The financial headlines of the last couple of weeks has been nothing but bad news. I have been interested in the economy for a long time and felt this disaster was inevitable. Even though I was pretty sure the economic day of reckoning was going to come, part of me didn’t want to believe it or at least wanted to believe that maybe the Austrian School of Economics was wrong–they probably aren’t wrong.

So while I have been reading as much as I can about about the likely affects of government’s policies during this crisis that they created, I’ve also been writing about it on my political blog. Granted, this has taken time away from writing on this blog. And since my mind is so focused on the economy and how to best stay dry through this, fitness has not been in the forefront.

So I’m going to kill two birds with one stone and write about staying fit during a bad economy. If the Austrian Economists are correct, this economic downturn could very well turn into one of the worse economic periods the world has ever faced. However, all the economic doom and gloom doesn’t mean we can’t stay in shape!

One of the first things that we are likely to cut from our spending budgets as the economy worsens are our gym memberships. If you go to the more expensive gyms like New York Sports Club or one of their sister gyms in other cities, you are even more likely to cut back on that. There is always the possibility that you will decide to join a more local and less flashy gym or you’ll just forget about the whole going the gym thing altogether.

Either one is fine–you have to cut something from the budget. We certainly don’t need to be part of a gym to workout. It is nice to have access to equipment that we would otherwise not have but, it is not essential. This is a good time to relearn the basics of training for a fully functional body and not a for-show body.

The cheapest workout you can do is one that only requires your body weight. I’ve talked about total body workouts with the gym. All you need is a solid floor, walls, and perhaps a sturdy chair. If you were to have some equipment like a pair of dumbbells, a pull-up bar, and a total-body ball, the amount of exercises you can do is almost limitless. The price tag for all those three things probably cost less than a month at one of the fancier gyms.

One of my absolute favorite books on the topic of working out without any or with limited equipment is the Home Workout Bible from Men’s Health. I’ve had that book for years and it does a fantastic job of describing a mountain of exercises and workouts that you can do without any equipment to having a full gym. This book alone can probably keep you in shape while we weather this economic mess.

We shouldn’t forget that playing sports and running outside is also a great way to keep up the cardio. Running on a treadmill is really more for hamsters than people.

As the economy is likely to continue to sour, you will undoubtly find yourself walking more especially if you live in a big city like New York. We already walk a lot but, we will find ourselves walking even more as money saved from excess cab rides can go towards our vices–or if things get really bad: rent.

Stay strong through this financial disaster. Now might be a good time to stop charging things to those credit cards. :)

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There is this false belief that cardio training is the best way to lose weight. Running on a treadmill or using an elliptical machine burns the most calories while you are using the machine. However, once you stop so will the calorie burn. You may burn a few hundred calories during the 20, 30, 40, or more minutes while you are on the machine and that is it. There are still 23 hours left in the day that you aren’t using to burn more calories–that is a lot of lost opportunity!

The best way to make sure your body is at an elevated state of calorie consumption is to lift weights. If you are one of those anti-weights people, you are going to want to disregard what I just said. A lot of people do. But, unless you can spend several hours a day doing a cardio activity, using it as your main means of weight loss is never going to work. There are so many more hours that aren’t being used! You need to use a better means: muscles.

Muscle requires energy–calories–in order to survive. Every pound of muscle will increase the amount of calories you burn on a daily basis by about 50 calories. However, that is not the sole reason why lifting weights makes losing weight more efficient. Your body will remain at an elevated state of calorie consumption up to 48 hours after a weight training session. So that means you will be burning more calories while you are sleeping, watching TV, at work, or just doing nothing.

Doing cardio will not provide this benefit.

If you are, for whatever reason, completely opposed to lifting weights, you can use sprints to create a similar effect. Using high intensity interval training will provide a similar form of elevated calorie consumption while at rest. Instead of running at a steady pace, you run at a slow to moderate pace with sprints mixed in between. A sprint is not just going faster than you were before but, going as fast as you can.

This form of cardio training does not burn as many calories for every minute you are doing the activity but, will burn more calories in the hours after you stop. It is also a lot more fun to do unless you enjoy monotonous work.

Sprinting will also help you put on some muscle–not as much as lifting weights. It’s benefits for weight loss are comparable to that of weight lifting but, weight lifting is still the better choice. If you fear getting big or muscular, you should really stop. If it was that easy, there would be a lot more bodybuilders walking around. Instead, two thirds of the US population is overweight. Putting on some muscle is the least of our worries.

So go lift weights! Saying you want to lose weight and then not using the best tools to do so is no better than doing nothing.

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