High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horizon)

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

I'm personally a huge fan of HIIT training, and I've read multiple studies showing the specific insulin sensitivity and metabolic benefits in general, and for diabetics. Because of the intensity and duration it can boost BG, but if monitored I think this is one of the greatest workouts available for any population that it's appropriate for. I enjoy hammer+tire swings, ski and row machines most for mine, but there's a lot of options. Also numerous trainers and professionals, or just athletes, have branded their own timing methods, such as Tabata, who does 40 on, 20 off, for 4-8 minutes. You tweak your peak and rest periods and build.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

I am considering it among other options, to get healthier in 2013. I saw the programme when it first aired on tv and was fascinated, I decided to get myself an exercise bike. But then I was reminded about the exercise bike I used to own that ended up as a clothes horse, before it got chucked out a few years ago. Then about the elliptical trainer that fell into disuse and now sits there rusty in the garden....

The local gym is literally a few hundred yards from my office and I discovered they give our company a whopping £4 per month discount, but to be able to use the gym, attend classes and use the pool will cost me at least £45 per month for off peak time only. I can't see me getting to the gym at 6 in the morning.

I know that as a diabetic I need to give myself the best chance of keeping healthy by regular exercise, but I fear that within a few weeks/ my best intentions will fade.

As its not a full on hours slog each time, maybe high intensity training would be different.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Running on the spot fast for 20s followed by a 10s break repeated 8 times dropped my blood glucose from 6.0 to 5.4 (finger pricks 10m apart).

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Tootse said:

As its not a full on hours slog each time, maybe high intensity training would be different.

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Burpees and squat thrusts are two exercises which will get you gasping for breath if you do them quickly. Hard enough to do more than a couple mins if you do them slowly. You just need a bit of floor space.

A good way to start is to see how many you can do in a minute. Then halve that number for each and do three repititions of each, with a 30 second interval. When you feel you are ready to go for it after some days/weeks, start doing them faster and time yourself. Try to improve your times. You will be effectively then doing HIT without equipment or the cost of a gym. An easy way to see if it is working for you is to take your pulse before and then immediately after the exercise and then take your pulse say two mins after exercise. If it is working, you should recover your normal pulse more quickly over time.

Gyms used to be about body building and then body toning. They were small inexpensive places and weights were the main item of equipment. Now, they are fashionable places with lots of pieces of equipment to do things like walking or cycling. Just walk or buy a bike.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Gyms used to be about body building and then body toning

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Well, no.
Edit to clarify: This is sarcasm to highlight the appeal to tradition fallacy.

Gym equipment serves a purpose - a more convenient way of doing the exercises in question: You don't have to worry about adverse weather conditions (HIY cycling on ice?), you can adjust the resistance/incline in case the nearby hills don't happen to be exactly right, you don't have to carry your kit (BG meter, Glucotabs, etc), built-in HR monitor, etc.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

But I was not writing about Greek "gymnasion, a public place where athletic exercises are practiced", latin "gymnasium, a school for gymnastics" or indeed german "gymnasium, a high school aimed at achieving university entrance qualifications". Neither was I writing about the indo european root of gymnos 'naked' or its etymology. I was writing about the UK in more recent times, "gyms used to be about body building" and then moved onto "body toning" before morphing into the sort of fashionable arena for active social networking that we see today. One only has to look at the type of gyms that existed in the 1960s and 70s which owed more to a heritage of ex army PE instructors, medicine balls, free weights and people kitted out with vests and plimsoles, mostly from the Army and Navy Stores which used to be found in every High St. The history of gymnastics goes back much further than the ancient Greeks you refer to. Gymnasts entertained the Egyptian nobility around 5000 BC and, according to the frescos, acrobats were vaulting over the backs of bulls during the Minoan civilisation on Crete some 2000 years before the ancient Greek Olympics Games.

Whilst I accept that you along with many others may prefer a modern 'fitness centre', I see no comparison with ancient greece. As you say, they offer comfort and you don't have to worry about the weather. They don't hark back to ancient civilisations where real bulls were used for vaulting and, I doubt you'd even find see the modern olympic equivalent in a modern fitness centre. Non that I know of promote Greco Roman wrestling for example. They are completely different things.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

I usually spend more than an hour in the gym/fitness centre 3 times a week. On two of these occasions I warm up, do some resistance work and half-an-hour on an arc trainer, aiming at burning 900 cals/hr. At the weekend I avoid the resistance work and do a straight hour on the arc trainer. I usually follow the arc trainer sessions with 3x20 second bursts of HIIT, reaching nearly 1300 cals/hr.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

I do HIT sporadically.
I have a racing bike on resistance rollers and do 5mins warm up, then 3 lots of (20secs 'eyeballs out' 40 secs gentle) then a few minutes cool down. That really hurts!
Alternatively, my daughter left a cheap cross-trainer in my garage which I do 4-5x (1minute hard, 30 secs recovery) which pumps the thighs up luvverly and gets me breathing hard.
I sometimes use the cross trainer for 10 minutes an hour after eating - not as a HIT session though, just to impact BG.

I suppose my question is - when is the best time to HIT? Should it be before meals? 1st thing in the morning? any ideas?

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Ooo, interested in this thread as did my first HiT running on Wed... Have any of you experienced it's particularly good at shifting belly fat??

I'm not very overweight (officially I'm 23 bmi but I'm not convinced of the accuracy of these as my waist definitely measures too high) but do have probably a good 1/2 stone to a stone to shift, and I think the majority of it is sitting on my belly!!

I am really, really eager to shift it as I've read so much about how visceral fat affects insulin; but despite almost three months of a completely altered diet (am now about 75g carbs a day and although I know I could go lower, would rather not as I don't think lower will be sustainable for me) - no sugars, no grains apart from very occasional slice of rye bread.... No drop in weight!

Then started running about three weeks ago, and have religiously run every other day... Still not a single pound drop in weight, nor change in waist measurements.... :-(

So this week I've started HiT; I'm doing a light 5 min jog to warm up; then 30 secs run as fast as you can, then 60 secs walk to cool down (or in my case, try not to throw up) and repeating that 8 times... It certainly brings down my blood sugars (had an unusually high reading of 11 before I went out and it was 6 by the time I came back) but obviously it's too early for me to tell if it will help get rid of my seemingly very stubborn belly fat... Would love to know if anyone else has had a positive experience with weight loss and HiT, especially if nothing else was working... Would be great to have a little inspiration


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Marr said he had followed the advice to "take very intensive exercise in short bursts – and that's the way to health … I went on a rowing machine and gave it everything I had, and had a strange feeling afterwards – a blinding headache, and flashes of light – served out the family meal, went to bed, [then] woke up the next morning lying on the floor unable to move".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -dangerous

Be careful. Marr blames HIT for his stroke. It's a bit of bad luck if you have a weak spot and rupture something but building upto doing HIT in stages will limit the damage if you are unlucky enough.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

HIIT works. You really need to push yourself though for any real benefit. Trouble can occur when people like Marr or the TV programme misses out the need for a thorough warm up prior to intense exercise. This is dangerous and can cause serious injury.


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Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

@sunshine_kisses

Hi there, HIT works but in order to lose weight you need to eat at a calorific deficit. Exercise alone won't do anything if you're eating at a surplus.

I use a simple formula to calculate baseline calorific needs, which is body weight converted into lbs x 14.

Therefore if you weight 10 stones, thats 140lbs, in which case 140lbs x 14 = 1960kcal. This is the amount of calories you would need to consume to MAINTAIN your body weight. Eating at maintenance with exercise should in theory lead to weight loss, but to accelerate things you could lower your daily calorie intake by 3-500 kcal. In which case eating at 1490-1690 kcal a day would lead to greater weight loss.

Download MyFitness Pal, it's free and will calculate calories for you, it's awesome as you can scan items in/find most foods from its database. A very good way to track calories.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

mo1905 said:

HIIT works. You really need to push yourself though for any real benefit. Trouble can occur when people like Marr or the TV programme misses out the need for a thorough warm up prior to intense exercise. This is dangerous and can cause serious injury.

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Whilst that is undoubtedly sound advice, it's not what I had in mind. I meant a susceptibility to strokes. Marr says that he had two transient ischaemic attacks the year before, mini strokes, but that he had been unaware of them so when he did the HIT he tore the carotid artery and ended up with either a ischaemic or a haemorrhagic stroke. Susceptibity to stroke is one of those unknowns. Some women have them during childbirth.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Yorksman said:

Marr said he had followed the advice to "take very intensive exercise in short bursts – and that's the way to health … I went on a rowing machine and gave it everything I had, and had a strange feeling afterwards – a blinding headache, and flashes of light – served out the family meal, went to bed, [then] woke up the next morning lying on the floor unable to move".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -dangerous

Be careful. Marr blames HIT for his stroke. It's a bit of bad luck if you have a weak spot and rupture something but building upto doing HIT in stages will limit the damage if you are unlucky enough.

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Marr is a fool. He was not doing HIIT, but prolonged high intensity training. The essence of HIIT is short (20 second) bursts of high intensity exercise.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Hey GlazedDoughnuts, thanks for the advice, I have downloaded my fitness pal and have been using it for a few weeks to count carbs and calories (I'd never counted either in my life before so was literally clueless!)

Anyway, that's how I know I'm about 75g carbs... And always around 1200 calories - and still nada on the weight loss :-(

I will try that equation thing you mentioned, though I think my fitness pal worked it out already when I joined as it asks for my stats and then told me to have 1200 cal a day... So I'm stumped as to why my body isn't responding - but at least hopeful that the HiT might help...


Diagnosed Type 2, 22nd Feb 2013
Hba1c 7.5
Three month trial of managing through diet & exercise.
Low carb, pescatarian
Trying various supplements!

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

HIT will not get you fit, Michael Moseley stated that in his program, the period of exercise is just too short to have any cardio-vascular or muscular benefit. What it does do is improve your insulin resistance by shocking the system (someone needs to explain this to me).

HIT will not shift belly fat. To shift fat you need to make your body kick in the fat metabolism process (whatever that is - I'm no expert but I'm sure someone will give us the science). Cyclists, such as Bradley Wiggins, who have very low levels of body fat, train early in the morning before breakfast so they are running on fat reserves. They also exercise for huge lengths of time - 6 hour rides at 600+ kcals per hour. But they don't eat fat they eat huge amounts of carbs, so not a good model for a diabetic.

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

stuffedolive said:

HIT will not get you fit, Michael Moseley stated that in his program, the period of exercise is just too short to have any cardio-vascular or muscular benefit. What it does do is improve your insulin resistance by shocking the system (someone needs to explain this to me).

HIT will not shift belly fat. To shift fat you need to make your body kick in the fat metabolism process (whatever that is - I'm no expert but I'm sure someone will give us the science). Cyclists, such as Bradley Wiggins, who have very low levels of body fat, train early in the morning before breakfast so they are running on fat reserves. They also exercise for huge lengths of time - 6 hour rides at 600+ kcals per hour. But they don't eat fat they eat huge amounts of carbs, so not a good model for a diabetic.

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Your memory must be failing you. My recollection of the programme is that Prof Jamie Timmons has shown that 3 minutes of HIIT per week improved several measures of fitness, including mucle and cardiovascular fitness.. Other studies in Canada, Norway and Bath have confirmed this.

I agree that the duration of HIIT is nowhere near sufficient to burn up any significant amount of fat.

http://metapredict.eu/686/get-fit-with- ... ise-a-week

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

True, this HIT fad (the s is silent) is not at all new, it used to be called Fartlek Training. A simple way to do this was to jog 300m on a running track and sprint 100m - in time both your times would improve or you could do more repetitions. The benefits of this type of training are that if done correctly it will improve both cardio fitness (in the 'resting parts) and power & muscle definition (in the sprint parts). However, a lot of the studies suggest that doing HIT is better than not doing HIT... er yes. But walking 200m is better than not walking 200m.

Caution should be advised on a couple of fronts, firstly the 'miracle results'. Any gym or excercise session should have elements of intense vs non-intense work but heart rate is a more consistent measure - work x minutes at x% above resting heart rate etc. People thinking it is a wonder cure are bonkers and usually those looking for a quick fix, they will end up with a quick walkaway (maybe followed by a slow one, then another quick one). Also, as has been said on here, certain intensity levels can lead to glucose production making control difficult.

The best advice on any training especially concerned to weight loss is 'do a bit more'. There's all kinds of good cheap gym alternatives including swimming, bike or punch bag from fleabay, apps giving some good fitness ball excercises. If stomach is a problem area have a look for apps for ab excercises and cut down carbs...

Re: High Intensity Training (HIT) - Dr Michael Mosley (Horiz

Mr Happy said:

The best advice on any training especially concerned to weight loss is 'do a bit more'. There's all kinds of good cheap gym alternatives including swimming, bike or punch bag from fleabay, apps giving some good fitness ball excercises. If stomach is a problem area have a look for apps for ab excercises and cut down carbs...

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I would have previously thought this advice to be 100% sound - certainly seems 100% logical - however I've been 'doing a bit more' and a bit more, and a bit more... but still not lost a single lb.

Prior to my diagnosis I would guess I was probably eating three times the amount of carbs I am eating now per day (I don't eat meat, so relied mostly on grains and veggies, plus had a sweet tooth so overall very carb heavy) plus didn't do any form of intensity exercise whatsoever - I practiced yoga regularly but that was about it.

So I have cut down on carbs, lowered calories and increased exercise and still nothing - which, having read *so many* posts on here from people either cutting down carbs or increasing their exercise and the weight just falling off, makes me think there must be some sort of metabolism issue at play for me... thus I'm thinking I need to do something to kickstart it in some way (as I'm guessing you're correctly thinking too stuffed olive) - but I don't know how to go about doing that, as what I've tried so far hasn't worked - so it's a process of trial and elimination... I was hoping HiT might do it, but it seems the replies think not... I know 5:2 is another option; I just have some concerns there as I read it can be detrimental to women who have yet to have children as the fasting can affect their fertility rates... as a woman who would like to have children still, that's a bit of a worry - but equally I know I need to shift the belly fat, so... more research and thinking on my part needed I guess! :crazy: