Thursday, August 23, 2012

How Is Your Body Similar To A Car

You want to lose weight, become leaner and improve your body's condition but do you know how to do it? If you understand how your body works, you can come up with a plan that will successfully get you to achieve your health goals.

[caption id="attachment_238" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Your Body Is Like A Car Your Body Is Like A Car | Photo Credit[/caption]

Todd Bassler, a certified personal trainer with Premier Fitness, compares our body to a car. Making this comparison should give you clearer picture on what your body needs to be in tip top condition.

First, he talks about fuel. The kind of fuel you put in your car determines how smooth it runs and the efficiency of the engine. Likewise, the food we eat is fuel for our body. Get the right kind of nutrition and your body will function efficiently. Your body can produce more energy if you eat the right combination of carbohydrates, protein and fat. You should know that a nutritional meal will give you more energy than junk food, even if the caloric count is the same.

Next, Todd compares a car's alignment to our joint stability and strength. Our skeleton will be pulled out of alignment if some muscles are tight while others are loose. This could lead to joint and back problems. To improve joint stability, strength training is essential. Stretching exercises to keep your muscles flexible is important too.

Last of all, revving up your car's motor is akin to your metabolism. The longer your rev up your car, the hotter the engine gets. Likewise, raising your metabolism will get you burning more calories. You can raise your metabolism by increasing your muscle mass. Muscle cells burn more calories than fat cells. So, gain more muscle through strength training or lifting weights.

Changing the way you eat will affect your metabolism too. Instead of the 3 standard meals per day, break your meals down to smaller portions but eat more often. Todd used the idea of building a campfire to help us understand this concept. A couple of sticks won't help to build a roaring fire. However, if you keep adding sticks to the fire every few hours, you'll have a nice bonfire for a long time. That's the reasoning to why eating smaller meals consistently can help you burn more calories.

How you exercise will also determine how fast you burn calories. The best is high intensity aerobic exercises as it ups your heart rate and that gets more calories burning. Todd recommends that you burn a minimum of 500 calories every hour of exercise.

2 comments: