Exercise can make you Fat?? Well, not really….

By: Keith Scott, Director of Personal Training

BREAKTHRU Fitness.

 

 

Recently, Time Magazine publicized an article that stated how exercise would not make you thin. The author of the article concluded that exercise can actually make you gain weight based on his hypothesis that exercising will make you hungry and thus eat more. The author based this hypothesis on loose anecdotal evidence and a faulty study. Rather than pick apart the author’s study or his strange reasoning, I will outline the facts about weight loss and offer some tips on the best way to lose weight/fat and build the body you want through proper exercise. Oh, I will say one more thing...Olympic Gold Medalist, Michael Phelps has to eat up to 10,000 calories a day just to maintain his weight. Think about that….

 

The Facts

 

· Exercising will help you burn calories and fat, which in turn will help you to lose weight.

· A regular and consistent exercise routine will help to speed up your metabolism, which in turn will help you burn calories and fat even while you are not exercising.

 

 

The Ultimate Fat Burning Machine

 

If you really want to burn fat, lose weight and sculpt the body of your dreams, you need to develop a fat burning machine…your body! This is easier than you might think. It is important to exercise in the right kind of way to build this machine and reap the benefits of your fat burning system.

 

There are many different ways to exercise and some are better than others are when it comes to fat loss and body sculpting.

 

Building Lean Muscle

 

The more lean muscle you have, the better your metabolism works. This of course will help you burn calories and fat even when you are not exercising. Just by having more lean muscle, your body will be forced to work harder and in turn, it will burn more calories throughout the day.

 

High Intensity Cardio

 

Including high intensity cardiovascular exercise into your workout routine, will also stoke the fire of your metabolism and in turn, will help you burn more fat and calories throughout the day. High intensity cardiovascular exercise can produce fat burning results for hours even after your exercise is finished, thus making it one of the best methods for fat loss.

 

The Fat Burning and Body Sculpting Exercise Prescription

 

Ultimately, you want to find an exercise routine that combines the best of building lean muscle mass and high intensity cardio training. Weight training is an excellent way to build lean muscle mass. However, it is only one part of the above-mentioned prescription. You must combine it with high intensity cardio work to maximize the process, burn fat fast and start developing the body you want.

 

Properly designed circuit type training is the answer. Circuits that include muscle-building exercises along with high intense cardio sessions will serve you well if your goal is fast fat loss. The best place to find these types of circuits is in boot camp style training classes.

 

Boot camps offer a mix of resistance training and high intensity cardio work. Combined, this is the best fat burning, and body sculpting exercise prescription around.

 

Wrapping it all up…

 

I think it should be obvious to you that exercise will not make you fat. In fact, when done properly, exercise can burn fat, and help you sculpt your body faster than you probably ever realized. Committing to a proper circuit training style exercise routine, that combines high intensity cardiovascular exercise and resistance training is your best answer for fast and long lasting fat loss. Boot camps seem to be the best of these circuit training exercise programs.

 

Michael Phelps eats 10,000 plus calories a day just to maintain his weight, but he can do so because he exercises so rigorously. Obviously we are not Olympic athletes and do not train even close to the same intensity and duration as Phelps does. However, the message should be clear: The more your exercise, the better your metabolism works and eventually, the more you may be able to eat. In addition, sitting around and not exercising certainly will not help you lose weight either.