tips on why & how to exercise….

Today's post: Monday, 8-18-2008

If you exercise regularly, you will weigh less than you would have if you didn’t. At any given weight, more of you will be muscle & less of you will be fat.

If you need to lose fat weight & have efforts in place to do that, doing regular exercise each week that includes strength training, will help you lose more fat & to only lose fat weight. In addition, by continuing to exercise, you will be much more likely to keep off the fat you lose.

In addition, regular exercise helps keep your blood vessels flexible & responsive.

Exercise, particularly strength training & interval cardio where each session alternates vigorous effort with less challenging effort, helps to keep your blood sugar down to the levels it should be.

Regular exercise also relieves stress & increases your tolerance for stress.

And, regular exercise, particularly strength training & interval cardio where each session alternates vigorous effort with less challenging effort, helps to increase HDL levels which reduces the amount of plaque deposited in your blood vessels.

Walking & Tai Chi are ideal low intensity exercises & can often be fit into your day in as little as ten minute time periods.

Alternating strength training & interval cardio where each session alternates vigorous effort with less challenging effort, with two days of each or three days of each every week if, can also help.

The ideal is to do some of each of these 3 kinds of exercise each week.

But it’s critical to realize that even a little bit each week of walking has been shown to give you a full 40 % of the health benefits of an ideal program.

If you need to, start there & make a strong effort to continue each week.

Here are some tips to help you begin exercising that have helped many people.

The most important three are to:

a) Decide you want to be one of the people who GETS the benefits of regular exercise.

People who do regular exercise live longer and in far better health than people who do none. Regular exercise tends to prevent or does prevent high blood pressure, obesity, senility, senior moments, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, & even cancer. It’s also been shown to reliably improve the sex life of both men and women.

It makes such a large difference, it can truly be said, if the people who don’t exercise at all knew what this was doing TO them and what regular exercise would do FOR them, almost everyone would exercise.

b) Decide what kinds of exercise you CAN do now and begin to do them every week.

For years I did cardio but no strength training because I was unable to afford to go to a gym that had heavier weights. My wife got fed up with my do-nothing attitude. She made the point that if I figured out what I could do at home with exercises that used my bodyweight such as pushups and with the dumbbell set we had at home, I’d get 100 percent more benefits than taking about exercises I could not do then.

I’ve made it to the gym since; but the exercises she got me to start doing have given me enormous benefits. Even better, this kind of exercise takes up so little space, virtually everyone can do it.

Similarly, you may not be able to do walking near your work or at home or it may be unsafe some parts of the year due to cold or heat; but if not, almost anyone can do it.

Another good way is to get a personal trainer or go to a class to learn how to strength train or do Tai Chi or other kind of exercise or physical skill. That will get you started and, once you know how, you can continue on your own.

If you can make it to gyms, the social support can help keep you going and exercising.

But regardless of what it is start immediately doing some kind of exercise regularly that you can do.

Then keep doing it. You can always improve to doing more or better exercise. But this one step, even if small, will give you a full 40 % of the benefits of an ideal exercise program.

Decide what you CAN do; & begin to do it every week.

c) On your home computer or on a logbook that you buy at a stationery store, WRITE down what exercise you do each day.

If you get into this habit, it will help you exercise consistently and keep doing it. It also can be great if you make progress that you can see in this log.

Lastly, it helps you keep up your weekly total amount of exercise. You may be forced to skip a day or only have time for half a workout. But by seeing this in your logbook, you can do a bit more on other days that week or next week and make a stronger than usual effort to exercise on other days to be sure your weekly total doesn’t drop off too much.

(It can also help quite a bit if you can do at least part of your exercises first thing in the morning. Because the more unpredictable demands of the day often happen later in the day, people who exercise in the morning are twice as likely to keep on exercising compared with people who only exercise later in the day.)

There are 3 kinds of exercise you can do.

1. One kind is any activity at all that burns calories. That can include gardening, housework, sweeping, playing ping pong, and short walks. It all counts. And, any of these you do regularly or vigorously or for long periods of time can do a lot for you.

2. Aerobic or cardio exercise builds endurance more than strength. But we now know that somewhat shorter sessions that alternate easier and much more vigorous “intervals” or “interval cardio” has three wonderful benefits over longer and unvarying cardio.

It gets you into good shape much faster and into better shape;
it’s actually far safer if you build up the much more vigorous parts gradually and do the exercise sessions regularly and ease off enough in the easier parts;
& it does MORE to build strength, protect your health, and burn unwanted fat than longer and unvarying cardio. The ideal is to do at least 3 sessions a week so that you never go longer than 2 or 3 days with none. Monday, Weds, Fri works; but so does Thurs, Sat, Sunday. Three days in a row and four days off each week is too many days off for best results; but two or three days in a row can be Ok if you get other kinds of vigorous exercise the days you aren’t doing cardio.

3. Progressive strength training where you do 6 to 12 repetitions and then increase the weight slightly when you can do 12 easily makes you a good bit stronger than doing cardio only and does a great job of burning unwanted fat.

It burns extra calories when you do it; like interval cardio; it boosts your metabolism and the number of calories your body burns for HOURS after you stop; & the increased weight the slightly large muscles it develops burn more calories at rest than the fat you would otherwise feed with the food that you eat.

If you wait a minimum of time between set, just enough to catch your breath and set up for the next set AND you put strong effort into at least some sets, you also get some cardio exercise. And, because stronger muscles can move you with less effort, strength training also builds ENDURANCE not just strength studies found.

With strength training, it’s important to give your muscles a day off between sessions to rebuild. If you want and have time, you can still do it 6 days a week by doing upper body 3 alternate days and lower body exercises the other alternate 3 days.

And, if you work hard in your sessions and do them regularly, even two days a week such as Tues, Thurs, or Mon, Weds or Weds, Saturday will build strength quite well. You do a bit better and definitely burn more calories with three. But you get more than two thirds of the benefits just doing two sessions a week. The secret is doing the two sessions almost every week or every week and working hard at each session.

Lastly, it makes exercise safer if you take reasonable precautions if you exercise outdoors or in unusually hot weather; manage your heart risks well in addition to exercising and exercise regularly to avoid causing heart problems; and if you take extra care to avoid injuries in strength training.

2 Good ways to do cardio at home....

Today's post: Tuesday, 8-5-2008

Treadmills & stationary bikes can work well for getting in some exercise. And, you can watch TV while on them.

However, the good ones are quite expensive and take up a good bit of room. And, I’ve found them to be less conducive to the kind of self-paced interval cardio I now believe is best than the two alternatives I recommend in this post.

Many gyms have treadmills & stationary bikes & have them set up in front of TV’s. So if you belong to a gym and want to get some conditioning and calorie burning & you already go to the gym for strength training, that can work out well. And many people do this.

However, there are two home exercisers I’ve found that work better with interval cardio that cost far less that you can get at home.

1. The Urban Rebounder, www.urbanrebounding.com ,

This mini-trampoline which is much less expensive, well under $200, than good quality treadmills & stationary exercise bikes and most other cardio exercisers; gets excellent results due to the jumping motion, and gets good ratings from users.

2. Another is the Nordic Track cross country skiing simulation exerciser.

http://www.nordictrack.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_12401_10301_22051_-1_19554 (Or go to www.nordictrack.com & go to Ski Machine under products on the left hand side of the page.)

Or, you can often buy used Nordic Track ski exercisers which are still in good shape for a good bit less. I got my current one for $150.

I've found I need ChoPat knee straps to protect my knees and have had to cut way back on how much I use it each week now that I'm over 60 to protect my hip joints; but it produces better cardiovascular fitness faster than most other exercisers.

With many of cardio exercisers such as elliptical trainers or stair steppers or stationary bikes, your thigh muscles give out before you get to the upper level of your heart's workout tolerance. This is NOT a problem with the Nordic Track.

But you can do strength training for those same muscles if you want to target them. And, just doing regular sessions on the Nordic track will give you a good bit more thigh exercise than you realize while you are on them. But unlike the other exercisers, it doesn’t get in the way of a superb cardio work out.

More on interval training for fat loss....

Today's post: Thursday, 5-22-2008

This is a follow up on the article & our last post from Tuesday, 5-20.

It has some extra information on how interval training can be done.

And, in addition to my comments on that, I’ve added a few other strategies for fat loss that have appeared here before that those of you who haven’t read our blog before would have missed.

The article I quote was a follow up to the first article I quoted saying that interval cardio burned a LOT more fat & took half the time of slow even paced cardio exercise.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

“The Best Timing for Interval Training By Craig Ballantyne

If a trainer tells you interval training must be done in 30-second... or one-minute... or five-minute increments, he's misinformed. Research shows that all types of intervals will help you burn belly fat better than slow cardio - and there's never been a "head-to-head" study comparing interval workouts of various lengths. But, based on my experience, I have an opinion: I like simple 30-second intervals for fat-loss workouts.

If you do intervals on a cardio machine, it's easy to stick to the 30-second interval timing, followed by a 60-90 second recovery at a much slower pace. If the intervals were any shorter, it would be tough to change the settings on the machine fast enough.

Any type of interval training for fat loss is going to be better than slow cardio - and it allows for faster workouts.
[Ed. Note: If you are new to exercise but want to lose weight, start with a beginner bodyweight-training program for 2-6 weeks, such as the one in Craig's Turbulence Training manual.....]”

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As you might guess from just this article if you didn’t read our last post or know about interval cardio, interval training is when you warm up for a bit; then do a much faster & intense pace; then rest or go a good bit slower until you recover; & then repeat several of these intervals for a total of 10 to 25 minutes.

I personally prefer self-managed intervals rather than timed ones. The timed ones work well for powered treadmills etc. But the self-paced ones work well on elliptical trainers & Nordic Track exercisers & in walking, running, & swimming.
You can warm up until you feel ready then speed up gradually to fast over a period of a few seconds for the first one; then slow down or rest until you catch your breath & speed up faster and repeat. That works well when you are just starting interval training. Just speed up a bit less & slow down a bit sooner until you get used to the exercise.

I also like counting my strides and count for a certain number at a fast moderate pace; then a shorter number for a fast pace; & then a very fast pace for a slightly shorter number still. I also time how long a set of these 3 part intervals takes me & work to gradually go a bit faster overall. I do six of these intervals & find I also do the second 3 a good bit faster than the first 3 which then acts a bit of a warm up.

I’ve found that works great to keep me in shape.

Here are some other tips for fat loss.

1. Stop things that make you get & stay fat.:
Cut way back on sugar & foods that contain sugar. Drink absolutely no regular OR diet soft drinks. Eat no packaged snacks & avoid most packaged foods. Eat less grain foods. And when you eat grain foods eat ONLY whole grain foods & eliminate virtually all refined grain foods. (And, yes that does mean that if you eat most commercial sandwiches or hamburgers, you need to do it Atkins style & not get or totally discard the refined grain bread it comes with normally.) Be totally sure to stop ALL intake of foods or drinks containing high fructose corn syrup. It’s both bad for you AND makes you hungrier when you consume it. Ouch !!

2. Also do progressive strength training at least twice a week.

3. Eat as many cooked & raw nonstarchy vegetables each day as you can fit in. MORE is actually better. And this step also has multiple health benefits, particularly if you eat only organic vegetables. Your blood biomarkers of health will all improve & your chances of getting cancer drop in at least half. We evolved to eat these foods as a staple & our bodies don’t work well if you don’t eat them.
Even better, they make you feel full enough, you can lose fat WITHOUT getting hungry. Nonstarchy vegetables are so low in calories that Weight Watchers lists them as having ZERO points.

4. Eat some high quality, health Ok protein foods at most meals. Protein does help keep you from getting hungry the best. That’s why high protein diets work as well as they do. Plus you tend to lose weight as FAT only & keep your muscle mass if you eat protein and do interval cardio and strength training. That is both much better for you & makes it much more likely your fat loss can be permanent.

Beef fed only grass, pasture fed poultry, wild caught fish, nuts, eggs from pasture fed chickens, nonfat & very lowfat dairy, & beans and lentils all work.
5. Allow yourself some health Ok fats each day, just be moderate in the amount. Nuts, avocados, wild caught fish, nuts, and nut butters, and extra virgin olive oil all work.

It’s been shown that people who do this while losing fat are much healthier than people who overdo eating a low fat diet. Even better they lost more fat & keep it off better than people who don’t.

6. If you don’t make the progress you’d like, also join a Weight Watchers group & go to the meetings.

They have you push for cutting back more than I think works for best long term results. They don’t emphasize exercise enough. They don’t stress avoiding health damaging foods enough. And, their point system is a bit too oriented to removing fat from your diet.

So, why this recommendation?

With those exceptions, their point system is VERY will researched & accurate. If you learn to take in 5 % fewer points each week, you will eventually weigh 5% less. And if you do it right as listed above, that will all be permanent fat weight you lose.

They also have a new slogan I think is accurate for many people: Diets don’t work. Meetings do.

When you are in the period when you are first losing fat & making these lifestyle upgrades, you WILL make more progress & make it more reliably if you do go to their meetings.

Lose way more fat in half the time....

Today's post: Tuesday, 5-20-2008

Exercise DOES help people lose excess fat. But some people do a good bit without seeing as much progress as they’d like.

There are many reasons for this. One is that you can gain about the same amount of muscle as you lose in fat. So you look trimmer & may lose inches but the amount of weight is less than you might have expected. Another is that if you still eat too many fattening foods you can add the muscle but prevent the fat loss.

But clearly if you can be more effective at losing fat that helps. And, since people have limited time to exercise, if you can be more effective at losing fat AND cut the time it takes in half, that would be ideal.

One way that I’ve done posts on is to do progressive strength training at least two nonconsecutive days each week. THAT does work to trim fat.

But many people also do a lot of cardio or aerobic exercise & don’t see much extra fat loss from their cardio.

So, when I read the article I’m posting here in Early to Rise, I immediately decided to post it. It literally describes losing a LOT more fat in half the time.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

“How to Lose Your Belly and Thighs

By Craig Ballantyne

If you want to lose belly fat, you should do lots of crunches. And if you want to tone your thighs, you should reach for your ThighMaster. Right?
Wrong on both counts.

Instead, you should do a form of short-burst exercise that I've been using with clients since 1998 - long before the average trainer jumped on the bandwagon.
In one study, Australian researchers from the University of New South Wales put three groups of women through a 15-week fat-loss exercise program. One group was a control group. Another group did three sessions of intervals per week (20 minutes per workout). And the third group did three sessions of long, slow, boring cardio (40 minutes per workout).

Forty-five women were in the study - and it is important to note that they were not all overweight. On average, they had a healthy body mass index of only 23.22 (well below the cut-off of 25 that signals overweight).

At the end of the 15 weeks, only the interval-training group showed significant weight loss and a decrease in body fat and trunk fat. The interval-training group also had a significant loss of fat from their legs. And the more overweight a subject was, the better the interval-training program worked for her.

Oh, and did I mention that the slow, boring cardio workouts did NOT result in a significant loss of body fat? Something we've been saying here at ETR for a long time now...

So if you want to burn your belly fat and lose a few inches from your thighs, get started on a short, 20-minute interval-training program done three times per week. That's all you need.

[Ed. Note: If you are new to exercise but want to lose weight, start with a beginner bodyweight-training program for 2-6 weeks, such as the one in Craig's Turbulence Training manual. You will also get specific step-by-step instructions on how to do intervals at any fitness level…..] “

X* X* X* X* X* X

There are a lot of ways to do interval training. The key is that you go at a medium pace and then go really fast for a short time and then either go back to a medium pace or rest and then repeat the process several times.

You do need to build up slowly as you become more fit. So if you go faster & run out of breath, stop until you are almost recovered before resuming or slow down to slow medium until you are almost recovered before you go faster again.

You can do this with walking, swimming, running, walking on a treadmill with an incline. You can do it on a trampoline if you are careful or a mini one like the UrbanRebounder.

I do mine on a Nordic Track.

Or, if you are already in good health & fit, you can do running fast uphill, or hill sprints, where you run up until you run up fast until you run out of breath, then walk down to where you started and repeat.

You also get in shape much faster this way than going at a steady pace, other studies have found.

And, for best results, gradually improve by going faster on the slow part, going faster on the fast part, or resting less between the fast parts. Note that this is progressive, just like progressive strength training. You gradually improve on purpose over time.

But interval training can also be done in a more playful & spontaneous way which does NOT work with strength training. You can go at a medium pace until you feel like going fast and then go really fast until you feel like slowing down. This works well for walking, running, & swimming. In running, they even have a name for it.

But as you can see, just 20 minutes three times a week of interval training got results.

Exercise & Your Heart....

Today's post: Tuesday, 5-13-2008

When I first read that regular aerobic exercise or cardio improved your health & protected you from stress, I was impressed and began running regularly.

Since I was under some time pressure I never ran long distances. Even when I ran more for a while I only ran for 4, 5, or 7 miles on my longer runs. And, during the week I only ran 2 or 3 miles. I only did the longer runs once each on Saturdays & Sundays.

Also, by the time I tried the longer runs, I had been doing the 2 & 3 mile runs for several months. So I was in decently good shape & my body was acclimated to running.

I was never tempted to run the bit over 26 miles for a Marathon or go on the even longer runs.

It now turns out my choices may have been fortunate. At that time, it was thought that more running than I was doing & longer distances than I was running were even more health protective than what I did.

We now know that as the distance you run or the time you do a cardio session get above 3 miles or half an hour at a time, you begin to stress your heart significantly. And, if you aren’t in shape; haven’t acclimated to that exercise for several weeks at shorter times & distances; & haven’t taken steps to reverse undesirable readings on heart biomarkers ahead of time, you can actually do yourself more harm than good. Some people have even died. In aerobics or cardio for most people LOTS MORE is NOT better & is often dangerous.

In some ways this is good news. It means that the shorter or less time consuming aerobic exercise that more people have time for is safer and even may be BETTER for your heart.

It also means that people are learning to build up gradually to more advanced exercise instead of trying to start off too hard.

And, it means that people, including me, are taking steps to protect their heart in other ways besides exercise. That improves the protection from exercise; makes exercise safer to do; & has direct and separate health benefits exercise alone doesn’t do.

A recent study found that both strength training & aerobics or cardio increased the muscle size & strength of the left ventricle of the heart of the people doing the exercise. However, only the aerobics or cardio benefited the right ventricle as well.

The left ventricle is the more important of the two in some ways. But the right ventricle is also important. And, it sounded like in my reading of the report that aerobics or cardio might best work to promote artery flexibility; normal blood pressure, & endothelial health.

Since both the strength to do things and the ability to do them without having stop right away to catch your breath for not doing all that much give you more control & capacity in your life, it’s been clear to me for some time that doing some of each kind of exercise – both strength training AND aerobics or cardio -- is a good idea.

Also, recently it has been found that progressive strength training to the point of being quite vigorous and doing aerobics or cardio with multiple sections of higher to high intensity do more to help you keep off excess fat or remove it than steady state aerobics or cardio does – even if the steady state aerobics or cardio lasts a long time.

And, one of the reasons that this is good news is that even sessions of this kind of “interval” aerobics or cardio that are as little as 10 minutes long are effective at fat loss if you do them right.

It seems doing progressive strength training to the point of being quite vigorous or doing aerobics or cardio with multiple sections of higher to high intensity cause your body to increase your metabolism for HOURS afterwards.

And, regular progressive strength training has the added benefit that it gradually increases your muscle mass. And THAT ensures you burn more calories even on days you aren’t exercising.

Lastly, if you do aerobics or cardio interval style where you push hard enough to get out of breath & then rest or slow down to a pace where you can catch your breath & repeat several times, it’s also been found that you will get into good shape far faster than doing steady state aerobics or cardio for the same amount of time. (Note: This is far safer & more effective if YOU decide when to speed up & when to slow down to catch your breath than if some pre-programmed exercise device decides for you. You have internal feedback on your body in real time. Programmed speed ups & slow downs do not.)

So, if you get your heart health biomarkers in shape; do some progressive strength training each week; & do some interval style aerobics or cardio each week; & you work up to higher intensity gradually in both kinds of exercise, that seems to be both safest & most effective to keep you fit, trim, & to protect your heart.

Dangerous Ways to try weight loss....

Today's post: Monday, 4-21-2008

Last week I saw an article in the Yahoo health news section that said it’s been discovered that unsafe ways to attempt weight loss or fat loss tended to be passed on to people by friends who were doing them. This was particularly true of younger women.

These methods include extremely severe caloric restriction; diet pills; & purging.

Do NOT copy friends or acquaintances who use these methods.

These mehtods tend to produce feeling like hell to the point of inability to function at school, home, & work; poor health; & even death if done too long or too much.

For many people, they are more damaging to self-esteem than the fat they hope to lose.

Worse, any weight lost with such methods tends to be as much lean tissue & muscle as it is fat. And, even worse than that, any fat lost is virtually always regained by the people using these methods who survive the experience.

Translation: As weight loss methods, extremely severe caloric restriction; diet pills; & purging and similar methods, will make you feel worse, make you sick, & may even kill you. And, if you survive using them, even if you do lose some weight, you will be just as fat or fatter soon after you stop using them.

Why not use the methods that keep off excess fat permanently &
IMPROVE your health?

If you have the health habits of the average person in the U.S., you can lose 5 to
15 % of your bodyweight as fat and get dramatically healthier by just a few simple upgrades.:

1. Stop taking in foods & drinks that make you fat but not always less hungry & which harm your health in even small doses.

Most people still drink soft drinks several times a week. Both the high fructose corn syrup in the regular kind & the diet soft drinks have been shown to make you fat and sick. They add calories but do NOT make you less hungry in the case of the regular soft drinks & actually make you MUCH hungrier in the case of the diet soft drinks. Both kinds tend to produce type II diabetes & other illnesses. Recently a study found health indicators got worse with even ONE diet soft drink a day. Since high fructose corn syrup increases triglyceride levels, consuming it regularly in soft drinks tends to produce heart disease & related diseases.

Partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils tend to be in many foods. The transfats & other unnatural fats they contain tend to make you fat; & they directly contribute to heart & related diseases. They also apparently help cause type II diabetes.

In addition, they often are found in foods made with refined grains or in packaged foods that also contain things like high fructose corn syrup.

Refined grains are totally common in most people’s diets. They have virtually no fiber & very little nutrition, so they tend to spike blood sugar & not keep you from getting hungry. Just like soft drinks that tends to make you fat & sick.

Unfortunately, a really large percentage of foods in most grocery stores have artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, refined grains, &/or partially saturated oils (transfats).

To avoid this list of fattening foods that make you sick & do not turn off your hunger very well, you have to do two things.

You have to read labels – every time. Foods you wouldn’t believe have these things do in fact have them.

And, you have to eat mostly real, un-packaged foods. Fresh vegetables, lean & properly raised or caught animal protein foods, health Ok fats such as nuts, avocadoes, & extra virgin olive oil -- & fresh fruit and whole grains in moderation do tend to make you less hungry. They provide real nutrition; & eating them tends to keep you healthy.

2. Do get regular exercise every week.

Skinny people who don’t exercise are fat inside & tend to get sick. And, people who are still a bit too fat but who exercise regularly tend to stay well even if they have only been exercising for a few weeks. Even better, they are more muscular underneath the fat & much LESS fat inside. With regular exercise, you tend to lose more pounds of fat than pounds of weight on the scale.

Regular exercise also IMPROVES self-esteem in the people who do it. And, studies have found that regular exercise reliably improves the sex lives of people who do it for BOTH men & women.

Even better, the kind of exercise that peels off fat best tends to also work best for improving self esteem & sex.

Progressive strength training & “interval” cardio build muscle & increase metabolism even for hours after you exercise. And, the more muscle you have the more calories you burn, so you can avoid starving & burn more calories & still take off fat with these 2 kinds of exercises. (“Interval” cardio is where you warm up a bit & then work really hard for a bit & then go back to moderate or easy for a bit -- & you repeat these “intervals” a few times each session. This can be effective in even 10 minute total sessions for both fitness & fat loss.)

For progressive strength training, you aim for 6 to 12 repetitions for each exercise. And, you try to do as close to 12 as you can each time. Then when you can do 12 each time, you increase the weight & start the process over. Even two sessions of half an hour each every week can work wonders. It is important to take a day off between strength training sessions. Those days off work well for doing cardio instead of weights.

Or, if it works better for you, you can work out long enough to do both strength training & cardio the same days, three days a week, & simply take the other four days off.

Six days of exercise alternating strength training with interval cardio tends to get the best results for fat loss.

But even two days a week with a bit of strength training & a bit of interval cardio each time will lose some fat & make you MUCH healthier than no exercise at all.

These few life style upgrades will lose a LOT of fat weight for the average person. They do work. They are sustainable. And, they tend to make you much healthier.