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Since I first stepped foot in a gym, I’ve always been a cardio fitness girl. If you’re not familiar with the term, cardio is short for cardiovascular exercise. It means the same thing as aerobic exercise, that is, exercise that gets your heart pumping and your breathing going a bit faster, but doesn’t exhaust you within a few sections – think long jogging, rather than short sprinting…. Ah, jogging.
I love to run. Es
pecially long distances. But, you know what? I’m not including much of that in my Project 18% Body Fat fitness programme.
When it comes to fat loss, interval training and resistance exercise are dynamite!
So, that’s the form most of my workouts will take over the next three months. (However, you might spot me sneaking in the 3-6 mile slow jog to help keep my running urges under control.)
It’s all about short, but high-intensity workouts that will fit in with my busy schedule and get me the fat burn and body sculpting I’m going after. (That might sound corny, but it’s true!)
I’ll share more details of the specific exercises I do in later posts, as well as the thinking behind this type of programme. But there’ll be a lot of body weight exercises like planks and push ups,the resistance training will mostly be using what is probably my favourite exercise equipment, good old dumbbells, and then there’ll be the intervals.
Interval training is something I’ve never enjoyed. In fact, I’m just going to say it, I hate intervals! But, when I have done them the results have been very noticeable, so I’m going to give them a proper go in this programme. This may well turn out to be the most challenging part for me, but who knows, I might even learn to like interval training!
Some of you have left comments saying you’re looking to start a fat loss exercise programme too, which is awesome! I hope you’ll let me know what you’ve got planned and keep me posted on your progress. I am absolutely here to support you in the same way your comments are already massively encouraging me. If you’re not sure where to start, I’m 
going to point you in the direction of a programme similar to what I’ll be doing.
In my opinion Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training makes a brilliant starter-pack for anyone wanting to learn about what really works for fat loss and it has straight-forward workout plans you can get started on right away. I’d also recommend it to experienced exercisers looking for session ideas.
You get a stack of bonus stuff like ebooks on diet, measuring body fat,and getting the fat loss mindset, etc. when you download the TT pack, but I think the most useful part is the main ebook explaining the programme and how to do the exercises and the session sheets you can take with you to gym. (Or you could do the sessions at home with just a couple of pieces of basic equipment) It usually costs £26.33, which is still a very decent price. But here’s a sneaky tip: Click to close the site and you’ll be offered it at $4.95, which is about £3. That’s definitely a bargain. Craig also offers a money back guarantee, so you can’t lose out really. But do make sure you don’t forget to cancel your subscription if you don’t want to continue membership after the 21 day trial. Get Turbulence Training here.
If you do start the Turbulence Training programme, or you’re already on it, please let me know. Or, if you have a different programme in mind, or you’re training with a PT, or, like me, you prefer to create your own, I’d love to hear about what you’ve got planned.
This is a very different training regime than what I’m used to, so I’m dead keen to hear from other people who are giving this type of programme a go too.
I know I haven’t said a great deal about what my actual goals are yet, apart from the 18% body fat thing – I will come on to that in the next few posts. We’ll get on to talking about the diet side soon too, I can’t put that off forever, can I?!
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Hi,
Watching with interest and as per my well documented personal experience, I agree on the HIIT approach.
The other main factor impacting on my weight loss was diet, in particular cutting out the carbs and sugar. I had a rule – “if the food is white, grows below the ground or doesn’t swim, then don’t eat it!” I also shrank away from any form of processing, even mashing veg. This worked well for me.
Still watching with interest.
@RayDeansTrg
Hi Ray, I’m a big believer in “mostly healthy, most of the time” – cutting things out entirely doesn’t work for me. But I will definitely be cutting down on the cake (of all colours!). Have you continued with this rule, or are you eating those foods again now?
Always great to hear from you.
J
Hi,
Yes and no is the answer.
I relax on most items but no sugar or white bread. Little or no red meat and no alcohol. I have a ‘day off’ at the w/e to feed my sins but the rest of the time I’m very disciplined. If I slip towards 90kg its fish, veg and salad.
Good luck!
Ray
@RayDeansTrg
Witj you all the way Julia on this one but like you I like the long runs so I always do them, I have a few clients on a similar programme and get them wearing a heart rate monitor so I can collect data and compare there efforts at the end of each session.
Keep u the good work
Mark
Thanks Mark. That’s interesting. I used to use a HRM in my training a few years ago, but kind of lost interest and decided to focus more on how I felt. This is a massive generalisaion (and of course there are loads of exceptions), but I find blokes are much more keen on recording those kinds of stats than women. What do you think?
Julia
From my experience I have felt that my clients that came to me saying they used heart rate never really understood there own training zones so then feel there is no benefit, for me it tells a story I know my zones I know when I’m in my limit and know when I’m fatigued, for my clients I get to assess weekly sessions and compare them to previous weeks.
I think your right about feel and you get to learn about how hard to push but with intervals I like having the added bonus of knowing I’m on my limit or my clients are.
I think we just have to keep trying different ways not only to make sure our training is beneficial but also to keep it interesting.
The beauty is there is no wrong or right or even limits its just where we stop pushing the boundries
)
Keep up the good work, my clients are enjoying your articles.
I really appreciate all the expertise you are sharing in your journey, Julia. I cannot exercise at the moment due to a chronic health problem but I do hope that one day I can and I’ll take with me what you’re sharing. I adored long distance running, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to give up, and much preferred it to interval training. I think it was the long distance goals I was setting and always working to improve upon that. I am also really looking forward to your diet posts as thats the one thing I can focus on right now, and of course I am egging you on from the side-lines and cannot wait to see you reach your goals.
Hi BN, So sorry to hear you’re not well anytime I can be of any help just let me know. Really hope my posts will be of some use even if only to entertain! Take care. Juliax
Hey Julia
Looking forward to following your progress and trying some of your exercises!
claire
Thanks Claire, good to hear I won’t be the only one suffering!
Good Luck! I’ll be looking for ideas once I’ve recovered from Sunday’s marathon, since I share your love of running and would like to lose some weight/fat (delete according to school of thinking!)
My thinking is that for 1 month, I’m going to keep my long runs to 10km or less and try some boxercise/circuit type classes to ‘shock’ my body and also to have some variety. After that it’s Great North Run training, but I’ll do some more interval sprint sessions this time as I found them beneficial in marathon training.
Look forward to your next post!
Sounds like a good plan to me, let me know how you get on. Which marathon are you running? Best of luck!
Hi Julia,
Just to update – I did the marathon of the North last Sunday (first ever!) in 5hrs 27 minutes. Luckily, I’ve recovered fairly quickly and was back in the gym yesterday. (Would have been sooner, but work and visiting family took over)
My own fat-loss mission is getting off to a slow start, but I did fancy an easy week this week! Have a few classes earmarked for this weekend so we’ll see how that goes…
I’m glad to see you posting actual workouts. Many in the blogging world would use this time to make a quick cheap buck. “To see my workouts, pay $$, etc etc) So thank you for that.
As a long time triathlete, squats & lungs etc have never done anything but give me knee pain. Would Step Ups be a viable replacement? Anything else?
Also, noticed your statements in the comments about keeping track of HRM numbers. Early on, 15 some yrs ago wouldn’t do any workout w/o one. Now I never touch it. Heck when I compete in a sprint tri I don’t even wear a watch. For me it’s worked, wondering if I’m alone in that regards.
To end, best of luck, I’ll keep reading.
Hi Julia
Having read your post made me feel really positive about starting a new weight loss programme. However, as I’m dreading a thought of going to the gym, I’ve discovered the BeachBody DVDs at http://www.beachbody.co.uk which seem to be offering an option to box at home. What are your thoughts on this?
Sorry about the slow reply. I’m not familiar with that series of DVDs, but things like that can be a good way to get started. Have you tried them yet? It’d be great to hear how you get on.