Biking, Walking, or Jogging part II:

In the first part of this article I talked about getting outside to exercise. After spending three years in Georgia and Florida, it has been a little change getting used to Winter again and not being outdoors all year long. I spent as much time as possible at the beach, enjoying being around the water.

Now after being inside all day long I prefer to get my exercise outdoors, if possible. I get to see a variety of wildlife, including great blue herons, some seasonal pelicans, ducks, geese and even seagulls. A couple of times I have had to slow down to avoid the hissing geese as their goslings feed along the path.

The last couple of years I have observed many walkers, bikers, and joggers on this path next to the mighty Mississippi. While they all are getting good exercise and enjoying the outdoors, some are burning more calories than others. I have noticed some joggers that are very faithful in their routines, maybe too faithful.

One in particular can be seen there often, always jogging at the same moderate pace. All this exercising hasn't seemed to make any changes. While she is not fat, she isn't dropping pounds either.

Why not? Her body has adapted to the energy demands of her routine and she needs to change things up a little. For example, include some strength training to increase her metabolism or jog at a higher intensity. Noticing some postural and probable flexibility deficiencies in her running style, she probably couldn't go any faster without incurring an injury.

So this brings up a few key points: one, to get the most out of your exercise efforts you need to address posture and flexibility issues before getting too far in your workouts, and two, your body adapts very quickly to steady state exercise and gets very efficient at burning calories, much like your car while driving on the highway.

Many of the cyclists I see are very lean, most of these are riding racing bikes meant for long distances. And while they don't stick around long enough for me to tell, they appear to be riding at a fairly intense pace for some length of time. This brings up another point.

Those exercising for an hour or two, whether jogging or biking burn plenty of calories even while moving at a steady pace, because they are working at a greater percentage of their max heart rate, ala Lance Armstrong or an elite marathoner.

Those exercising at a lesser intensity, whether riding, jogging or walking, don't burn as many calories. If you are just starting out, it is better to work at a lighter intensity, gradually increasing the length of time you are exercising. At some point though, you will need to pick up the pace to burn more calories. Otherwise you will need to do more overall work throughout the day, such as walking a little bit here and there, which at the end of the day adds up to quite a bit, like I mentioned in my article on the Amish.

So any exercise that you enjoy is beneficial and increases your health if it doesn't cause injury. For greater fat burning potential, at some point you will have to turn up the furnace - your intensity.