Wear your heart on your wrist
ALLOW SCIENCE TO HELP YOU SHED WEIGHT Training according to your heartrate has become very easy and there is no better way to get back in shape with summer fast approaching.
Spring is here and summer is just around the corner and the last thing you want to be doing this summer is be the guy who is sweating and wearing the jersey because you had too many pies this winter.
There is literally no time to whinge and moan, you need to get your butt into gear and get your boep and love handles down.
A six pack is not an option this late in the game so settle for being comfortable and proud wearing a shirt or swimming trunks. I have discussed quite a few strategies in getting healthier and losing weight, but perhaps you could use another. Focus on working with your heartrate as opposed to just going to the gym or for a leisurely jog.
Medical aid wellness partners handsomely reward their members for training in the 70 to 80% heartrate zone.
Now if you know anything about insurance companies, they are not about to give you anything unless they get something in return. The same goes for medical insurance. That’s just the plain fact of the matter, so the question begs, what do they know that you don’t?
The secret to them making lots of money is getting you healthier and research now shows that ordinary people exercising each day and reaching their target heartrate zone have less illness, high blood pressure or high cholesterol through their lives. This means that insurance companies will save lots of money in the near future if they get you active. This also means they are prepared to reward you in getting your weekly goals. If they have the science and research to prove this, then you best leverage the most current data available to your advantage. At the moment I am testing out the Fitbit Alta and the Samsung Gear 3. The importance of these wearables is that they give you information. At any given point in time I can see my daily heartrate by looking at my watch. When it is one of those days, I can see that my resting heartrate is elevated from when it has been a highly stressful day. This of course is not good for my heart, but I am aware of how to reduce my heartrate when I do get so worked up. If I am sitting too long these wearables vibrate or beep that I need to get active. This could be a stretch or even a walk to the kitchen to have a glass of cold water. During exercise the Fitbit Alta performs very well, it tracks when your body is moving, sprinting and then adds in the heart rate intensity. It is important to note that before exercising you must consult your doctor and get a clean bill of health.
The beauty of the additional GPS feature is that it allows you to track your movements during a run or bike ride and through an integration of apps, it will allow you to measure your performance and repeat performance.
Sleep patterns are incredibly important and it is only since wearables became mainstream over the past five years that sleep patterns have also been tracked.
What is surprising when you first monitor your sleep patterns, you soon realise how many times you tossed and turned and how long you were in your REM sleep.
The longer you are in REM, the more restful and charged you will feel the next day.
Coming back to your training, remember you can train for less time but you need HIIT – High Intensity Internal Training, which means you are pushing your heartrate high with minimal rest.
This zone will not only firm you up quicker, improve your health, but also shed that unwanted fat, fast.