Understanding Calorie Afterburn

For years, people were taught that the more sweat, the more calories you will lose. This is not exactly true, especially if the exercises you are doing are not effective at raising your basal metabolism. Your basal metabolism is a measure of how many calories you are burning when your body is at rest or just doing ordinary things such as sitting at a computer or watching television.

The truth is that when it comes to overall calorie burning, aerobic exercise is a little bit overrated. This is because aerobic exercise builds very little muscle.  Muscle is a key component of burning calories. That is because muscle burns up to an additional fifty calories a day just to keep that muscle in operation. Even if you can manage to add six pounds of muscles, you will find yourself burning an additional 300 calories a day even when your body is at rest.

Low Intensity Aerobics Can Rob The Body of Protein

Most people prefer to do low intensity aerobics rather than anaerobic exercises such as Pilates or weight –lifting. However, it is not that great of an ideal to do a long stint of low intensity aerobic exercise simply because aerobic exercises like biking, running and jogging require a great deal breath and cell respiration. As you continue to do the low-intensity exercise, your body calls upon glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrate in your muscles and the liver) to operate.  It only takes about twenty minutes of low intensity exercise to deplete your glycogen store. To keep going your body turns to the next readily available source of energy in your body, which is the protein in your muscles.  Your body will then burn about 5 to 6 grams of protein for every half hour of ongoing aerobic exercise.

The problem with this approach to exercise is that you are losing protein, rather than fat as you exercise and also diminishing your muscle mass.  This will ultimately slow you down, make you hungry and make it harder for you to lose weight.

The Principle of  Calorie Afterburn

Although it is true that you lose more calories while doing aerobic exercise then you do lifting weights but only during the exercise period, you need to take the calorie afterburn that is possible after each.  The metabolic effect of aerobics only lasts about thirty to sixty minutes whereas the effects of weight training lasts as long as 48 hours. That is two days more of an opportunity for your body to burn off additional fat.

The message here is that aerobic exercise essentially only really burns calories at the time of the workout while strength training is the “gift that keeps on giving”. You will continue to burn calories after you leave the gym, while you eat dinner, while you watch television, while you are in bed and all the next day.  This is why it is recommended that you do circuit training that involves a bit of both styles of exercise in order to lose as much weight as possible.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Understanding The Role of Basal Metabolism in a Healthy and Active Lifestyle

In general, the metabolism can be understood as being the rate at which your body burns calories just to keep itself alive.  You need calories to keep your heart beating and the blood pumping through your arteries. It is a fallacy to think you are not burning calories when you are at rest.

Your body is burning calories all of the time, even when you sitting as still as possible or asleep. In fact, you body burns a certain amount of calories per pound just to maintain body weight every day. The average woman burns about 10 calories per pound every day and the average man, about 11 calories per pound.

You Burn Calories When You Eat

Not many people realize this but you actually burn calories when you eat. About 30% of the calories that you burn each day are actually burned by the act of digestion. However, your body uses far more calories to digest a protein then it does a carbohydrate. You burn about 25 calories for every 100 calories of protein consumed and only about ten for every fat and carbohydrate you burn. This is why it is recommended that you eat lean healthy proteins to lose weight.

You Burn Calories Through Exercise

Every day you burn ten to fifteen percent of your calories as the result of moving your muscles. It does not matter what activity you do, you are burning carbohydrates every time you run, walk, lean over, flip a page in a book or press a key on the remote.  It is not really possible to burn more calories than fifteen percent a day, which is why it is important to lead a happy and healthy lifestyle and exercise as much as possible on a regular basis.

The Importance of Basal Metabolism

When fitness experts talk about the basal metabolism, they are referring to the calories that you burn per day when you are doing nothing at all.  Sleeping, watching television and sitting at you desk burn up between sixty and eighty percent of your available calories. That is because your body is at work all of the time, dividing cells, engaging in cell respiration and disposing of toxins.

The basal metabolism rate refers to the calorie burn that comes from the physiological functions that we don’t even think about or are not aware of it. That is why it is so important to eat foods and adopt a lifestyle that raises the basal rate of your metabolism so that all of your downtime is actually fat-burning time.  This is also why restricting calories works better than trying work off calories through constant exercise. Constant exercise works in shedding off the pounds to some extent but if you really want to lose weight it comes down to consuming less calories.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Lifestyle Habits To Keep Bad LDL Cholesterol in Check

It is possible for a thin person to have a stroke or a heart attack if they have high levels of LDL cholesterol. Living a happy and active lifestyle must include habits that support the consumption of good HDL cholesterol and lowers the damage to your body caused by bad LDL cholesterol. It is the LDL cholesterol that sticks to your arteries and it is the HDL cholesterol that helps clean it up from the artery wall.

Here are some ways that you can raise your cholesterol levels  -

Butt out that cigarette. Tobacco use is a major risk to your health and studies show that it smoking lowers HDL (good) cholesterol levels. It may not seem necessary to warn people concerned with leading an active and happy lifestyle but many people still smoke cigarettes in order to help them lose weight.  It is best to take a healthier approach.

Eat grapefruit for breakfast. Both the white and the red varieties of grapefruit help lower our total cholesterol levels by 8% if you find the discipline to eat a whole one every day.

Eat more oat bran. There was a study done at University of Connecticut study that found that men with high cholesterol who ate oat bran cookies daily for 8 weeks lowered their levels of LDL cholesterol by more than 20 percent. If you are trying to stay on a raw diet, remember that you can eat steel-cut oat flakes that have been soaked in coconut or almond milk overnight in the refrigerator.

Drink green tea. Studies conducted at Vanderbilt University found that drinking the equivalent of seven cups of green tea a day can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. Even drinking just two cups a day could have a beneficial effect.

Drink red wine. Drinking one glass of red wine a day helps lower dangerous levels of LDL cholesterol. There is a constituent of red wine called resveratrol that helps prevent damage to blood vessels and improves heart function.  However, take it easy when you drink, as drinking alcohol in excess is not good for the liver.

Drink unsweetened cranberry juice. Just as effective as wine is red cranberry juice. A study at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania showed that drinking the raw juice raised good HDL cholesterol levels by ten percent.

Get enough niacin (B3). This is an essential vitamin that the body needs to process fat in the body. Meat, fish and liver are the best sources of the vitamin, but vegan sources can be found in peanuts, mushrooms, green peas, sunflower seeds and avocado.

Eat more grains and beans. Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto found that eating beans every day could lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels by almost 30%.

Eat more nuts, Researchers found that that ate 1 ounce of nuts daily decreased their risk of heart disease by 30 percent.

These are very simple and minor adjustments that you can make to your lifestyle in order to prevent heart attacks and strokes provoked by high cholesterol levels.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.