Why You Should Be Strength Training

“I don’t want to get bulky, I just want to tone up,” say over half of the women I ever do a fitness assessment with. Admittedly, I used to say things like this too, back in my competitive running, swimming, and group fitness days. I was a cardio queen for years; running, swimming, walking, dancing every single day, yet, I never achieved the muscular, lean body I sought…until I started picking up heavy sh*t. 

Running or cycling burns approximately 10-12 calories a minute while weight lifting burns 8-10 calories a minute. So what’s the deal? Why is strength training important for weight loss if cardio, minute per minute, burns more calories than the same time spent lifting weights? 

While cardio alone obviously burns calories and can help you lose and manage weight, it does very little for muscle growth aka “toning.” Traditional cardiovascular exercise (like jogging or running steadily for a certain amount of miles, taking a Zumba class, walking, etc.) may help you lose numbers on the scale but some of that weight loss is going to be muscle loss, in addition to the desired fat loss. 

Why don’t we want to lose muscle? 

1) Muscle burns fat because it takes more energy (calories!) to sustain muscle. The more muscle you have, the more fat you’re going to burn all day long, just by being alive. This baseline number of calories you burn in a day is called your Resting Metabolic Rate, or your RMR. As your muscle increases, so does your RMR. For every 3 pounds of muscle you have, you’ll burn an extra 120 calories a day, no extra movement necessary. That’s 10 pounds of fat in a year, without even implementing dietary changes. Yasss.

2)  Muscle is denser than fat: one pound of muscle takes up 18% less physical space than fat, so you’re going to fit into clothes better. Bring on the jeans from high school!

3) This may seem self-explanatory but muscle makes daily life easier. Lots of groceries? That requires strength. Yard work? Better have some strong arms. Moving into a new place? Stronger muscles make for a quicker job. Picking up your kids? Yay muscles! Fighting off a predator? Watch out, you got some killer muscles!

Overall, strength training is going to help you lose fat AND gain muscle. Additionally, after a strength training session, your body will continue to work hard to help your muscles recover. While you lift weights you’re essentially tearing your muscles and after all that stress, your body needs extra oxygen to repair them and get back to its resting metabolic rate. This is what we call excess post-oxygen consumption, or EPOC (I’ve also heard it called the “Afterburn Effect”). In some instances, EPOC can continue up to 36-48 hours after a bout of strength training. AYO. Burn, baby, burn. 

What about the bulk? 

Technically, weightlifting can make you appear bulky, given you: 

1) Are eating in a caloric surplus

2) Are training in a certain rep range for muscle growth 

3) Have enough testosterone, the primary male sex hormone and an anabolic (molecule building) steroid.

If you’re eating more calories than you burn in a day, have enough testosterone, and are training for hypertrophy/strength gains, yeah, you might start looking Hulk-ish. Ladies, rest assured in knowing that most women who actually want to look “bulky” (i.e. bodybuilders) have to work incredibly hard and eat like linebackers to put on that size. If you’re completely new to strength training and don’t go ham in the kitchen, you’re going to lean out in ways you’ve never been able to before, guaranteed.

HITT

My fellow cardio lovers don’t fret! HIIT or high-intensity interval training is also an amazing way to get your cardio fix while retaining (or even gaining) muscle. 

HIIT (or sprint interval training, SIT) is cardiovascular exercise that utilizes intervals - alternating short periods of hard AF, anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods. In the intense period of the interval, you should be working at 80-95% of your max heart rate, basically giving all-out effort. For the recovery duration, heart rate should drop to 60-65% of your max heart rate. These actual numbers and intensities are going to vary according to your fitness level. 

What does that look like? 

Though there’s no fixed formula for HIIT, there are common versions such as a 2:1 ratio of work to recovery (i.e. 40 second all-out sprint, 20 second jogging or walking) repeated until failure, or until you need to end the session! This is similar to a HIIT protocol you may be familiar with: Tabata. The traditional Tabata workout is only FOUR minutes: 20 seconds of hard work, 10 seconds of rest, 8 rounds.

Tabata training was first compared to moderate intensity cardio by Dr. Izumi Tabata and a group of researchers in Tokyo. The athletes in the moderate-intensity group performed one hour workouts, 5x a week, for 6 weeks. The athletes performing the Tabata exercises did four minute and 20 second workouts, 4x a week, for 6 weeks. After the experiment, the group doing Tabata showed significant improvement in both their aerobic and anaerobic systems, whereas the moderate-intensity group didn’t improve in their anaerobic performance. 

Thus, HIIT is an amazing way to burn fat, improve cardiovascular capacity, and, unlike moderate intensity cardio, does elicit that EPOC we were talking about, though it won’t last for as long as your strength training EPOC will. Do take note that the intense nature of HIIT can be incredibly taxing on the body and it’s recommended that you don’t do it more than twice a week or you’re going to risk injury and/or raised cortisol (stress hormone) levels, which just wreaks havoc on your entire system. 

The bottom line: 

Strength training and HIIT are the most effective ways to lose body fat and get lean. Moderate cardio is still a great way to get those feel-good endorphins, maintain weight, and improve your heart health (I usually do one long run or dance class a week), but should not be your sole exercise strategy if you’re aiming to improve your body composition. 

Need workout inspiration? Try this killa full-body workout or this Tabata routine to get you started. Let’s get it!

Why I Became a Trainer

Hey people, I'm Haley. This felt like the best place to start even though the title sounds lame. I've given various answers to my "why" over the past 3 years to countless people. Mostly I throw out the short version: I've been active since I was a kid, I've always loved to move and challenge myself so I wanted to help others do that too. More rarely, I hit people with the long, dramatic tale of my road to training...so, obviously, that's what I'm going with here.

*trigger warning* - eating disorder. please use caution in reading this if you are in recovery

It's true, I've been a mover since I could move. At age 3, I refused to let my family members pass me on hiking trails and by age 4 I was swimming laps in the pool on summer swim team. I stuck with swimming throughout my 13 years of school, but over that time I tried a whole bunch'a sports: dance (I quit by age 5.5 because I didn't like tights) , soccer (I was really just there for the snacks after the games), softball (the team was better off without me and I didn't like how little I got to move back in that outfield), figure skating (ice is cold), cheerleading (all fun and games until you're the flyer and they drop you on your face...your face that contains braces...owwwie), and eventually settled into track and cross country (turns out I'm more of an individual sport kind of person) for 6 years. 

Yet physical activity is just part of the health and fitness game. Nutrition has always been the harder aspect for me. Despite being naturally active, from about 7 to 11 years old, I was straight up chubby. Though often referred to as "baby fat" and sometimes simply blamed on poor genetics, more realistically, my fat rolls were created out of poor nutrition habits. I didn't like fruits, was a fan of only a few veggies, and really adored all breads, crackers, cakes, cookies, pizza, soda, etc., etc. Monday pizza day at school? That was my version of "never miss a Monday." When I started getting more serious about swimming around age 11, I started losing weight due to more practices and more incorporation of "dry land" activities, like running, push ups, and sit ups. Then I started getting compliments on the weight loss. That was new, that felt good…that’s what started my downward spiral.  

My love of movement quickly became obsession. I began a strict regimen of 100 push ups and 100 sit ups before bed. I was running to swim team practice, swimming extra laps after practice, running home, stuffing my face with low fat cakes I'd bake (and yes, I would literally eat the entire cake), doing push ups, jumping jacks, sprinting in place, running up and down my stairs...anything to burn off the food I ate.  When I wasn't partaking in this ruthless exercise binge & purge cycle, I was restricting calories. It was all or nothing. I stopped doing things with my friends because I knew there'd be food involved. I would throw away the lunch my mom packed for me. My excuses for my behavior piled up: "My stepdad won't let me come to your sleepover," "I already ate lunch," "I'm too tired to stay for the pizza party after the swim meet," while my weight nosedived. 

Though my family could tell something was not right, many friends and acquaintances continued to give me praise for my weight loss and I ate this up; each comment fed the monster that was taking over my life. Fast forward a year, when anorexia became too tiring, too obvious and hard to hide, I transitioned into a less taxing and seemingly more manageable avenue: Though I had previously binged and purged via exercise, I now discovered I could make myself throw up and achieve a similar outcome while still eating as much as I wanted. I could still attend social events. I could look normal. At 12 years old, my anorexia took a back seat and its sister and eventual successor, bulimia took the wheel. I did whatever it took to mask my disease; I binged in private, I purged with the shower running; I ate normal amounts at dinner, I waited until my parents were busy or asleep to eat more and then purge; I binged alongside friends at sleepovers and I stayed up latest to sneak into the bathroom to purge while they slept.

“For a full decade and some change, I suffered from bulimia.”

Unfortunately, in spite of my mom finding out about my eating disorder, supporting me and taking me to counselors, group therapy, and nutritionists, I remained ill far longer than I could have ever imagined, far longer than I can even sit here and believe now. I've spent most of my life with an eating disorder. For a full decade and some change, I suffered from bulimia. At my worst, I would wake up, binge and purge for breakfast and continue all day long—sometimes forcing myself to be sick 8, 9, 10 times a day. As I got older, I would manage a day or two of no throwing up, or days with just 1 evening binge and purge session. I distinctly remember my first "long" break from the disorder in 10th grade. I was at a cross country running camp where we had two vigorous work outs a day, and were fed three routine meals, and I went 5 days without one single slip up. Yet, as soon as I returned home, I fell into the same ugly patterns I had left behind. Time and time again, this would happen: the rest of my high school years, in college, the year after college as I was living at home, and then...New York. 

The summer I left for New York, I had been doing pretty well with my eating. Not completely healed, no, but better than college days and most definitely better than those late middle school and early high school days of nonstop binging and purging. I felt like New York was a new beginning, was going to rid me of this disease once and for all because, obviously—how would I even have time to be bulimic in a city so grand and fabulous and busy?!

Oh, how I wish that’d been true. New York is glamorous, yes, but if you've lived here you know the stresses and messes of living on the island. With everything so terribly foreign and chaotic, I stumbled back into the habit that felt the most familiar. My evening binges were more intense than they'd ever been. Once I left work, I'd get a workout in, and then head to the grocery store to stock up on the most comforting foods, many from my childhood (think Twinkies, cinnamon rolls, Bagel Bites, Goldfish) and eat until I couldn't move. Only having one roommate at the time, it was easy to navigate my purge at the end of the night, though looking back I see how much precious sleep and time this consumed from me. 

In addition to the bulimia coming back in full force, I relied on alcohol to get me through many awkward social settings I found myself in as a new New Yorker trying to make friends. Honestly, when people my age ask you to do something in this city, it almost goes without saying that there will be drinks involved. Between this alcohol crutch and the bulimia, on top of the big city-induced depression and anxiety, I was a wreck. My teeth were finally showing the decay from repetitive purging. My nails weren’t healthy. My face was puffy. I had trouble focusing, there was no thought of meditation, plenty of mood swings, I was hating work, and struggling to be social. Illness after illness would drive me back to the doctor’s office. I faintly remember the terror within my heart when I’d feel it beat irregularly after a workout or purge. I realized that if it didn’t show my body respect, nourish it, love it, be thankful for how it works tirelessly to keep me existing, I wouldn’t make it to 25. 

“ I realized that if it didn’t show my body respect, nourish it, love it, be grateful for how it works tirelessly to keep me existing, I wouldn’t make it to 25. ”

It wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that I began paving the pavement to recovery’s road. That summer, I spend two weeks traveling to the west. I was in Idaho and Montana with my parents for a week and Portland, Washington, and California with myself and friends for a week. During those 2 weeks, I didn’t binge or purge once. It wasn’t planned, unlike every other time I’d tried to quit the bulimia business. “I’m going to stop having an eating disorder today” just never worked. Those weeks I traveled, however, I didn’t have time or space to feed my food addiction and eating disorder, I was too busy loving everything new, every valley and mountain, every building and hill, every loved one and kind stranger. I ate when I was hungry, worked out when I could, danced and walked often, and enjoyed being alive. When I got home from the trip, I wrestled with my bulimia, working every day to deafen the calling of my monster. 

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t answered that call a couple times in the past two years. I’ve certainly had some setbacks, some binges, some hatred of my body and my mind. I’ve been less loving and in tune than I could have been and hope to be. The thing is that without this disease, I would not be where I am now. My monster drove me to a place that made me realize my purpose is to help others master their monsters. I want to encourage, educate, inspire, and strengthen every client I work with physically, of course, but mentally and spiritually too. 

I’ve been addicted to sugar, carbs, processed food in general. I’ve eaten emotionally, out of boredom, out of habit, as a reward. I've starved myself as punishment, as a source of control, and to meet society's standards of beauty. I’ve worked out to reduce stress, anxiety, and weight, and I’ve worked out obsessively to the point that it’s caused stress, anxiety, and weight gain. But thank God I’ve now been educated. I’ve finally been able to see the light in science and spirituality, by eating foods that will heal and strengthen me, as well as taking time to attend to my breath and the complexities of thoughts and feelings within my brain. I’ve come to terms with the fact that this eating disorder will always be a part of who I’ve been and who I am, it will always be the monster that’s quietly creeping in my childhood closet, waiting for me to remember my doubts and fears and fall back into its gluttonous grasp.

That's why I’m here. I’m here to document, dare, and do. Document what has helped me commit to healthy habits, dare others to do the same, and keep doing, doing, doing. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you're struggling with an eating disorder, nutrition, self doubt, exercising, or general well-being. I want to spread knowledge and positivity while helping people achieve incredible things to be the best versions of themselves. We got this! Let's be habitually healthy!