Here at the Hit Center, we get an endless amount of fitness questions. Some of my personal favorites include:

• “Is it better to exercise in the morning or evening?” (Exercise when you feel like it, which will reduce the chances you won’t do it at all.)

• “Which builds muscle more effectively: machines or free weights?” (Which cleans your car more effectively: a machine wash or a hand wash?)

• “Why don’t I have abs yet?” (Because you have a day job, enjoy Doritos, and aren’t a genetic freak.)

But these are only the tip of the iceburg.   As summer nears and the pursuit of beach bodies intensifies I see more and more people workout in vain, with nothing to show for it later.   So I spoke with a few colleagues and devised our top 5 fitness mistakes that majority of people seem to be constantly doing:

Mistake #1: You Don’t Lift Weights
You’ve no doubt been told that aerobic exercise is the key to losing your gut, but weight training is actually more valuable. Three reasons:

1. Lifting protects your muscle. When people diet without lifting weights, research shows that 75 percent of their weight loss is from fat and 25 percent is muscle. That 25 percent may reduce your scale weight, but it doesn’t do a lot for your reflection in the mirror. However, if you weight train as you diet, your weight loss is more likely to be 100 percent fat. Think of it in terms of liposuction: The whole point is to simply remove unattractive flab, right? That’s exactly what you should demand from your workout.

2. Lifting boosts your metabolism. Your muscles need energy to repair and upgrade your muscle fibers after each resistance-training workout. For instance, a University of Wisconsin study found that when people performed a total-body workout comprised of just three big-muscle exercises, their metabolisms were elevated for 39 hours afterward. What’s more, they also burned a greater percentage of their calories from fat during this time, compared with those who weren’t hitting the weights.

3. Lifting torches calories. It’s considered common knowledge that jogging burns more calories than weight training. Turns out, when scientists at the University of Southern Maine used an advanced method to estimate energy expenditure during exercise, they found that weight training burns as many as 71 percent more calories than originally thought. The researchers calculated that performing just one circuit of eight exercises—which takes about 8 minutes—can expend 159 to 231 calories. That’s about the same as running at a 6-minute mile pace for the same duration.

Mistake #2: You Don’t Use the Right Dumbbells
Ladies, we’re especially talking to you on this one. Your goal is to challenge your muscles, not just go through the motions. For instance, if you can lift a weight 15 times, it’s not going to do your muscles much good to lift it for only 8 repetitions. A good way to gauge if a weight is appropriate: Note the point at which you start to struggle. Let’s say you’re doing 10 repetitions. If all 10 seem easy, then the weight you’re using is too light. However, if you start to struggle on your tenth repetition, you’ve chosen the correct poundage.

Mistake #3: You Don’t Work Your Lower Body
To cut inches from your waist, make sure you’re working the muscles below your belt. In a Syracuse University study, people burned more calories the day after they did lower-body resistance training than the day after they worked their upper body.  Leg muscles—like your quads and glutes—generally have more muscle mass than those of your chest and arms.  Work more muscle during your exercise session, and your body has to expend more energy to repair and upgrade them later.  So the best approach, of course, is to hit every muscle each workout.

Mistake #4: You Don’t Watch What You Eat
You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. After all, you can eat 1,000-calorie fast food burger in just 5 minutes, but it’ll take you more than an hour to burn that many calories with physical activity. So make sure you’re not using exercise as an excuse to eat whatever you want. You may even find that regular workouts help you better follow a smart eating plan. Case in point: University of Pittsburgh researchers studied 169 overweight adults for 2 years and found that the participants who didn’t follow a 3-hour-a-week training plan ate more than their allotted 1,500 calories a day. The reverse was also true—sneaking snacks sabotaged their workouts. The study authors say it’s likely that both actions are a reminder to stay on track, reinforcing your weight-loss goal and drive.

Mistake #5: You Skip Workouts
We’re all busy, but that’s usually just a lame excuse. After all, plenty of people find time to exercise. And when was the last time you heard someone say they regretted their workout? Probably never, and here’s why: U.K. researchers found that workers were 15 percent more productive on the days they made time to exercise compared to days they skipped their workout. They were also 15 percent more tolerant of their coworkers. Now, consider for a moment what these numbers mean to you: On days you exercise, you can—theoretically at least—accomplish in an eight-hour day what normally would take you nine hours and 12 minutes. Or you’d still work nine hours, but get more done, leaving you feeling less stressed and happier with your job, another perk that the workers reported on the days they exercised.

As I nonchalantly sat back in my comfy chair and browsed through several articles, I stumbled upon a particularly intriguing tidbit that immediatly made me want to stand up, for the rest of the day. According to  a study done by researchers for  Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analyzed the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over about 13 years, and found that people who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.

That’s right—I said 54 percent!

After a bit of googling it turns out, this wasn’t the first study to link sitting and heart disease. Similar research actually dates back to 1953, when British researchers found that sitting bus drivers were twice as likely to die of heart attacks as standing trolley operators.   Here’s the most surprising part: throught the srudy, researchers saw  it in people who smoke and people who don’t as well as in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren’t. Sitting is an independent risk factor.  In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you exercise or how well you eat. If you sit most of the day, your risk of leaving this world clutching your chest—whether you’re a man or women—as much as doubles. 

Still sitting?  Then you should know that your office chair  or couch also:
 

1) Screws up your posture:  The fascia, the tissue that connects individual muscles into a full-body network, begins to set when you stay in one position for too long.  If you’re hunched over a keyboard all day, this eventually becomes your normal posture.

2) Makes you fatter:  This happens for two reasons. First, you burn 60 more calories an hour when standing versus sitting. But more importantly when you spend too much time sitting, your largest muscle group—the glutes (a.k.a. your butt)—become lazy and quit firing. This is called gluteal amnesia. And it means you burn fewer calories. 

3) Causes lower Back Pain:  Weak glutes push your pelvis forward, putting stress on the spine.Here’s the other unseemly thing that happens when your pelvis tilts forward: Your belly protrudes, making you look 5 months pregnant.

So what’s a desk-bound worker to do? First, you change how you think about fitness. We have a tendency to segment our lives—work, home, and downtime. Exercise falls into the last category, something we squeeze into our busy schedules when possible. But if you stop thinking about exercise as an activity, and instead think of it as a lifestyle, it’s easier to make healthy choices throughout the day.

In other words: Stop trying to be fit, and start trying to live fit.

Resting metabolic rate that is measured accounts for approximately 60-70 percent of your total metabolic rate (total daily calories burned). Most of your resting metabolic rate is beyond your control and is dictated by age, height, sex, weight, genetics, organ function and hormones. The only aspect of your resting metabolic rate that you really have control over, unless you have a hormonal or medication problem, is your muscle mass. The remainder of your total metabolic rate is composed of exercise, which accounts for about 20-25 percent depending on how active you are, and eating (also called the thermic effect of feeding), which accounts for about 10 percent of your total daily calories burned.

When you test your resting metabolic rate, you must then multiply that number by an activity factor that usually ranges from 1.3 to 1.9, depending on how physically active you are every day in your job and also during exercise. Resting metabolic rate can also be estimated using a mathematical equation and can be calculated by some of the more sophisticated body fat scales that measure age, height, sex, weight, fat mass and lean body mass to come up with a fairly accurate estimate.

If you think you would find it helpful to know more precisely how many calories you should be consuming daily, you might want to consider testing your resting metabolic rate or getting a body composition analysis. Once you know this number, it is critical to pay close attention to the number of calories you consume to lose weight, since most people who are overweight underestimate caloric intake by up to 30 percent.
If you would like to know more or are interesting in finding out what your Resting Metabolic Rate is, schedule an appointment at the Hit Center to have yourself tested!!