How to lose weight? – The Endurance Sports Way…!

There are three important factors towards weight loss.

1. Nutrition and Food habits

2. Exercise and sports training

3. Time

1. Nutrition and food habits –

If you are heavily over weight then you need to make dramatic changes to your food habits. Moderation in food habits is the key towards weight loss. Eat small balanced meals.

Reduce heavy carbohydrate foods like – Rice, wheat. Reduce the portions of these foods.

Avoid Junk food like Domino’s, Pizza hut, Haldiram’s

Avoid Sugary drinks like Coca Cola, Sprite, Maaza, Frooti etc.

Maaza and Frooti has more sugar than soft drinks.

Avoid Saoji kind of food.

There are lot of different diets available these days. All of them have one primary goal that is to create calorie deficit.

You can starve yourself and eat only 100 to 200 calories a day and look thin in few weeks but you will dramatically loose health and fitness. That will not work on a long term basis.

What to Eat then?

Eat home cooked food. Small meals. Have 4 hrs gap in between every meal. Your food should provide you protein, good fats like ghee and moderate carbohydrates.

If you want to snack – eat dry fruits

2. Exercise or sports training –

Exercises like jogging, running, cycling, swimming burn maximum number of calories. At low intensity you can keep doing these exercises for a very long time, in fact for hours together. That is the reason all the Miles’n’Milers training is heavily inclined towards jogging, running, cycling and body weight exercises. These are all aerobic exercises, where body is continuously supplying oxygen to the muscles and muscles will keep working for a very long time.

Fat burning Zone – When we do any activity like jogging, cycling, running and swimming, for the first 45 minutes your body is using the glucose present in your muscles and your liver. if you keep on doing the activity then only the stored fat in your body gets utilized. So to loose extra weight and burn more fat you need to do any activity beyond 45 mins.

For example – jogging and walking – 60 mins – 75 mins – 90 mins

Running – for 60 mins and beyond

Cycling – for 60 mins and beyond. This will burn more fat. Advantage of cycling is that you can keep doing it for hours together as it is a non impact activity. Your muscles will recover quickly.

Running and jogging is high impact – more chances of injury. Do more of running and jogging after you have lost some weight.

Activities like gym and weight training – do not burn lot of calories. Heavy weight training should be avoided if you want to loose weight. Only do body weight exercises and light weight training, if you want to tone up the muscles. Don’t join a gym and train like a bodybuilder. You are actually moving away from your goal.

So if you want to loose weight then 80 percent of your training must be activities like cycling, running, swimming, jogging etc. 20 percent you should be focusing on strength training, core training etc.

I have done bodybuilding, martial arts and now into Endurance sports. Believe me Endurance sports is one of the best way to stay healthy, fit and eat all the healthy things available. I eat everything at home. I eat all the things like ghee, high fat curd, high fat milk. My training helps me to stay lean. Because my training is huge.

3. Time – most important factor. Everyone talks about exercise and food habits and expects things to change in few days or weeks. Believe me nothing happens in first few days or first few weeks. You need to invest few months and then few years to become the best version of your own self. The best thing about endurance sports is that the Sport will shape you slowly but surely. So keep training for the sport. It may be running, cycling or Triathlon and it will shape you in few months and years. Best things take time to happen…but when they do happen you will be your own Hero…!

So the Formula is Nutrition habits x Endurance sports training x Time = Weight Loss

Dr Amit Samarth

Miles’n’Milers

Be your own hero…!