Fat Burning
The Secret to Faster Fat
Burning
From the Team Beachbody Club - Join Today and Workout to
Win!
 I'm Beachbody's Success Story Manager.
I open all the envelopes, marvel at your "before" and "after" photos, and read
your stories. Make no mistake—I, too, want to do a great Beachbody
program, jump into a sassy bathing suit, and look ripped and fab. And though
I've done
Slim in 6®, Power 90®, Yoga Booty
BalletTM, Power Half HourTM, Kathy Smith's Project: YOUTM, and Turbo JamTM—and I'm 40 pounds lighter than when I
started working here two years ago—I still have that little bit of jiggly
fat around my tummy. What are our Success Stories doing that I'm not doing?
Cranking up the intensity.
It wasn't until I
strapped on my first heart rate monitor
a few days ago and did Long Lean from Project: YOU that I realized I'd
been babying myself for quite a while now. I was helping with a section of a
pamphlet that Beachbody Fitness Advisor Steve Edwards was writing about
training in your heart rate zones. I knew I was in far better cardiovascular
condition than when I'd begun, but I was still working out at the same level as
when I first started—nowhere near my target heart rate. Meanwhile, my body
had become much more efficient, so I wasn't getting nearly the physical payoff
from my cardio workouts that I believed. I wasn't burning fat like I thought I
was.
Hmmm. All
of our guidebooks explain how to push past a fat burning plateau by increasing
the intensity, but I'd never applied this concept to myself.
 Then last week, Lara Ross, our VP of
Development, asked me to try a couple of our newest Turbo Jam workouts using a
particular resistance band. It's a heavier band than I normally use, and at
times I wanted to stop, but I was supposed to see if I could do the whole
workout. So I concentrated on my form like never before. And what do you know?
When I stopped, my arms felt . . . not sore . . . but worked. I could
feel the difference in my muscles when I touched them and in their appearance!
Hard to believe, but there it is.
By babying
myself for so long, first for fear of injury, and then out of habit, I'd really
done myself a disservice. Here I'd been doing some serious creative
scheduling—changing clothes, exercising, showering, and making up new
hairstyles so that I could go with wet hair from Beachbody's gym to dinner with
friends—and for what? I was serious about scheduling, but not about the
intensity level of my workouts.
 No more. I'm still going to listen
to my body, and I'm going to modify when needed, but I'm not going to wimp out
and grab the little baby-rattle dumbbell when I'm strong enough now to lift an
8-pound weight. And I'm going to really listen to the trainers. When Kathy
Smith tells me in a
Project: YOU workout to pick up a heavier weight if I feel
like I can do several more reps, I'll go for the 10-pound dumbbell. When
Chalene Johnson tells me to "Work it, baby!" in a
Turbo Jam video, I'm going to squat deeper, kick harder,
and punch stronger.
I'm already
seeing the very beginnings of a 6-pack—just by Pushing Play and ramping up
the intensity. Like Tony says, you gotta "Bring It!" |
