Scott Free Thinking

Okay, so some of you may not know - walking is actually a form of exercise, and in fact, in linking to the completion of my Associate’s degree, I am completing a Fitness Walking class. Wow. But I’ll be honest: I didn’t intend to actually do anything with this class. In fact, with a title like Walking, I was ready to be given an easy time. So far, it has been easy, very easy. However, from what I know about cardiovascular workouts and aerobics, there is some sense to actually walking properly. Are classes and schools doing it the way they should be? Erm, I’m still sort of evaluating that.

One thing that you will be told about by virtually any personal trainer if your goal is to have a lean, healthy body type is that you will need to do cardio, and lots of it. This means spending a lot of time doing either particular kinds of exercises, or time spent on different kinds of machines such as treadmills, stairs, ellipticals, and so on. They will probably recommend you do cardio about five times a week for some serious results in a brief period of time, and by brief period of time we are probably talking about weeks, or a month or two.

From just what I have learned about physical fitness and nutrition in the past two months, I have noticed something. American society is getting fatter and lazier, and with that fatness and laziness is coming something else: a physically uneducated public as well as an increased demand for physical training and gym memberships. Some people are not even bothering with the gym, they figure: “well, it can’t be that hard, I just have to work my ass off.” And sure you do, but that’s not all there is to it. You have got to be smart about your efforts, and with that comes a body of knowledge that is currently nicely protected by high prices and premiums.

It is no wonder people are going through short college terms to become physical trainers: it is not a bad way to make a living. With fewer and fewer people in good physical condition, the few that are usually know exactly what they’re doing, and with that they know what price to charge for their knowledge and services. What I do not understand about some of these people, however, is the lack of motivation they have for losing weight, building better muscle tone, or for another matter just being healthy. They would rather be fat, watch television, drink beer, and God knows what than to be healthy, beautiful, and living a great life. Makes sense, but in the defense of the obese - not all of them are lazy. Many are trying to do something about it.

My girlfriend Kim and I can recall periods of time during high school in which you had to run a mile in under 12 minutes in order to pass the course. Some people are in such decrepit condition, they can’t run a mile in under 12 minutes. And not only can they not run a mile in under 12 minutes, pushing themselves to do so when they are not ready is actually unhealthy, and bad for their bodies. Do the P.E. coaches know? Maybe. Do they care? Obviously not. Let’s consider a point that science has shown us.

There are a few different ways to start shaping and molding your body to a healthier state, and we are not just talking about a healthier appearance, we are talking about being healthy from within. Typically, the lower your resting heart rate is, the healthier you are. If you have arteries that are clogged up, heart complications, or are just generally heavier set than you are supposed to be for your height and age, then chances are your resting heart rate is higher than it is supposed to be. This means that your working heart rate, the rate your heart works when you exercise, also likely has to be lower in order for your body to gain any sort of muscle mass. If your heart rate goes over its ideal rate during exercise, you will literally lose muscle mass, and what does that mean? That means that once that muscle is gone, fat is left over. You will increase your body fat percentage by working too hard.

What else happens if you work too hard? Let’s say you are a raving, radical, fanatical dieter who takes in a tiny little portion of food that equates to 300 calories. You spend 30 minutes doing a cardio workout, raising your heart rate above where it is meant to be and burning off about 280 calories. That leaves 20 calories left for your body to sustain itself. What will it do with the rest of the food you eat? It will store it, and once again you’ll be losing muscle, getting fatter, and wondering why your exercise is not working.

When I first came to understand these concepts, it was a bit confusing to say the least. You mean to tell me that if I work my ass off I’ll actually get fat?! Yeah, it’s kind of a strange idea, but fat is not necessarily what you will become. Effectively what will happen over time is that you will appear thinner, you will lose weight, because you are burning more calories than you body is consuming, but if that heart rate has been too high all the time you will have lost muscle tone. You will be thinner, squishier, frail, and generally speaking a bit more unhealthy than you were before. Will you look better? Eh, perhaps a little bit, but there is a better way to go about all of this.

Most people do not want to be big and bulky with a lot of muscle. Most people generally want a lean body type, and so do I, so that’s what I will spend a little bit of time talking about here. Part of what allows people to stay thin, as well as healthy, is their metabolism. Now, virtually every living thing in the universe metabolizes by definition, and essentially what it means is to utilize energy. The higher your metabolism, the more your body is able to utilize the energy in your food, and essentially burn more calories. The more exercise you get over an extended period of time, the higher you can raise your default metabolism. Everyone, genetically, contains a default metabolism before exercise and this is where much of the notion that obesity can be genetic comes from: largely from a inherited trait that gives a slow metabolism.

Food can be divided up into units of energy that know as calories. In a typical McDonald’s Big Mac meal, you are probably consuming about 1070 calories(derived from McDonalds.com nutrition information) counting the sandwich, fries, and drink. Oh, and if you’d like to add condiments, it might add as much as 40 calories to the meal, which would put you at just a little over 1100 calories. Depending on who you are, you may need anywhere from 3000-4000 calories in a day to maintain your weight. If you are dieting, often times people will diet with the 2000 calorie per day diet, not consuming over that amount. Consider for a moment that a single McDonald’s Big Mac meal gives you over a third of your total daily calorie requirement. Do you like cheeseburgers? On average, they’ll give you even more than that of a Big Mac. Okay, we all know fast food is unhealthy, but I want to just make a point here.

Consuming that many calories in one sitting at one time can be a lot for your body to handle. If it is something you do on a regular basis, much of that energy is not needed right away and therefore will almost immediately begin to be stored as excess energy, or fat, after consuming it. The best way to aid your metabolism in terms of your nutrition and eating habits in relation to calories is to consume less calories, more times throughout the day. This trains your body to burn the energy it takes in and thusly encourages a leaner body type. Three meals below 600 calories combined with small snacks throughout the day is actually better for you than the commonly preached healthy diet of three big meals for the entire day.

One problem that may bother you, and definitely bothers me, about this whole situation is the fact that United States culture is simply not conducive to this aspect of healthy living. Everyone is on the go, on schedule, and pushed to carry out particular tasks that force them to be away from food, or at least healthy food, much of the time throughout their day. The economic machine that makes the United States one of the wealthiest countries in the world with a great standard of living is also the very thing that aids the increasing obesity epidemic, and with that: the vastly dangerous outbreak of heart disease.

But let’s not just talk about calories, let’s talk about what makes up those calories, or units of energy. While Subway sort of exaggerates its claims a little bit, in some areas, about being THAT much healthier than McDonald’s, consider for a moment that between what I mentioned about about a 1070 Big Mac meal, a Subway footlong sandwich or Subway meal itself might contain as many as 800-850 calories. During a 30 minute workout, you can easily burn a solid 200-250 calories, which is good in the sense that essentially if you combine Subway with sufficient exercise you’re actually consuming a solid 200-300 calories less, almost all the time, and with that you are about 400 or so calories “healthier.”

But why else should you choose Subway over McDonald’s? Subway contains ingredients that are thinly sliced pieces of turkey, ham, or other sandwich meats. In smaller portions, this could be much easier for your body to digest. Secondly, Subway contains a vast amount of healthier items such as its vegetables over McDonald’s. Subway you can consume not only less calories, but more healthy calories. 2/3 the calories with up to four times the amount of pickles, lettuce, tomato, and other good foods that your body can utilize more efficiently.

Fast food may not be the best example, because in general it might be a better idea simply to avoid fast food all together. But what it does show you is a commonly understood relationship between two different sets of food, and how those foods are better for you than the others. While I think the physical fitness industry has gone overboard with some of these products like protein shakes, protein bars, and similar high-protein foods, there is some legitimacy to it, and sometimes having some of these carefully produced foods throughout the day prior and after workouts can be more beneficial to you that those Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pie’s. Oh yeah, more beneficial by a long shot. Perhaps some other time I will talk about these sorts of products in more detail. The first place you may want to look is the brand that is in partnership with 24 Hour Fitness, called Apex.

In the future, I will talk more about the progress I have made in my own fitness goals as well as the routines and exercises I used to get there. In addition, I’ll also give a lot more emphasis to different body types, and overall different scenarios. Hopefully, though, for the completely uninformed, I’ve given you something here to get you started.