Step 2: CARDIO WORKOUTS that
MELT FAT
WE HAVE EXPLORED THE SCIENCE behind sculpting gorgeous core muscles and what types of movements and workouts are the most effective for accomplishing this goal, but those muscles will never be seen if you don’t burn off the layer of fat that’s sitting on top. What’s the most effective method for burning up that spare tire? Cardio workouts. That’s right—going for a run will actually do more to burn off abdominal fat than banging out 500 crunches. While the core exercises found in this book will likely get your heart rate higher than the core work you’ve been doing, the calories burned during a sculpting routine are not enough; the cardio workouts I’ve put together for you will pick up the slack in the calorie-burning department and ensure that your hard-earned core muscles aren’t hiding under a stubborn layer of fat. By incorporating a mix of cardio workouts into your program, you’ll achieve the perfect combination of fat burning and muscle sculpting!
BREAK OUT OF THE FAT-BURNING ZONE
One of the most deep-seated and fiercely argued tenets of cardio work is that in order to burn fat, you should always be working in the “fat-burning zone.” If you’ve ever been on a cardio machine at a health club, you’ve seen those nifty little guides that relay the supposed effects of different heart rate zones. With words such as “Maximum Fat Burn Zone” plastered all over lower heart rates, it’s no wonder that we’ve all been seduced into thinking that the only way to burn that stubborn fat off is to keep our heart rates low and steady. This is why many of us insist on setting the treadmill at a brisk walking pace and staying on it for as long as possible. Heaven forbid we get our heart rates too high and enter the “Danger Zone”!
TRADITIONAL TRAINING GUIDE
The concept of the “fat-burning zone” is based on the premise that your body burns a greater percentage of calories from fat when it’s working at lower heart rates. If we consider this concept alone, you might choose the low-intensity workout. To complete a 30-minute workout at a low intensity, a 130-pound woman can get 50 percent of the energy she needs from fat. If she were instead to do a high-intensity workout for 30 minutes, just 40 percent of the calories burned would come from fat.
But take a closer look and you will see that the high-intensity workout actually burns more total fat calories—12 percent more. The bottom line? For the same amount of time (in this case 30 minutes), you burn more total calories, and you burn more total fat calories during a high-intensity workout than during a low-intensity workout. Don’t get caught up in the percentage of total calories that come from fat. You need to burn more calories, and more calories from fat, and the scientifically proven way to accomplish this is through high-intensity interval workouts, not “low and slow” workouts.
CALORIC BREAKDOWN FOR LOW- VS. HIGH-INTENSITY EXERCISE
Still not convinced? Maybe this fact will get your attention: Consistently working out at a low intensity can actually train your body to store fat. You read that correctly. If you consistently perform low-intensity exercise (that is, at a low heart rate), your body will adapt by beginning to store fat so that it can complete the next bout of exercise more effectively. This scenario is called “metabolic efficiency,” and it’s the ultimate catch-22 of exercising.1 Being more efficient at anything seems desirable, but an efficient metabolism will get in the way of your goals.
While efficiency is a desirable endpoint for many pursuits in life, it is not the most effective way for your body to burn fat in a sustainable method. Consider what happens to the body when you practice for a specific type of activity or sport: You spend countless hours repeating the same movements or the same types of motions so that your body becomes better at them, and eventually you can perform at the same level but with less effort. Because the human body is such an adaptable machine, it will find the easiest way to accomplish a task and follow that route. It’s essentially the body’s way of always choosing the path of least resistance. This is good news for performance (you’ll get better at whatever activity you practice), but it’s bad news for your metabolism.
I experienced this phenomenon when I was a sophomore in college and was trying to shed the 15 pounds I had gained freshman year. I did my research and decided that distance running was the solution: It burns lots of calories, requires no equipment besides a pair of shoes, and can be performed anywhere. Perfect, I thought—this was my new weight-loss method! I grew up playing team sports, which led me to assume that picking up a new sport would be a breeze—never mind that I had absolutely zero experience with endurance sports. My longest run at that point in my life had been from one end of the basketball court to the other. Realizing that I might need to slowly work at building my endurance, I decided to run for just 20 minutes my first time out.
Precisely 3 minutes into that first run, I found myself doubled over with a side cramp and gasping for air. This new form of exercise was taxing my body in unfamiliar ways! Though it was challenging—often to the point of complete emotional and mental failure—I stuck with it, and six months later, I ran my first half-marathon. I also cleaned up my diet, so by the time that half-marathon arrived, I had lost not only the 15 pounds I had gained my freshman year but also another 10 that fell off without any extra effort. Having found a formula that worked for me, I hit repeat and became extremely loyal to the endurance run. Those long, slow runs were the staple of my workout regimen for years, and my strategy continued to work . . . until it didn’t.
After a few years, my body began to adapt to this regimen, and the runs no longer had the same effect. I became efficient at running, and despite the fact that I was running longer distances, the pounds started to creep back on. Frustrated, I made the mistake that we have all made in many areas of life: If something isn’t working, then do more of the same thing, and you’ll get better results! I increased my mileage, eventually getting to a point where I was running almost 40 miles a week. But as my miles increased, so did the number on the scale.
HOW DISTANCE RUNNING CAN CAUSE WEIGHT GAIN
Once your metabolism masters steady-state runs, it burns fewer calories for each workout.
If your training doesn’t include high-intensity work, you are missing an opportunity to boost your metabolism for the 24-hour period following your workout. Long, slow runs burn very few calories after the workout is over.
Runners are notorious for overtraining, and the subsequent spike in cortisol triggers the body to store fat in your abdominal area.
Convinced that the additional pounds were from increased muscle mass, I had my body fat tested through a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan, which reveals in great detail the areas of your body that are housing fat and muscle. The DEXA scan has a very small margin of error, so I knew the numbers would be reliable. The results were sobering: I had gained body fat, and it was concentrated primarily on my hips and upper legs, the very areas that I was working relentlessly through my long runs. That was the day I realized I had to make significant changes to my exercise and diet regimen. By stubbornly following a program that had worked in the past, I was now sabotaging my fitness and my waistline. I did some research, I talked to my colleagues, and I came up with a game plan: Ditch the long, low-intensity cardio and start focusing on high-intensity intervals and strength training. My new goal was to throw my body into a state of metabolic confusion.
THE ADVANTAGE OF METABOLIC CONFUSION
Metabolic confusion is the opposite of metabolic efficiency. By regularly switching up the duration, intensity, and type of exercise you’re doing, you can keep your metabolism on its toes. When your body doesn’t know what type of workout is coming next, it doesn’t have the opportunity to burn fewer calories in order to complete the task at hand. Instead, your body is forced to react to the ever-changing stimuli of new workouts and therefore will burn a higher amount of calories. Studies show that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is the most effective form of exercise to achieve metabolic confusion and burn abdominal visceral fat.2
What constitutes a HIIT workout? Any activity that spikes your heart rate up to about 70 percent of its maximum for a short period of time, then allows you to recover at a lower heart rate, then spikes your heart rate up again. If you were to graph your heart rate, it might look like a rising series of peaks and valleys.
The beauty of HIIT workouts is that they require less time. One of the most-cited reasons for missing a workout is lack of time; I’ve heard this excuse on countless occasions over the years from my clients. You can bang out a fat-burning workout in a surprisingly short amount of time. In fact, the workouts that I’ve created for the Core Envy program range from 16 to 36 minutes. I’m guessing that you have 36 minutes in your day that you could devote to getting leaner, tighter, and healthier. According to the US Bureau of Labor, Americans over the age of 15 spend an average of 2.8 hours a day watching television, which is more than five times longer than the time required for a HIIT workout.3 Don’t want to give up your favorite episodes to sweat it out? Watch TV while you exercise! HIIT sessions don’t require you to do any specific type of movement; they require only that you get your heart rate up to a certain level. You could accomplish this by running, cycling, dancing, hitting a boxing bag, jumping rope, or any number of other movements that can be performed in the comfort of your home while simultaneously watching your favorite shows.
The effectiveness of HIIT workouts is because of a phenomenon known as excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). After a workout, your body will continue to consume oxygen for a certain amount of time in order to bring your body back into its resting state. The more oxygen your body consumes, and the longer it does this, the more calories you will burn. As you know, more calories burned equals more pounds lost, which equals a tighter tummy for you. The key letter in the acronym is “P” for postexercise. This means that not only are you burning fat during your workout but you will also continue to burn calories and fat long after your workout has ended.
A substantial number of studies have been done around EPOC; many compare the exact amount of calories burned postexercise during different types of workouts.4 Workouts that involve bouts of high intensity clearly provide a much higher caloric burn both during the workout and for up to 48 hours afterward. More specifically, workouts that require your heart rate to get to 70 percent of its maximum seem to be the most effective. For this reason, every HIIT workout I’ve created for the Core Envy program targets that magical 70 percent threshold.
WHY HIIT WORKOUTS ARE BEST FOR TARGETING ABDOMINAL FAT
You will burn more total calories and more fat calories.
Your metabolism will remain elevated for up to 48 hours postworkout.
If you’re concerned that performing high-intensity exercise is too aggressive for your current state of fitness, remember that heart rate is relative. My 70 percent threshold will look much different than yours, which will look different than that of a professional athlete, and so on. If walking up a flight of stairs elevates your heart rate and makes it difficult for you to talk, then that is likely your 70 percent. As you complete the Core Envy program and your cardio conditioning increases, your body will adapt, and soon you’ll be able to walk up those stairs faster, perhaps even progressing toward a gentle jog. By the end of the 8-week program, your 70 percent will look and feel much different than it did when you started. How can you tell when you’ve reached 70 percent of your maximum heart rate? Don’t worry; I will explain how to find your target heart rates in the “Core Envy Cardio Workouts” chapter. You’ll become a master at manipulating your own heart rate after just a few workouts, which will ensure that you’re burning the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time.
HOW STRESS IMPACTS YOUR WAISTLINE
If you have long suspected that stress is contributing to the pounds around your midsection, you’re right. As if we weren’t already fighting an uphill battle to stay fit (demanding jobs, family obligations, unhealthy food lurking at every turn), now we have to add stress to the mix! Americans are under more stress than ever. According to the 2013 report “Stress in America” conducted by the American Psychological Association, 52 percent of adults say that their stress levels have increased over the past five years, and the average stress level is 5.3 (on a scale of 1 to 10), higher than what is considered healthy or manageable. One ironic point about our ever-increasing stress levels is that 57 percent of adults report that exercising lowers their stress levels and makes them feel better, yet only 17 percent of Americans actually do some form of exercise on a daily basis.5 Furthermore, stress is cited as a reason for why Americans are skipping workouts, which in turn creates more stress, and thus the cycle continues.
So how can stress actually contribute to the girth of your waistline? It’s due to the release of a hormone called cortisol. If you experience normal day-to-day stress, your body is equipped to fight it off by releasing the hormones epinephrine or norepinephrine—better known as the “fight or flight” hormones. But when you experience chronic, relentless stress, your body begins to release a hormone called cortisol. When too much cortisol is present in the body, it triggers what is known as the cortisol cascade.
The cortisol cascade essentially prompts the body to store fat in order to protect your organs, and since the major organs of the body are located in the trunk (except your skin, which is actually the largest organ of the body), that is where the majority of the fat deposits will congregate. These fat cells will search out and surround your organs, resulting in increased visceral fat. Another term for visceral fat is “belly fat,” which describes the area of the body in which this type of fat resides. Visceral fat is much more dangerous than subcutaneous fat (the type that sit right below the skin, typically found on your thighs and arms) because it has the ability to travel deep within the body and surround the organs, creating a marbling effect. This type of fat places you at a much greater risk for developing some serious diseases and conditions that you don’t want to deal with, such as type II diabetes, coronary artery disease, metabolic syndrome, and sleep apnea. While visceral fat typically makes your belly larger, it can accumulate regardless of whether or not you are overweight. In fact, you can have a high level of visceral fat and still be at a normal weight according to medical charts.
CORTISOL CASCADE
Do you have unhealthy
AMOUNTS OF VISCERAL FAT?
A DEXA scan, MRI, or InBody scan of your abdomen are the best ways to quantify visceral fat, but since most of us don’t have the time or resources to make one of those scans happen, a much easier method is simply to measure the circumference of your belly. Use a tailor’s tape or another flexible form of measurement. Place it at the top of your hip bone and complete a circle around your waist, being sure to keep the tape level. For women, a waist circumference indicating an unhealthy amount of visceral fat is over 35 inches (as compared to 40 inches for men).
If your waist measurement is over the prescribed limit, you are twice as likely to face the risks associated with visceral abdominal fat.6 In other words, a high level of fat in your abdomen is not only unsightly but also deadly.
At the back of the book you’ll find a chart for tracking your body measurements. Don’t be discouraged if your numbers are off the mark. Be diligent in following the program and tracking your measurements, and you will begin to see the progress.
STRATEGIES FOR REDUCING VISCERAL FAT
We know that excess levels of the hormone cortisol can trigger a cascade effect that will cause the body to store fat in the abdominal region, but what can we do to get rid of it? There are several tried-and-true methods of lowering your cortisol levels, one of which is to engage in regular high-intensity bouts of exercise. Because visceral fat is located deep within the abdomen, it can often be more stubborn than your run-of-the-mill subcutaneous body fat. Many clients have come to me with the goal of losing a persistent paunch, and the single most effective workout strategy is HIIT. These types of workouts produce the biggest results in the shortest amount of time; combined with my Core Envy nutrition plan, you can expect to see results in just a few weeks. By the end of 8 weeks, not only will you be well on your way to a tighter tummy, but your fitness levels will improve as well, allowing you to push your workouts to the next level.
The only caveat about HIIT is that more is not always better. The reason high-intensity exercise is effective is because it taxes the body, which causes a release of good hormones that will help fight abdominal fat, but only to a point. When the body is asked to perform a challenging task such as exercise, it actually creates stress and causes your body to release growth hormones and testosterone.7 These hormones actively reduce adipose tissue (fat) and help to reduce the storage of abdominal fat, making your body leaner and less likely to hold on to additional fat. There is a limit, however, to how much stress the body can handle; if you tax your body too often and too intensely, you will pass the threshold of good stress and cross over into the bad stress zone, causing a release of that dreaded cortisol. In order to avoid this scenario, it’s important to give your body time to recover between HIIT workouts, ideally 48 hours. For this reason, I have created weekly workout schedules that allow ample time for your body to recover after a HIIT workout but keep you working out consistently. On the days when you aren’t doing a HIIT workout, you’ll be focusing on lower-intensity cardio and sculpting exercises for your core. This approach allows you to reap the benefits of doing cardio on a regular basis without causing too much stress.
One of the best side effects of a HIIT workout is the endorphin high that often kicks in as you push through those intense intervals. A rush of endorphins through the body will give you not only the physical stamina to complete the workout but also the emotional motivation to continue chasing that high. It might be the closest you will ever come to actually feeling like you can fly!
The Core Envy program is designed sensibly to avoid overtraining. However, if you think you are at risk of pushing too hard, be alert for the following signs.
PSYCHOLOGICAL |
PHYSICAL |
Anger |
Increased chance of injury |
Fatigue |
Muscle soreness |
Sleep problems |
Increased cortisol levels (fat enhancer) |
Depression |
Decreased testosterone levels (fat reducer) |
I stopped doing hours of cardio and finally toned up my abs.
A FEW YEARS AGO I decided to reach out to a trainer because I was doing hours and hours of cardio and my body wasn’t changing. A friend recommended Allison, and when I scheduled my first appointment, she requested that I show up with a journal of my food and exercise from the past week. She went through it and told me I needed to cut back on my endurance cardio (I was averaging 2 hours a day of something low and slow for heart rate), increase my sculpting routines, and reduce the number of calories I was consuming. This seemed totally illogical to me! How was I going to lose the stubborn fat sitting on my tummy if I wasn’t working out during every spare minute of my day?!
I decided to commit to her approach for two months because I really did want to see change in my body, and my long hikes and endless walks just weren’t cutting it. I stopped waking up at 4 a.m. to work out (that was nice!) and instead increased my sleep, which actually helped me feel less hungry and more focused. I did the HIIT workouts a few times a week, incorporated the sculpting routines she gave me, and made a major commitment to rid my diet of sugar. Two weeks into this new program I was already feeling lighter; by four weeks my pants were noticeably looser; and by the end of the 8 weeks I had lost 7 pounds of fat, 3 inches off my waist, and another 2 inches off my hips. I’m hooked on the Core Envy program—it’s allowed me to get the results I want by working out less, which I thought was impossible!
