Have you ever wondered what difference it makes if you a skip a workout — or a week or even a month’s worth? The facts are surprising and motivating:
Day 2: Your mood and your energy head south because your body’s endorphin and adrenalin levels have also started to drop. These chemicals are natural appetite suppressants, so your appetite begins to increase.
Day 3: Your heart and lungs are five percent less fit. Your muscles are noticeably stiffer. Day 7: Your metabolism has declined some 10 percent, matching the shrinkage in your ability to use oxygen. Your body needs oxygen to burn calories. Energy levels are even lower than on Day 2.
Day 14: Your body has begun “negative recomposition,” the process of simultaneously losing muscle and gaining fat. By now, your heart and lungs are 15 percent less fit.
Day 21: Your metabolism is down sharply because your body’s ability to use oxygen has declined by 20 percent. Along with making weight and fat gain more likely, this also lowers your energy levels.
Day 25: You’ve lost 10 to 15 percent of your muscle mass. If the scale reads the same, this means that you’ve replaced your muscle with an equal weight of fat (and fat occupies more space than muscle).
Day 29: Your strength levels have dropped by up to 30 percent.
As you can see, a lot can change in just a month. Here’s a simple yet powerful strategy to help you be more consistent with your fitness: Be specific. Instead of saying, “I’ll work out three times this week,” try, “I’m going to work out at my studio on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 10 a.m.” Research shows that doing it this way makes you 220 percent more likely to follow through. You’ve given your brain a specific target and made a decision instead of putting it off.
Putting off making a decision, such as when and where you will exercise, induces something called “decision fatigue,” which depletes your willpower and makes exercise far more difficult than it needs to be.
A best-selling author and fitness expert with 16 years of experience, Josef Brandenburg owns The Body You Want club in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day Personal Training Experience may be found at TheBodyYouWant.com.
