Food & EnergyUpdated 25 days ago

We missed the boat on our summer bod, but we’re gearing up for the best fall bod we’ve ever had–and that means we’re educating ourselves on how to best boost our physical resilience and overall health. When you know how something works, you can make it work in your favor.

Building muscle and burning excess fat comes down to three factors: how you exercise, how you breathe, and how you eat. The phrase “burning” calories, fat, and energy comes from your body’s process of truly burning those things. Each pound of fat you lose “evaporates,” with 84% exhaled through the lungs as carbon dioxide. 

Here’s a quick breakdown on how our bodies adapt to food and exercise routines–

Regular exercise…improves circulation and strengthens your heart, in turn boosting your overall energy levels and metabolic function. 

Breathing deeply through the nose…lowers cortisol levels associated with intense exercise, helping prevent fat storage and stress response. It also increases the body’s available oxygen, aiding fat burn and muscle repair.
Calories…don’t need to be counted. There’s no exact science to the numbers you see on food labels, so they can have a margin of error of + / – 25%. If you’re in the habit of reading labels, pay attention instead to macronutrient contents–while these aren’t necessarily more accurate than calorie count, they do give you more useful information. Focus on fueling your body with primarily whole, unprocessed foods, and consuming them within an 8-10 hour window each day. This will give your body an adequate rest period to digest and rebuild.