The No More Excuses Diet (10 page)

The challenge in developing your best body is in incorporating movement whenever you can and training your body so it functions more efficiently. When you perform a
cardiovascular activity like running or dancing, you are inhaling oxygen, expanding your lung capacity, challenging your heart, and moving blood through your body so it can provide you with the energy you need to perform that activity. Indeed, your body will look for energy either from the foods you consume (glycogen) or the fat cells in your body. Providing your body with the exact amount of fuel it needs while also maximizing its fat-burning potential takes proper programming.

At the end of this chapter you’ll find a sampling of balanced workouts that will help you strengthen your core and develop your strength, cardio, and flexibility. But it’s important to understand why it all matters!

If you want to build an amazing house, you need plans for building it. When you are organized and have all the materials you need, the first thing you do is lay a strong foundation. For exercise, your foundation is your body’s core, a powerful place that emits balance, stability, and strength. As you begin to develop, grow, and improve your body, you will be applying cardiovascular and muscular pressure that will improve your physique. While the external pressures placed on your body will cause stress and tension, if your core is strong it will endure these pressures and
changes.

Change is the essence of your fitness program; your success relies on how your body strives in the midst of constant change. The basis of your physical improvement is to test how much your body can endure without losing its balance. Each week you will challenge how much weight you can lift before losing form or how long you can hold a yoga pose before falling down.

All these physical abilities are dependent on the strength of your body’s core. You must be able to move without losing stability. The more weight you can move with, the more stable you will become. This is where the importance of core comes in.

Imagine a large tree. It has a heavy trunk and various branches that reach up into the sky! Some branches, though, are shorter, skinnier, and sometimes bend sideways. Depending on the environment where it grows, as well as the other trees that surround it, that tree can take any shape or size.

Your body is like a tree. Your core, which comprises your lower back and abdominal regions, is your trunk. Your arms are your branches, and your legs are your roots. Depending on the challenges your environment imposes upon you, your body will either break or grow stronger. You will notice that a tree can grow to great heights if it has nourishment and good soil in which to grow. Your
core is the trunk from which all your physical power originates. If you are injured, weak, or imbalanced in your core, your success or growth will be limited.

One of the most desirable parts of a human body is a tight, toned midsection. Your core is not just the visual rectus abdominus, which is the six-pack we often see on fitness magazine covers. Your core is also your transverse abdominals, internal and external obliques, and your lower back region. There are a lot of misconceptions about core training, and I don’t want you to waste time training in a way that will not be effective for you. Many people focus mainly on the abdominals they can see, but your body’s strength is much deeper than those six muscles in the front of your body. The deeper transverse abdominal muscles and their opposing back muscles make up the powerful trunk of your body. If you want to construct a beautiful body, you need that set of muscles.

Core Truth #1: The first step to improving your core is to improve your
posture.

When you stand with correct posture, your entire body is in alignment. Your back is straight, chest up, shoulders squared, chin up, and stomach in. Since we live in a more sedentary society, you will notice several posture deviations, including a forward head, a hunched back, forward shoulders/hips, and pronated feet (toes pointing outward). If you have any of these issues, you will need to correct them by stretching tight muscles and strengthening weak muscles. I provide a posture quiz and stretches
here
.

It is impossible to build a lean tummy if your body is not in alignment. Not only do postural deviations lead to potential injury,
but also imbalanced muscles deactivate your core region and prevent you from developing a strong midsection. Oftentimes, achieving stronger
abdominals is as simple as standing up taller.

Core Truth #2: Most people who have great abs don’t train them all the time.

If you look at the bodies of athletes, they have naturally developed abdominal areas. But here’s the secret: Most people who have great abs don’t train them all the time. They don’t need to because they engage their core when they’re kicking a soccer ball, swinging a bat, balancing upright on a bike, or any other activity they’re performing.

You don’t have to train your abs every day because you are already working them every day! You just need to start engaging them more often. You engage them by challenging your core ever so slightly, whether it’s by sitting up straight in a chair and sucking in your gut or standing on one leg while performing a standing shoulder press. If you incorporate balance and stability training in your daily activities, you will need to intensely train your core only minimally.

Start being mindful of your core when you are performing activities, such as drawing your belly button in toward the small of your back. You’ll look like you’re sucking in your gut, but that action alone engages your core and therefore strengthens it. And you can do this small exercise while driving to work, sitting in your office, standing in line, or lying down reading a book. Sometimes I wear a form-fitting top to keep me mindful to “suck it in” throughout the day! So, attempt to hold your core for 3 or 4 minutes at a time, until you build your strength and the action becomes instinctive. Being mindful of your core will burn extra calories and improve your posture, but it needs to be supported with intense core training exercises, like planks, supermans, and bicycles.

Core Truth #3: Core work must engage the
lower back and
abdominal muscles.

Very often we are looking at only what we see in the mirror, which is usually our front. It’s not an accident that most people fail to train their back, hamstrings, and calves. You just don’t see them as much! You have to remember that our bodies are an entire unit made up of different parts. Our thighs, for example, can flex and extend because both the hamstrings (the back of the leg) and the quadriceps (the front of the leg) are performing the action. This is the same concept for the abdominals. To strengthen one side, you must equally engage the other side.

One of the best exercises to activate your back is the
superman
(
see here
). You lie on your stomach and raise your arms and legs at the same time. If you want to make it more challenging, try incorporating some movement by raising your legs and arms up and down simultaneously for 15 to 20 repetitions. This lower-back exercise elongates and stretches the front of your body and assists in the overall development of your abdominal muscles.

Core Truth #4: The core’s most often the LAST place you will see develop.

Many people have heard the phrase “abs are made in the kitchen.” It’s true to the extent that it requires a disciplined diet to burn the last 10 pounds of fat sticking to your body. Your body doesn’t know you want to look sexy in a swimsuit or fit into your high school jeans. It just wants to survive, and so it stores extra energy in the form of fat as a safety precaution. That’s why losing the last 10 pounds to uncover your abdominal muscles is so difficult—it goes against your body’s natural instinct for self-preservation. Seeing your abdominal muscles pop will require you to be at a lower
body fat percentage, which can be attained only by eating a very healthy diet and committing to an intense exercise routine that will speed up your
metabolism.

Strength training is all about control. It’s about challenging your body with the right amount of opposition, without straining yourself. It’s about becoming stronger because your core is stronger. It’s about increasing your flexibility, your bone strength, and your metabolism.

There are two types of exercise:
aerobic and
anaerobic.
Aerobic exercise
uses oxygen, and therefore glycogen and fat storage, to meet the physical demands of your body. You engage in aerobic exercise when you perform long durations of light to moderate cardio activities.
Anaerobic exercise
, also known as
strength training
, doesn’t use oxygen for energy. Instead, it depends primarily on your glycogen storage (food) to provide quick energy to train at maximum exertion. You cannot sustain anaerobic exercise for a long period of time, which is why you need to rest between strength sets. Aerobic and anaerobic training are equally important when designing your fitness program.

You need to create a strength-training program that works for you. I don’t like promoting the latest fad
workout DVD or exercise class, because a workout plan should fit your own strengths and weaknesses. If you can lift heavy objects and perform intense exercise without mental or muscular fatigue, you are strong in that area. If you notice imbalances in your posture, weakness in your muscles, tightness in your tendons, or irregular pain in a static position, then these are areas you need to improve.

There is a lot of information to decipher on the Internet, especially
some advice that is contradictory. As a general rule, I like to keep things simple. So here are some fundamentals to remember:

1. MORE MUSCLE INCREASES YOUR
METABOLISM.
Unlike
fat tissue, muscle is an active tissue that requires more nutrients to sustain itself. Having more muscle speeds up your metabolism, which allows you to eat more (who wouldn’t love that?). For example, see the following graph:

2. 1 POUND OF MUSCLE IS SMALLER THAN 1 POUND OF FAT.
Muscle is more compact than fat and so, pound for pound, is nearly three times smaller than an equal amount of fat. This is important to remember when you’re weighing yourself and not seeing the scale budge while your measurements are dropping. Use other measurements for success and don’t be a slave to the scale.

3. WOMEN HAVE A HARDER TIME BUILDING MUSCLE THAN MEN.
Women who say they are afraid of looking like a bodybuilder don’t understand how a woman’s body works. Women don’t have the same amount of testosterone that men have to build incredibly large muscles. If you want to “tone up,” then strength training, or building muscle, is key. If you want to look lean, then decrease the fat on top of the muscle by following a balanced cardio and strength routine. In short, you can’t be lean if you have no muscle. Do you see the problem here? You need to weight-train or you can’t look toned.