Tim Ferriss, the author of the wonderful Four Hour Body, has proposed a specific daily exercise routine designed to maximize efficient use of caloric input (eating!) by using timing and hormones to ensure that the calories you eat get put to immediate use by your muscles, as opposed to being put away as fat stores. This is an incredible insight and shows us just how we can game our bodies to do what we want them to do if we’re smart and consistent. In this particular case, and I’ll be showing you more in future posts, you can maximize your GLUT-4 (glucose transporter type 4), opening up your cellular gates to accept more calories, thus diverting the calories from your fat cells in the first place!
The basic plan is to do a brief exercise immediately before eating, and then ideally about 90 minutes afterward. This may sound like a really difficult proposition, but it turns out that the minimal amount of exercise required for the effect is only about 280 seconds. Four minutes of your life for a vastly increased calories to muscles ratio! You’re going to want to use low intensity training like wall push-ups, air squats, etc. These exercises can be done in your office, outside of a cafe, in a bathroom stall, really anywhere!!
Right before you eat, do 4 minutes of light intensity exercise, then repeat this 90 minutes after your meal. You want to get a VERY light sweat, a slightly elevated heart rate, and a minor muscle burn. This isn’t a crushing workout, you want to make sure that you’re not overdoing it. You want to send a message to your body that you’re doing some light work right now, and to divert some of those calories you’re about to consume directly to your muscles so you can keep hunting at top efficiency.
Give it a try and let us know if you can see a difference! Measure your weight and body fat for a time under your normal routine, perhaps one month. Then, do the same, but exercise right before and 90 minutes after your meals. You’ll see a difference!
