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Quote:

From The Times
London, UK
3 December, 2013

Short bursts in gym ‘key’ to weight loss

For the gym-shy, it is manna from heaven: a health guru is advocating short workouts as a key to losing weight.

Michael Mosley, a doctor and television presenter, is taking on scientists by saying that people with busy lives need spend only a few minutes a day doing exercise. As workouts go on, he said, the benefits decrease.

“We think that if we do 20 minutes’ exercise, then it must be better if we do 40 minutes a day. What scientists are saying [is] that is not necessarily true. Most of the benefits you get from exercise are in the first period and then after that there is a rapid law of diminishing returns.”

High-intensity training (HIT) has become part of a fad for fast-track fitness. Dr Mosley was also behind the 5:2 diet, which allows followers to spend five days of the week eating whatever they like and two days eating a quarter of their recommended daily quota, or 500 calories for women and 600 for men. HIT is based on the theory that even 40 seconds of intense physical activity can make a difference for those who are time-poor or exercise-averse.

Dr Mosley’s new book, Fast Exercise, was written with Peta Bee with a foreword by Jamie Timmons, of Loughborough University, and taps into a trend for shorter, more intense workouts. It comes after a book published in the United States by Gretchen Reynolds, a columnist on The New York Times. There have also been academic studies. Dr Mosley, who presented the BBC programme, Trust Me I’m A Doctor, wrote that readers will “be pleased to hear that the question occupying the minds of many of those at the forefront of exercise research is not so much ‘How can we get people to do more?’ but ‘How can we get more for less?’ ”.

He suggested that people selected workouts depending on their preference for running, cycling, swimming, rowing, skipping or cross-training and how new they were to HIT. No workout lasts longer than 20 minutes and the minimum lasts between four and six minutes, including recovery time.

Dr Mosley said that the regime complements the 5:2 diet well, given that exercise alone would not lead to weight loss — people must eat less food as well.

Fast exercise produces more mitochondria, power cells which burn fat, and the diet appears to get rid of old mitochondria, Dr Mosley said. “One of the things that is clear from fasting is that during these periods without food your body gets on with spring cleaning,” he said. “If you think of mitochondria as batteries, you want more of them because they provide power, but you also need to get rid of the old ones.”

HIT appears to suppress appetite in a way that low-intensity exercise does not, making it ideal if you are on a fast day, he said. So, if you are struggling to get through your two fast days a week, try a couple of ten-second sprints up a hill. You might feel less peckish, said Dr Mosley, a lot more fit, and relieved that you can relax for the rest of the day.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/healt...icle3938123.ece

Fast Exercise at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Exercise.../dp/1780721986/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fast-Exerci.../dp/1780721986/