It seems that many of our personal training programs are based around the need to compensate for over indulgence on thee weekend, or at festive times such as Easter and Christmas holidays. This is when things generally take a dive, but with guidance from your trainer in the months in between, you can make a difference and keep body fat at a lower percentage.
From a trainer perspective we could spend the first half of the week getting clients back into the fat burning phase because clients have over loaded on carbs on the weekend.
You must get your body in a fat burning state in order to get the results quicker.
What is the perfect condition for the body to drop body fat?
There is a certain state that lends itself well to dropping body fat. That state is slightly “carb depleted”. (The easiest way to do this is to increase your protein intake and reduce your carb intake).
When the body is storing a limited amount of carbs in the muscles, it tends to use stored body fat for energy. This is idea. But if they are “carbed up” all the time, they are very unlikely to get lean. So even though they have loads of energy to do a solid workout, most of the energy used is from the carbs component and not the fats, unless you would like to spend at least 2 hours per session to eventually deplete the carbs then continue to burn fats which is unrealistic.
We know that the body will use fuel accordingly
High intensity training will help you burn more total calories and mainly from carbs. During a long slower session you burn less calories however you burn more from body fat storage.
If you were to look at anyone that has lost weight successfully regardless of the diet they followed, you will find that some key point will sound similar in all the different diet patterns, the same rules apply more exercise and less calories consumed.
How to do cardio to quickly reduce the carbs in your system
Avoid long cardio workouts (more then 90 min) it’s just unrealistic for weight loss (even though it works). It's difficult to sustain.
Think along the lines of jogging medium to hard or riding a bike for 45-60 minutes. By doing a sustained jog or bike ride etc this is a good way to burn carbs and get back to the best condition to burn body fat. So instead of waiting for 2-3 days of clean eating to get back to a slightly carb depleted state, you can get there within a day.
When to incorporate long cardio sessions
This type of cardio should be used on a limited basis to get the body back to where it needs to be. Let’s say you ate pizza on Saturday and went to a BBQ on Sunday, then if you felt a bit “carbed up” you would do a longer more drawn out cardio session on Monday to get your body back to fat burning mode.
From that point on you would stick to HIIT (high intensity interval training) or body weight circuits. You would also clean up your diet for the remainder of the week.
Finally
The main thing to remember is that if you are eating less calories, you need to be careful that the cardio sessions are brief and focused . If your diet is carb loaded you will want to incorporate longer cardio sessions to get your body to the right condition. Once this is achieved you will want to stick with mainly HIIT and continue to tighten up your diet.
Need help to get back on track? Call our email us and let's get your program started.