In today's world, physical appearance has become paramount. People are judged aesthetically every day in every walk of life whether it is proper to do or not. Most of our first impressions of people we meet are drawn from their physical appearance. Many of us share the common goal of becoming more physically fit and desirable, but at the same time, we all have different starting points and take different paths to get to our goals. I will outline 2 common goals and how to reach them in a healthy way:
**PLEASE KEEP IN MIND In order to reach these goals, a healthy, clean diet is going to be necessary to compliment the following advice.**
1) For those who are obese or overweight and want to lose fat
- As we know, obesity is a big issue today. For those who are overweight or obese, cardio training is going to be your best friend. A good cardio routine can include walking, jogging, interval sprints, swimming, biking; basically anything that will raise your heart rate. there's a common myth i hear very often and it is that "you know you're burning fat when you're sweating." The way to burn fat is to get your heart rate going. Lets say for example your resting heart rate is 70 BPM; in order to get the heart beating and get the body to burn fat, we need cardio. Going for a light jog will do just that. Your BPM will increase to 120 (just choosing round numbers here), and that is when fat burning is taking place.
There is, however, a better (but more intense) way to burn fat; I present to you HIIT. HIIT stands for "high intensity interval training." HIIT involves short bursts in which you spring as hard and fast as possible. So with this method, were not going on that long, slow jog. With HIIT, were doing short bursts. An example of HIIT would be sprinting as fast as you can for 91 meters (or 100 yards), resting for 1 minute, then doing the same thing. You are training in highly intense bursts with a short rest in between. Fat is burned the quickest when you have your heart rate going up, then back down, then up again, as opposed to keeping it in one steady place.
2) For those who are trying to bulk up (add muscle)
-Adding muscle requires a delicate balance of proper resistance training, and an almost perfect diet. Ill attack the diet part of it first:
In order to gain weight, whether it is fat or muscle, one must up his/ her caloric intake. Everybody has a BMR (basal metabolic rate). A BMR is basically just a number (calories) that shows how much energy your body uses at rest. So if your BMR is 2,000 cals, that means your body will burn 2,000 calories a day, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT MOVE OFF YOUR COUCH, in order to perform its bodily functions. We also have a specific number of calories that we must reach daily to *maintain* our current weight.
For example, if a man is 6'4" weighs 220LBS, is 25 years old and has a very active lifestyle, his maintenance number would be roughly 3,800 calories; meaning that in order to maintain his weight of 220LBS, he must consume 3,800 cals per day. In this section, were talking about bulking up. So what you must do is find your 'maintenance number', and slightly exceed that. So again, if my maintenance number is 3,800, if my goal is to bulk up, i may have to consume 4,000 calories per day because in order for muscle to grow, it needs to be fed the proper nutrition. The calories added must be smart calories though; one cannot just eat Hershey chocolate and cookies and say "great, I've increased my caloric intake" :)
The second most important part of your diet while bulking up is your protein intake. Good, clean protein comes from fish, turkey, chicken, some red meats... Generally speaking, you want to consume 1 gram of protein per body weight, so if you weigh 150LBS, you will want to try to consume 150g of protein. I hear a lot of people ask about protein shakes. Protein shakes are just a way to get those extra grams of protein that you need if you haven't fulfilled your protein intake for the day. If you can meet your protein intake for the day just with eating food, then you dont need the shake.. If you're 150LBS and you notice that you can't eat 150g of protein via food, then you can take the protein shake so you can fulfill the missing grams of protein.
Now that the diet aspect is out of the way, lets talk about lifting. When ones goal is to add muscle, one must lift heavier weight for fewer reps. So if you're benching for example, instead of doing 100LBS for 5 sets of 12 reps, youd do maybe 8 sets of 4 reps with 130LBS. That is what will add muscle to your frame. Remember to focus on your entire body; men love to work the chest and biceps, but a lot of easy muscle weight can be added to the legs because of how much bigger they are.
**Like i said above, please keep in mind that diet is huge when trying to reach these goals. A hard worker in the gym negates his efforts by going home and eating junk.
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