HIIT Me Baby One More Time

So my post last week was about the ketogenic diet.  And since then, I have (amazingly) been faithful to the diet.  I definitely struggle every day, as the amount of meat and cheese I have to eat each day is honestly outrageous.  I especially struggle with finding recipes for a keto meal that doesn’t include really strange things that I wouldn’t eat normally…like erithrytol and pork rinds.  I also have an extremely hard time eating enough in a day, and what comes with that is learning how to keep my electrolytes from completely depleting.  I’m still learning, but I hope with time this process gets easier.  But to end on a happy note, here’s a DELICIOUS Shrimp Alfredo I made for myself one night:

All that’s in it is: shrimp, kale, cream cheese, butter, heavy cream, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese.  It was the most delicious Keto meal my mouth has ever tasted.

 

This week, however, my learning topic is going to be about HIIT: high intensity interval training.  So before I research, here is what I already know about it..or think I know:
-An interval is doing an exercise at different speeds.  For example, walk for 60 seconds, jog for 30 seconds, then sprint for 30 seconds.  And then repeat for, say 30 minutes or 8-12 reps – whatever your workout looks like.  You want your heart rate as high as possible during those last 30 seconds, but you want to completely recover and lower your heart rate down again during that minute of walking.
– Intervals are of interest to the people of the fitness decent because it creates a better stamina, as well as increases/ decreases heart rate at a level that allows the body to burn calories (and therefore fat) faster.  You need to push yourself to get through the
-Intervals increase your speed
– You can do intervals on any cardio machine and in lots of different exercise: sprint, jump rope, treadmill, stair mill, stationary bike, elliptical.
– And that’s about it.

So here’s what I learned:
–  According to bodybuilding.com, what makes HIIT training so effective as a fat burner is that it produces excess post-oxygen consumption, a.k.a. EPOC; HIIT increases the resting metabolic rate for the following 24 hours.  Which mean, the fat-burning party isn’t over once you step off the treadmill – it keeps going and going and going!  However, you don’t actually burn an abundant amount of calories throughout the day afterwards.  You burn some, but not a crazy amount.  It’s like finding a dollar in your pant pocket at the end of the day.  Awesome! It’s a dollar…but it’s not $20.00.
-I also found this really cool community for the who, what, when, where, and why of HIIT.  It’s a bunch of people just learning and going through this process together.
– I also learned, surprisingly enough, that I know 95% of what there is to know about HIIT.  But with that being said, I also found this really great video that thoroughly describes the differences between all the cardios.  While I already know what the difference is, I think the did a really good job at making the differences even more clear to me.  The girl in the video also shows some really alternative ways to do cardio, which I think is a neat visual.  She is also hilarious, and when you get to her workout routine I think you’ll probably laugh.

So with all that being said, I’m going to incorporate HIIT into my workouts every day for this next week alongside my keto lifestyle, and will relay how it’s going in my next post!

Cheers.