Body For Life - Exercise

Exercise

The human body adapts itself to changes in nutritional intake. If the calorie intake is reduced, the body responds by slowing down its metabolism, and by burning muscle in preference to fat. This reduces the metabolism long-term. When the diet comes to an end and normal calorie intake is restored, the individual starts to gain weight even faster than before. This is known as yo-yo dieting. Diets that focus exclusively on calorie reduction often fail in this way.

With these concerns in mind, Body for Life addresses energy expenditure (i.e. exercise) in addition to energy input. For best results, Body for Life holds that this exercise should include weight training to build skeletal muscle and increase the metabolism over the long term. This also helps to maximise the energy expenditure and fat loss from aerobic exercise.

Body for Life's exercise program is more complicated than its diet program. It suggests exercising six days a week, normally Monday to Saturday, and alternating between weight training and aerobic exercise. The seventh day, usually Sunday, is a rest day (referred to as the "free day", during which no exercise is done and unhealthy, normally fatty foods may be eaten). Weight training sessions alternate between exercises for the upper body and exercises for the lower body. This allows the exercised muscles enough time to recover fully before the next training session.

Each fortnight follows the same pattern:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 1 Upper-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Lower-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Upper-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Free Day
Week 2 Lower-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Upper-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Lower-body
Weight
Training
Aerobic
Exercise
Free Day

Read more about this topic:  Body For Life

Famous quotes containing the word exercise:

    They should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Friendship is never established as an understood relation.... It is a miracle which requires constant proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imagination and the rarest faith.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)