Minimum Effective Dose

[noamnety]

Last edited Thu Feb 23, 2012, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)

I've been following the "4 Hour Body Plan" for the last 6 months. One of the strategies in it is to figure out what the minimum effective dose of exercise is. Instead of doing hours of cardio on the treadmill or in spinning classes, which can slow down your metabolism and stall weight loss, we time exercises for maximum fat loss and do the minimum needed for the maximum payoff (like a cost/benefit analysis). I work full time (and I am lazy), so I've never had much luck trying to stick to hour long routines, and I've never belonged to a gym. When the weather is warmer I bicycle, but since it got cold about 4 months ago everything I do is indoors, no more than 20 minutes a day while I watch tv, which really amounts to 10-15 minutes of actual exercise because a lot is the resting on my ass on the couch between sets.

I have leg photos showing the progression from Aug (154 pounds, down mainly from biking from a high of nearly 170 a year ago), to Jan 3 (136 pounds), to today (130 pounds). The last 6 weeks have been entirely indoors, using fairly cheap home equipment (a kettle bell, a balance ball and a chin up bar). All of it is no-impact because my feet are messed up, so no crazy PX90 or insanity routines.



Also - I owe ZenLefty a huge thanks for the progress between the last two photos, for inspiring me to come up with a specific plan for the year/quarter with rotating exercises instead of randomly working out a little here and there when I felt like it. I feel very focused about my approach now!

Edit: I meant to add that I'm 47 years old.