Your body does a lot of work just to keep you going, and even more work to do things like exercise and build muscle. Burning calories gives your body energy in different ways. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) burns calories all day long. Whether you’re asleep or just sitting down watching T.V. you are burning calories. Good news, right? Next are the calories you burn doing things (activity calories) like exercising, cleaning the house, or even shopping. This is the second most common way most people burn calories. Finally there’s a little thing called dietary thermogenesis which burns calories by eating. Each activity involved in eating–chewing, digesting, absorbing, and converting–works to help you burn off those pesky calories without doing much. That is why you should eat 5-6x a day. It increases your metabolism! On average a person’s calorie expenditure is about 66-75% Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. BMR is tissue repair, breathing, heart beating, blood pumping, and basically just existing. 10% is for digestion, and approximately 15% for exercise.
How many times have your physically superior friends said to you, “muscle burns more calories than fat”? Well as much as you’d love to punch your friend right in the face, they are correct. Muscle burns more calories each day than fat, up to 35 cals per pound of muscle while fat burns only about 2 cals per pound per day so increasing muscle mass is a great way to kick extra calories to the curb! The best way to build muscle is to add strength or resistance training to your regular workout schedule. Just a half hour, 3 days a week of lifting weights and you could lose an additional 650 calories a week. Imagine what you could be wearing a lot sooner if you start lifting weights.
As important as strength training is to making your body burn more calories each day, so too is cardio or aerobic exercise. Not only does aerobic exercise keep you heart healthy, it can also make you burn calories even hours after you’ve finished your workout. That is why you should do cardio after your workout. The way I train is also like cardio that is why your heart is beating so hard it is called High Intensity Interval Training or H.I.I.T., Circuit Training, or Metabolic Conditioning, or Met Con.
While it may appear counterintuitive at first glance, science has demonstrated that the most effective way to build lean muscle and burn the most fat is to eat more meals with smaller portions. The fact of the matter is that consuming just three meals per day will hurt your efforts to build and maintain lean muscle and burn the most fat. When there is a period of 4 hours or longer between meals, the body interprets this as starvation and will work to conserve energy and store fat instead of burn it. As the human body is designed for survival, this mechanism will be activated so that the body can protect itself from future starvation. If you allow 4 or more hours to pass between meals, your body will engage its built-in survival processes. While your conscious mind understands you have food readily available, your body only realizes it has food when it is fed. During this time of perceived "famine", the body will break down muscle tissue for energy and decrease its processes to burn fat. Since one of the major benefits of muscle tissue is its ability to stimulate your metabolism, this loss of lean muscle will only work to decrease your metabolic rate. Since you have set out to burn the most fat and lose weight quickly, this process will only work to hinder your progress. The decline in fat metabolism and the increase in muscle tissue catabolism are just two consequences of the "famine". Long periods between meals will also destabilize your blood sugar levels, meaning you will feel hungrier and less energetic.
If you want to guarantee that your body will continue to burn fat at a higher level so that you can burn the most fat, consume more meals with smaller portions. For best results, you should have between 5 and 7 meals per day with no more than 2 or 3 hours between meals. While this will first require some adjustments, over time you will become accustomed to the eating schedule. If you truly want to burn the most fat, having 5-7 meals with smaller portions every 2 to 3 hours is the best way to accomplish this task. Eating more often does not mean that you are simply just eating more. You want to consume the same number of calories per day that you were consuming from 2 or 3 larger meals; you are just spacing out your consumption over the day.
Your blood sugar levels are influenced by the amount of food you eat, if you eat more during a meal your blood sugar levels will rise to a higher level compared to having a smaller meal. Remember the amount of blood sugar could result in a spike of insulin. Like I talked about in the other post insulin is not always good it’s a storage hormone
Remember some simple steps to follow on your fitness journey are, resistance training for increased metabolism, and cardio post workout for the heart and to burn fat, also eat more often 5-7 times a day.
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