The Relationship Between Exercise and Your Metabolism

A common myth is that the better shape a person is in will mean they have a faster or better metabolism. This can be somewhat true if a person has added some muscle mass to their body since muscle does burn more calories at rest than other types of tissue like fat but the amount of calories the additional muscle burns at rest is not as much as people often give the added muscle credit for. For instance if you were to convert 10 pounds of fat into 10 pounds of lean muscle while remaining the same body weight, you would burn around 50-60 calories more each day then before you converted the fat to muscle. Seems like a lot of work for very little additional caloric burn. But think of how much better the muscle looks on you over the fat :)

One fact that will always be true is that when you exercise you burn calorie and the more you exercise the more calories you will burn but this is not about that. This is about what happens to your body when you get in better cardiovascular shape from all the activity you are doing during exercise.

When we get in better cardiovascular shape our heart will beat slower at rest and during activity. Our heart rate is a key factor in figuring out how many calories we burn during an activity so the faster your heart beats while exercising the more calories you are essentially burning during a given duration. If it is beating slower than you burn less calories. In other words when you are out of shape and working out or exercising for an hour with an average heart rate of say 140 beats per minutes versus when you are in shape performing the exact same workout with a heart rate of 110, you will burn more calories in the same hour if you where out of shape.

This is simple just a byproduct of what your body does when you tell it you need to be more active, your body just gets better and more efficient at being active because that is what you are telling it to do. So a more in fit version of yourself will need to workout or exercise longer and harder to burn the same calories as a less fit version of yourself.

Watch my YouTube video for an analogy I use and also how I found this out from personal experience while I was prepping for my Fitness Shows.

4 Days Out from the West Coast Iron Vancity Showdown 2020

This took a bit of work but here it is a full day of me doing my thing 4 days out contest prepping for the West Coast Iron Vancity Showdown. Follow me along as I get through my day, eating, working, workouts and more...

Peak Week Begins - WC Iron Vancity Showdown

Peak Week has officially begun and I am 6 days out from the Westcoast Iron Vancity Showdown. This is when it gets real and there is zero room for anything not in the program. I will be eating around 2000 calories per day consisting of approximately 250 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbs and around 80 grams of fats each day. This will be offset by anywhere from 1500 to 2000 calories of exercise consisting of lots of walking, posing practice and of course daily 1.5 hour workouts.

The goal is to peel off the last little bit of fat I have left on me to get right around 5% body fat, currently I am just over 6%. Today I was 196 pounds, by the Friday I will probably be closer to 190 pounds as I will be carb depleted and hopefully down 3-4 additional pounds of fat. At least that is the goal!

At my Classic Physique weigh in for my height of 6 feet I can weigh 212 pounds but I will be nowhere near that weight, more than likely I will be closer to 190-193 pounds so a good 20 pounds under what I am allowed to be at for Classic Physique. This does put me at a size disadvantage over the guys that come in closer to their top weight cap but conditioning can play a big part in making me look bigger than I am and also catching the judges eyes. Hopefully the judges are looking for conditioning over size?

This week will fly by quickly as it always does, I hope to try and post more content this week for everyone so stay posted...

Full Day of Eating 2 Weeks Out

I get asked a lot about what I eat during a contest prep so I thought I would make a video of a Full Day of Eating 2 Weeks Out from my show the Westcoast Iron Vancity Showdown. I am incorporating some carbs but will drop most of them next week when I am one week out so I can carb load just before the show.

I am also eating more fats than most people would this close to a show. This is because I am well on track and when I factor in how active I am even with the fats I am usually under my calorie maintenance by at least 1000-1500 calories each day.

My diet may seem a bit unusual compared to what other people eat when getting ready for a show but this works for me and I feel having a little bit of flexibility really helps me enjoy my food while still achieving my objectives.

Posing 2 weeks out WC Iron Vancity Showdown 2020

We are now 1 day less than 2 weeks out from the Westcoast Iron Vancity Showdown being held on October 11th here in New Westminster Canada. This past week again was really great and I stayed 100% on track with my diet and training.

Yet again the scale is not showing me what I want to see but more importantly I am liking what I am seeing in the mirror which is the more important of the two. According to my InBody H20 Scale I am only down about 1 pound and .5 of a body fat percentage but I should be down at least 2 pounds of fat and a full body fat percentage. These devices do have some margin for error so we will leave it at that. We will see what next weeks readings say...

I still have 2 more weeks to tighten things up even more and generally speaking this is when the magic happens, especially the last week when the diet gets really tuff and the fat and carbs almost disappear. Enjoy some posing and hopefully you can see some improvements week to week.