The numbers on your scale do not indicate whether you are fit or fat. Far more significant than your total body weight is the composition of your body tissue. If a man’s fatty tissue is bigger than 14% up to 15% of his body mass, or if a woman is more than 20% to 22%, he or she is overweight, or more precisely, overfat.
A small amount of fat is
needed for padding the internal organs and as insulation under the skin. Excess
fat leads to such diseases as diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, coronary
artery disease, and gallbladder problems. There are very few, very fat persons.
The reason is that the fittest, not the fattest survive.
The problem now is
focused on how to resolve the problem. The problem with most people who want to
lose weight is that they have the propensity to concentrate more on getting
those numbers lower than what they are seeing now. What happens next is that
they strive harder to achieve a lower weight, according to the “ever reliable”
result of the weighing scale.
It would be more important
to think of the human body as a heat-exchange engine that works on the basic
principles of energy physics. The caloric balance equals the total calorie
intake minus the total calorie expenditure.
Some of the calories
people ingest are used for basal metabolism. As people get old, their bodies
require fewer calories for this basic upkeep. Some calories are excreted as
waste products. Some go into “work metabolism,” the energy expenditure required
for any physical activity.
Hence, if people take in
more calories than are used by these functions, there is a definite caloric
excess. By the laws of physics, energy is transformed rather than destroyed. In
this case, each excess of 3,500 calories is changed into a pound of fat. If
people want to reverse this process, they have to burn up 3,500 calories to
lose a single pound.
Winning the War Against
Fat
When you think of
fighting fat with exercise, you probably think of hours of hard, sweaty
exertion. If this is the case, then, you will not get any farther. This is
because people who are so much into losing more by exerting more effort tend to
get bored easily.
Why? Because experts
contend that when people exert more effort than what they are capable of doing
creates a tendency to develop weariness and ennui. Hence, they give up, stop
doing their routine exercises, and end up sulking in the corner with a bag of
chips that seems to have all the bad calories in this world.
Now, you might ask,
"What should be done instead?" The answer: cross-training.
After some intensive
studies and experimentations, health experts were able to come up with the
concept of incorporating cross-training to overcome or break the monotony or
dullness in an exercise program.
Cross-training refers to
the integration of diverse movements or activities into a person’s conventional
exercise routine. The main purpose of incorporating cross training into an
exercise program is to avoid overdoing excess muscle damages and to put a stop
to an imminent boredom.
Three of the most
commonly used activities whenever a person decides to engage in cross-training
are swimming, running, and cycling.
In cross-training,
distance is one way to extend your activity as your condition improves. For
this reason, you need to traverse a measured distance.
If possible, swim the
course and measure the distance. If you will be using a running track, such
courses usually are a quarter-mile per lap for a complete circuit.
Cross-training offers a
variety of benefits for fitness and fat loss. It builds up the strength and
endurance of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels. It has also some
tranquilizing effect on the nerves, and it burns up calories as much as it
makes your “losing weight” more bearable.
Cross-training has three
basic components:
1. Endurance exercises
to condition the heart, lungs, and blood vessels and to induce relaxation.
These begin with a careful planned walking and jogging regimen, depending on
fitness level.
2. Exercises to
strengthen the muscles, particularly those important to good posture. These
include some activities that are selected to encourage some people who are
already burnt out with a particular routine.
3. Exercises to improve
joint mobility and prevent or relieve aches and pains. These consist of a
series of static stretching positions that are safe and effective for most of
the people who wish to try to lose some fat.
Indeed, cross-training
is a great way to modify the concept of exercising and losing fat without
having to endure monotonous activities. The idea of exercising is to like what
you are doing, hence, if you engage in cross-training, you will be aware of it
that you have already achieved your desired weight.
Boiled down, cross-training
is, certainly, one way of having fun.