This is a quote form a recent Dan John article and this simple statement beautifully sums up a lot of long chats I have had with clients, about why they aren’t getting the losses in pounds and inches they used to get out of classes or jogging.
Even if you haven’t had this experience yourself everyone knows someone that has set them self a weight lose goal and after a few weeks or a month of great success their progress slows and eventually grinds to a halt. They’re still going for the runs or going to a spin or aerobics class, they’re giving it there heart and sole but its just not cutting it anymore.
The simple reality is the human body is incredibly well designed and for most of human history calories have been hard, challenging or expensive to come by and wasting them would be fullish. In turn are bodies are geared toward adapting to challenges to help conserve energy.
If we look at someone running for weight lose, they have picked themselves a route/distance that they are going to run and after a few weeks of struggling they find that the run is getting easier. With these regular runs they will improve circulation, increase lung capacity, strengthen there heart and lower there resting heart rate and also they should also notice an improvement there running technique.
These are all good things BUT with his health improvements and better running mechanics it will take a lot less effort for our weight loss enthusiast to run the same distance and in turn it will take a lot less calories.
So what should they do?
ll simply something has to change.
Personally I would recommend a completely different energy system and muscle patterns form what they have currently been training.
For example instead of there 10 minute run they could do 2 rounds of
Squat 30 seconds
press up 30 seconds
lunge 30 seconds (each leg)
Dumbell row 30 seconds
Crunch 30 seconds
rest 90 seconds
This would take a total of 9 minutes and would use the anaerobic energy system rather than the aerobic and would also use more of the bodies major muscle groups. This should present a totally different challenge to the trainer and will consume a lot more calories as they learn the new way of training and new exercises.
This is only an example and I would recommend at least 30-60 minutes of exercise including a good warm up and cool down containing appropriate flexibility work.
A healthy balance diet is also essential for any weight loss plan.
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