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Turbocharge Your Metabolism With Exercise

This time of year is a great opportunity to evaluate your workout routine as well as your health and fitness goals. If your workouts leave you either feeling completely worn out or not very challenged, take that as a signal that you need to  rethink the type of exercise you're doing and pay attention to your nutrition, as well. It may be time to:

•  Vary the types of exercise you do
• Make sure your workout includes both cardio and strength training
• Review your workout plan to make sure it's in line with the latest research in longevity and anti-aging medicine; and
• Make sure you understand all the ways in which proteins and carbohydrates affect your energy levels before, during , and after exercise--and adjust your intake accordingly.

Your work-out plans should be energizing you!


As scientists learn more about how exercise affects metabolism, and vice versa, conventional wisdom about exercise has changed as well.  Review the tips in the article to make sure that you're supporting your metabolism with the right exercise and nutrition.

Muscle Matters:  The Importance of Weight Training

You certainly can burn calories with aerobic exercises such as walking, running, bicycling and cardio workouts. Aerobic exercise is great for your heart, which is very important. But for optimal health and longevity, aerobics alone isn't enough.  You need strength training as well.

To understand why, you need to understand your body on a cellular level. Your body burns calories and fat in tiny structures in the cell called the mitochondria, which are like Power Central for the cell. But mitochondria are found mainly in the muscle cells. It is these little power centers that the fuel you eat gets consumed. If you want to raise your metabolism, you need to increase the number of mitochondria. The best way to do this is by putting on some muscle!

Of course, there are other benefits to weight training. Weight-bearing activity is probably the single best lifestyle choice you can make if you want to prevent osteoporosis. Weight training also gives shape and form to your body and, from a functional point of view, can help you maintain autonomy well into your tenth decade.

Use It or Lose It: Challenge Your Muscles

If you don't challenge your muscles they atrophy at a rate of approximately half pound year (five pounds a decade of muscle loss, maybe more). Your weight may stay the same but your body composition will change to the less desirable “more body fat, less muscle, same weight."

Because of its ability to burn calories, every pound of muscle that you lose is a loss of a valuable asset.  The take-home point: Do your weights. Weight training gives you the tools to burn calories while you're sedentary, and not working out. And if you're like most people, that’s how you spend most of your day. You need to train your body to be efficient at calorie burning the other 23 hours a day when you're not in the gym.

Therefore, a person with muscle, who is sedentary while working at a desk, or sitting in a seat while traveling, or sitting in front of the TV, is burning more calories at that moment than a person with less muscle mass. And- one more benefit to consider - weight training is the best anti-aging strategy in the world, that person is also more likely to be able to care for himself or herself for the rest of his or her life.

Fuel Your Workout Wisely

One of the main questions personal trainers get asked is how to fuel a workout. This is really a two-part question: what to eat before exercising and (possibly more important) what to eat afterwards. What you eat before depends largely on the amount time before exercising that you actually eat. If you're talking about eating a meal several hours before working out you have almost unlimited options--any full, balanced meal built around protein and following the nutrition principles of the Atkins Advantage will be just fine. If, on the other hand, you're going to grab something right before working out, it's important that it be something  very easy to digest--a piece of fruit or a high-protein shake, for example.

The post-exercise meal, however, is most important of all. For about an hour after your workout, there's a window of opportunity when your muscles are literally starving for nutrients. The meal you eat at this time is the most important for building muscle and replenishing energy sources.

Replenish Your Body with Protein

The first thing your body needs is a fresh supply of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and are used by your body for making muscles, hormones, neurotransmitters, bones and all sorts of other important things. Exercise depletes critical amino acids such as glutamine and the three branched chain amino acids--valine, isoleucine and leucine. The way that you replenish your body's supply of them is with protein, which can mean meat, chicken, eggs, fish or whey protein.

Quite a lot of research shows that exercisers who consume a higher protein eating plan, gain more muscle and lose more body fat. Not only does protein build the muscles and help keep body fat percentage low, it also boosts your metabolism and keeps you satisfied longer. Protein should be central to every meal, especially if you're working out.

Choose Slow-Burning Carbohydrates

The second thing you need after a workout is carbohydrates. Exercise draws upon your body's stores of glycogen, which is the storage form of carbohydrates. So some slow-burning carbohydrates after working out are a good idea (the best carbohydrates are low glycemic choices such as vegetables, fruit, nuts/seeds, or high fiber whole grains such as oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa or amaranth).

 To review: Before exercise, you have to consider the time it takes to digest food, so go light. After a hard workout your muscles need protein for repair and growth, and your body needs some carbohydrates to replenish its glycogen stores. Post-workout is the ideal time to have a full meal.

To learn more about evaluating your workout and your food choices to make sure they support optimal health, energy, and longevity, be sure to enroll in this month's featured free course, "Exercise Smart: Make the Most of Your Workout," at the Atkins Learning Center.  You'll learn more about the benefits of strength training, explore a few myths about exercise, find out what adding intervals to your cardio workout can do for you, and take a look a simple 20-minute workout that you might want to try.

This free, instructor-led course has a lively Message Board where you can ask questions and discuss your health and nutritional goals with others. And while you're there, check out our other great course offerings at the Atkins Learning Center. See you in class!