Dr Howard Shapiro
Jim Karas
Susan Amato
Pete Repak
There
really is a
purpose
to all this
madness.
We
know, you absolutely HATE exercise!
Butt think about this…
YOU GET TO EAT MORE, WHEN YOU EXERCISE
Working Out vs Getting Exercise
The Debate Between Cardio vs Weight Training
Increasing the Number of Calories You can Eat via Exercise
Making the Numbers Work of You
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We used to plod along on treadmills and hop around in aerobics classes with the following mindset: I'm here because I have to sweat off 500 calories so I can pig out later. The trouble with this thought process was that not only did we eat an extra 500 calories (and it was always more than 500 to begin with), but we never took into account any of the calories in the liquor we were drinking. Granted, when you're younger, you tend to drink more. Yet, even without drinks we could rack up bundles of 500 calories in a matter of nanoseconds by the quantity and types of food we were eating - fried mozzarella, potato skins, quesadilla, nachos, deep dish pizza and anything else with cheese on it.
Needless to say, this approach really wasn't cutting the cheese. It was definitely time for a change. The challenge was to figure out: what we could do to get the maximum benefit out of exercise with the least amount of effort and, if at all possible, do it in a more pleasurable manner?
For those of us who don't have the natural inclination of an athletic mind, the thought of exercise was always a negative one. Working out was something you did in a gym for hours on end, when in reality it's really just the opposite. When we realized that exercise comes in many forms, and that adding variety to the mix makes it easier to do it, our perspective began to change. Getting exercise to fit well personally and logistically into our lifestyles conquered the work out gremlins.
Variety, really is the spice of life, even when it comes to exercise. We realized that any type of exertion, beyond the normal course of daily living provided all kinds of exercise outlets. Whenever someone would suggest walking to a destination in lieu of driving there, we used to cringe at the thought. Now we look at it as an opportunity to get some exercise without a lot of effort. (Do we dare mention the concept of stairs here?)
To successfully integrate exercise into your life, the type of exercise you do has got to be a personal and creative choice. Finding what works for you can be as simple as shooting hoops with your kids or taking walks with a friend. Adding the social aspect to exercise definitely makes it more appealing. (You're also less apt to blow it off when you're supposed to be meeting someone else.) The bottom line is, one person's work out is definitely another's exercise turn-off.
| Thin Tale: A thin person actually told us, that she never thought of turning to food when she was stressed out or upset, because she found solace in donning a pair of cross trainers and her walkman instead. (Imagine that!) We've heard that books on tape are pretty therapeutic too. |
Creativity comes into play not only with respect to what types of exercise you want to do, but also when. Someone recently told us, "…you look so good, I want to lose weight, but I just don't have the time to do it right now." We couldn't help but thinking to ourselves … no, it's not that you don't have the time, it's that you haven't taken the time to figure out when you could put exercise into your schedule.
Dismissing exercise altogether because of time constraints is where the creative aspect really comes into play. When you get creative about the type of exercise you're doing you get creative about the when, where and how you're going to do it.
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Scheduling exercise into your daily life is easier when you create an inventory of tolerable exercise forms to choose from. At the beginning of every week we actually write the form of exercise we plan to do and on what day in our appointment books. (This really helped to get it through our thick skulls that exercise would be a part of our week to begin with.) We also made note for an alternate or back-up day to fit exercise in. We like to call this our swing date, because it never failed that once we got into the week, daily life always reeked havoc with our exercise intentions.
Here's a list of every exercise activity we could think of. We hope it helps you to come up with some new ideas to develop your own exercise regime.
| Venue | Types of Exercise |
| Videos |
Aerobics, Dance, Martial Arts, Pilates, Yoga
|
| Classes |
Aerobics, Dance, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, Pilates, Self-Defense, Team Sports, Yoga & anything else that's offered at a health club or park district.
|
| -Ing |
Walking, Running, Biking, Jumping Rope, Weight Training - All those activities that end in "ing" that can be done on a track in a gym, at home and in the great outdoors.
|
| Domestic |
When you're pinched for time, make your chores work out for you. Cut the time it normally takes you to do housework and yard work in half by picking up the pace. If you've worked up a consistent sweat doing it, then you've managed to create an exercise activity.
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| Kids |
What's one reason why kids can eat all kinds of junk and never seem to gain weight? Because they're running around like maniacs and playing. Hang out with your kids, or borrow some from somebody and just try to keep up with them - for at least 40 minutes if you can.
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Once we decided upon what forms of exercise we could tolerate, then and only then, did we start considering frequency. We started out slowly, focusing on getting in 3 exercise sessions in a week and then added on from there. While we were losing weight we have to admit that increasing the number of times we exercised, did excel the losing process. It actually became easier to do this when we started reaping the benefits of our sweat. There were even a couple of weeks when we actually managed to get in 6 exercise activities. (We know, it amazed us too.)
Our basic week of exercise consisted of: 3 strength & resistance sessions (aka weight training) and a brisk walk, for a time period of 40 minutes each. ( 40 minute sessions, were very easy to accomplish.) Building on from there, we'd add another walk or an hour of racquetball, and then a third walk, an exercise video, a bike ride, and/or another game of racquetball, which helped us reach that amazing 6 times a week activity level. This is what worked for us, and no doubt there are things in our mix that makes you wince. The thought of going to a health club 5 + times a week makes us wince even more.
We think the key to the success of our exercise regime was two fold. First, we didn't worry about the number of calories we were sweating off anymore. (Gone was the mentality of feeling like you had to grind away at something for an hour at least, because the only way you got any benefit out of it to begin with was if you were sweating bullets.) And secondly, we started doing things we liked to do, and did them when and where we could. In other words, flexibility is essential. We stopped allowing our lifestyles from interfering with our exercise schedules. Whenever we found ourselves running out of time, (or so we always seem to think, when it comes to exercise), we'd fall back on taking a walk, or popping in a video. (The great thing about exercise videos is that they usually come in 40 minute increments or less.)
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We're not going to get technical here butt we've just got tell you about our 'rubbers'. We do strength & resistance training with rubber bands. They're affordable, portable and easy to store. The results we have gotten by doing them 3 times a week for 40 minutes each time, has been astounding. We firmed our bods up and literally changed the way we fit into clothes. We are now able to wear smaller sizes than we did before at the same weight level when we were doing cardiovascular exercises only. (As simply as we can explain it, the extra benefits of S&R stem from the act of strengthening muscle tissue - which actually continues to burn calories when you're not exercising. That's about as scientific as we want to get, because all that matters in our minds is that it works!)
Check out the Traveling Trainer at www.michaelsena.com.
The bands come with an instructional video in a great little tote bag!
On the execution front, exercising with the bands is a very easy work out to live with. You don't sweat like a pig when you're doing them and because the routine is only 40 minutes long, it easily fits into all kinds of time slots throughout the week. To us, this is far more appealing than getting on that health club treadmill and shvitzin' for hours on end.
| Thin Tale: A thin person noticed we moseyed about. Translation: we strolled to and from our destinations rather than walking at an upbeat pace. (Stairwell is her middle name.) |
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Ex =eAT
There is no denying the fact that you get to have more calories when you put some sweat into your efforts. Just how many extra calories, is what we wanted to know. This is also a good time to remind you that we're not advocating exercise so you can graze without limits-tho' that would be fun, wouldn't it? We are advocating the fact that the real value of exercise (beyond the obvious health issues) is that it's an absolutely great tool for weight loss and continued weight control.
We went back to the Harris Benedict equation in Calorie Mentality and started manipulating the numbers. The first part of the formula provides the total calories your body burns by just existing. For example, a 30 year old, 5'6" female weighing 200 lbs. would get a basic calculation of 1,685 calories per day. We don't know about you, but 1,685 calories/day, just wasn't going to cut it on a day in day out basis for us. When we factored in at least some type of exercise, we were amazed at how the caloric numbers grew.
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Equation - Daily calories burned without movement then multiplied by a factor below: Sedentary 1.15 [If you're a couch potato] Light Activity 1.30 [When you start doing things] Moderately Active 1.40 [Getting exercise 3-4 times/week] Very Active 1.60 [Exercising more than 4 times/week] Extremely Active 1.80 [You're an exercise guru at 6-7 times/wk] |
NOW our 30 year old gets to eat 1,938 calories a day and not gain weight just by being sedentary, 2,190 if she does some light activity, 2,359 for being moderately active and 2,696 calories a day for very actively getting her butt off the couch! (She opted not to go the guru route.)
Figuring out how much we could eat without gaining weight gave us some great numbers to start with in figuring out what we had to cut out to lose weight. Working backwards with this equation made it much easier to reach that 3,500 calorie reduction it took to lose a pound a week. The mental satisfaction we got from looking at how much first, as opposed to less, gave us an optimistic boost we never experienced before when trying to lose weight.
Here's how the weekly calorie totals play out for our 30 year old, when we factored in the 3,500 calorie reduction needed to lose a pound a week:
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Light
Activity ( 2,190C/day = 15,330C/wk) 3-4
Workouts ( 2,359 C/day = 16,513 C/wk) 5
Workouts ( 2,696 C/day = 18,872 C/wk)
6-7 Workouts ( 3,033 C/day = 21,231 C/wk) |
SHORTCUT: Deduct 500 calories from your daily total allotment (that's 3,500 divided by 7 days) to get the one pound deduction rate.
We couldn't resist looking at the BIG numbers over a weekly basis. It was more fun.
Obviously, we really got into playing around with these numbers. It became a challenge to see just how much we could squeeze out of the formula before we had to start trimming the calories we ate. There is one important factor to keep in mind. Once you start losing weight, the calorie calculations will decrease. Which means, you need to recalculate the formula as you're losing weight. However, we didn't mind that too much, because once we started seeing success from our efforts, making these adjustments were a lot easier to deal with along the way.
Download the Harris Benedict calculations via Excel worksheets. All you have to do is input your height, weight and age and the preset formulas will do the rest!
If you do not have Excel, we've also provided PDF files. (You will not be able to input your own data, but the form will give you a clear vision as to how to manually compute the formulas.)
Male
Worksheet PDF
(mac users view in adobe acrobat reader)
Female
Worksheet PDF
(mac users view in adobe acrobat reader)
The one thing that isn't revisable is age. The younger you are, (we're talking less than 30 years old here), the more calories you get to eat. Unfortunately, once you hit middle age and beyond, calorie intake starts to decrease sharply - it's just one of those bio-physical THINGS that you can't do much about, unfortunately. This is one of the reasons why so many people who never had weight problems in their lives suddenly find themselves amidst the battle of the bulge once they hit their 40's. Other reasons why some people suddenly see the pounds creeping on, can usually be attributed to the facts that by the time we all hit forty, our activity levels have changed drastically and the urgency to look as thin as possible, starts waning. Ultimately, whether you're 25, 45, or 65, exercise is a great defense against your body's natural weight gain offense.
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