I have started jogging.

I would have been excited if i heard this few years back, but unfortunately not anymore.

Sometime back i read a book - The Zen of Running, its a book of 50 long pages, background have a guy running barefooted. Its an inspiring book and i very much fell for it. I followed it for a few days, made some progress, but that is it. I couldn't still make it to the elite, fat free athelete or celebrity that we see on the television.

My friend Neha, excited as everyone to start something new, and this time is excited about the new resolution to discipline herself in the Zen of running.

There is actually nothing wrong in this endeavour. In fact is far better than just sitting in front of the laptop and exercising the index finger. But its not a complete regimen that would allow you conitnous improvements in fitness, stamina and strength. In other words its not going to help to lose the fat.

To understand how the body works, we need to understand what exercise actually is, and what are the various forms of exercise are.

Exercise is of two forms, aerobic and anaerobic.

1. Aerobic exercise is one that you do in the presence of oxygen. Aerobic exercise would allow you to work for a very long time, without you getting totally exhausted and stopping becuase of this exhaustion. An example would be your treadmill. When you run, you always time it for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. You are never so exhausted that you fall off the treadmill. So the important thing over here is oxygen.

2. Anaerobic exercise is one that gets you winded, and you have to stop doing it because you have reached mascular fatigue or due to the lack of oxygen you are breathing like a steam engine. You cannot do this for long, maximum 30 seconds of continous Hard work. So brief, intense activity is anaerobic in nature.

So this last para brings us to a question, what is Exercise?

Exercise as per some philosophers is Hard, Intense, short activity. Otherwise it is labour, or just work. Examples of work would be washing clothes, walking to work, doing the utensils, cooking, actually working for your bread, and all those tasks. I believe in this philosophy. Do you believe in the same? If not then you are in for long, boring sessions at the gym. The choice is always yours. These are called gym rats :)

So again, you say you have started jogging. It's good, and i would admit something here. In the past year and a half i have read 20 to 25 books on fitness, surfed the net. Some books are good, so i have even re-read them. A person who advocates aerobics gets all the scientific evidence to back it up and show all the disadvantages of lifting weights, with the dangers involved to the joint and muscles. All this would be backed up with scientific evidence. On the other side you would have a person who has invested huge sums will write why aerobics are bad, and how it adversely affects the heart. A reputed indian newspaper publishes a article from a UK based fitness guru. He writes about the ill effects of aerobics and how it is bad for you. I don't believe it, how the Newspapaer can even allow all this to be published. It talks about the theory of SAID, specific adaptation to imposed demands. Since your heart is an organ that pumps blood, doing low intensity, regular slow paced jogging will reduce the size of your heart, and eventually cause heart problems. Everyone in the gym were so happy that whatever they were doing was so right and they all got another reason why they shouldn't do cardio.

What i am trying to say is all authors talk a lot about their new found fitness strategies, and i used to get all excited about them, but after reading and implementing all the sanity in their fitness methods i am pretty sure that most of them have hidden motives. Fitness and exercise, nutrition and recovery, all are very simple, but just to prove one philosophy the disadvantages of the other methods are over-emhasized.

Jogging to lose weight?

One session of joggingfor 30 minutes by me, a 70 kilo person, will be around 300 calories. For a 60kg person it would be around 250-260 calories. These are all rough figures and depends on the constitution of the person. You would be discouraged if i tell you that a single serving of Pastry can give you around 500 to 800 calories. How much jogging would you then need to burn these calories?

A typical non-athelete needs around 1500 to 2000 calories of daily intake. The Indian cusine allows 1000 to 1200 calories to be injested in just one meal. If your body didn't have a mechanism to handle this, we all would be so big that calorie excess of our daily intake would have been stored in our body in the form of fat. Calories are not only needed while exercising, or while working, the other bodily functions like digestion, respiration, using your brain, endocrine system, they all need calories and help in maintaining a manageable body weight. I say manageable because manageable does not make you healthy. It has always been emphasized that Diabetes, hypertension are modern day diseases. Most often its caused by Obesity, so obesity is the root of most of these problems. All recognise it, and feel that some form of exercise will make them lose fat. Its a big flaw. Exercise is only a stimulant, a great stimulant ofcourse. But not the factor for becoming slim. Always remember whatever going into your mouth will add up to the calories for the day. Exercise has very little to do with burning fat. Its a very small factor.

Girish, then what should i do?

Very bluntly, count the daily calorie intake. Google it - Calorie counter. And then google the 'Calories in Indian recipies'. You need to always have this handy and at the end of the day you should add up the calories. Anything more has to put under scrutiny and made sure it doesn't happen again.

And regarding your workout, you have include resistance training, alongwith the Cardio and Aerobics. You might argue, when diet is the most important thing why to discuss Exercise. As i said before exercise is a stimulant. Resistance exercises like weight training, build muscles if done correctly. Muscles use a lot of energy to maintain themselves, hence burn a lot of calories while you are at rest. In other words it increases your BMR. So you are capable of burning calories even at rest. But even then some form of cardio and aerobics are required to complement it. Cardio is the short for Cardiovascular activity meaning exercise for the heart. We should exercise the heart, so intense activities like running up the staircase, jumping rope are good. You would just require 5 minutes in the beginning which can gradually extend to 20 minutes. Some form of Aerobics of low intensity also can be utilized. This does not have to be confined to jogging. Cleaning around the house, car wash, laundry, all are enough if it takes around 30 minutes to complete. But remember your regimen should mostly be centered around Resistance training, done twice a week, and the aerobics and cardio to complement it.

The direct factor to attack your fat management is your DIET. Exercise can be called as an indirect factor. Though indirect its a very important factor.

Your comments and questions are most welcome.