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GOLDSEA | ASIAN BODY WORKS

Muscle, Fat and Metabolic Sabotage
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  1. Optimize your eating schedule.

         The easiest way to enhance metabolic capacity is to frontload your day's nutritional intake. Eat a full breakfast, a normal lunch and a normal dinner. This will produce two major benefits. First, you will have more energy during the period between mid morning and the late afternoon -- the most active hours for most people. Secondly, the big breakfast will keep your blood-sugar level up and trigger appetite-suppressing hormones. Consequently, you will eat less at lunch and dinner which, in turn, will free up metabolic capacity that was being wasted on digesting excess food and converting it to fat for storage.

  2. Invest excess capacity into physical activity.

         Once you change your eating habits, you will not only feel more productive during the day, but also more energetic in the evening. Invest this excess energy into raising your overall metabolic capacity through moderate aerobic activity. An easy way to start is with a 20-30 minute after-dinner stroll, bike ride, swim or the like. The impatient will feel tempted to exercise longer. Resist that urge. It will take you at least a week or two to get used to your new routine, no matter how easy or pleasant it may feel. After that, gradually increase the intensity and duration of each activity.

         Your schedule permitting, gradually shift your exercise time forward. The goal should be to engage in your peak physical exertion somewhere between noon and late afternoon. This corresponds to your body's natural physical peak. Not only will this permit more strenuous and longer workouts, you will preserve your natural sleep cycles. Prolonged and strenuous workouts in the evening tend to shift sleep cycles back and create sleep disturbances that lower your energy level.

  3. Get plenty of rest.

         Fanatical types equate rest with sloth. Consequently, they end up running themselves into the ground until they become so weak they are forced into extended periods of inactivity and, even, sloth.

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         Rest isn't an option, it's a necessity. If you are a professional person who puts in eight or more hours of solid work at the office, don't exercise longer than 60-75 minutes a day, 3 times a week. If you do, you may be hijacking metabolic capacity needed by your immune system, heart muscles, brain activity, blood cells or the body's multifarious hormonal functions. That's why some exercise addicts actually look older and more gaunt than their age.

         If you spend more than 90 minutes, definitely give yourself a day of rest before your next workout. If you spend more than 150 minutes, give yourself at least two days of rest. Insufficient rest will also weaken muscles as well as your capacity to rebuild them, and lead to physical deterioration and injury.

  4. Always warm up.

         Impatience is the enemy of good workouts. It's counterproductive to do anything but gentle warmups for at least the first 12-15 minutes. Your body takes 35-45 minutes to warm up to its full physical capacity. You will typically see a 70-100% increase in physical strength and endurance between a cold start and a warmed up state. If you find yourself short of breath during the first 10-12 minutes, you're jumping the gun.

         Start slowly and increase your exertion level very gradually, going from light (1-15 minutes) to moderate (16-30 minutes) to heavy (31-45 or 50 minutes). It's also a good idea to spend 5-10 minutes gradually cooling down. These precautions prevent undue strain on your heart and muscles while letting you get in a more strenuous workout without feeling exhausted when you're done. Jumping off to a strenuous start will get you prematurely winded and prevent a vigorous workout.

         Always end your workout when you are still feeling energetic. If you keep going until you are exhausted, you have overtrained and have compromised your productivity and immune system.

  5. Vary your routines.

         The body and mind are two sides of the same inextricably intertwined creation. Repeating the same workout routine leads to boredom. A bored, disengaged mind is less effective in stimulating the metabolic processes that produce new cells. To keep your mind focused and your body energized at peak efficiency, rotate among a variety of activities and routines. The more variety, the more ways your body will grow.

  6. Listen to your body.

         Stay sensitive to the many signals your body sends to let you know how hard it wants to be pushed. There is a lot of variation from day to day, and physical progress is rarely linear. It will usually be more like two steps forward and one step back. Over time you will become atuned to your body's rhythms and get good at choosing the right activity, duration and exertion to make the most of the metabolic capacity available on any given day.

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"Always end your workout when you are still feeling energetic."