Swimming.

I know that most people would agree with me except for the fact the a lot of people can’t swim.  At least not to the point where their swimming would actually help them lose weight.  But I promise that if you take a little bit of time to learn the basic, not only will this be a fun activity for you, it will also help obliterate the most stubborn of fat!

So let’s talk about the great benefits of swimming;

1.  Very, very easy on the joints!
I’ve also recently started running and while I’m enjoying both, I find I get much better results with swimming.  My muscle’s still hurt after I swim, (mainly because I push myself even in the pool) but a day after swimming and my joints are doing just fine thank you!  In fact, swimming actually helps me get more flexible and makes my joints feel real good!

2.  Mega calories burned
The amount of calories you can burn during swimming is unbelievable.  Mainly because swimming requires your whole body working at the same time.  Your muscles, joints, skeleton, lungs, heart, brain – everything is working to move you through the water!  All this movement takes energy…and that energy has to come from somewhere!  In fact, the amount of calories you burn doesn’t just come from the exercise itself, but in the hours after as well.  This occurs because your muscles have been broken down and must repair – bang!  Prolonged calorie burn.

Of course I’d be re-miss if I didn’t offer some setbacks to swimming. (It saddens me to even mention this small, small hurdles)

1.  Swimming can be expensive
If you don’t live by the ocean, or a river, or lake or if you don’t have a pool in your back yard – finding a place to swim could be difficult for you!  And if you do find a place, it’s probably a community centre where you’ll pay a fee but have to share the pool with kids throwing balls around!  Of course if you’re serious about your health you’d want to do the BEST exercise to be healthy…wouldn’t you?

2.  Bathing fashions are quick to change
Don’t take up swimming if your ‘fashionably-challenged’!  Seriously though…this is the only other drawback I could think of.

So what do you think?  Is swimming for you?  Are you ready to take the plunge?  Drop me a line and let me know what you’ve decided and why you chosen to swim or not-swim.

Imagine if the men and women who have traveled into space simply ‘hoped’ that they’d get there.  Imagine they lived their lives without having done any training or planning before they left earth.  Quite frankly, if this was the case, they’d be dead.  Not being ready for something as harsh as space is a deadly endeavour.  I’d like to suggest that changing your life can have the same types of pitfalls, and that unless we’re prepared to handle the challenges, all the hoping in the world just won’t cut it.

Preparing for the Journey
Before you set out to lose a lot of weight, you have to count the cost.  Not only setting goals, but determining what it’s going to take to meet those goals – and what price you’re willing to pay!  This is an introspective step where you’ll have to really dig deep and challenge your priorities.  Do I like my size?  Is my sizing keeping me from doing things I’d love to do?  You’ll answer questions like this in the beginning.  During this type of thinking you’ll be looking ahead 8-12 months.  Long term goals are vital to keeping you motivated and moving forward!

Preparing for your Goals
The next step is to get specific with your goals.  How will you measure them?  Who will measure them?  Who will you be accountable too?  At this point you’ll pick some short term goals (4-8 weeks) and answer the ‘how’ questions.  Maybe you’ll be cutting out soda and replacing it with water.  Maybe it means going to the gym once a week.  Whatever your goals, make sure you can mesure them.  Preparation at this stage is crucial to your long-term success!

Preparing for your Week
Finally, you need to prepare for your week.  Meals, workouts and personal development should all be scheduled so you don’t miss it.  Most people believe a lie that to really help others is to forget about yourself.  This is not true.  Obviously we don’t want to be self-centred, but to forget about yourself means not being in the best shape or mental alertness for the people around you!  I’ve recently learned this.  If I want to serve my family and friends, I need to be in top shape.  Setting weekly goals and planning properly means that I’m leaving nothing to chance.

These are only a few suggestions for being prepared but ultimately if you don’t prepare for your transformation, you won’t be ready to see it through.  Preparation is absolutely necessary for success because when life throws things at you that you’re not expecting, that’s not the time to be trying to ‘stick to a diet/routine/etc…’

Let me know how your transformations are going!  You can join the 100lbChallenge group at Facebook by going here.  Or drop me a line at matt@100lbchallenge.com

I believe in you.

The first thing we have to do is take out the trash. The fitness world is filled with lots of different exercise methods, each one touting that its method is the single best way to shed fat. Each method has lots of testimonials and science to back up their claims. Unfortunately, each method also has lots of people who have used that method without any success whatsoever and there is also a lot of science to argue that the method doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at helping anyone shed fat.

Some people might say that different programs work for different people but I’ve never really bought into that whole idea. On the whole, we all have the same basic human physiology which functions about the same. We all put on our pants one leg at a time and we all lose fat for the same reason.

My argument is that the exercise method you select has just as much of chance at helping you lose weight as any other. It’s not that one method is better than another; it’s that they all roughly do the same thing, which is make the body utilize more energy.

At the heart of all weight loss, we have the issue of storing too much energy in the form of fat within out adipose tissue. To get rid of it, we must make use of that energy in some shape or form. The good news is that you can use that stored energy for anything from playing with the kids to Jell-O wrestling. The body uses fat, to at least some degree, for darn near anything you do.

With this is mind, we can throw away all of the hype and hoopla about what exercises are best, and simply concentrate on how we can use up the most energy possible. The more energy you use, the more you stand to burn. All forms of exercise can help you dump loads of energy-laden fat. At the same time, they can also all hardly make a dent. It all boils down to 3 variables.

Fat Blasting Variable #1 – Duration of Exercise
It’s pretty simple math. You burn more energy walking for 20 minutes than you do for 10. You’ll also burn more walking for 30 minutes instead of 20. The more time you spend doing a given activity, the more you burn.

Fat Blasting Variable #2 – Intensity of Exercise
If you’re walking along and suddenly the hill becomes steeper, you will burn more energy with each step simply because you have to work harder. Adding a few more pounds to the bar, increasing the pace or turning up the resistance will do the same.

Fat Blasting Variable #3 – Muscle Mass Involvement
Simply put, the more muscle you involve in a given activity, the more energy you require. Sitting still and flexing your hand uses small muscles that don’t require a whole lot of energy. However a few burpees that involve almost every muscle in your whole body will use substantially more.
Those are the only 3 things I’ve discovered that you can change to affect how much fat you are actively burning off with exercise. These variables can be applied to any form of exercise you wish. This means that any exercise can be fantastically effective, or almost completely useless.

Someone might say kickboxing burns more energy than Yoga. But when we start playing around with the variables, we can make yoga burn more fat than kickboxing. I’m willing to bet an hour of yoga will burn more energy than 10 minutes of kickboxing. Especially if the kickboxing is done in a relaxed manner and the yoga is done with a lot of muscle burning static poses.

Of course it goes without saying that some forms of exercise would probably hedge your bets better than others. If you just want to dump as much energy possible, I would recommend a very long and very intense form of activity that uses as muscle as possible.  A 7-hour cross-country ski race comes to mind. At the opposite spectrum would be something like twirling a pencil through our fingers for 30 seconds.

With these three variables in mind, we can see how some exercises have their pros and cons. Running is good because it can be done for a while and can be pretty intense. Walking can be done for even longer, but the intensity is not quite as high. Strength training can be super intense but it doesn’t typically happen for more than 20-30 seconds at a time.

It is also worth noting that the time and intensity variables run in opposition to each other. The more intense an exercise is, the less time you can do it before fatigue forces you to slow down. This is partially why it’s so difficult to burn a lot of energy very quickly. Both of these variables keep the other in check forcing the time variable to always be what I call the master variable. No matter what you do, it’s going to take a considerable amount of time to use up a considerable amount of energy.

The point is that energy burned is energy burned, and that there is no such thing as exercise that “makes you thin”. If it burns energy, it will help you lose weight and the more energy you burn off the more it will help contribute.

Don’t get sucked into the trap of thinking about fat burning zones, carbohydrate metabolism versus fat metabolism, or energy burned through the “after burn” after an exercise. These sorts of things do little to nothing to make any real difference when it comes to weight loss. They are not worth the effort to consider. By focusing on time, intensity and muscle involvement, you will have everything you need to maximize your fat loss efforts through exercise.

To contact Matt Schifferle you can email matt@thefitrebel.com or go to RedDeltaProject.com

It’s been a long time since I’ve played basketball.  A VERY long time.  A friend and I decided that on Thursdays and Mondays during lunch we’re going to start playing 1 on 1.  Today was our first day. By the time we had played our first minute, my breathing was heavy and shallow and I could barely move!  I have a LONG way to go before I attempt some of the goals I’m working towards.  Consistency is going to be the key if I want to improve.

Truth be told, I actually didn’t do too bad.  I mean, we only played to 5 points but that took us 20 minutes!  With a  warmup and cool down we spent a solid 30 minutes playing.  I didn’t win, but I did manage to score 3 points.

Cardio has always been one of those things that I love to think about, but I don’t love to do.  By playing a sport with other people, I can see myself staying motivated to keep going from week to week.

Thank you to those who read this blog.  Don’t forget to leave a comment and hit the ‘like’ button on this post!  It let’s me know that people are reading!