Two weeks ago I began following the exercise portion of the Dr. Al Sears P.A.C.E. program and can report that I feel terrific! At the core of the program is the concept that cardio is not good for you (supported by lots of research) and that strenuous exercise in short bursts followed by rest is how our bodies were meant to work. No long sessions on the treadmill or running miles. If you look at the way people were before “civilization” as hunter gatherers, we ran in short bursts (chasing food!) with periods of rest in between.

Dr. Sears claims that with “as little as 12 minutes” ,which admittedly is a bit misleading since it is actually more like 20 minutes including the rest periods, you can get the same benefit of an hour of cardio without the damage cardio inflicts on the human body. There are a number of exercise plans you can follow, all with the 12 minutes of strenuous exercise in short bursts. For the first month I am following this plan:

2 minutes – warm up
*4 minutes – strenuous exercise
Cool down, reduce heart rate to near normal or normal resting
*3 minutes – strenuous exercise
Cool down, reduce heart rate to near normal or normal resting
*2 minutes – strenuous exercise
Cool down, reduce heart rate to near normal or normal resting
*1 minute – strenuous exercise
Cool down

All up it takes about 20 minutes.

*You are supposed to sweat during the strenuous exercise portions and should be breathing heavily and unable to carry on a conversation.

I am loving it! There is no excuse to not find 20 minutes, for up to an hour afterwards I feel energized and after only 2 weeks, 4 x per week, my butt and thighs are already tightening up. Now I am working on my 77 year old mother who is walking down her 1/8 mile driveway (warm up) and back up 4 times.

I will chronicle my journey here. I am slowly incorporating the change of eating habits to a more protein based diet and hope to see great results. Check out some of the testimonials from his patients here; Dr. Al Sears patients’ testimonials

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 9:34 am and is filed under menopause and exercise, menopause and weight, menopause weight loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.