Counter-inuitive Fitness

For the past several years I have played around at getting in shape.  This year I not only got serious about my own health and fitness, I also got serious about learning all I can on the subject. After reading several books and dozens of blogs and articles I have reached a few conclusions:

• Most people fail because they quit too soon. They don't allow the body time to adjust to the changes that are taking place. A few early discouragements and they are toast.
• I believe many of us lack a sincere faith in our own ability to succeed. I know that was the case  with me after so many failed attemps. Early discouragement led to low self-confidence that led to giving up.
• Finally, I believe that too many of us accept what others have told us, conventional thinking, or our own misconceptions and that is deadly to an effective program. A perfect example is counting calories (all calories are not the same. 50 grams of refined sugar has a much different affect on the body that 50 grams of a high-fiber energy). We will look at lots of other misconceptions in future blogs.

I have learned that a lot of my own pre-concieved ideas of health and fitness where holding me back. Let me give you a few tips that might be helpful.

• Water: If you read the earlier blog on water you understand its importance to fitness, but the biggest misconception is the fear of gaining water-weight. Your body stores water when you fail to adequeately hydrate. We were at the beach last week and had problems with water retention in our hands and feet. Being in the sun we suffered mild dehydration and our body compensated by trying to protect our water stores - it shoved them into our hands and feet.
• Eat Often: I now eat 5 times a day. Sometimes it may only be an energy bar between lunch and dinner, or an apple in the mid-morning, but I feed my body regularly - just feed it less. The body does the same thing when you "starve it" as it does when you deprive it of water - it slows your metabolism and stores fat. It thinks you are being deprived of food, so it adjusts. It goes back to hunter-gatherer days when people ate what they could forage throughout hte day.
• Melting the Fat: I am working hard, walking, running, and exercising why is it taking so long to burn off the fat. I used to envision fat in a frying pan - how it just melts under the heat. The painful truth is that fat burns fewer calories than muscle. If you have let your self go, then the first part of the journey back is the hardest. The good news is that every pound of muscle you build will burn 300-500 additional calories a week (with no extra effort). Debbie & I were discouraged at first, but now that we have replaced much of the body fat with lean muscle, we are calorie burning machines. We can go out and splurge one evening, eat an extra 1,000 calories and burn them off the next day with moderate exercise - that wouldn't and didn't happen before we got rid of the fat.  BE PATIENT and PERSEVERE - the rewards are amazing.
• Metabolism: It isn't true that a young person's metabolism burns more calories than an older person. A recent study showed that when a 20 year old and a 50 year old (same basic body type) followed the same diet and exercise patterns, the 20 year old burned about 495 calories while the 50 year old burned 465. At 53, I am living proof you can get your metabolism running at a high rate again.

Don't wait to get started. The single best thing I did was find a program that gave me structure. Most of you know that I am a huge fan of Advocare. The 24 Day Challenge transformed me, and now I regularly use Advocare products to help me stay fit, burn the last little bit of fat, and build healthy muscle. If I can help you, email me at trentwheeler@rocketmail.com, or visit my advocare site to learn more www.advocare.com/12044713 or www.trentwheeler.com.

Next Post: Everything is a Drug