The Pursuit of Fitness

I am a 35 year old guy who has been involved in the pursuit of fitness most of my life in a variety of settings. I played high school sports and had some military experience. While I have had years of being fit and learning how to be fit, I have had periods of my life where I did get out of shape and I had to get back into shape. Like the other people in my class, I have to battle every day to stay in reasonably good shape. There is no level of fitness we can reach that allows us to stop and we can then stay the same without exercise. It is a lifelong process that never stops.

The biggest battle everyone must face is healthy eating. If you come to my class and just exercise without changing your eating habits, you may build some muscle and it may be easier to mow the lawn then it used to be, but the layer of fat you may want to get rid of will not disappear. Most fitness experts I talk to or read these days agree that around 70% of being fit and healthy is eating, and only 30% exercise. You can burn about 300-500 calories in one of my classes in 45 minutes. In 45 seconds you can eat 500 calories. There are overweight people who exercise regularly and thin people who don't. I would also speculate that many of those thin people actually are healthier then overweight people who exercise. While we shouldn't go on starvation diets, the idea of how much a person should eat on average has become skewed in our current culture. There are fad diets out there that swear you don't have to count calories, just remove a certain type of food and you can eat all you want and lose tons of weight. Don't believe the hype. There is no easy fix. Science is science. You have to burn more calories then you take in to lose weight. 3,500 calories lost burns a pound. A college professor of nutrition recently lost 27 pounds in 10 weeks eating 2/3 junk food! His cholesterol levels even improved. I would not advocate that type of a diet but it is proof that overeating is the number one cause of weight gain and other health problems. While eating good foods is important, a child could tell you why people are fat: they eat too much. Its not the carbs or allergy to wheat that causes obesity, its eating too much of anything. Some of the new hip diets out there will work, but, if you added up the main reason why it worked is because there was calorie restriction, even if a person didn't count calories. Also, don't fall for the "lose 5-10 pounds a week" hype. If it was true, its dangerous. If you know someone that did, it was probably 75% water weight. The best way to lose weight is to burn one to two pounds per week if you want to keep muscle and be healthy and add healthy habits to your life.

I lecture on all this because I think a lot of people mistakenly believe that if they join a class like mine they will see results just from exercising when most people need to change their eating habits as well. Sometimes I hear, "My cousin joined a bootcamp and lost 30 pounds and she swears she didn't change her diet at all!" I don't buy it. Start with my class or another form of exercise if you want, but know that you don't burn fat off through exercise in a magical way. Exercise and eating less both cause a negative calorie balance that causes you to lose weight. If you want great results, you need to eat right or it won't happen. I advocate programs like Weight Watchers and Body for Life that teach about portions and healthy eating and have structure. I know there are other programs like those out there as well. If you have a hard time monitoring your calories, such programs can be very helpful in structuring your eating. I do not advocate programs that drastically restrict one calorie group. I have tried some of those and for the long-term those programs are gimmicks. Usually a quick ten pound loss is a trick and seven of those pounds are water-weight. While the 60% to 80% of calories most people eat from carbs is probably too high, any program that asks you to drop below 40% of your calories from carbs is not a good idea in my opinion.

So, on to the exercise part: :)

I am a certified personal trainer with the National Exercise Trainers Association. I started teaching this class in May of 2008. We usually have about ten people actively involved in the class. The difference between my class and other boot camps is that it is ongoing. It isn't just a 10 week crash course to get fit, my class helps people add exercise to their lifestyle for life. Drop in if you want for a few sessions or a month, but for most in the class it has become their primary means of exercise for a year or more.

As the body gets older, it usually only moves in set planes of movement. Walking forward and sitting down, lifting a few things, etc. Most adults usually never move like they did in PE class in high school or in high school sports. This leads to muscles becoming stagnate and can lead to muscle imbalance and injuries as people age. If a person exercises their body in a variety of ways it helps people obtain a higher overall level of healthy fitness. People who solely run or walk for exercise, while fit and usually lean, only work their muscles in a straight ahead repetitive motion and only activate a few of the many muscles in the body.

My class could be called a cross-training class. I try and hit all areas of fitness. I have access to a gym and a track to use for training. We do run some to get up cardio endurance, but usually never more than about 1 mile at a time. We do sprints with breaks in between, we run hills, we run stairs, we do agility drills like carioca and quick feet and back-peddle, we do hops and jumps to get those muscles woken up that have been dormant for so long. We bring dumbells to class and do some exercises with weights. We do typical "boot camp" exercises like push ups, burpees, lunges and stair climbers. I try and do different workouts all the time so we don't get bored and the muscles keep getting challenged in new ways. A few times per month we play fast paced games to get an endurance and agility workout.

I don't yell like a boot camp instructor. I gently encourage people. The class is set up mostly for self-motivation. A person with a high level of fitness could attend and get a great workout and a beginner could go at his or her own pace. I do suggest though that you know you can push yourself and that you are not at a level of fitness where it could be dangerous for you to start exercising vigorously. If you aren't sure check with your doctor. I have waiver forms that attendees must sign. If you think you may be very overweight and extremely out of shape, (for example, you would be unable to jog a 1/4 mile) I would recommend getting a personal trainer for individual sessions for a few months before trying a class like mine. If you haven't exercised in a long time and you are very overweight, it can be dangerous and cause injury to jump back in too quickly.

The price for attending each month is $50 for 12 sessions. People at the beginning of the month also can choose to purchase fewer sessions for $4.25 per class. We meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 6:15 AM - 7:00 AM.

Come try a session for free! E-mail me before you come or with questions at:

lyndenfitnessbootcamp@gmail.com