We had a lovely evening out with the Robertson’s the other night at Australia’s best steak restaurant (that’s right, right here in ‘lil ol Mildy), the Spanish Bar and Grill. I hadn’t caught up with Nadia properly for months so was great to do so – lots of laughs and a very funny evening.
I’m still a bit crook – I have this nagging cough and was sooooooooooo exhausted that I slept for 12 hours straight on Friday night, followed by 3 more naps the next day (yesterday). Consequently I have missed training both yesterday and today, however I did go for a nice walk/jog this morning at 7am. It’s very, very hot here today and that was the only time you would want to venture outside.
This week is looking rather busy. I received my Blackberry Bold on Thursday and managed to finally open the box yesterday. Now I need to book in to have someone come and set it all up for me (with my Outlook etc).
I have 3 hours of phone chats scheduled tomorrow, then, yippee, a much needed massage at 4pm. Tuesday is Cup Day and still unsure what, if anything, we are doing for that. Thursday is hair day, along with 3 more phone appointments, and Friday more phone appointments.
It’s meant to be very hot tomorrow too so my plan is to get up ultra early again (was 5.30am this morning) and do my cardio, then train mid morning so that I am back in time for appointments. I really must get myself a head set for Skype actually – I meant to do that today. Will write a note this minute!
I will leave you with a little article – it’s pretty basic stuff for many however Ideal Bodies Online is broadening our horizons with some mainstream promotions and much of the gen pop who are trying to lose weight are unaware of how important this aspect is:
Double Your Fat Loss with Weight Training
Did you know that in order to completely reshape your body and keep it that way it”s absolutely essential that you make weight training an important part of your health and fitness program?
Yes, weights! While cardio will definitely help (and has numerous other health benefits), weight training is the key to fat loss. If body fat loss is your goal, resistance training (or working out with weights) has numerous important benefits.
Weight training will do far more for your fat loss efforts, both in losing the fat and keeping it off long term, than low intensity, steady state cardio aerobic training will ever do.
First, an intense weight training session burns calories during the actual workout.
Second, research shows that intense weight training elevates your metabolism for up to 39 hours after your actual workout. In other words, after you finish your weight training session, your metabolism has been stimulated so you will now be burning more calories while you are doing nothing! Your metabolism continues to burn more calories than normal for up to 39 hours after you”ve stopped your workout. This doesn”t happen with typical low/moderate steady state cardio programs.
The carbohydrates you eat will power your intense weight training sessions (which is why you should not completely remove carbohydrates from your diet!). The more intense the session, the more you will deplete your carbohydrate stores and the more fat is burned during the recovery phase, i.e. after the workout and during rest.
As the intensity of the training increases there is a proportionate increase in fat burning after the workout.
One study showed that 15 exercise sessions per month (50 minute sessions at 50 percent of oxygen uptake) could lead to an extra 2 plus pounds per month of fat loss, strictly from the elevated metabolism and extra calories burned -while doing nothing! That”s an extra 26 pounds plus, of fat burned per year.
Remember this is extra fat loss, above and beyond the calories burned during the actual training sessions. It also doesn”t include the extra calories burned from the higher metabolism due to added lean and shapely muscle.
Adding lean muscle is another extremely important benefit of resistance training. Muscle burns calories even while resting. So, the more lean muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolism and the more calories you burn each day while doing nothing. This translates to ”you can eat more food without getting fat!”
Studies have estimated that for each pound of muscle that you add to your body, you burn another 35 to 50 calories per day. So, an extra 10 pounds of muscle will burn approximately 350 to 500 calories a day, or an extra pound of fat every 7 to 10 days, without making any other changes.
This is essential to losing the fat and keeping it off. You see, when you add muscle to your body, you greatly increase the number of calories your burn each day. So, once you achieve your fat loss goals you can start eating more food without putting the fat back on, as long as you have built muscle (and keep it of course, by continuing to train and eat well)!
Now ladies (I am talking only to the ladies here as I know this will have crossed your mind), don’t be scared when we talk about ”adding lean muscle”. No, you won’t end up looking like the female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger – it’s just not physically possible. We ladies don’t have enough of the male hormone testosterone to promote that kind of muscle growth. In reality, adding lean muscle is quite difficult, but just a few additional pound of muscle will completely change the way you look – in an amazing way!
On the flip side, if you don’t train with weights while you are dieting, two very undesirable things will occur. First, much of the weight you lose will be muscle. Second, this in turn causes your metabolism to slow down, causing progress to eventually grind to a halt, leading to rebound weight gain (and more). If you’ve tried any of those fad shake diets around, you will know what I”m talking about.
Pure and simple – you can not keep the weight off permanently without training with weights.
As you can see, training with weights is an extremely powerful and necessary component of any successful weight loss program!
I extended myself the other evening and cooked this really yummy, healthy, vegetarian curry. You can add some chicken or lamb at the end if you are a meat eater.
