Is Your Workout Making You Fat? - THE FIT MUM FORMULA

Is Your Workout Making You Fat?

Think I am crazy?

Quite possibly not, as unless you understand the indirect effect different types of exercise have on your body, you may be taking one step forward and two steps back when it comes to fatloss.

Firstly, hunger. People don’t just hit the gym café after a workout out of habit – cardiovascular exercise such as jogging, swimming and spinning classes increase hunger. This makes biological sense as you have of course just burned off a load of calories, (though, on that note, probably not nearly as many as you think compared to just going about your daily business; showering, getting kids up and dressed and getting ready for work burns calories too you know!).

However if your aim is to lose weight then replacing the calories you’ve just burnt is not going to help you progress! And here’s the thing with cardio; the hunger induced is not proportionate to the calories required to refuel, so you are actually very likely to eat more than you’ve just burnt off!

Cardio exercise also induces the release of stress hormones. Whilst these play an important role in survival (fight or flight) and body functions including inflammatory responses, glucose metabolism and immune functioning, negative effects of excess stress hormones can have negative effects on cognitive function, emotional wellbeing, cardiovascular health and bone density amongst other things, and to add to that in excess they burn muscle and store fat!

However cardiovascular exercise can of course be included in a healthy lifestyle, but you need to take actions to reduce the levels of stress hormones in your body if it is to be beneficial.

So what should you do if you want to burn fat? Resistance training, weights and intense workouts (short sprints rather than long jogs) build muscle, which in turn speeds up your metabolism and burns fat.

When combined with sufficient dietary protein, the stress hormone cortisol actually becomes your friend and encourages more muscle formation and repair rather than burning it. After exercising is also the time to eat starchy carbs to refuel your tired muscles and repair them, rather than before you work out when the food would be used as energy instead of burning existing stores.

And finally, walk as much as possible – it’s a little bit calorie burning, a little bit muscle building, and a lot of stress busting!

🙂


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2 comments
Djole says March 4, 2016

I did almost excatly that. I lost 40 lbs spread out over 6 months. The first three months I was not following a very low cal diet, I was eating 1500-1600 cals a day. I did yoga (power yoga, 1 hr) 3x a week, and was running about 2x a week (1-1.5 miles each time). I lost 20 lbs during that time. Then I went on vacation for a month, didn’t count any calories or exercise at all, but didn’t gain any weight. When I came back, I started exercising again. I this time ate 1200-1300 calories a day, attended 4 (sometimes 5) power yoga classes a week, and only ran on average once a week (1-1.5 miles). I lost the last 20 lbs during that two months.I definitely think that the power yoga + low cal diet combo works wonders. I saw differences in my body (look and strength) after just a month of that. I don’t think the running really had anything to do with it, it was minimal, and I just did it bc occasionally I feel like it. I did the math, and I lost .5-1 lbs per week more on the last 2 months than on the first 3. Part of that is that I was eating less, but those power yoga classes burned a lot more than the running workouts I did. And the last 2 months I did 1-2 more yoga workouts and one less running workout per week, as compared to the first 3 months.And, I was so incredibly flexible. As I’ve said before on Y!A, I was so flexible that economy airline seats were comfortable. I could just fold up and be comfy. I really have to get back into doing yoga regularly!

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Polly says October 19, 2016

wow 40lb that’s amazing! You must be really proud, as you should be! It’s great you’ve found something that’s worked for you. Yoga is something I definitely want to do more of, perhaps when my youngest starts school next year?!

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