Hey Girls I thought the other thread was getting a little too long so I started a new one...it also coincides with end of summer and fall starting.
I got back on the bike last night and cycled for 15 minutes until I noticed a poor tiny ant on the floor that was struggling...I think it had been partially squashed so I got off the bike and put it out of its misery....
at least now its not suffering.
I did ok food wise...I was at 1550 cals and 35 grams of fat. I have been reading alot about the south beach diet and I might give it a try...I'll see.
Here is a great article on dieting:
The Secret to Burning Fat Up To 300% Faster, by Tom Venuto
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When is the best time of day to do your aerobic exercise? The answer is any
time! The most important thing is that you just do it. Continuous cardiovascular
exercise, such as walking, jogging, stairclimbing, or cycling, sustained for at
least 30 minutes, will burn body fat no matter when you do it. However, if you
want to get the maximum benefits possible from every minute you invest in your
workouts, then you should consider getting up early and doing cardio before you
eat your first meal - even if you're not a "morning person." Early morning
aerobic exercise on an empty stomach has three major advantages over exercising
later in the day:
Early in the morning before you eat, your levels of muscle and liver glycogen
(stored carbohydrate) are low. If you eat dinner at 7 p.m and you eat breakfast
at 7 a.m., that's 12 hours without food. During this 12-hour overnight fast,
your levels of glycogen slowly decline to provide glucose for various bodily
functions that go on even while you sleep. As a result, you wake up in the
morning with depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar - the optimum environment
for burning fat instead of carbohydrate. How much more fat you'll burn is
uncertain, but some studies have suggested that up to 300% more fat is burned
when cardio is done in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state.
So how exactly does this work? It's quite simple, really. Carbohydrate
(glycogen) is your body's primary and preferred energy source. When your primary
fuel source is in short supply, this forces your body to tap into its secondary
or reserve energy source; body fat. If you do cardio immediately after eating a
meal, you'll still burn fat, but you'll burn less of it because you'll be
burning off the carbohydrates you ate first. You always burn a combination of
fat and carbohydrate for fuel, but depending on when you exercise, you can burn
a greater proportion of fat relative to carbohydrate. If doing cardio first
thing in the morning is not an option for you, then the second best time to do
it would be immediately after weight training. Lifting weights is anaerobic
(carbohydrate-burning) by nature, and therefore depletes muscle glycogen. That's
why a post lifting cardio session has a similar effect as morning cardio on an
empty stomach.
The second benefit you'll get from early morning cardio sessions is what I call
the "afterburn" effect. When you do a cardio session in the morning, you not
only burn fat during the session, but you also continue to burn fat at an
accelerated rate after the workout. Why? Because an intense session of
cardiovascular exercise can keep your metabolism elevated for hours after the
session is over. If you do cardio at night, you will still burn fat during the
session, so you definitely benefit from it.
However, nighttime cardio fails to take advantage of the "afterburn" effect
because your metabolism drops like a ton of bricks as soon as you go to sleep.
While you sleep, your metabolic rate is slower than any other time of the day.
Burning more fat isn't the only reason you should do your cardio early. The
third benefit of morning workouts is the "rush" and feeling of accomplishment
that stays with you all day long after an invigorating workout. Exercise can
become a pleasant and enjoyable experience, but the more difficult or
challenging it is for you, the more important it is to get it out of the way
early. When you put off any task you consider unpleasant, it hangs over you all
day long, leaving you with a feeling of guilt, stress and incompleteness (not to
mention that you are more likely to "blow off" an evening workout if you are
tired from a long day at work or if your pals try to persuade you to join them
at the pub for happy hour.)
You might find it hard to wake up early in the morning and get motivated to
workout. But think back for a moment to a time in your life when you tackled a
difficult task and you finished it. Didn't you feel great afterwards? Completing
any task, especially a physically challenging one, gives you a "buzz." When the
task is exercise, the buzz is physiological and psychological. Physiologically,
exercise releases endorphins in your body. Endorphins are opiate-like hormones
hundreds of times more powerful than the strongest morphine. Endorphins create a
natural "high" that makes you feel positively euphoric!
Endorphins reduce stress, improve your mood, increase circulation and relieve
pain. The "high" is partly psychological too. Getting up early and successfully
achieving a small goal kick starts your day and gives you feelings of
completion, satisfaction and accomplishment. For the rest of the day you feel
happy and you feel less stress knowing that the most difficult part of the day
is behind you.
So, you say you're not a morning person? Take heart; neither am I. I can sleep
in like you wouldn't believe! But I get up anyway because I know the effort is
worth the results. When I have a bodybuilding goal that I am clearly focused on,
such as reaching 4% or 5% body fat for a competition, I'm on my Stairmaster for
45 minutes every morning at the crack of dawn without fail. Sure it's a
challenge at first, but you know what? After a few short weeks, It's no longer a
chore and I'm "in the groove" - and you will be too. Just try it. Make a
commitment to yourself to do it for just 21 days. Once those 21 days have gone
by, you'll already be leaner and you'll be on your way to making morning
workouts a habit that's as natural as brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
Once you start getting used to feeling that buzz, you'll become "positively
addicted" to it. The more you do it, the more you'll want to do it. Before you
know it, early morning cardio will your new habit; you'll b!
e leaner, your metabolism will be faster and you'll feel fantastic all day long!
Tom Venuto
Later Ladies
Cyan