Exercise Intensity: The Key to Losing Fat and Gaining Muscle

The following information has been gathered and compiled through personal experience while traveling, teaching T'ai Chi, Qi Gong, Chinese Herbal medicine, health and wellness, martial arts and contains feedback from students and anecdotal information from readers of my columns. The following are my opinions and deductions from those sources.

When I was racing bicycles, my strong points were hills and the long haul. If it came down to a sprint, I ended somewhere back in the pack. As things in my life changed, my workouts had to change with them. When riding for hours became writing for hours, I had to look for something that would answer my needs. My answer was: intensifying the workout and fitting it into the time available, as opposed to stressing out trying to fit too many things into a twenty-four hour day. I also changed from a bike seat and running shoes to light weights, power walking and yoga.

If you don't have an hour to walk, or you lost weight in the beginning and can't seem to lose those last few pounds, try shortening the time but increasing the intensity. I'm told by some that weights are boring. I don't know, I don't spend much time with my weights. Every half hour or so, I get up from the computer and do three or four different exercises at one hundred repetitions using 6.6 pound hand weights. The cadence is as fast as I can manage. It gets my heart rate up, tones the muscles and loosens the kinks I've accumulated while staring at a computer screen and tapping on the keyboard.

If weight loss is your goal, you need to keep in mind what's called homeostasis. The body will adapt to an exercise regimen and calorie intake level. By upping the intensity of your workout and lowering the calorie intake, or substituting real whole foods for empty calories and pseudo health foods, you can break the grip of homeostasis.