Secrets to Faster Fat Burning
I'm Beachbody's Success Story Manager. I open
all the envelopes, marvel at your "before" and "after" photos, and read your
stories. Make no mistake—I, too, want to do a great Beachbody program,
jump into a sassy bathing suit, and look ripped and fab. And though I've done
Slim in 6®, Power 90®, Yoga Booty BalletTM, Power Half HourTM, Kathy Smith's Project: YOUTM, and Turbo JamTM—and I'm 40 pounds lighter than when I
started working here two years ago—I still have that little bit of jiggly
fat around my tummy. What are our Success Stories doing that I'm not doing?
Cranking up the Intensity
It wasn't until I strapped
on my first heart rate
monitor a few days ago and did Long Lean from Project: YOU that I
realized I'd been babying myself for quite a while now. I was helping with a
section of a pamphlet that Beachbody Fitness Advisor Steve Edwards was writing
about training in your heart rate zones. I knew I was in far better
cardiovascular condition than when I'd begun, but I was still working out at
the same level as when I first started—nowhere near my target heart rate.
Meanwhile, my body had become much more efficient, so I wasn't getting nearly
the physical payoff from my cardio workouts that I believed. I wasn't burning
fat like I thought I was.
Hmmm. All of our guidebooks explain how to push past a plateau by increasing the intensity, but I'd never applied this concept to myself.
Then last week, Lara
Ross, our VP of Development, asked me to try a couple of our newest Turbo Jam
workouts using a particular resistance band. It's a heavier band than I
normally use, and at times I wanted to stop, but I was supposed to see if I
could do the whole workout. So I concentrated on my form like never before. And
what do you know? When I stopped, my arms felt . . . not sore . . . but
worked. I could feel the difference in my muscles when I touched them
and in their appearance! Hard to believe, but there it is.
By babying myself for so long, first for fear of injury, and then out of habit, I'd really done myself a disservice. Here I'd been doing some serious creative scheduling—changing clothes, exercising, showering, and making up new hairstyles so that I could go with wet hair from Beachbody's gym to dinner with friends—and for what? I was serious about scheduling, but not about the intensity level of my workouts.
No more. I'm still going to listen
to my body, and I'm going to modify when needed, but I'm not going to wimp out
and grab the little baby-rattle dumbbell when I'm strong enough now to lift an
8-pound weight. And I'm going to really listen to the trainers. When Kathy
Smith tells me in a Project: YOU workout to pick up a heavier weight if I feel
like I can do several more reps, I'll go for the 10-pound dumbbell. When
Chalene Johnson tells me to "Work it, baby!" in a Turbo Jam video, I'm going to
squat deeper, kick harder, and punch stronger.
I'm already seeing the very beginnings of a 6-pack—just by Pushing Play and ramping up the intensity. Like Tony says, you gotta "Bring It!"
