By Paul Chek, HHP, NMT
Founder, C.H.E.K Institute

I really hope you've been enjoying this article series about safely and effectively removing fat and achieving the shape you want. If you are just joining us and are wondering what was covered in the previous two segments of this series, the learning objectives to this point have been as follows:

Part 1:

• Review the two common hurdles that must be jumped to get fat off for the long run.

• Critically review the misleading concept of counting calories; As Einstein once stated, "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts."

• To realize that many of you are actually dieting, without even realizing it and that instead of asking your doctor, what you should take, you should be asking, what you should take away.

Part 2:

• Understand why exercise, even regular high doses, can make you fat.

• Recognize what displacement foods are and how they can antagonize the effects of an otherwise good exercise program.

Our goal for Part 3 will be to:

• Recognize the limitations of aerobic exercise for reducing body fat and elevating metabolism

• Appreciate the metabolic benefits of functional free weight training

• Learn how to develop a fat burner resistance training circuit.

Part 3

Eat, Move, and Watch the Fat Come Off

Instead of starving your body to shed fat, a more effective method is to increase the amount of energy you expend. This can be done in two primary ways:

1. Increase your resting metabolic rate
2. Increase your muscle mass

Increase Your Metabolic Rate by Finding Your Metabolic Type

The fastest and safest way to increasing your resting metabolic rate is to eat right for your metabolic type. While many of you will have tried various diets such as the Zone Diet, McDougal Diet, Ornish diet, macrobiotic diets or even the ever more popular "cave man diet" in an attempt to find an eating plan that works for you, this trial and error process often take years.

Bill Wolcott took the guesswork out of the diet game in his book "The Metabolic Typing Diet," which includes a test to identify what percentage of your meals should be composed of animal or vegetable foods. I bring you a full step closer to rapid realization of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual goals in my new book "How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy!" which includes a less comprehensive form of metabolic typing. It also works as an assessment system that determines what physiological systems in your body may be under stress, thus reducing your chances of responding favorably to a typical aerobics or resistance training program.

It is only by feeding the body the correct amount of nutritious whole foods that you can fine-tune your metabolism to achieve an optimal metabolic rate. Increasing the physical demand on your body while eating the wrong meal plan or eating displacement foods to the point of going nutritionally bankrupt will only decrease your metabolic rate in an attempt to save your life.

Your Muscle Cells -- The Most Active and Fuel-Hungry Machines

Consequently, any exercise that increases the size of muscle cells will boost your metabolism for optimal fat loss. Sounds to me, resistance training wins again.

It is well known among strength training professionals and researchers that with intense resistance training sessions of between 30-45 minutes, there is a post workout elevation in metabolism spanning from 14-48 hours, yet with steady state aerobic training the response is comparatively miniscule (6.). This is an important consideration when deciding between cardio work or resistance training for fat loss.

In those who are even moderately active or regularly perform steady state cardiovascular exercise, there is generally very little post-exercise elevation of metabolism. In other words, your cells stop burning extra energy when you get done with your run, bike, swim, etc. The only exception I've seen to this observation is when more elite or accomplished athletes include interval training, hill repeats, or Fartlek work (speed play) at a rate of 1-2 times weekly. In addition, cardiovascular exercise produces elevated levels of the catabolic (tissue destructive) hormones called glucocorticoids (7).

Glucocorticoids, being catabolic, will reduce muscle mass if repeatedly elevated blood levels exist, which is exactly why you always see skinny, hungry looking competitive distance runners. Compare this to sprint training or a good free weight training session performed with intensity levels of between 1-12 repetitions where your metabolism keeps nibbling away at that fat for hours.

Shorter, More Intense Workouts

To see this in action, look at any group of athletes whose predominant exercise consists of resistance training, or short, high intensity sprint work. Sprinters are some of the leanest athletes in the world. Olympic Weight Lifters would rather be castrated than go for a long run, with the exception of the super-heavy weights, who bring on added mass for ballast. This group is a predominantly lean.

In fact, on my recent lecture tour, I gave a course on an exercise program design to medical and exercise professionals in Moscow. While there, I was invited to train with the Russian Olympic Lifting Team. These athletes also moved away from the old style hard-grind sessions lasting 1.5 hours and were enjoying the physical, hormonal and psychological benefits that come with shorter, more intense training sessions.

Bodybuilders, by simple observation, are far leaner than those trying to lose fat by aerobics alone.

Why?

An increased post-exercise metabolism (that must be coupled with sound nutrition), resistance training and sprint type training cause elevated levels of anabolic (tissue-building) hormones (6). When you maintain an anabolic environment (tissue-building) within your body through optimal eating and use intense short duration resistance training workouts that encourage an anabolic response, you produce more muscle cells that consume energy 24 hours a day. These muscle cells happily gobble up your fat stores.

This could happen two ways:

• Encouraging the body to convert the stored fat to usable blood sugar for use by the muscles during exercise
• Direct consumption of the fat for energy to meet the demands of your now elevated metabolism

Those Who Pump Together, Lost Fat

In 1996 when visiting New Zealand, I filmed a special on the PUMP program at Les Mills World of Fitness for a video magazine I was producing. PUMP (or Body Pump as it is called in the United States) is a highly popular free weight training class choreographed to music and taught in a group setting. The incredibly lean, fit looking bodies in the room amazed me.

When viewing an aerobics class, many people don't see the same thing. In fact, IDEA released a study a few years ago indicating that professional aerobics instructors had an average body fat of greater than 20 percent, while professional step instructors averaged 19 percent body fat. This is surprisingly high for what could be considered a professional athlete, particularly considering that many female Olympic athletes don't exercise any more than step or aerobics instructors do. Yet, the average female Olympic athlete has about 13 percent body fat.

The whole physiology of someone who lifts weights is geared to burn calories. They become like hopped-up cars -- very fuel inefficient or few miles to the gallon. The opposite is true of aerobicisers, whose physiology is like that of a Honda Civic and can stretch a gallon of fuel for 40 miles.

Therefore, you want to perform the exercises in such a manner that fuel efficiency is sacrificed. When serving as trainer of the U.S. Army Boxing Team, I used to implement weight lifting circuits of 12-18 exercises performed at the maximum speed and effort. Good form could be maintained for 30 seconds with intensities of 50-60 percent 1RM (20-30 repetitions). The fighters hated me for it, but I assure you they were strong, could handle lactic acid build-up in the third round, and were VERY LEAN.

Continued in Part 3b