“If you always put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
– Bruce Lee
When we picture a fit person, we usually imagine someone who is quite thin. But this isn’t necessarily always the case. A thin person can be completely unfit, and a person with a few extra pounds can be very fit. This is because the term “fitness” doesn’t specifically refer to weight.
The generally accepted definition of fitness is: the condition of being physically strong and healthy. A person cannot be fit if he or she is very overweight, because excess fat wreaks havoc on the body and prevents a person from being able to properly perform cardiovascular activities. However, all is not lost. Even a severely overweight person can start the process of getting fit simply by slowly and patiently introducing cardiovascular exercise into his or her life.
CARDIO
Also referred to as aerobic exercise, cardio is the name generally used because this type of exercise stresses, and therefore strengthens, the cardiovascular system. The cardiovascular system is made up of the heart (a muscle) and blood vessels (including arteries, veins and capillaries) with some help from the lungs. Here’s how it works: Blood is constantly circulating throughout your body. When you take a breath, blood vessels in your lungs absorb the oxygen, making your blood oxygen rich. Your heart contracts and pushes the oxygenated blood through the arteries. This blood then picks up nutrients from the digestive system and carries the oxygen and nutrients to every tiny cell in your body.
I’m sure you can see that if this system is not functioning properly, you will have serious – and possibly life-threatening – problems. If you have any overweight individuals in your family, you may have heard of the terms atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke and heart disease. In fact, if obesity is a problem in your family, there is a good chance your relatives may have suffered from these problems, meaning you should be especially concerned with keeping your cardiovascular system in tip-top shape.
If you want to keep your cardiovascular system in optimal condition (and after what you’ve just read, who wouldn’t?), you have to develop and maintain good habits in the following two aspects of your life. First, a healthy diet is important. In particular, you should eliminate trans fats altogether and substantially decrease your consumption of saturated fats and salt. You should also increase your consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and your consumption of vegetables, especially high-fiber vegetables. Second, you need to get regular, consistent cardiovascular exercise.
THE HEART IS A MUSCLE
Now it’s time to get to the heart of the matter. Yes, there’s a reason the word “heart” is used to describe not only the organ we’ve been discussing but also the central or most vital part of something. The heart is the director, master and governor of the cardiovascular system. If the heart can’t pump, the whole system shuts down. And like any other muscle, the heart has to be challenged in order to improve. If you want the muscles in your legs to be stronger, you have to exercise them, right? If you sit on your tush all day, your legs will get weaker. The same is true for your heart. If you are overweight and sedentary, you are putting your heart under severe pressure every day. You are not strengthening your heart with exercise, yet you are asking it to pump blood over ever-increasing distances. That is like asking someone to run a marathon without any training. Your weak heart has to try to pump faster and faster just to get the blood where it’s got to go. Conversely, a strong heart is normally a slow heart, because it gives a good, strong contraction that pushes the blood forcefully on its route.
Here’s a story to illustrate this concept: Imagine there’s a contest between someone who is very strong and healthy and someone who is weak and sickly. They each have to move a rock to a target that is 100 yards away. The strong person takes the rock and hurls it as far as possible. In two or three throws, the rock meets its target and the strong person has barely put forth any effort. The weak person throws the rock but it doesn’t go very far. He throws it again, but it barely moves. After a number of throws, this person is too tired to throw and now has to push the rock to the finish line. The weak person has to work far harder than the strong person to get the same result. The same can be said for a weak heart muscle. If you are overweight and in poor cardiovascular condition, you are asking your weak heart to pump blood over far greater distances than the average person. In effect, by being overweight and sedentary you are asking your heart to do far more than the average heart, with far less strength. Your poor heart! It can’t talk to you, but if you notice yourself panting after climbing a few stairs, you’ll now know that it’s trying to tell you something!
“If you are overweight and sedentary, you are putting your heart under severe pressure every day. You are not strengthening your heart with exercise, yet you are asking it to pump blood over ever-increasing distances. That is like asking someone to run a marathon without any training.”
So how do you turn your heart into a well-oiled machine that can effortlessly push your blood (and thus oxygen and nutrients) everywhere it needs to go? Simple: cardiovascular exercise.
If you are healthy and between the ages of 18 and 65, The American Heart Association recommends you get 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise at least five times a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity at least three times a week to keep your heart functioning at a healthy level. Remember, these are the minimum requirements. To achieve superior cardiovascular fitness you will have to do more than this. In fact, the Journal of the American Medical Association states that cardiovascular health is improved when aerobic exercise is performed five times each week.
“Aerobic exercise is any exercise that raises your heart rate over an extended period of time.”
Aerobic exercise is any exercise that raises your heart rate over an extended period of time. The word aerobic literally means “with oxygen,” and refers to the fact that during aerobic exercise your body uses oxygen to convert fats and carbohydrates into energy. You breathe faster and deeper to bring more oxygen into the lungs, and your heart beats faster and harder to get that oxygen to the cells that need it. These extended exercise sessions increase your lung capacity and your heart strength, both of which improve your cardiovascular fitness.
MUSCULAR FITNESS AND WEIGHT LOSS
Although knowing that cardiovascular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke – the most common causes of death – is a great motivator, the benefits of cardio aren’t limited to a healthier, more efficient cardiovascular system. According to the Exercise is Medicine program developed by the American College of Sports Medicine, exercise can also decrease depression, reduce the incidence of high blood pressure and diabetes by almost 50 percent and lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by one-third and colon and breast cancer by 60 percent and almost 50 percent, respectively. Of course, exercise also increases your muscular endurance and burns energy (aka calories), which helps you get or stay lean.
In Chapter 8, we explored how exercise itself doesn’t make a huge difference in weight loss. That is true to a degree, but the more exercise you get, the more calories you burn, so you certainly can improve your rate of weight loss by increasing the frequency and intensity of the exercise you do. If you were to run at 6 mph, for example, you would burn twice as many calories in the same amount of time as if you were to walk at 3 mph. If you were to run at 6 mph for one hour, you would burn four times the energy that you would by walking at 3 mph for 30 minutes. So, as you can see, weight loss and weight maintenance certainly are improved with an increase in cardio exercise and with an increase in the intensity of that exercise. (Just as long as you don’t use your workout as a reason to justify having that big bowl of ice cream or an extra serving at dinner!)
One of the great side effects of regular cardiovascular exercise is the strength it builds in your muscles, specifically endurance strength. Why is this important? Because it means you can enjoy your life a lot more. If your cardiovascular system and your muscles are stronger, you will have more energy and you will be able to sustain that energy for longer periods of time without getting tired. That means you can go dancing. It means on a beautiful summer evening when your husband suggests you go for a walk, it will sound wonderful instead of painful. It means you can play with your kids at the park. It means when your friends are going on a walking tour of Rome you can go too.
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
If you carry a great deal of extra fat, then you know how tiring it is to perform the simplest of tasks. A mere 20 or 25 extra pounds can make going up a flight of stairs exhausting. In fact, most activities that are fun for those who are physically fit do not sound at all fun to you, and the more fat you accumulate, the less enjoyable these activities become. In addition, your fat cells release chemicals called interleukins that can make you feel even more tired and in pain. The vicious cycle continues. But all of this can change once you begin improving your weight and exercising regularly.
Adding regular cardio exercise to your life can seem a bit intimidating at the outset, but so do many other activities that result in positive gains. (Think of home renovation projects, learning a new computer program, etc.) The key is to start slowly and improve consistently. People who are out of shape are often hesitant to begin an exercise program because they feel embarrassed about their lack of ability. In reality, no one can do anything very well when they first begin. Most of the people you see at gyms or running outdoors began as adults, and most of them looked awkward and unskilled when they first started. You assume they were good at it right away because you didn’t see them at the beginning! They got to an advanced level of ability by being consistent with their efforts and by challenging themselves to do a little more each time.
It makes no sense to expect yourself to be able to run a marathon, for example, when you are just beginning to exercise. If you decided to play the piano would you expect to just sit down and start banging out a Rachmaninoff concerto? Of course not. You would expect to learn a little this week, a little more next week and so on, slowly progressing to the point where you have the skills to play the more complicated pieces.
There is nothing wrong with a slow progression, as long as you are progressing. Confucius said, “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” Some very overweight people might find their first attempt at cardio consists of simply lacing up their shoes and walking to the front door. That’s fine, as long as the next attempt includes walking to the front door plus five more steps. When developing a cardio routine, the keys to success are to do it at least three times a week, but preferably five (and make sure the two days off are never taken in succession), to do it consistently every week and to give yourself small, achievable goals so your system is always being challenged to reach a higher level of fitness. The starting point will be different for everyone because each individual has his or her own distinct abilities and handicaps. One of the worst things you can do is compare yourself to others. Instead, compare yourself with the “you” of last week or last month. Are you walking further than you did last week? Are you biking faster than you did last week? If you’ve started a walk/jog program, then are you jogging for longer periods of time than you were last week? If the answer is yes, then you are improving your cardiovascular strength and your muscular endurance. Congratulations!
INTENSITY
I’ve mentioned intensity a few times now, and I’d like to go into a little more detail about exercise intensity and aerobic conditioning. Here is a heart-rate chart.
TO FIGURE OUT YOUR HEART RATE, TAKE YOUR PULSE FOR 10 SECONDS AND MULTIPLY BY 6.
To improve your cardiovascular system through exercise, you must get your heart rate up to at least 55 percent of your maximum heart rate. The basic formula for figuring out your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. If you are 40 years old, for example, your maximum heart rate will be 220 minus 40, or 180 beats per minute (bpm). Multiply 180 by 0.55 to figure out the minimum rate at which your heart has to beat during your exercise session in order to be beneficial. In this case, the answer is 99 bpm.
If you are a real beginner and have not been doing any cardio exercise then you will want to keep your heart rate in the 55 to 65 percent range. As you progress, you can challenge yourself up into the 65 to 75 percent range. When your heart rate goes above 80 percent of your maximum, then you are working in the anaerobic range, which is beyond where we want to be right now. Once you have gotten into fairly good shape, you can push yourself into this level in short bursts during your aerobic activity in order to greatly improve your fitness level and calorie burning. Getting to this level takes time and hard work, so this type of training should not be done by anyone in the beginner to intermediate phases of fitness.
FAT-BURNING MYTH
You will often hear people talk about staying in the “fat-burning” heart-rate zone. You’ll even see this on charts on cardio machines and in the machines’ preset programs. Many people and even uninformed trainers believe the best way to achieve weight loss is to stay inside the fat-burning zone, but this is simply not reality.
The fat-burning zone simply means that when you exercise within that range, your body uses a higher percentage of fat for energy as opposed to using glucose. The lower your intensity level, the higher the percentage of fat used for energy. This absolutely does not mean that this is the best range for overall fat loss! Your fat loss is determined by the amount of energy you use, not by the percentage of fat versus glucose used. If you increase the intensity of your workout, the total number of calories burned is higher.
Look at it this way: Let’s say you run at 6 mph for 30 minutes. During that time you burn 300 calories, 70 percent of which is glucose and 30 percent of which is fat. Then the 100 calories or so of fat you burn comes right out of your fat cells. Great! But the other 200 calories have to come from somewhere, right? They come from the food you eat. If you did not burn those 200 calories of glucose, then that energy might very well become fat. Conversely, if you are losing weight and thus consuming fewer calories than you are burning each day, those 200 calories will have to be replenished by something other than food – and that something is your fat stores. Either way, you end up burning 300 extra calories of energy which will now not be stored as fat on your body.
Now let’s compare that to walking at 3 mph for 30 minutes. During that time you burn 150 calories, 60 percent of which is fat. You’re in the so-called fat-burning zone, because you are burning a higher percentage of energy as fat. However, you are burning only 90 calories of fat, because you have used less energy overall. And the other 60 calories you burn come from glucose, which again must be made up somewhere. If you are trying to lose weight by consuming fewer calories than you need for your activities, then these 60 calories of glucose will have to be replenished from your fat stores.
“Cardiovascular exercise will benefit you in so many ways.”
In the end, the percentage of calories being used from fat itself or from glucose is completely irrelevant. The goal is to use more energy than you are consuming if you are trying to lose fat. And the more energy you use during your workouts, the more fat you will lose. So the more intense the workout, the more weight you’ll lose. But remember, don’t increase the intensity until your body is ready for it.
Cardiovascular exercise will benefit you in so many ways. It helps you lose weight, especially when paired with a healthy diet. It benefits your health in extraordinary ways, such as preventing the most common causes of death, including heart disease and stroke. And while it may be tough to get started, you will soon find that regular cardiovascular exercise will lift your spirits and fill you with a vibrancy, energy and confidence you could never have imagined. Instead of reaching for a sugar-loaded snack to boost your energy at the end of the day, you’ll be going for a walk or a run because that will boost your energy tenfold (without the horrible sugar crash at the end). In addition, your stronger muscles will help you to engage in all sorts of fun activities that will make your life a true pleasure.
SUCCESS STORY
“Bursting with newfound energy!”
NAME: Bruce Baggio
AGE: 56
HEIGHT: 6'
WEIGHT BEFORE: 389 lbs
WEIGHT AFTER: 215 lbs
WEIGHT LOSS: 174 lbs
AT A STAGGERING 389 POUNDS, BRUCE BAGGIO WAS PLAGUED BY A SERIES OF WEIGHT-RELATED HEALTH ISSUES. He was suffering from constant lower-back pain, he relied on hypertension medications to get through each day and he was told he would soon need medication to help control his blood-sugar levels. Bruce also lacked the energy and self-confidence to participate in activities outside of the home, so he chose to hide away indoors. This, in combination with his poor health, meant Bruce was letting his life pass him by. The gravity of the situation finally clicked for him when he realized that he might not live to see his two grandchildren grow up.
Their young spirits were motivation enough for Bruce to finally change his ways. But how would he reach his goals? Bruce thought he had tried every weight-loss program out there – but then he found Charles D’Angelo. With great compassion and sensitivity, Charles taught Bruce what not to eat (and why) and then gave Bruce a framework laying out exactly which foods he should eat (and when). Bruce especially liked that he didn’t have to record his food intake each and every day. The fact that this was a simple program to follow amounted to great success for Bruce.
“Bruce thought he had tried every weight-loss program out there – but that was before he found out about Charles D’Angelo.”
Eleven months after he began working with Charles, Bruce weighed in at 215 pounds – an incredible loss of 174 pounds! This weight loss resulted in a huge improvement to his health. He was able to significantly reduce the amount of medication he was taking for hypertension while also completely relieving his lower back of pain. Bruce is bursting with newfound energy, which he uses in both his professional and personal lives – especially with his two grandchildren. He says he feels at least 10 years younger!
How does Bruce stay on top of his weight-loss success? He often looks at pictures of himself from when he was obese to remind him of the many challenges he faced during that time. Charles’ guidance and support also help keep Bruce on track. He speaks very highly of Charles and his no-nonsense manner. In fact, of the impact Charles has made on his life, Bruce says, “You helped me achieve a goal and a change in my life that I doubted was ever possible.”