FAT LOSS SECRET #4

HIGH-INTENSITY TRUMPS “SLOW-GO” ANYTIME, ANY DAY, ANYWHERE.

Just the thought of spending 45 minutes to an hour staring at the wall or TV in front of me while on the treadmill, eliptical, or stationary bike is enough to make me cringe (and like I have that kind of time anymore!) Fortunately, I haven’t done that kind of cardio workout in a while.

“But I thought cardio was one of the fundamental keys to fat loss?” you ask...

Well, cardio is a loose term and when used generally refers to the type of exercise mentioned above. Slow-go, low-intensity, “fat-burning zone” cardio = Unproductive, Inefficient, Ineffective.

Steady-state, slow-go cardio burns minimal calories and minimal fat. High-intensity, interval-based workouts burn considerably more calories and considerably more fat, all while taking half the time or less. How?

Well here’s the thing about high-intensity exercise. Because the sessions are so short (generally anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes), cardio done for 45 minutes in the “fat-burning zone” may actually burn a bit more fat and calories during the actual exercise session. But this the important part—despite burning a bit less fat and calories during the session, high-intensity exercise has been shown to elevate metabolism for up to 48-hours post workout. This means that with high-intensity exercise, you’ll continue to burn fat for up to two days just by going about your own business.

You can be sitting there watching TV or helping your kids with their homework, and you’re still burning calories from an itty, bitty 15-minute exercise session you did yesterday!

If you ask me, that’s pretty darn cool! I made the switch to high-intensity cardio last year and am so glad I did. I encourage you to do the same.

Now for some practical advice: If you’re not quite too sure what high-intensity interval-based cardio is (then where have you been?!?! We’ve done these in boot camp!) or if you need a sample workout, no worries--

Grab your tennis shoes, walk outside, and run “hard” for one minute. Then, slow things down with a slow jog or brisk walk for one minute. That’s one “interval”. Now repeat that 7 or 8 times for a 15-minute workout.

Of course, you can do these types of intervals on regular cardio equipment at the gym as well. Once you get pretty comfortable with the approach, there are literally countless ways you can mix things up by switching the type of exercise, work to rest ratio (in the example above, the work to rest ratio is one to one as we are running hard for one minute and then “resting” for one minute), and the length of each portion of each interval.

So say goodbye to slow-go boring cardio and start losing fat much, much faster with high-intensity exercise. You can do it!

Get more information about interval training under the additional resources tab: http://tiff-fit.blogspot.com/p/interval-training.html or http://tiff-fit.blogspot.com/p/more-interval-training.html