Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Fathead

I saw a story on the TV news last night about this exercise regime, apparently designed to maximise fat-burning.


Of course I took it with a grain of salt, since this was the Channel Ten news, not Catalyst. Channel Ten news is not usually a reliable source of information, unless the information you're looking for contains the words "graphic", "outrageous" and "Paris Hilton". Indeed, The Flatmate and I have a game called Channel Ten News Bingo, in which the person who identifies the most references to trashy celebrities in any given five minute period wins. The prize is being allowed to throw a blunt object at Tim Webster's televised head.


But the story turned out to be based in actual science, as performed by actual scientists at an actual university. They determined that eight seconds of high-intensity exercise, followed by twelve seconds of light exercise, repeated over a twenty minute period, resulted in three times the fat burning than that acheived by forty minutes of moderate exercise.


Since I'm already using my new exercise bike for half an hour every night, I decided I may as well put this theory to the test. I pedalled at a normal pace for ten minutes to warm up, then started the regime. I pedalled like a maniac for eight seconds, then dropped to a gentle amble for twelve seconds, then sprinted for eight seconds, then idled along for twelve seconds, and so on. I kept this up for about five minutes... then noticed that my pulse rate was getting a little high and decided to take it easier. I have a dread fear of doing a Douglas Adams.


I don't know if it burnt off three times the fat, but I felt woozy and light-headed for the rest of the evening. Perhaps my brain has a higher percentage of fat than I thought.

2 Comments:

Blogger The Dog of Freetown said...

Ten channels.

That's crazy talk.

6:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Perhaps my brain has a higher percentage of fat than I thought

That's because you think too much about fatty food. Imagine celery and colliflower and stuff like that!

7:34 PM  

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