Permanent Fitness

Today I will explain why belly crunches are not enough to burn excess fat and why do you need to run or cycle or swim, and do crunches on top of that to lose that stubborn fat. To begin, I will first explore the difference between aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic (strength) exercises, cause that’s what are talking here about. Starting today, you’ll be easily able to tell the difference between those two…

Aerobic exercises

Aerobic exercises take their name from the fact that when we do them, our muscles produce energy in chemical processes which involve oxygen. Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’. Aerobic exercises can be characterised as exercises performed at moderate level of effort, which can be continued for extended periods of time (20-60 minutes) and involving large groups of muscles.

During these exercises, our heart is able to pump to muscles enough blood carrying sufficient amount of oxygen to produce enough energy to keep the muscles going. While aerobic exercising, after the initial period in which muscles use glycogen as their energy source, they start to burn fat.

So the thing to remember: Aerobic exercises burn fat!

I wrote more about how long these exercises should last in a post: running for weight loss. Basically, they should not be shorter that 30 minutes. Only then your organism will have a chance to burn some fat.

How do I know if my exercises are aerobic?

The easiest method to make sure that you’re performing aerobic exercise is through control of breath and heart rate. If these are both increased, but far from maximum, we’re performing aerobic workout. As soon as the heart rate starts to increase further and we begin to lose breath, we’re moving into anaerobic exercises (described below).

The best type of an aerobic exercise is the one which you can do continuously for around 30-40 minutes with increased heart rate and quickened breath, so that if you wanted to say a few sentences, you could, but at a longer speech you’d lose your breath. This level of effort ensures that we train in the peak of our aerobic abilities – oxygen flows smoothly and its amount is sufficient. But if we start talking, what interferes with breathing, our organism has to quickly switch to anaerobic exercises due to insufficient oxygen.

The above description shows why activities like sweeping, dish washing and many other around the house, do not really help to burn fat. They are better than nothing, but definitely not enough. Also choosing the stairs instead of an elevator, even though it’s good for the heart, will not make you slimmer – unless it’s the 100th floor that you want to get to

Real fat loss requires us to get up and really do cardio. I am doing it for two weeks and so far so good – I’ve lost 5 pounds

Anaerobic exercises

Anaerobic means ‘without oxygen’. Anaerobic exercises are all those during which our muscles replenish energy in processes which do not involve oxygen. These are all sorts of strength exercises aimed at development and growth of muscles. Primarily they include those exercises which involve extensive training of small groups of muscles. These will be belly crunches, push ups, lifting weights etc. During these exercises, energetic requirements of the muscles trained are huge. Blood is not able to provide sufficient amount of oxygen to enable burning fat. The body reverts to the second option, which is burning without the use of oxygen.

Fat can only be burned with involvement of oxygen, therefore during anaerobic exercises the main source of energy for the body are carbohydrates. The fat remains intact.

So does that mean that we should stop anaerobic exercises? – NO!

Anaerobic exercises help you burn fat too!

Anaerobic exercise also help you bur excess fat. Here are the reasons:

1. When you’re on a diet, your organism burns your muscles. As soon as you decrease your calorie intake below your daily need, your organism will start to look for sources to fill in the gap. It will revert to fat, but it will start burning your muscles as well. Even around 45% of weight lost can be attributed to reduction in muscles. Anaerobic exercises stimulate growth of muscles what prevents them from being burned for energy.
2. Muscles burn calories even when you sleep. Muscle tissues are one of those which need a lot of energy just to maintain existence. One pound of muscles needs around 30-50 calories every day, whereas 1 pound of fat uses only 1-3 calories. So, the bigger the muscles, the more energy your body uses just to maintain itself. Muscles help you get thinner. They will also help you remain thin when you finish the diet and will allow you to eat a little bit more.
   I know gents will like the idea – nice bicepses and abs are what each of us wants. Women are often more reluctant to build up muscles. I wouldn’t worry though – to grow big muscles women must really exercise extensively. Anaerobic exercises will probably give positive effects in form of hard bellies, straight posture, firm thighs… mhhmmmm I’m starting to dream here…..
3. Anaerobic exercises induce production of hormones. This happens also during aerobic exercises, but especially if we do strength training. After such training our bodies produce increased amounts of the growth hormone. This is very helpful for weight loss, because it suppresses productio nof insulin and induces production of glycogen, which stimulates burning of fat.

It is good to plan anaerobic exercises so that each of the major groups of muscles is exercised at least once or twice a week.

To sum up

If you want to lose weight, you should primarily focus on aerobic (cardio) exercises, but do not forget about the anaerobic ones. Both types help you lose fat and in combination they can make dreams come true.