Ok, now that you have flipped the script and become a fat burning inferno, let’s talk about the why and how.
We burn approximately 60-70% of our daily calories while at rest, this is our resting metabolic rate (RMR). Another 10-20% just digesting the foods that we eat. That means that our daily activities account for only 20-30% of our daily calories burned. So, to burn more calories we should focus on raising the amount of calories that we burn while at rest, our RMR, because we burn 2/3rd of our calories in that time frame.
To increase our RMR we can do two things. (1) We can increase, or maintain, our lean muscle mass through progressive resistance training, and (2) Metabolic conditioning to put our bodies into EPOC. Balancing these two workouts with active recovery sessions will ensure that we get the most out of each workout, and keep our resting metabolism on fire!
The more lean muscle mass that you have, the more calories that you will burn while at rest. This doesn’t mean that you need to be jacked to be lean, but 3-4 pounds of lean muscle mass will go a long way in will helping you lose unwanted fat and looking toned.
Kreamer and Volek et al., tested the differences between diet only, diet with aerobic training, and diet with aerobic training and resistance training; after 12 weeks the result were:
- Diet only group lost 14.6 lbs. of body fat.
- Diet plus aerobic training lost 15.6 lbs of body fat
- Diet plus aerobic training plus resistance training lost 21.1 lbs. of body fat.
This shows us that diet is the most important variable to fat loss. That’s why they say, “you can’t out-train a bad diet”. But when it comes to exercise, the most bang for your buck is in resistance training. Aerobic training alone, only burned 1 more pound of fat over 12 weeks!!!
While adding resistance training increased that amount by 5.5 pounds of body fat!
BONUS: Progressive resistance training increases our RMR for the next 24-36 hours through Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).
So what is EPOC?
When we workout our muscles use oxygen to assist in different physiological functions, and we put our bodies into oxygen debt. Our bodies repay that debt as we recover which requires energy (calories)!
Tremblay et al. (1994), tested 20 weeks of endurance training versus 15 weeks of interval training. The endurance group burned a total of 28,661 calories during their runs, while the interval group only burned 13,614 calories in their workouts. The endurance group burned twice as many calories during their workout; BUT, the interval group burned 9 times amount of subcutaneous body fat; not because of what happened when they worked out, but what continued to happen after the workout was over.
These studies prove that what workout you do, aerobic/endurance training vs resistance training and Met-Cons, has a varied overall effect in raising your resting metabolic rate.
We discussed above that resistance training is one way to increase EPOC, but metabolic conditioning (Met-Cons at AMPT) is the best way!!! Met-Cons are defined by full body explosive movements that require a large out put of energy; done as intervals our bodies can rest and repeat exercises close to max effort again. We repeat this for multiple sets.
Think of Met-Cons like your gas mileage. Compare stomping on the gas and accelerating to the next stop and slamming on the brakes repeatedly, to driving on cruise control on the freeway. Driving fast in the city is going to burn a lot of gas, where cruising on the freeway used gas slowly. Met-Cons are going to burn a lot more calories than cruising along the road.
We hope this helps you to be confident in putting more energy, and what time you do have, into a progressive resistance training program with metabolic conditioning workouts, that are supplemented with active recovery days.
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