It’s time to be thinking about keeping your activity level high as the weather changes. Asheville’s beautiful fall weather still lends itself to many outdoor activities such as hiking, bicycling, jogging, and of course walking. No matter the time of year, the key throughout your life is to integrate activity into your DAILY lifestyle.

As a trainer, I am often asked how much exercise is best and what type. Of course what you do and how long you can do it depends on your present physical conditioning. If you get winded going up one flight of stairs, it doesn’t matter if you’re thin or if you have 50 pounds to lose, you’re winded and you need to make activity a priority.  The name of the game for longevity and health is cardiovascular fitness! So get moving to live well and to burn the fat!

Feeling healthy and burning fat takes an integrated effort of eating plenty of wholesome food, and integrating activities into your day ALL day long, not just the one hour Personal Training session or the 30 minute Hip Hop DVD. Any amount of movement and exercise is better than none, but the reality of changing your shape is one pound of fat equals about 3200 calories. To burn 3200 calories takes a concerted effort to move as much as you can in many ways.

Let’s do the math. I want to lose two pounds this week; that’s 6400 calories of fat I have to burn. Wow! The good news is I burn calories while I sleep, and while I’m digesting food! Wholesome food, especially lots of fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains with egg whites and small servings of lean organic meat are the best choices for most. Remember, if we don’t eat much quality food, the body may eat itself ~ leading to weakness, and a smaller fat-burning furnace. To burn the fat, the best idea is to increase our level of activity, and to increase the consumption of whole foods while avoiding high-calorie concentrated foods such as sugar, cream, saturated fat, and junk foods.

Let’s return to the math. At Calorie-count.com (www.calorie-count.com/calories/activity) activities and the calories burned are listed based on an average weight of 140 pounds (70kg). If all a person’s activities are added up, and the calories from the food subtracted, the gap has to be approx. 1000 per day to lose the two pounds in a week. Now, I know what your thinking just eat less food. Yes! That would work, but it’s NOT the healthy permanent way to do it. Wouldn’t you rather eat plenty of good food, get lean and stay lean?!  To burn fat pay attention to how much activity is part of your every day routine. Take the stairs, stand or pace when on the phone, eat and sleep more too!

If a 140-pound person sleeps 8 hours, they burn 63 calories per hour. Eating burns 101 calories per hour. Eat five meals (three 30 minute meals and two 15 minute snacks) ~ that’s 202 calories burned! If you talk while you eat you’ll burn an extra 39 calories per hour. If 2000 calories of wholesome food are consumed, it’s estimated that the person will burn about 200 calories digesting the food. Sitting and watching TV is almost like sleeping, only 70 calories are burned per hour. Pedal on a recumbent bike at a moderate level and watch an hour of TV and burn 560 calories! That’s half way to your goal!

And let’s not forget sex!! A vigorous encounter burns 105 calories per hour, but only 70 calories per hour for light sex (105 doesn’t sound vigorous to me but maybe it’s a heterosexual thing. I mean a person burns 63 an hour while sleeping. Really, who calculated this? I want a second opinion!)

OK, that’s a lot of numbers thrown out there. What’s important is the numbers have to add up to a daily calorie deficit to burn the excess fat stored on our abs and love handles. If this 140-pound person takes the time to eat five meals of wholesome food while talking, and the food added up to 2000 calories (a basic minimum requirement for most healthy people) then that person has burned 480 calories JUST from eating. That’s as much as if you ran for an hour or walked at a very brisk pace for an hour and a half! And if this person bikes on a stationary bike in front of the TV for one hour at a moderate pace, they’ll burn 560 calories. That’s over the 1000-calorie activity goal for the day! That’s on track for burning two pounds of fat per week, and that doesn’t even count all the very vigorous sex we’re having!

Do you have questions or comments? Send them to for Kamala Parker, B.A., C.P.T. at kamthetrainer@yahoo.com.