Simple Tips to Increase Fat Burning and Improve Conditioning

June 30, 2010

Dr. Mercola has a couple of good articles on exercise and fat burning at his site. I like his newsletter and have put his site in my blog roll because he is very knowledgeable and explains things in fairly simple terms.

One of the biggest challenges for people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue is fighting weight gain due to lack of exercise. When you know you’re going to pay for your exertion with more pain, motivation suffers.  That’s why I do physical therapy exercises in the warm water pool at the fitness center 3 days a week. It’s much easier on the body, but I’m not getting much in the way of aerobic conditioning.

Warm water pool - what a relief!

To me, the main reason to keep the body moving is to throw off toxins and avoid increased muscle weakness and pain. One thing we don’t want to do is to encourage fat storage by doing the wrong thing before, during, and after exercise. From Dr. Mercola’s articles it looks like I could get more out of the pool time and make some changes for the better.  I want to pass this on to fellow chronic pain patients.

In the June 4, 2010 issues of USA Today:

Muscles usually get their energy from carbohydrates … if you haven’t eaten before exercising, your body doesn’t have many carbohydrates in reserve. That forces it to burn fat instead, scientists say.”

Dr. Mercola writes:

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence supporting the theory that you’ll burn more fat if you don’t eat prior to your workout. USA Today mentions several such studies.

So, how does it work?…

The combination of fasting and exercising maximizes the impact of cellular factors and catalysts (cyclic AMP and AMP Kinases), which force the breakdown of fat and glycogen for energy.

Dr. Mercola goes on to say that if you eat a carb laden meal before exercising you will trigger your parasympathetic nervous system to store energy, reducing the fat burning effect of your exercise. He also says that people need to use common sense.  If you have blood sugar and insulin problems, you may have to eat before exercising. But he goes on to say that if you eat healthy food every three to four hours, you may not have a problem.  So getting the advantage of maximum fat burning from exercise is going to require a sensible approach taking a number of factors into account.

He remarks on an approach to this I find very interesting in that I do best myself on a high protein, low carb program:

In practical terms, consuming 20 grams of whey protein before exercise and another serving afterward will most likely yield the double benefit of increasing both fat burning and muscle build-up at the same time.

I’ll take those double benefits any time! And here’s the second tip from him in this article and a previous one that is so simple for getting improved conditioning in less time:

I recently coined the term “peak fitness” to highlight the importance of high intensity interval training for optimizing your overall fitness and weight loss. It’s a comprehensive program that includes aerobic, strength training, core exercises and stretching, but the major addition are the peak exercises you perform once or twice a week.

These high intensity, sprint-type exercises raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90 second recovery period. You then repeat this cycle for a total of eight repetitions.

Walking - maybe, but no sprinting!

He wrote about this in his article “The Major Exercise Mistake I Made for Over 30 Years”. Be sure to check these articles out because he has so much good information packed into them. You will also find “What You Eat After Exercise Matters” very interesting.

Now I know that fibro patients and probably people with arthritis, lupus and other problems are not going to be able to do a comprehensive routine of fitness. We are certainly not going to be sprinting anywhere. My strength training is limited to what I can accomplish using items the therapists have taught me to use and depending on water resistance and repetition to strengthen muscles.  But I am going to try to incorporate some aerobics into my routine using the cycle system above and see how it works.

Wellness takes will, common sense, and commitment to caring for the body God has given us so we can do the work He has given us to do.

Tags: wellness