#workoutanddiet

Aiming to shed some body fat? Let’s share some basic human physiology facts that affects metabolism of fat and body composition. From the origins of human species, the food was scarce and our body tend to save it for times of fasting. There are many reasons for this, and I won't rehearse them for you now. Diet is arguably also more important for increasing insulin sensitivity, which is the biggest driver of chronic disease.

Relation of insulin sensitivity to fat loss and gain

Basic thermodynamic applies to human metabolism too.  So if you are active by either working on aerobic exercises or if you prefer resistance training you’ll enhance your energy expenditure and on effect start mobilizing fat into burring process. How that happens by breaking up fats into free fatty acids and glycerides which are then taken to muscle mitochondria and broken down all the way to the water and carbon-dioxide. In essence, by strength loading your muscles you’re going to enhance your mitochondria and mobilize fat. But it's a big mistake not to include resistance training in a health-improving fat-loss program.

Resistance (strength) training is more effective than endurance training for fat loss

Resistance (strength) training is more effective than endurance training at improving body composition (ratio of muscle to fat tissue) and insulin sensitivity. The higher effectiveness of resistance training is likely due in large measure because it's simply more difficult. In the words of the cited paper, it produces "a large metabolic stress". Endurance training falls short on that score. Frequenting different gyms, I noticed people do not exercise with enough intensity. Their usual practice is to do a fixed number of repetitions, and stop, whether they could have done more or not. Then they rest a bit, and do another set. Then repeat.

Free weights: how heavy the weight should be?

Most of the men in the gym also focus on how heavy the weight is. The point is not to lift weights, the point is to stress muscles by putting a load on them. To move those heavy weights around, they use momentum, and jerk the weights – lots of body English. That does at least a couple of things: It increases the risk of injury.It fails to load the target muscles properly.My mantra as always is that the most important aspect of working out is to remain injury-free. People perceive resistance training as too hard – and it is hard if done properly. Most programs for fat loss don't seem to include resistance training for their members. You don't get a large metabolic stress without some work. But because of the perception of difficulty, they may be afraid

Resistance training is effective for fat loss

Resistance training is simply mandatory to get the full benefits of any fat-loss program, and the same applies to better insulin sensitivity. Gene expression was remarkably moved toward that of much younger people, when older adults did resistance training. To get the results from resistance training, it simply must be difficult. To get that large metabolic stress, you can't just do 3 sets of 10 reps with 2 minutes rest in between each set. However, you can do it in a short amount of time.

Intensity of workout dictates the volume – number of repetitions

Most people don't even start resistance training not only because of the level of perceived difficulty, but because of the perceived time commitment. The more intense the workouts, the more you have to cut back on volume. You can get very fit and healthy in one hour a week of dedicated resistance training. Even 30 minutes, or even less, can result in significant improvements in health and strength.

What type of exercise suits your needs best?

Many people think you need to do different types of exercise to get certain results. For example, you need to do aerobics for cardiovascular fitness, and resistance training to build muscle and strength. Or that there's a fundamental difference between using free weights and resistance training machines. All of these have something in common, and all starts at the level of the muscle cell. When someone runs, they are using leg muscles to move their body. The cardiovascular and respiratory systems ramp up in order to supply muscle with nutrients and oxygen, and to remove waste products.

When muscles work, the cardiovascular and respiratory system follow

When resistance training, the muscles, and heart and lungs, don't know whether they're encountering a free weight or a machine. Any type of exercise or any type of physical activity involves using the skeletal muscles to perform work. Resistance training results in changes in muscle, making muscle more efficient. The changes start with molecular signaling, and this happens with just one bout of exercise. One of the most important results of this signaling is an increase in the number and size of mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell. Makes perfect sense, since exercise increases your capacity to do work, and allows you to do the work you perform more efficiently.

Resistance training is the most effective for gaining muscle mass

Resistance training increases the molecular signaling that results in more and better mitochondria even more so than endurance training, or steady-state aerobics. When people did endurance training, followed by resistance training, the molecular signaling was enhanced. This is likely due to the greater intensity of resistance training as compared to aerobics. Cycling or jogging simply does not stress the muscles enough to get the full molecular signal which resistance training promotes. All of this is a lot of physiology which you may or may not be interested in, and you certainly don't have to know it to get results from your exercise. But the point is, any kind of exercise starts at the level of the muscle. Then the cardiovascular and respiratory systems kick in to support the muscle. Resistance training supports cardiovascular fitness in this way.

Endurance training imposes a breaking down impulse to the muscle