Quit Burning Calories...GET DISTURBED INSTEAD!

Do you know how many calories we burn in your workouts?
Should I get a BodyBugg so that I can track how many calories I am burning all day?
Shouldn't I skip the strength training and just do more cardio until I drop some weight?
Shouldn't I just run instead of doing those interval workouts since I burn so many more calories?


NO, NO NO, AND NO!

I am jumping on my soap box today to explain why focusing on building muscle and creating METABOLIC DISTURBANCE will get you lean and fit more effectively than focusing on burning calories.

Quick Lesson on Metabolism:

Your metabolism is the energy used (calories burned) to carry out all of the chemical processes within the body at a celluar level to sustain life.  Metabolism has four components: resting metabolic rate (RMR), physical activity level (PAL), thermic effect of feeding (TEF), and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).

Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) = RMR + PAL + TEF + NEAT

RMR = 60-70% TDEE

PAL = 15-30% TDEE

TEF= 5-15% TDEE

NEAT= 5% TDEE 

From looking at the equations above, you can see what to some are two shocking facts... you burn the majority of your daily calories while you are DOING NOTHING!  The calories you burn from exercise only account for 30% of the calories you will burn each day - MAXIMUM.  So why in the world do I run exercise sessions as part of a fitness program geared to help women lose fat and how does this all relate to the questions I began this short article with?

One guaranteed way to increase how many calories your body burns at rest is to build and preserve your muscle.  There is much debate about how many calories per day each pound of muscle burns and opinions vary wildly but what is certain is that the more muscle you have on your frame, the higher your metabolism will be, and the easier you will find it to get rid of unwanted body fat.  So if you want your metabolism firing at optimal rates, you must take care of your muscle.  How do you build and preserve muscle?  With strength and resistance training.

STRENGTH TRAINING IS QUEEN WHEN IT COMES TO FAT LOSS....

RESPECT HER POSITION!

But we know that strength training breaks down muscle and that we must recover from those sessions so what else can we do with our weekly routines to burn fat?  Concentrate on exercise that creates metabolic disturbance.  Since we now know that we want to increase the amount of calories we burn while doing nothing since that will have the biggest impact on our overall metabolism, the goal is to pick exercise that will cause us to burn more calories... AFTER WE ARE DONE EXERCISING.

The best forms of exercise to create metabolic disturbance are anaerobic intervals (powerful, explosive movements like burpees, kettlebell swings, rope slams,etc for short periods followed by recovery and repetition) and high intensity conditioning  (longer intervals with work periods greater than one minute and some high intensity steady state work like running stairs or high speed running).  The amazing bonus to prioritizing these types of training over the traditional long duration, moderate intensity exercise is that 20 minutes of this stuff will have you ready to done and you will have time for other important things in life- like cooking those healthy meals that will help you melt the fat even faster.


References: Metabolic Training Certification, Training Strategies for Fat Loss Clients