Extreme activity - how much is too much?

Q and A with Trainer Chris Powell

Marty, Chris and Michelle are helping Lourdes in Chandler who asked for advice.

“I work out between 6-7 times per week.  I do between 40-60 minutes of aerobics and run 6 miles on the treadmill 5 times a week, I do weights both for lower and upper body and of course abs. I'm pretty content with my over all results except for those lower abs.  How do I get rid of the pooch!  I'm a mother of five boys ages 11, 9, 6 year old twins and a 17 month old.  I'm beginning to feel a little overwhelmed and run down.  I spend anywhere between 3 and 4 hours working out just to get those flat abs I always wanted. I'm 5 feet tall and I weigh about 99 pounds.  How many calories should a woman my height be eating?  What do I eat?  Please help!  Got to go… baby just woke up!”

Hi Lourdes,
Although I am the ‘Fitness Pro’, losing that pooch is all about your nutrition.  The first question I would ask is, “how much are you eating right now?”  That will answer all of our questions. 

To be honest, it sounds like you are a prime candidate for overtraining.  That ‘run down’ feeling you are talking about is your body telling you to give yourself a break!  To have better control of your body, the perfect amount of exercise daily is between 45 minutes and 1 hour of moderate to intense exercise.  If you push yourself beyond that limit and you are not eating enough calories to keep up with your energy output, your body will actually go into a stress response – also known as ‘starvation mode’.  When this happens, your body will begin to break down its own muscle, slowing your metabolism.  Pushing your body through 3-4 hours of intense exercise daily can be catastrophic to your metabolism!  When this happens, any time you cut back on your cardio or ‘fall off of the diet’, your body will want to pack on the pounds quickly…beginning the downward spiral of yo-yo dieting.

Here’s the catch: 
Your body adapts to everything.  Because of the extreme cardio you put yourself through over time, your body actually now NEEDS to do that much cardio just to maintain its current body composition.  I recommend you increase your calories to around 2500, split between 6 to 7 meals daily.  This will increase your metabolism to match your calorie output, and then you can slowly reduce the exercise and calories together – to avoid crashing your metabolism!  Stay in touch with your doctor while you work through this.

Once you have brought yourself down to around 45 minutes to an hour of moderate-intense exercise, decrease your calories to about 1800 per day.  Now you will have a better starting point to focus on the pooch.  From here, I would recommend decreasing calories to 1400 cals daily Monday thru Friday, then increasing to 2000 on Saturday and Sunday.  This will reset & boost your metabolism weekly to create an effective deficit to lose that last little bit of fat on the belly….Good luck and let me know how it goes! 
Chris

Our Get Healthy Team Dietician Michelle Gorman has more insight on eating right to stay healthy.  Check out her answer here.

Learn more about Chris

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