Well, Spring's here and everyone's a-buzz about diet and exercise. Now's the time that we pay the price for all those cookies and treats we shoved into our mouths while our sweaters hid the growing bulge. The bulge has been revealed, and now's the time to start talking about doing something about it...
I've been in an enormous number of discussions with co-workers and other acquaintences about starting a diet and exercise routine. It seems a twice yearly event: first comes New Year's and our resolutions after making pigs of ourselves over the holidays. Then, the stores start putting out the swimsuits and we remember why we were going to start the diet in January. There's no time now! Ahhh!!! The only way to save face is to recognize the problem and start talking to people about the fact that you're going to take action... Tomorrow.
I know it's easier to talk then to do it... My real aggravation is the fact that I've heard, at least three times now, people say "I've got to start doing sit-ups. I have to loose this tummy/gut".
If you want to bulk up your biceps, what do you do? You do arm curls! -What's different about your stomach? Nothing. If you do 100 sit-ups a day, you'll only succeed in "bulking up" your stomach, it definitely won't help you get rid of the fat there. It just doesn't work that way!
Fat lives all over your body, and it's actually nomadic. The fat cells release themselves from your thighs, travel through your bloodstream (in case you need them for energy), and then re-deposit themselves in, say, your stomach ('cause you're just sitting there). So, exercising one part of the body will not reduce the fat in that one area alone. In fact, strength-training exercises like sit-ups and arm curls don't do much to reduce your body fat (at least not in the short-term). Your best bet for loosing fat is aerobic exercise (running, jogging, speed-walking, riding a bike, rollerblading, etc -and you don't get the full benefit of the exercise until you at LEAST 15 to 20 minutes into it). See, aerobic exercise allows you to use up those fat cells that are floating around in your bloodstream and they won't continuously get re-deposited. After 15 or 20 minutes, your body starts relealizing that you might actually keep going, so it starts releasing more fat cells into the bloodstream so you have the energy to continue. You burn more fat as a result.
Now, if you can't do aerobic exercise -there's still hope. Strength-training exercises (again, sit-ups and the like) do help you burn some fat while you do them (but not nearly as much), and they help you burn more fat when you're at rest (just to keep that extra muscle alive). But, if you stop exercising, that muscle will be re-absorbed by your body, and guess what'll replace it?
Anyway, that's your primer on exercise...
Go forth and talk about running instead of about doing sit-ups.
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Yep, I concur. The only time I've had success is by diet / aerobic exercise. If you keep a low body fat level, and even marginally work you abdominals, you will have great success in the 'washboard'. So the trick to abs isn't sit ups, its no more sweets and 7+ mile runs 4 times a week, LOL ! ! ;-) see ya!
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