What are cellular mitochondria?
Your body’s mitochondrial DNA is completely separate from your cellular DNA. In practical terms, that means that you can increase the number of mitochondria in your body without increasing the number of cells. And the greater the number of mitochondria your body has, the more efficiently your body burns body fat. Fat is the preferred source of energy for your body because when it’s metabolized, it causes no inflammation, releases 3 times the energy as sugar, and there is an abundance of it in storage. Sugar, conversely, should only be used in fight or flight situation for quick energy, as when it’s burned, it causes a ton of inflammation and exists in limited amounts in the body.
How do you ensure you are burning fat?
Your body is always burning a mixture of both sugar and fat. However, when there is an abundance of oxygen (low levels of exercise), fat is the primary source of energy because your body can only burn fat in the presence of oxygen. As your exercise intensity increases and your breathing struggles to keep up with the demand, sugar becomes the primary source. The point where your body goes from mostly fat-burning to mostly sugar burning is referred to as your aerobic threshold and can be easily monitored with a chest strap heart monitor or watch.
The simple formula for determining your aerobic threshold is 180bpm minus your age. For example, a 45-year-old person’s aerobic threshold is approximately 135bpm. Understand that this number does not represent your maximum aerobic heart rate or even your aerobic zone, it is the point where your metabolism goes from mostly fat-burning to mostly sugar burning. During your aerobic workouts, it’s easy for you to begin to drift above this threshold so it’s important that you reduce the intensity of your workout to fall back under this point.
When using this technique, only 2-5 hours per week of exercise is recommended. In contrast, the government recommends 5+ hours per week when you’re a sugar burner.
Don’t forget strength training.
Strength training is another way to increase the number of mitochondria in your body. Because strength training is highly intensive and can cause your heart rate to spike fairly quickly, minding the duration of each set is more important than monitoring your heart rate. During the first 8 seconds of intense exercise, your body is burning through pure energy stored onsite at the muscle. From 8 to 30 seconds, the body burns lactic acid and above 30 seconds, the body begins to burn sugar again. For this reason, it is important that you keep the duration of your strength training workouts under 30 seconds. This will require the use of heavyweight and low repetitions (4-6 sets of 6 repetitions is recommended). If the focus of your workouts is for aerobic training, only take a 60-second break between sets and only weight train twice per week with at least 36 hours between sessions and incorporating as many multiple joint exercises as possible. If you are training for power, take a 90-second break between sets and weight train three times per week.
How do we get started?
Now that we’ve established guidelines for your workouts, let’s use something called the Maximum Aerobic Fitness Test (MAF) to determine if you’re overdoing it with your workouts. Because most people overvalue their workouts and undervalue their rest periods, an important way to think of the process is “what’s the least amount of work I have to do to get my desired result.”
Start by using a treadmill to establish a baseline with your MAF. After warming up for 5 minutes and getting a sweat going, start increasing your speed .5 mph every minute until your heart rate breaches your aerobic threshold. Repeat and track your scores monthly by noting the date of the test and at what speed your aerobic threshold was breached. When you repeat the test the following month, if your workouts have been helping you, your speed should have increased by the time you’ve reached your MAF. This provides a feedback mechanism that empirically shows that your body is becoming more metabolically efficient, more mitochondria are being generated and not only are you becoming more fit, but also more healthy in the process.
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