By Almira Ross, PhD
Almira is an anti-ageing and rejuvenation specialist with HOLISTIC LONDON. She specialises in easy and efficient ways to help her clients look and feel younger and more vital each day. For more information, visit here
You go on a diet, begin an exercise programme, and initially you lose weight. After a few weeks, your weight loss slows down and eventually stops. You’ve cut your calories; you’re physically active, yet nothing much seems to be happening.
Sound familiar?
One reason this happens is that your body is sabotaging your best efforts, unconsciously doing everything it can to keep your weight at a particular ‘set point’. Reducing calories leads to weight loss, and this in turn, lowers your metabolic rate. Your body also adapts, and becomes more efficient at storing and using calories.
Exercise increases your metabolic rate, but may not be as effective in weight loss as was once thought for three reasons. (View: Thomas DM, et Al, Obesity Reviews)
· In the past, experts have underestimated how much exercise is needed to shift fat
· You tend to compensate by eating more after exercising
· Exercise has less effect on keeping your metabolic rate high than previously believed
So what do you do? Give up?
Definitely NOT!
Instead, take a different and much more effective approach. Here’s how.
Traditional low intensity exercise is not a time efficient way to burn fat. Yet the fitness industry seems fixated on lengthy routines. The longer you spend in the gym, the better. This is untrue, and in fact, may actually be detrimental to your weight loss programme.
Fast exercise, known as HIT (High Intensity Exercise) is an extremely effective way to burn fat and build muscle. It increases your muscle mass by growing mitochondria, which convert fat to energy to power your cells.
HIT involves alternating bursts of high intensity exercise with moderate exercise over a short period of time, then resting. For example, warm up with a gentle jog for 2 minutes, sprint uphill for 30 seconds, walk for 2 minutes, then repeat the sprint/walk sequence for a 10-minute workout and cool down. Do this routine 2 or 3 times a week, resting in between.
Why and how does HIT work to burn fat and keep it off?
1. When you exercise at this intensity, you build more metabolically active muscle – muscle that contains more active mitochondria, which are really effective at burning fat, not just when you exercise, but also when you’re at rest.
2. HIT also produces a huge increase in catecholamines – like adrenaline and noradrenaline that lead to much higher fat burning. And because there are more catecholamine receptors in belly fat than in subcutaneous fat, you lose that weight from around your middle.
3. HIT also seems to suppress appetite.
That’s got to be a good thing.
--Almira Ross
For more information: Contact Almira Ross at +44 (0)7743 886 503 for a free half hour consultation on how you can put HIT to work to lose weight. She is available to work with clients in London and also long distance by phone and skype.
Almira is an anti-ageing and rejuvenation specialist with HOLISTIC LONDON. She specialises in easy and efficient ways to help her clients look and feel younger and more vital each day. For more information, visit here
You go on a diet, begin an exercise programme, and initially you lose weight. After a few weeks, your weight loss slows down and eventually stops. You’ve cut your calories; you’re physically active, yet nothing much seems to be happening.
Sound familiar?
One reason this happens is that your body is sabotaging your best efforts, unconsciously doing everything it can to keep your weight at a particular ‘set point’. Reducing calories leads to weight loss, and this in turn, lowers your metabolic rate. Your body also adapts, and becomes more efficient at storing and using calories.
Exercise increases your metabolic rate, but may not be as effective in weight loss as was once thought for three reasons. (View: Thomas DM, et Al, Obesity Reviews)
· In the past, experts have underestimated how much exercise is needed to shift fat
· You tend to compensate by eating more after exercising
· Exercise has less effect on keeping your metabolic rate high than previously believed
So what do you do? Give up?
Definitely NOT!
Instead, take a different and much more effective approach. Here’s how.
Traditional low intensity exercise is not a time efficient way to burn fat. Yet the fitness industry seems fixated on lengthy routines. The longer you spend in the gym, the better. This is untrue, and in fact, may actually be detrimental to your weight loss programme.
Fast exercise, known as HIT (High Intensity Exercise) is an extremely effective way to burn fat and build muscle. It increases your muscle mass by growing mitochondria, which convert fat to energy to power your cells.
HIT involves alternating bursts of high intensity exercise with moderate exercise over a short period of time, then resting. For example, warm up with a gentle jog for 2 minutes, sprint uphill for 30 seconds, walk for 2 minutes, then repeat the sprint/walk sequence for a 10-minute workout and cool down. Do this routine 2 or 3 times a week, resting in between.
Why and how does HIT work to burn fat and keep it off?
1. When you exercise at this intensity, you build more metabolically active muscle – muscle that contains more active mitochondria, which are really effective at burning fat, not just when you exercise, but also when you’re at rest.
2. HIT also produces a huge increase in catecholamines – like adrenaline and noradrenaline that lead to much higher fat burning. And because there are more catecholamine receptors in belly fat than in subcutaneous fat, you lose that weight from around your middle.
3. HIT also seems to suppress appetite.
That’s got to be a good thing.
--Almira Ross
For more information: Contact Almira Ross at +44 (0)7743 886 503 for a free half hour consultation on how you can put HIT to work to lose weight. She is available to work with clients in London and also long distance by phone and skype.
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