David had been an athlete in his past, a Karate black belt but the time constraints of being publisher of The Springfield Paper , television producer, and heading up the Philadelphia Ministries finally took it’s toll. Like a lot of busy people, exercise was the first thing to suffer and with it went a nutritious diet. He was 80 pounds overweight, high blood pressure and a general feeling of not feeling well.  

When David began his 12 week transformation his pants size was a tight 44 , now he wears a 34 and looking to make even more progress.

How did he do it?  David stopped drinking anything but water and herbal teas, got rid of as much sugar and low nutrition food as possible.   He became a regular in the gym and found that his time spent exercising gave him more energy.

David and three other people in The Springfield Health and Fitness Center are  preparing to begin another transformation cycle.  We can’t wait, the results will be awesome!!

To positively change the composition of your body (decrease fat, increase lean muscle) you have to know how to play the game of numbers. If you burn more calories than the calories you take in each day you will lose weight, this is called creating a caloric deficit. It is the only way to lose fat.  If you do the opposite, take in more calories than what you burn, then you will gain weight.

Too much of anything gets stored as fat - even if you’re eating nothing but healthy, supportive foods. If you eat too many of them, your body will still store the extra calories as fat. Even though this appears to be a simple concept, don’t be fooled. The caloric deficit must be kept small for you want to maintain lean muscle and only lose fat weight. This strategy allows you to keep a high metabolism while at the same time transforming the shape of your body.

If calories are severely reduced, your body thinks you are starving and sets into motion a series of metabolic and hormonal events, which ultimately leads to muscle loss and a slower metabolism. Even more tragic, skipping meals and starving yourself causes your body to increase the level of fat storing enzymes so you are actually teaching your body to become efficient at storing fat!

Muscle is your Metabolism- The amount of lean muscle you hold is directly related to your metabolism and your metabolism defines the shape of your body.  Your metabolism is simply the rate at which your body burns calories. Lean muscle burns a lot more calories than fat so when you lose muscle, your metabolism drops and you burn fewer calories.

So not only must you take in sufficient calories to burn fat rather than muscle, it’s also possible to build muscle, which in turn boosts metabolism. And the way to do this is, of course, to increase the amount of exercise you do. While aerobic activities such as running, swimming, fast walking help to tone muscle and burn extra calories, resistance training is the only way to increase the amount of muscle you have in your body. A consistent and effective exercise program is mandatory to help you to burn more calories and maintain or even build lean muscle mass. Your goal is to keep your activity up and your intake down and you will achieve results.

NOTE: It will be impossible to reach your best body by exercising more if you’re neglecting nutrition. You won’t get fit by eating well if you’re missing workouts
Pat Frock- Pat’s Personal Training