Keeping yourself in a caloric deficit is the only thing that is needed to lose-weight. However, along with helping fat-loss, exercise is beneficial in ways that the bathroom scale can’t measure. Studies have been done that prove that high intensity exercise can raise insulin sensitivity. By increasing insulin sensitivity, less insulin is needed to move blood sugar (glucose) to other tissues, such as muscle, to convert into energy. This means that less sugar is left to turn into fat. Another benefit of ramping up insulin sensitivity is that it will help you prevent or delay onset of type 2 diabetes. The lower the body’s insulin sensitivity the harder the pancreas has to work to produce more insulin to take care of the blood sugar. If your pancreas can no longer keep up with blood glucose levels, you are either in the pre-diabetes stage or depending how bad it is, may already have type 2 diabetes. Benefits of exercise Aids weight-loss Will protect you against disease CardiovascularDiabetes Osteoporosis Back pain Boosts metabolism Release “feel good” hormones Improves mood Aid the fight of depression May lead to a more positive outlook in life Will help you sleep and improve sleep quality Increases energy level While losing weight, will help to retain muscle Fights loss of skeletal muscle usually do to age Increase capacity for physical work Will help injury prevention Will increase strength Helps you to attain that “toned” look Cardio or weightlifting? In short, do whatever you can. Anything you do is better than nothing. In an ideal world however, a mix of both is the way to go. There are benefits that doing cardio and weight lifting share; such as boosting metabolism and protecting against certain diseases. Both have a synergistic effect on one another. Whatever you choose; be it running or lifting weight, push yourself. Make sure that whatever you’re doing is a challenge. For example, when I first started my weight kept me from running. Love it as I did, Icouldn’t do it because of the toll it paid on my knees. So instead of running I walked. But when I walked, I did it at a really good pace. I always tracked my walks. Eventually I would increase the speed or duration and at times both. I did this until I reached a weight at which my knees could handle the running. NOTE: While you should make your workouts challenging, do not over-do it. If you over-do it, it will catch up with you in the form of lethargy, muscle loss or even bone and joint damage. The later may cause you to live in pain for the rest of your life so take this warning to heart. About Cardio Even though there is a lot of talk on the web saying that cardio isn’t necessary for weight loss and that weightlifting is the only way to go, I still think that cardio, in the form of walking, running, swimming or bike riding, has a place in a weight-loss program. To me, being able to run without coughing up a lung is one of my goals. So while it is important to me to retain andeventually gain muscle mass, I want to be able to enjoy sport like activities as well. To me, this is what being fit means and becoming fit is my overall goal. The main opponents of cardio are those who focus mainly on building muscle. There have been studies stating that too much intense cardio has a tendency to eat away that hard earned muscle by the way of cortisol. Cortisol is known as a stress hormone. When a body is stressed, by exercise or life situation alike, it releases cortisol. During exercise, the body becomes stressed when body glycogen stores are depleted. Glycogen is a simple sugar stored in muscles and the liver to fuel the body. In order to make up for the lost glycogen, coristol then causes the body to break down muscle tissue to use as an alternate source of energy. This is of course is a very basic description of how cortisol affects lean muscle tissue. If you wish to learn more, there are plenty of articles on the web describing the process in a much greaterdetail. There is a way to have your cake and eat it too you just have to focus on keeping those cortisol levels down. The key here is not overtraining. Try to keep your workouts to about an hour or so, three times a week. If you’re planning a fast run limit it to 30 minutes. Once in a while doing a marathon session isn’t going to kill you but don’t do it too often. Walking – Many consider walking the perfect cardio. Its low impact, so it’s great for your knees.  Since it’s a fairly low intensity exercise, you won’t have to worry about raising cortisol levels. In fact, walking has been shown to reduce cortisol levels as long as it’s not overdone. Those of you who can’t or don’t want to do cardio should at the very least consider walking. Even while walking you should try to push yourself. Keeping a 15 minute per mile (4 MPH) pace shouldn’t be asking too much of someone with average endurance. To someone of average height this would be considered a brisk walk. If you have a hard timekeeping this pace, slow down. Use your judgment and go at a pace that you consider a brisk. If you walk briskly for a while your endurance and pace will eventually improve. Try not to go over 60 minutes per session on regular basis although doing so once in a while will not harm you. A 90 minute distance walk may even encourage and energize you to keep pushing yourself and maybe eventually even start running. Do this 3 times a week skipping every-other day. Running – Running is very efficient way of burning calories therefore it’s a perfect addition to your weight-loss arsenal. It is higher impact than walking so those of you with preexisting knee conditions should test the waters before taking the plunge into the world of pounding pavement. However, if you can pull it off I would advise you do so.  Those of you who don’t have much time to spare on any given day may especially consider running. Running is cheap and convenient. Only cost you will incur is the price of a good pair ofrunning sneakers and the world becomes your gym. Also consider that you burn more calories while running for the same amount of time spent when compared against other forms of cardio. 30 minute activity 34 year old, 195 lbs male Running 6 Mph                 (10 Min/Mile)    Moderate effort             400 calories Walking 4 Mph (13 Min/Mile)    Brisk Walk                           204 calories Bicycling 12-13.9 Mph                     Moderate effort              326 Calories (Figures pulled from activity calculator) If you would like to get into running but you’re not conditioned for it, I would suggest plans such as Couch to 5K or C25K for short. The program promises to get just about anyone to run 30 minute 5 kilometer (3.1 mile) race in a period of 9 weeks training about 3 times a week. This is a nice easy way to ease your body into running. to learn more about the program. There are also a few app choices out there if you plan to use your Android or IOS device for tracking andencouragement. For those of you interested in my running progress, click here. Biking – So you have bad knees or don’t want to risk damaging them but still like to push yourself during workouts. Running is definitely out as it is a high impact activity. Biking is the perfect way to replace running. It’s still convenient as all you have to do is get on the bike and go and it’s easy on the joints. While a great form of exercise biking can get expensive especially if you choose to go with brand new decent quality equipment. A decent quality bike, be it road or mountain, will set you back $700 – $1000. Add on to that a helmet, shoes, clothes and additional gear such as a speedometer or better pedals and even the entry end bike you’re around $1000. You may ask yourself; mountain or road? Simple answer; whatever will keep you coming back. To me personally, a road bike makes more sense. It’s more convenient because I can just jump on it and go. There are no noteworthy trails around my housewhich means if I wanted to ride my mountain bike I would need to load the bike and drive at least 30 minutes out of my way. Plus I enjoy running on the streets so it makes more sense for me to stick to the streets.  Whichever way you decide to go, road or trail, make sure to keep at it.   Craigslist may be your best friend if you’re a cyclist on a budget. Whatever you do, make sure to do your research before pulling a trigger on a craigslist bike as there are people out there that will take advantage of an uninformed buyer. HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training Even the anti-cardio people accept HIIT as a great form of cardio. HIIT is called High Intensity Interval Training. The idea behind HIIT is that you alternate maximum intensity work with less-intense recovery work. For example, a newbie runner might do a 10 minute easy warm up. After that he/she would all out sprint for 15 seconds followed by a 60 second jog. One sprint/jog combination is considered a set. One may repeat theset 10 times. The whole workout, minus the warm-up, lasts about 12.5 minutes. Sounds easy, right? Let me tell you it’s definitely not as easy as it looks. If you don’t believe me try it for yourself. Make sure to give the sprint section of the workout you maximum effort than come back here to tell me how easy it is As the trainee’s conditioning improves, the maximum intensity sections increase in duration while the less-intense sections shrink proportionally. The set duration and repetition may also increase. The great thing about HIIT is that it can be done anywhere, with any equipment or even without. You can do it on an elliptical at the gym, jump rope at home, a bike or just your feet and good running shoes. The reason why everyone loves HIIT is because while burning a good amount of fat, it can also build muscle. And because of the relatively short duration of a HIIT workout, your body doesn’t release cortisol. Keep in mind however that while HIIT does not tax the body’s glycogenstores, it can be taxing on your joints and connective tissue. It is suggested that you don’t engage in HIIT more than 2 times a week for this reason. About Weight Training Back in the good ole days if someone wanted to burn fat everyone and their mother suggested that they do lots and lots of cardio. Weight training was reserved for the Arnold Schwarzenegger types. Well, over the years this ideology has been turned upside-down.  These days there are people who suggest cutting out cardio all together and focus mainly on lifting heavy weight to burn off that unwanted gristle. I believe that everything is good in moderation. If you kill yourself with grueling cardio workouts it will affect your body negatively. The same is true with weight-lifting. Whatever you do, if you over-train your body will pay for it. That being said, if you’ve never stepped a foot into a gym before, you might be wondering about what kind of workout you should do. Try to stay away from the machines. I know thatit sounds like it makes sense that someone starting out should stick to these, but that assumption is false. Many of the machines incorporate unnatural movement that may in the end hinder your progress and may even hurt you. Take the Smith machine for example. There are many people out there that refuse to learn the proper way to squat so instead try for the easier and “safer” Smith Squats. What they don’t realize is that doing squats on the smith machine is doing them a great disservice. While working on the major muscle groups, smith machine squats ignore working the stabilizer supporting muscles. Also, many believe that this type of squat is easier on the knees. This is a false notion. The movement becomes very linear because of the bar being locked in on a rail. When squatting with free weights, the weight never travels in a linear fashion. It moves the way that it’s meant to move. The smith machine actually places your knees in an unnatural position actually putting more shearingforces on them. A properly executed barbell squat will not hurt your knees. You should focus on big compound lifts such as squats, bench press, dead-lifts, rows, and military presses. You should also incorporate a few body weight lifts such as chin-ups and dips into your routine. NOTE: Some of these movements can be complex so starting off with a knowledgeable trainer may not be a bad way to go. Make sure to inform the PT that you wish to learn the proper way of executing the compound lifts which I mentioned earlier. P.S. A knowledgeable trainer will not suggest that you start off on machines.  Strength and muscle mass routine differences Depending on your goals, it is possible to tailor a weight lifting program for your goals through manipulation of exercise set and rep schemes. A pure strength routine will have you doing low reps with heavy weight. If your goal is to purely gain muscle mass, you will be rep range will be higher than that of someone whose focus is strength. You canalso structure your routine for both, muscle and strength gain. 3 X 5 Routine For a while I followed a program called . The reason why I liked it is because it is very simple while at the same time being very effective. The book does an excellent job of describing the program theory as well as the exercises. The program consists mostly of 3 sets of 5 reps of a variety of compound movements. It is done 3 times a week with each workout taking up approximately 45 minutes if you focus on getting down to business. If you search Google for this program you should get plenty of links describing the program in far more detail than I do here. Some people will look at the Starting Strength program and say that it is not meant for weight loss purposes. Some may suggest repping low weight many times. The problem with this method is that a normally anaerobic activity becomes an aerobic activity. In other words, lifting weights becomes a form of cardio and not a very efficient one at that. As theStarting Strength title states, this program focuses on building strength. My main thinking behind going this route was to build and maintain my strength. And while I did gain some strength and have maintained it, I noticed that I gained some muscle mass and density. While an experienced weight-lifter normally will not experience much muscle mass gain doing a strength program especially while functioning in a caloric deficit, someone who hasn’t gone to gym in some time or someone who has never been will likely gain a little muscle in addition to strength increase on a 3X5 program even while in a caloric deficit. The 3X5 routine involves alternating between 2 different workouts 3 con-consecutive days a week. So let’s name the 2 different workouts A & B. Week 1 Monday – Workout A Wednesday – Workout B Friday – Workout A Week 2 Monday – Workout B Wednesday – Workout A Friday – Workout B Sample Workout A Full Barbell Squat – 3 sets of 5 reps Military Press – 3 sets of 5 reps Pendlay Row –3 sets of 5 reps Pull Ups – 2 sets of 5-8 reps Sample Workout B Full Barbell Squat – 3 sets of 5 reps Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 5 reps Barbell Deadlift – 3 sets of 5 reps Dips – 2 sets of 5-8 reps NOTE: As I’ve said earlier, this is a very basic description of the routine. Do yourself a favor and read the book as its packed chuck full of great information. If you’re not going to read the book, at the very least do some internet research before starting. 3 X 8 Routine This is usually a more accepted weight loss routine than the Starting Strength variant. While I’m not sure how this may work for someone who has never been to the gym before, I can see how it could benefit someone who has already gained some decent strength as a result of past weight training. When staring out, it’s a good idea to build some strength before moving to a routine that focuses on muscle hypertrophy. Moving higher weight for more reps usually results in better gains and better calorie burn. And like Isaid before; even on a strength focused routine, a total newbie will experience newbie gains in both strength and muscle mass. So if you’re a newbie focus on gaining strength rather than gaining mass. Just as with the 3 X 5 routine, I like the 3 day per week schedule. I also like the fact that if you focus on the workout, this routine should have you in and out of the gym in no more than 60 minutes. The following is a sample 3 X 8 routine: Monday – Back and Biceps Barbell Deadlift – 4 sets of 5 reps Barbell Bent Over Row – 3 sets of 8 reps Chin Up – 3 sets of 8 reps (you may substitute these with cable pull downs) Barbell Curl – 3 sets of 8 reps Cable Crunch – 3 sets of 15-20 reps Wednesday – Chest and Triceps Barbell Bench Press – 5 sets of 5 reps Dumbbell Incline Press – 3 sets of 8 reps Dips – 3 sets of 8 reps (if this is easy for you, add weight) Cable Triceps Pushdown – 3 sets of 8 reps Cable Crunch – 3 sets of 15-20 reps Friday – Legs and Shoulders Barbell Squat – 5 sets of 5reps Glute Ham Raise – 3 sets of 8 reps Standing Military Press – 3 sets of 8 reps Calve Raise – 3 sets of 8 reps Cable Crunch – 3 sets of 15-20 reps   PERSONAL NOTE: At the time of this writing, I’m at 190 pounds. Once I reach my goal weight of 180 pounds, I plan on switching up my whole eating and workout routines to focus on gaining some strength and lean muscle mass. The plan is to bump up my calorie intake over maintenance, cut down on cardio and switch to a Bill Starr’s intermediate 5 X 5 routine. For a few months I followed the 3 X 5 routine. Since the 5X5 and 3X5 routines are very similar I thought that it would be a good idea to follow up the 3X5 with a 3X8 as preparation for the 5X5. So until I get down to 180, I’m following the 3X8 scheme to confuse my muscles so that I can benefit more from the 5X5. Bill Starr’s intermediate 5X5 This is a classic program aimed at football training but will work for anyone looking to gain both size and strength. Bill Starr’s book, , coversthe training program, exercise execution, anatomy, nutrition, athletic recovery and much more. This is a tried and proven program that should yield great results to any intermediate lifter. Keep in mind that if you want to see significant strength and weight gains on this program you should ramp up your caloric intake over maintenance. This is the reason why I’m switching to this routine once I reach my weight-loss goal of 180 pounds. This is not to say that the other programs would not work the same way if working within a caloric surplus. I just wanted to change things up a little maybe even returning to one of the other mentioned routines once 5X5 stops working. As with the previous routines that I have talked about, this is a 3 day a week program. Depending on the day, a workout should take you anywhere from 60 to 75 minutes. Each week you are supposed to be able to increase your weight-load. This is an example of any given week. Monday – Heavy Day Barbell Squat – 5 sets of 5 repsBench Press – 5 sets of 5 reps Upright Row – 5 sets of 5 reps Wednesday – Light Day Barbell Squat – 4 sets of 5 reps Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 5 reps Barbell Deadlift – 4 sets of 5 reps Friday – Medium Day Barbell Squat – 4 sets of 5 reps, 1 set of 3 reps (max effort), 1 set of 8 reps (back-off) Barbell Bench Press – 4 sets of 5 reps, 1 set of 3 reps (max effort), 1 set of 8 reps (back-off) Upright Row – 4 sets of 5 reps, 1 set of 3 reps (max effort), 1 set of 8 reps (back-off) This is a slightly modified version of Starr’s “Big 3” program. The original lists Powercleans instead of the Upright Rows and Deadlifts. The version above is Madcow’s Intermediate 5X5. Doing a google search on it will yield many hits. NOTE: Just as with the 3X5 routine, this is a very basic description. Read the book or at the very least scour the internet for more information if you plan on going this route.