Remember if you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are your metabolism is slowing and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

In the last post we looked at the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) and how meal timings, meal frequency and the macronutrient composition of meals can be used to positively affect your metabolism.

This brings us to the final strategy that needs to be incorporated into your program in order to recondition your metabolism.

The old saying ‘Move it or Lose it’ is true – humans are designed for movement and as we get older and responsibilities begin to pile up we move less and less. Not only that, but the physical work we get involved in drops off as well. This lessening in physical activity combines with diet, poor food choices and our hormonal environment to slow our metabolism and to increase our body fat.

The good news is that this decline in the physical side of our metabolism can be reversed in short order by exercising the right way.

The right way involves an integrated program that is challenging, has a high metabolic (energy) cost and works both the different muscle types as well as the cardiovascular system. With there being 3 types of muscle in your body – Smooth (such as lines the stomach & oesophagus) skeletal (think Biceps) and cardiac (heart) we need to stress the body in such a way as to do exercise that targets the skeletal & cardiac muscles. The best methods to recondition your metabolism with exercise are a combination of:

• Weight training
• Interval training
• Body Weight training

I have christened this mix of modalities: Integrated Metabolics

In order to recondition your metabolism you need to undertake activities that carry a strong metabolic cost, that disrupt your normal functioning. This metabolic cost is best known as excess post exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). The stronger the EPOC we can produce through exercise, the more calories we can burn in the period after we stop exercising. Workout programs that are correctly integrated have been shown to increase metabolism for up to 37 hours after the exercise was completed.

One of the issues with fat loss is that on a calorie & carb restricted program if we are not careful we can lose lean tissue mass as your body begins to break it down for fuel so it can preserve fat for a ‘rainy day.’

In the hormone post we saw that the body has some pretty sophisticated methods of keeping us from starving by preserving body fat. These methods can be traced back a long way from an evolutionary perspective. Likewise with our muscles – humans built muscle for survival reasons, and if your body needed muscle for survival it would not allow it to be broken down. So how can you replicate this conditions that would make your body want to preserve muscle whilst still burning fat?

Lifting weights for sets of 8 –15 reps with a brisk tempo is good for burning calories, but sets with weights heavy enough to force lower reps in the 4-6 range are needed to convince your body to hold onto if not increase its current amount of muscle.

Your muscle is made up of different fibre types and different rep ranges are needed to effectively work these different fibres. Type I skeletal fibres are called ‘slow twitch’ and are good for aerobic exercise, Type II are called fast twitch and are more suited to anaerobic activity. To make it even more confusing Type II are further divided into 3 types. Suffice to say that to obtain maximum metabolic benefit we need to work all types.

So for Type II we need to use multijoint exercises (like Deadlifts, Chin Ups, Rows or Squats) with weights that limit us to 4-6 reps. Then for the subsets of Type II we should move to exercises with reps in the 8-12 range and lastly for Type I we use the 12 -20 rep range. All weight lifting has some cardiac muscle conditioning effects so to an extent we are working 2 of the 3 types of muscle and all the types of muscle fibre.

But to really condition our cardiac muscle and to continue to rebuild our metabolism we need to do more. Enter interval training.

Interval training works because it alternates periods of high intensity with short periods of rest. This combination causes a high level of metabolic disturbance and leads to a strong post work out EPOC whilst ramping up the metabolism & fat burning during the work out itself. The best type of interval training combines short sharp work periods with a longer rest period before the next segment. The best way to get the most out of this is to make the rest periods ‘active’ rest – rope skipping or bench stepping both work well.

So we should finish off with circuits of bodyweight exercises like burpees, squat jumps, push ups, using rope skipping in between circuits as a form of active rest. What we are trying to achieve is a simultaneous burning of calories and boosting of our underlying metabolism so we create a massive metabolic disturbance. The bodyweight exercises chosen should aim at maximum metabolic impact with minimal impact on the already well worked muscles. This way we can avoid too much muscle soreness in subsequent days. This integrated approach results in a strong metabolic cost and very high post-workout EPOC. This combination burns fat whilst rebuilding your metabolism.

This type of Integrated metabolic training is extremely taxing; at some point during this training your body simply cannot handle more of this high intensity work. Because of this you cannot afford to work out like this every day, even every second day is extremely challenging.

Now we bring in the final element – some moderate to low intensity aerobics work on the days between the Integrated Metabolic work outs.

Although aerobic works burns more fat as a percentage of calories during a workout, it still burns less total calories than interval work. So why do it? Simply with EPOC in full swing, fat levels in the blood will be higher and so moderate aerobics can be used to burn it off. So by adding 20 minutes of moderate exercise like a jog, some sprints, bike or stepper you can really raise your level of fat loss.

If this is too much then you can replace the aerobic work with NEPA (Non-Exercise Physical Activity) such as going for a stroll in the evening.

Well there you have it – the end of our 4 part series on reconditioning your metabolism. To work properly it needs a strategic, integrated program that combines diet, food type, hormone manipulation and the right exercise modalities. More on this next time.