Once again, before we get started, if you are new to this series please go back and read part 1 and part 2 because this will make a lot more sense to you.
Let’s start with another myths/fact scenario.
True or False: Resistance training is essential to burn fat because the more muscle you have the more fat you can burn.
Answer: True, sort of!
This is a favorite of gym bunnies and personal trainers the world over (remember I am not just an MD, I am a personal trainer as well!). Lots of people selling lots of things on the internet tout muscle building via traditional weights and other resistance methods as “THE WAY” to burn fat.
The problem with this is that it is really only a half truth and can mislead a person who is genuinely struggling with their weight.
Weight training especially is a very inefficient way to burn fat. It takes months to put on lean muscle mass unless you are using anabolic drugs, and the actual contribution of say 10 pounds of lean muscle is somewhere between 60 and 100 calories a day to your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This turns out to amount to less than a pound a month. But in general people who are involved in these programs are exercising more, are burning more calories than before, are more apt to watch their diets and lead healthier lifestyles, so it still a very good thing.
But most people with weight problems are trying to get smaller, not bigger — so again we have to separate out what the end goal is.
We are talking about maximum fat loss.
The most efficient exercises to do for fat loss are high intensity, short burst exercises. I have written courses and books on this so I will not go into detail here but if you want to get the skinny on high intensity exercise, go out and get a book called “Ready Set Go Synergy Fitness” by the godfather of modern interval training, Phil Campbell. I promise you everyone else out there trying to copy him!
What this type of excise does is raise your metabolic rate. Notice it is not aerobic. It is actually anaerobic and you will become breathless for a short period of time doing it. But this kind of “extreme” effort will trigger a huge increase in your AEROBIC metabolism during the repair and recovery, which takes place when you are not working out (you know, that other 139 hours I talked about in PART 2!).
This will add several hundred calories to your RMR and make your body a fat burning machine.
Almost 11 years ago now a study was done looking at the body fat composition of people who ran 10k (6.2) miles 3x a week and people who did 20 to 30 minutes of interval type training (which actually translates into less than 6 minutes of exercise in most cases).
They found something fascinating.
The 10k runners burned in excess of 36,000 calories from their running in the 6 weeks that the study ran for.
The interval trained people burned only half that many calories but burned 9X as much body fat.
This was the first time the light bulb went off and researchers began to understand the importance of what goes on during the recovery and repair phases when you are not exercising.
The interval trained people ultimately burned more calories and fat because their RMR’s were much higher than the 10k runners whose RMR’s returned to baseline in less than 2 hours after their exercise.
So we should all integrate “interval training” into our exercise programs.
But there can be problems. Despite what some will tell you, there is a certain amount of minimum interval work you need to do for it to be effective. Phil Campbell’s book talks about the “Sprint 8” which is 8 interval sessions of about 30 seconds each. Others will tell you that you can do a lot less but I have not found this to be the case, at least not for good fat burning levels.
So it takes some time and effort to even get to this type of training to work. While it is worth it, there is one other way you can turn up your RMR and I am going to tell you about that in Part 4, so stay tuned!!!
Dr. Dave Woynarowski, MD, was born in the 1950s in the heart of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Raised in a family of doctors and scientists, “Dr. Dave” continued the tradition, graduating from Temple Medical School in the 1980s, after earning his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania with a dual major in Biology and English.
After completing his Residency in Internal Medicine, Dr. Dave passed the Internal Medicine Boards and joined his father who had been practicing Family Medicine for three decades.
Dr. Dave later embarked on a worldwide pursuit, researching the best-of-the-best in anti-aging medicine. His exhaustive search has made him one of the foremost authorities is preventative health, anti-aging, and nutritional supplements. For example, he may have more scientific research in his medical library on the health benefits of pharmaceutical grade fish oil than any other person in the world. In addition to study and research, Dr. Dave began the development of a new category of nutritional supplements, formulated from his expertise as a physician, and made from only pharmaceutical-grade ingredients.
"“I traveled the globe for many years, searching the four corners of the earth and left no stone unturned,” says Dr. Dave. “What I found is that most people can be significantly healthier through the use of high quality, properly formulated supplements. The problem was that most of the available products did not use a high enough grade of active ingredients, or did not combine the correct amount of ingredients for a multiple-pronged rather than a single-focus approach to the issue. So I developed Dr. Dave’s Best to meet the need."
Dr. Dave is also co-author of "The Immortality Edge" a book dedicated to teaching everyone about the newest hottest field in anti-aging technology, Telomere Biology and giving practical proven advice for better health and a longer life that everyone can use RIGHT NOW!
Latest posts by Dr. David Woynarowski (see all)
- A simple explanation of telomeres and aging - February 19, 2011
- More on telomeres and cancer - February 11, 2011
- Could anti-aging telomeres contain the cure for cancer? - January 12, 2011
