The future Mister, Mini-me, the dogs – Sala and Sushi – and I all packed up and spent ten days in NYC. For a girl like me whose been almost everywhere except NYC? This was quite the experience… so much so, that all of my posts this week are going to be centered around vacationing and how to carry your lifestyle through when you’re no longer in the comfort of your own home.

I always get tons of e-mails asking me how one should work out while they’re on vacation. I mean, sure, if you’ve got access to a gym in a hotel you simply get up an hour earlier and hit the shop… but what if you’re staying with a friend?

I’m a big proponent of the morning workout. Why? Because… I’m vacationing! After that initial wake-up and workout? I’m going to be hellbent on relaxing the rest of the day. I simply don’t trust myself to break that with a workout… which, I’ve got to admit, isn’t always as fun as laying out on the beach or exploring a new city.

Me, Sala and Sushi getting in a (very brief) jog.

That being said… there’s also this interesting thing about a place like NYC that I don’t see too often. (And I’m sure NYCers/visitors may understand where I’m going with this.) I don’t think NYC likes cars very much.

At all, really.

In a city where pedestrians really and truly rule, you can either burn a quarter-tank of gas looking for parking, pay the $26/hr in a parking lot, or figure out how to use that subway and those legs you’ve got. And you’d better make that decision. Quickly.

Y’all know me. I’m cheap. Walking it is.

…and that brings me to another part of this “fitness on vacation” thing. You’ve also got to know how to sneak a little exercise into your vacay, too. Suppose you’ve spent last night out, and wentto bed at 4AM (I’m not saying that happened to me…. but if it did, don’t judge!) The last thing you want to do is wake up at 6AM and work out. I mean, if that’s your thing, then hey – have at it – but if not? (And I wouldn’t be mad at you if it wasn’t.) Then sneaking fitness into your day is definitely going to be a win.

After spending well over a week’s worth of time in a building with no elevator – and having to walk up and down 4 flights of stairs to get to our place at least 3 times a day? I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my booty, thighs and calves didn’t feel the burn. That was a kind of struggle I wasn’t ready for, shoot.

If you’re in a new area? Go exploring… in different directions… every day…on foot. Make the most of your vacation time and go exploring. If you’re in an area that doesn’t really have much, then drive to an area that does… and park. We’d ride the subway to one part of Manhattan, walk across the city, make our way back to where we started by taking different streets in the same direction, and then head home. We easily clocked 8 miles wandering around Brooklyn in one day… another 6 by wandering around Manhattan.  Most of us have smart phones, so grab your favorite GPS app (or head right on over to Google Maps) and plot yourself a path. Get the most out of your time away!

Exercise isn’t solely a bunch of stiff and rigorous activities with repetitive motions and minimal context. Not only that, but you can definitely remain active without those same stiff activities. The bottom line is that you get (and stay) moving as much as possible, and that you enjoy yourself while you do it! You are on vacation anyway, and that’s what you’re there to do… right?!

What about you – how do you remain active while you’re away from home?

BGG2WL In NYC: How Do You Remain Active While On Vacation? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: BGG2WL In NYC, calisthenics, Cardio, vacationing

It seems like common sense that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training would be the best program to help whittle your belly and improve your health.

But new research comes to the surprising conclusion that, at least for one subset of people, aerobics alone is best not only at promoting overall weight loss but also whittling away the visceral belly fat that’s linked to so many negative health conditions.

The study, published Aug. 16 in the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, measured the effects on overall weight, liver fat and visceral fat and other factors of exercise regimens featuring aerobic exercise, resistance training and a combination of the two. Their subjects were 196 sedentary people ages 18 to 70 who were overweight or obese.

Visceral fat (the kind that accumulates around the internal organs in the abdomen), liver fat and overweight/obesity are known to contribute to such chronic health conditions as type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome and also to overall mortality.

All three groups exercised about the same amount of time per week. But the aerobics-only group saw greater reductions in visceral fat, liver fat and overall body mass than either of the other groups. Adding resistance training to aerobic exercise conferred no substantial benefits, and resistance training alone resulted in little notable change except an overall increase in body mass, which resulted from an increase in lean tissue (muscle); abdominal fat did decrease a bit among this group.

The authors note that differences in results might be attributable in part to the simple fact that aerobic exercise burns more calories than resistance training does, hour for hour. The authors suggest additional research in which the exercise programs are matched for the number of calories expended, not the time spent exercising.

Still, the study establishes that, particularly for people not inclined to exercise in the first place or who are unable to exercise for long periods of time, aerobic activity may be the most efficient way to lose weight and get healthier.

Study: Cardio Beats Resistance Training In Belly Fat Battle is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: belly fat, Cardio, strength training, weight lifting, weightlifting

Pasta - a favorite "carb up!" dish for runners!

Q: I have been working out consistently since January and have went down one size. I work out for an hour (cardio and strength training) at least 5-6 times a week. But here lately, my hunger has increased alot. I don’t know if it harmones or what. Is this normal? Should I eat more?

A: You have to think about what you’re doing when you take in food and when you execute an activity.

Food isn’t about all this emotional, lovey dovey stuff that we evolved humans have attached to it. I mean sure, food can have emotional attachment (like a positive – or negative – memory) but that’s not what it’s for. It’s our primary source of both energy as well as nourishment. Plain and simple.

When you eat, you take in energy. Ever heard of calories? A calorie is a standard measurement of energy – chemistry classes told me something about kilocalories and kilojoules… but if I admitted that then I’d also be admitting that my teachers were right in telling me I’d need this information some day and that would just be… disastrous. Anyway.. I’m off track a little bit, here.

A calorie is a standard measurement of energy. In order to get through your entire day, your body burns energy (read: calories) in order to maintain your daily functions. We’ll call this the Basal Metabolic Rate, the rate at which your body burns energy without any extra activity at all.

This puts food intake in a whole new perspective. When you eat 100 calories of broccoli – mmm, broccoli – you’re ingesting 100 calories worth of fuel that the body stores for later use – actually… let me put that in a different perspective – when you eat 600 calories worth of french fries, you’re ingesting 600 calories worth of fuel that the body stores for later use. If your body only burns 1500 calories a day without you engaging in any extra activity, then you just ate half of your intake for the day…. and anything that you eat beyond that 1500 calories is stored as fat.

That being said, its just as important to fuel any extra activity as it is to fuel your basic daily functions. If you’re trying to starve yourself, your body will catch on sooner or later and your metabolism will slow down – not simply because there’s no food coming in to burn, but more specifically because the body recognizes that there’s not enough energy coming in to fuel the activity you’re engaging in… thereby causing your body to work against your efforts to burn fat.

There was an article in Time Magazine a few years back titled “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” that brought up this issue… saying that exercise doesn’t work because it increases your appetite.

Um, it’s supposed to increase your appetite!

If you’re burning a ton of energy at any given time, the body is going to notice that! It’s going to outright demand that you stuff your face with something to replenish the energy you’ve burned! Of course it will! It only makes sense. It doesn’t want to starrrrrrve, it doesn’t want to be limited in energy. It wants to have a balanced supply of energy in preparation for the next famine. It’s going to try to compel you to take in more energy. That’s its job.

The reality is that as you engage in more cardiovascular activity, the body is going to realize this and its going to trigger ghrelin – the hunger hormone – to act a complete fool. No, seriously. I’ve come home and felt that ravenous feeling before… and felt further justified in eating “half of what I burned” because “I burned so much.”

So…. if that’s the problem, what is the solution?

Let’s think, here. If you simply decide to go into cardio and not eat afterwards… as in, go straight to bed after cardio, you’re going to wake up pretty groggy. Double negative points if you decide to skip breakfast, as well.

Clearly, you have a death wish… or an overeating wish. Same diff.

What do I do? I simply go ahead and eat afterwards. Why the hell wouldn’t I? Suffering through hunger pangs isn’t a badge of honor. If you decide to eat something before a cardio session, you’ve got the energy you’ll need to dive head first into your workout. When you crash in your blaze of glory, you’ll need to replenish what you’ve lost… and that demands that you eat.

This is why eating clean and keeping your calories under control throughout the day is so important. You simply cannot unnecessarily gorge out during the day because “I’m working out later… its cardio day” only to be shocked and confused about what to do when you experience actual hunger pangs. That kind of mentality might work for when you’re trying to maintain your weight, but as far as losing weight? No, you won’t be successful that way.

It’s an extremely delicate dance, and there’s no simple answer in here anywhere. You’ll have to find out what works best for your height and weight combination, but realize that even that takes time. I’d try to play with keeping up my regular intake every few hours, but focus the bulk of my daily caloric intake around my cardio sessions. That requires planning – heaven forbid – but weight loss requires a conscious and concerted effort… and your body will, without question, thank you for it in the end!

Q&A Wednesday: Working Out Makes Me Hungry! Help! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: appetite, Cardio, exercise, hunger pangs, weight loss

Steam Engines is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: Abs, Cardio, exercise, workout at home, workout routine

Do you see this? THIS is why you should run. Good grief.

See, you might see the title of this blog post and think I’ve gone off the deep end.

I haven’t.*

I’m serious, though. C’mon — I can’t be the only person who has seen The Walking Dead. I mean, it was a pretty darn popular show, I thought. (It was also a comic, buuut… I’m not trying to let my nerdy side show too much, here.)

It was also scary as hell.

What was The Walking Dead? A TV show about a zombie apocalypse and the last uninfected people. I’m trying to remain one of those uninfected people.

And really, lets keep it real… y’all know Black girls don’t last long in these zombie episodes, shoot. Jada Pinkett didn’t last longer than 10 minutes when she was in Scream 2, and that killer was human!

I’ve got to prepare myself to protect myself.

That means… when I’m in that unavoidable situation where I’ve got to run for my life – be it from a zombie or psycho in a ghost mask – I’ve got to be ready.

All jokes aside, this means that I need to be able to run consistently for a mile straight without needing to stop in the middle to take breaks along the way…

…and that’s what today’s post is all about.

Cardiovascular health is important. Think of all the reactions that happen when you run. The heart pumps blood into the lungs where the blood is then blended with oxygen and pumped to the rest of the body. That cycle carries not only the oxygen our bodies need to function properly, but the nutrients and energy as well. You want that cycle to operate as efficiently as possible.

That’s what cardiovascular exercise is supposed to help you do. It gives you the opportunity to test your cardiovascular ability in a controlled environment and push it a little closer to the limit each time you get out there.

For example, take a basic jog in the park. You get moving… you start breathing a little heavier… your heart is pumping blood into your lungs where it then carries oxygen into your body… where the blood then picks up nutrients and energy and carries it throughout your body. This action not only clears the channels through which blood flows – like, for example, arteries – but this activity within the body generates heat… which then causes you to sweat, since sweat is the body’s natural cool down system.

Remember… as calories are a measure of heat, generating heat in the body equates to a burning of calories. This is why cardiovascular activity is seen as being so “important” to weight loss.

You can gauge your cardiovascular ability by how much effort it takes your body to execute basic functions. Do you break into a sweat when you climb a few flights of stairs? Do you have a hard time making it from one end of the block to the other? Um, the zombies are gonna get you… and I like you. I don’t want the zombies to get you.

With cardiovascular exercise, you work your heart and body to what it considers maximum capacity, then you hit “that brick wall.” Y’know, the wall where you feel like if you go any further, you might keel over and die?

Yeah, you’re not gonna keel over and die. In fact… look at it this way – if you slow down, then zombies are gonna get you. I’d rather keep going and keel over while I’m in motion than have the zombies catch me while I’m still alive.

I’m just sayin’.

The more you push yourself to remain at that “maximum capacity,” the more your heart gets used to what that “maximum capacity” is and since it has trained for how to handle that amount of work, it requires less effort to properly pump what you need through the body.

Y’know.. the good gooey stuff that the zombies want.

This is why cardiovascular exercise can be such a great way to stave off high blood pressure… because as blood pressure is the measure of how hard the heart has to work to pump blood through the arteries, cardio helps the heart become stronger and more effective at pumping blood through those very same arteries. Remember, the heart is a muscle just like any other. You lift the same 10lb weight for a few weeks, the forearm/bicep/tricep muscles become strong enough to deal with exerting that force, and it becomes easier to lift that same 10lb weight. The heart works the same way.

So… back to this zombie thing – the most important issue, here.

How can you train to run a mile straight without having to stop for breaks? ‘Cause believe me… the zombies don’t come complete with a pause button.

Ever heard of high intensity interval training? It’s one of those buzz words – something I try to avoid using when I can, here – but the difference is that this one actually has value. High intensity interval training is basically a way of saying that you practice your cardiovascular activity in intervals with different amounts of intensity. For example:

If you powerwalked for 4 minutes, then made a million dollar mad dash for 1 minute, then powerwalked again for 4 minutes, then another minute-long million dollar mad dash… and continued that cycle? That would be you successfully training in intervals.

You could even scale it back a bit. If you’re a beginner to cardio, simply try walking at a leisurely pace for 4 minutes, then power walk as fast as you can for a minute.

It doesn’t matter what you do during that 4 minute/1 minute interval, as long as they are of varying intensity and you are pushing yourself to the limit.

Once that feels like it’s no longer challenging? Shift your intervals. Power walk for 3 minutes, make that mad dash for 2 minutes. Keep your leisurely pace for 3 minutes, then power walk for 2 minutes.

Keep moving like that until you’re power walking for 5 minutes straight.. and if you feel like you need to slow down a tad? Then give yourself a minute. Before you know it, you could be power walking for 8 minutes, and then taking it slow for 1. Power walking for 10 minutes, slowing down for 1. The same goes for power walking/mad dashing.

How do you know that it’s challenging you? You’re sweating – that’s a big hint. You’re breathing harder – that’s another one. Remember, you’re challenging your heart to work harder, so that’s your biggest indicator of whether or not you’re challenging yourself. You’re training for cardiovascular ability… so that you’ll eventually be able to duck those pesky zombies. Once you no longer feel that in your heart, it’s time to move up to the next level.

After you’ve reached the point where you’re power walking (or mad dashing, depending upon what your intervals consist of) for your entire cardio session, it’s time to try to up the ante. Start over – yes, start over – so that if you were once leisurely walking and power walking, now you’re power walking for four minutes and jogging for 1. You just keep playing with the intensity at a controlled pace and before you know it, you’ve increased your cardiovascular ability.

…and while you’re increasing your cardiovascular ability, you’re also losing weight. All that generated heat burns calories, y’know.

Intervals are an awesome way to not only sneakily issue a cardiovascular challenge to your heart, but get in some extra calorie burnage, as well. If you can’t mad dash for your entire cardio session, getting in a minute or two of it here or there also makes a big difference.

I’m still a big proponent of interval training and even though now, I’m training with an extra 50lbs on me – no, I didn’t gain weight… but I am pushing a jogging stroller with one hand and controlling an Alaskan Husky with the other – I’m still working to get my speed up. Intervals are the best way to do it.

So… who else is going to join the Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Team and prepare for the end with me?

*I might be kidding – slightly – with the zombies, but I’m a firm believer that every person should be able to run to save not only themselves but someone they love from danger or harm. It might not be zombies, but whatever it may be… at least you’ll be ready.

How To Survive A Zombie Invasion is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: burning fat, calories, Cardio, cardiovascular activity, cardiovascular health, zombie apocalypse

Q: In one of your posts you mentioned a fear of having your heart rate go to high. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and kind of afraid when my heart beats “too fast,” but how fast I consider too fast is completely in my head and based on a lifelong avoidance of exercise. Can you speak a little bit about how to overcome that and measure it properly?

Ugh, the stupid Presidential fitness test. Just… ugh. I say that not because I find it useless – I don’t – I say that as an individual eternally scarred from the yearly fail stamp placed on my forehead because of it. Ugh.

At this point in my life, my next mountain to climb consists of becoming a runner. Someone who can run several miles at a time – barefoot, even – without wanting to keel over and die for a little while. And I won’t lie – it stems from that little situation with my 17-minute mile during the stupid Presidential fitness test. (By the way, it looks like President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for that. We like him – rather, I like him – so I think I’ll give him a pass.)

There’s an interesting parallel here, that I cannot overlook or deny, though. In order to lose weight, I had to learn my body – what it likes, what it doesn’t; what it benefits from, what it’s harmed by; what it can use, what’s useless. In order to become a runner, I have to learn my heart: what it likes, what it doesn’t; what it benefits from, what it’s harmed by; what it can use, what is useless. I needed to learn what helps it and hurts it as well as what it feels like when it’s working hard, and what it feels like when it’s just truly hurting. These are things that no one can teach us – they are all unique and will be different for each individual, and can only be learned through careful listening to our bodies, minds and hearts.

But how do you do that if you’ve never been a cardio-happy kid? How do you “listen to your heart” if you’ve never paid it much mind before?

First, make sure it’s not a superficial issue. It can’t be because your “boobs are too big,” you’re “embarrassed by how funny you look” or you’re just trying to avoid sweating your hair out. ‘Cause if that’s it… I got nothin’ for ya.

Second, if you’re really taking this cardio thing seriously, don’t be afraid to slow down or stop. I know this seems counter-productive, but it’s real. In this regard, you exercise your heart similarly to any other muscle in the body. You train it by working it as hard as you can stand – go as hard as you can every time you go at it – and the muscle eventually develops the ability to withstand the amount of work you’re putting into it, thus allowing you to work harder and feel less “stress” from it. In other words, it learns how to handle what you’re throwing at it.. you just have to keep throwing work at it.

If you’re someone who has difficulty walking up a flight of stairs, that’s not reason to give up walking the stairs. That’s a reason to keep taking the stairs, stopping whenever it feels like too much to bear on your heart. Throw yourself into it. Eventually, you’ll be able to take the stairs without stopping… perhaps even run up and down the stairs. Repeatedly.

You can even apply that to walking your first mile. It’s OK to stop – as long as you eventually pick yourself up and keep going once you’ve calmed down. Treadmill running is the same way… although I preferred to leave the incline button alone until I better understood what my heart feels like when I’m working hard, hardly working and working too darn hard. For someone who needs to learn how to gauge their “stress levels” on a treadmill, adding an incline – to me – seems like an unnecessary step. Once I felt more comfortable with me, then I played with the inclines.

It’s all about listening to my heart. I had to skip the expectations of where I should be going, what I should be able to do at that point in time, and how fast I should be able to go. I couldn’t use anyone else’s expectations to tell me how to get it done, because they certainly couldn’t listen to my heart the way that I could, right? My heart is unique, deserves my time in listening to it and my attention when training it. It deserves me learning to stop when it feels overworked, and it deserves me always getting back up to try again.

Anyone out there with a story on how they overcame their cardio fear? Let’s hear ‘em!

Q&A Wednesday: Overcoming Cardio Fear is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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3. Study: Cardio Beats Resistance Training In Belly Fat Battle

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: barefoot running, Cardio, exercising, running

A part of my OWN home workout includes skipping rope, and it’s been working wonders for me. I have a nice cheap jump rope that I got back from the dollar general, LOL, so I don’t use the cool rope this gentleman has in his video. Some days, I don’t use the rope at all, and I “mock jump rope” throughout the morning. Give yourself a good five minutes with this exercise, and after a few weeks you’ll definitely start feeling some changes in your body!

Building a Home Workout Routine: Jump Rope! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cardio, exercises, fat loss, workout at home, workout routine, workout tips