Researchers found that men who cycled intensely on a stationary bike for 45 minutes burned an extra 190 calories over the 14 hours following their workout. This was additional to the calories they used during the exercise.

The findings may also apply to other high-intensity, heavy-breathing, sweat-producing activities such as running, swimming, jogging and playing intense games of basketball, tennis or squash. It most likely applies to circuit weight training if the intensity and duration are adequate.

To get the extra calorie-burning benefits, the workout needs to be intense enough that “you’re sweating, your body temperature is up and your heart beats fast,” the researchers state.

Others researchers have looked at moderate-intensity activities, such as walking, and found no post-activity impact on calories implying that the exercise needs to be of a high enough intensity. Even walking can be made intense however, by pushing the pace or finding a hill or stairs.

The experiment studied the caloric expenditures of 10 men, ages 22 to 33, using a scientific device called a metabolic chamber. It’s a sealed room that looks like a small hotel room.

Using a metabolic chamber, researchers are able to measure the participant’s oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production in the room and determine the calorie expenditure of that person.

For this study, each participant had a rest day in the room doing very little physical activity other than normal daily tasks such as cleaning their teeth. Most of the time they were only sitting or sleeping.

Each participant spent a second day in the chamber during which their calorie expenditure was measured by monitoring oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production.

Subjects then did the same except that they cycled vigorously for 45 minutes at the beginning.

The subjects burned an average of 190 more calories during the 14.2 hours after exercising, compared with their rest day in the chamber.

This happens because the muscles store glucose in them that it used during exercise, especially vigorous exercise. During the recovery period after exercise, your body is busy restocking the muscle cells and this requires more calories.

So, to get the most from your exercise and continue to burn extra calories after you stop, push yourself to the point that you are getting hot, increasing your heart rate and breathing a bit hard.

Not only will it feel good when you stop, but you’ll be burning calories. So you can enjoy that coffee and pastry knowing it is being used up as you eat it!

Some people go on a diet. Others go to the gym. But in Japan a more novel way of losing weight is fast gaining popularity – wearing “fat burning” underwear.

A growing number of Japanese men and women keen to lose weight are slipping into underwear which claims to burn hundreds of calories a week, simply by wearing them.

Perfect for exercise-averse food-lovers, the MXP Calorie Shaper Pants are made with non-elasticated material that the company claims can make muscles work extra hard while walking or climbing stairs.

The new underpants, from the Tokyo-based Goldwin company, claim that the average 65 kg man who walks 90 minutes a day while wearing them can burn an extra 210 kilocalories per week.

Key to the technology implemented in the underwear – which are currently only on sale in Japan – is a resin printed on the fabric to prevent it from stretching.

According to the manufacturers the extra muscle activity required to overcome the tension in the resin during normal walking activities results in effortless loss weight.

Calorie burning clothing and footwear are becoming increasingly popular in Japan.

The Japanese government has launched a number of campaigns in recent years to slim down the nation, targeting mostly older workers suffering from middle-aged spread around their waists.

Will it work

Anything that can add to your daily energy requirements should mean you burn more calories and therefore help you manage your weight.

However, wearing ‘restrictive underwear’ is unlikely to improve your fitness, as the extra energy required is minimal. A better strategy would be to add more movement to your normal day. Standing up from your desk every time you are on the phone, tapping your feet while reading emails, tightening your stomach muscles every time the phone rings and taking the stairs whenever you can are all good habits to develop.

Do these and you can probably save yourself some money and discomfort that go with ‘fat-burning’ underwear.

Mind you…. do these activities while wearing this new underwear and you will burn even more calories!

It’s taken a while, but I have finally converted my book, If I’d only known I’d live this long.. into an e-course.

The book contains 69 tips for living a long, healthy and happy life. If you’d like one tip delivered to your inbox every week for the next 69 weeks, than sign up here.

The course is valued at AU$69 but for subscribers to my blog, I’m offering it at only AU$20.

To start receiving it sign up here.

I had an email from someone recently asking if it is okay for her walking group, who are ‘senior’ women, to add some intervals to their regular coastal walk that usually takes an hour.

The question implies two parts -

1. Is it safe (for older exercisers) to do intervals
2. Is it beneficial (for older exercisers) to do intervals

For anyone new to the Stay Sharp newsletter, interval training is where you intersperse short bursts of higher intensity exercise into your session.

Is interval training safe?

Any exercise has a risk. While you are exercising you are at an increased risk of a cardiovascular event. However, your overall risk (ie even when you aren’t exercising) is much lower than someone who does no exercise.

A few years ago, Norwegian researchers treated heart attack sufferers with the same intense training methods used by competitive athletes (American Heart Journal, June 2009). They had them run on a treadmill very fast for a few seconds, rested and then repeated their intense intervals. Some of the patients only ran fast for 30 seconds every five minutes.

The interval-training heart attack victims were able to use more oxygen maximally (VO2max) and their heart rates returned toward normal faster than other heart attack victims who did slower continuous training. Both of these changes are indicators of improved fitness and this improved fitness lasted for 30 months after the patients completed their 12-week rehabilitation program.

The same researchers have now shown that high-intensity interval training reduces high blood pressure more than continuous exercise does. (European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation, June 8, 2011).

Researchers at the famous Mayo Clinic in the US have started to get heart attack patients to do 30-second bursts of exercise using faster speeds and steeper inclines, gradually increasing the number of intervals and their duration.

The top medical experts believe that it is safe for heart attack patients to do high intensity intervals and that the fitness improvements are better than continuous exercise.

Is interval training beneficial?

More and more, the research is showing that short bursts of high intensity exercise improve fitness more than slow continuous exercise. Not only are there greater improvements in fitness but the time required for exercise is less.

Studies have also shown that intense exercise is far more effective in reducing belly fat than less intense exercise (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, November 2008 & Metabolism May 1991). Fat around the middle is more dangerous to heart health than fat stored in other places on the body.

Intervals also result in better total fat loss. Many people do not lose weight when they exercise because they don’t do it vigorously enough to raise their body temperatures and increase their metabolisms (International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. January, 2001).

Intense exercise can raise body temperature enough to burn extra calories for up to 18 hours afterwards meaning you are burning more calories even after you have finished(International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2001).

Studies from Yale (Journal of Applied Physiology, January 2006) and Norway (Circulation, July 2008) show that intense exercise is far more effective in preventing and controlling diabetes than exercising at a leisurely pace. Intense exercising diabetics have lower blood sugars levels, better contraction of their arteries, better muscle growth, less cell damage, and lost more fat than casually exercising diabetics.

German researchers have also shown that 50-year-old men who ran more than 50 miles per week at a fast pace had telomeres (chromosome caps) that were more than 40 percent longer than those of inactive men of the same age and almost the same length as those of 20-year-old runners on the National Team (Circulation, December 2009). Shortened telomeres represent aging.

The bottom line on intervals

All the evidence shows that intervals are safe for older exercisers and more likely to improve fitness. Too many people, especially older exercisers, spend too much of their exercise time and effort just going through the motions and not really ‘exercising’.

By putting in a handful of short intense bursts, you can get fitter faster and reduce both your fat levels and your health risk.

Are you so busy trying to earn more money so you’ll be happier, that you haven’t got time for exercise?

If you are, you might need to rethink your priorities.

I’ve just read some fascinating research that found freedom and personal autonomy are more important to people’s wellbeing than money.

The study looked at data from 63 countries, involving 420,599 people, that had been published by the American Psychological Association.

The researchers were asking the question -

What is more important for well-being, providing people with money or providing them with choices and autonomy?

What they found was that providing individuals with more autonomy appears to be important for reducing negative psychological symptoms, independent of wealth.

Although money leads to autonomy, it does not add to well-being or happiness.

Previous research has shown that the effect of money on happiness plateaus. Once people reach the point of being able to meet their basic needs, more money leads to marginal gains at best, or even less well-being as people worry about “keeping up with the Joneses.”

More autonomy and freedom however, is associated with greater well-being.

So… what does all this have to do with exercise and fitness?

When talking to individuals or groups, I emphasise that the real benefit of exercise is that it gives you greater capacity to do the things you want to do. And that means greater choices. The older you get, the more significant fitness is in maintaining autonomy and choice.

The thing that stops most people from doing what they want as they get older, is not lack of money but lack of fitness. For some this shows up as poor health, but poor health is often the result of poor fitness.

If you are struggling to find the motivation to exercise regularly, think about the things you want to do in 5 or 10 years from now.

If are so busy trying to earn more money that you can’t find time to get fit, perhaps you need to rethink your priorities. The money will be of little value if you aren’t fit enough to use it.

If you are motivated to exercise but just can’t seem to get the results you want, give me a call or drop me an email. A personal session to come up with a strategy that works might be what you need.

Getting your priorities right is important for long-term health and happiness.

Do you find it harder to get up when it is cold, dark and possibly wet outside.

I know I do.

It’s quite common for many people to let their exercise routine fall away during the winter months and for a few extra kilos to accumulate. Younger people in particular, don’t notice the day-to-day difference, but they may be setting themselves up for problems later in life.

Research, and common sense, tells us it’s better to maintain your activity and fitness if you want to avoid losing fitness and gaining fat over winter. Not only is it harder to regain your fitness, but over many years it can make a big difference to your health.

A recent study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that young adults, particularly women, who maintained high levels of moderate and vigorous activity over a period of 20 years experienced smaller gains in weight and waist circumference during the transition from young adulthood to middle age, compared to individuals with lower activity levels.

The researchers from Northwestern University in Chicago conducted a study to evaluate the relationship between maintaining higher activity levels and changes in body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference over 20 years in young adults.

The study is a prospective study that started in 1985-1986 and followed up participants until 2005-2006. The study included 3,554 men and women, ages 18 to 30 years at the beginning of the study.

Participants were categorised into three groups; maintaining high, moderate, and low activity levels based on sex-specific groupings (by thirds) of activity scores at the beginning of the study.

The results showed that over the study period, maintaining high levels of activity was associated with smaller gains in Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist circumference compared with low activity levels after adjusting for race, baseline BMI, age, education, cigarette smoking status, alcohol use and energy intake.

Over 20 years, men maintaining high activity gained 2.6 less kilograms and high activity women gained 6.1 fewer kilograms. High activity men gained 3.1 fewer centimeters in waist circumference and women maintaining higher activity gained 3.8 less centimetres.

The researchers noted that weight gains in participants with moderate or inconsistent activity levels generally were not different from the low-activity group.

Ladies take note, women seemed to benefit the most from maintaining higher activity. The magnitude of weight change was more than twice as large among women compared with men.

Similarly, participants who maintained the recommended 150 minutes of moderate activity per week gained significantly less weight compared with participants who did not.

So with cold and wet weather finally arriving (in Perth anyway), its time to put in place strategies to make sure you do’t slip back on your activity and fitness over the winter months.

Here’s three tips that might help.

1. Find friends who like to exercise in winter

I have a cycling mate who loves riding in the rain, so I know regardless of the weather he will be there for our designated ride. Find someone with the same commitment and be there to exercise with them.

2. Have an alternative

Sometimes it is just hard to get out the door when it is cold, wet and windy. It may even be dangerous to be out on the roads when visibility is poor and common sense tells you to stay home. Having an alternative, such as some weights or exercises to do at home means you can still do something. Even putting on your wet weather gear and going for a walk is better than doing nothing.

3. Change your mindset to wet weather

I know it is hard to step out the front door when it is raining (see point 2) but not exercising because you might get wet is a slippery slope to a sedentary life. Just changing your mindset about exercising in winter might be all it takes to keep you active all year round. Focus on how good you’ll feel when you have finished and how pleased you will be with yourself knowing many others stayed in bed or skipped their workout while you were doing your thing.

Don’t let the thought of getting cold and wet deter you. You can only get wet once.