Time to Try: The Hormone Diet Exercise Prescription

For the past 9 months, I've been on a mission.  I was diagnosed with fatty liver and pre-diabetes.  I was severely overweight.  I'd been gaining pound or two a year, but after 20 years, it added up to a lot of excess weight.  The extra weight wasn't helping my arthritis any, either.

So, I began making changes in my diet. And walking long distances or riding my bike.  In the first 7 months, I lost 52 pounds.  My blood pressure normalized, as did my blood test results.  Unfortunately, for the past two months, I've been gaining and losing the same 3 or 4 pounds.  In addition, I've still got a lot of weight around the middle, which is not the best place to be carrying extra pounds.  I've still got 30 pounds to go to get to a "healthy" weight, so it's time to try something different.

In her book, "The Hormone Diet," Natasha Turner, ND describes what she considers an "optimal" weight loss/fitness routine.  She states that one mistake people make in exercising is to believe that long cardio workouts are the best way to lose weight.  For cardio workouts, she recommends interval training.  She quoted studies that said people gained more muscle and lost more fat when they exercised using intervals rather than exercising at a steady pace.  In addition, studies have shown that, shorter interval workouts were better than longer steady-pace workouts in producing fat-burning hormones in the body.

She also stated that overuse of cardio raises cortisol and interferes with your ability to build muscle.

Her recommended routine is 3 days of strength training per week, 1-2 days of cardio (interval training) and 1-2 days of yoga.  The strength training routines are to be done with minimal time between exercises to keep the heart rate up.  Strength and cardio workouts are to be about 30 minutes, while yoga can be 30 to 90 minutes.  She gives routines for the 3 days of strength training.  You do each routine once a week in order to train different muscles on different days.

So, I am turning myself into a guinea pig for the sake of science (and hopefully my waistline).  I will be doing her workout plan for the next month and see if it changes how I look and feel.

Today, I did Day 1 of the Strength Training:  Core and Abdominals.  The exercises included crunches, leg lifts, planking, push ups, and dumbbell exercises.  She recommends using an exercise ball for some of the exercises.  I passed on that, since I felt like I might hurt myself trying to balance on that.  Maybe once I get used to the exercises.  I surprised myself by doing NEARLY all the exercises on her list.  If I can move in the morning, tomorrow is a Cardio workout day.