Sound impossible? Believe it or not, these are actual results from NBC’s hit reality show, The Biggest Loser.

No wonder the nation is captivated!

But, as great as these results are… are they realistic? Do you think you could lose 34 pounds in just seven days? Probably not.

As a doctor, I work with people in the real world. The results they get on The Biggest Loser simply aren’t possible for most people.

You can’t argue with success, but there’s more to this story…

To begin with, contestants on The Biggest Loser have an incentive that most dieters don’t… a shot at $250,000 in cold, hard cash. That’s a lot of incentive to stick with a diet and exercise program.

You see, the contestants work out 4-6 hours a day. Some even add in extra workouts in their quest for the $250,000 prize.

Think about that for a moment. Some of these people are working out 42 hours a week – or more.

That’s a full-time job!

Imagine trying to add a second full-time job to your schedule. Do you think you could do it? When would you have time for your family? Or to sleep?

Speaking of time, consider the numbers for a moment. Losing 34 pounds in a week means dropping almost five pounds a day. You have to burn about 3,500 calories to lose a pound, so that’s 17,500 calories… a day.

But a 200-pound adult only burns about 500 calories per hour doing aerobics. So, at 200 pounds, you’d have to do aerobics for 35 hours to lose five pounds.

In other words, losing 34 pounds in a week isn’t just hard. For most people, it’s impossible.

And do you think the show’s contestants can continue those workouts when the season is over? I’ve only found one story of a former contestant who continues the long workouts. But I’ve read several about former contestants fighting their post-show weight gain.

Losing weight is terrific for your health. But your weight-loss plan has to be realistic.

The Biggest Loser contestants have 4-6 hours a day to exercise while they’re on the show. They also have daily access to personal trainers to design and oversee individual workouts. And chefs and nutrition experts to teach them healthy eating habits.

But you probably can’t afford to leave your job for two or three months. Or to hire professionals to advise you on a daily basis.

What you need is an effective workout plan that fits into your busy schedule. And that’s exactly what I developed for my patients.

As a college gymnast – and later as a doctor and certified physical trainer – I learned
you don’t have to work out for hours at a time to lose weight. Or to build a stronger heart and lungs. I’ve helped hundreds of patients and others trim down and get in shape – in as little as 12 minutes a day.

I admire the contestants on The Biggest Loser for both their resolve and their results. The show may be entertaining and inspiring. But it’s a formula most people just can’t follow.

Do you dread those everyday aches and pains so much that it keeps you from exercising in the first place?

You don’t have to let those aches and pains stop you anymore.

It’s possible to eliminate muscle aches and stiffness immediately after working out. And you can help rebuild your muscles at the same time.

What you have to do is immediately put back things you use up during exercise. This means carbohydrates and proteins.

The carbohydrate you burn in muscle is ribose. Ribose is a sugar that you use to make ATP – the major source of energy for your muscle cells. The amount of ribose regulates the production of ATP. It speeds up energy recovery in your skeletal muscle, which helps you work out longer, build muscle faster, and have energy to do more.

But it can do a lot more. Ribose can also help treat heart disease, congestive heart failure, and fibromyalgia. It also helps with several types of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular diseases.

Ribose is the “secret” weapon the world’s top athletes use to combat muscle fatigue and dramatically boost their recovery time.

I say “secret” because few people know about it. Ribose is not available by prescription, so there is little money to be made from it. So there has been a predictable lack of “excitement” about it from the mainstream medical community, including most doctors.

The real truth is that boosting your ribose and protein will help rebuild your muscles after a strenuous workout and help you avoid the aches, pains, and stiffness you may often feel later.

It’s very important for you to replenish these sugars as soon as possible after working out.

But you can’t find ribose in any of the “energy” drinks or “recovery” drinks out there. That’s why I developed PACE Refuel.

PACE Refuel is packed with protein and ribose. It’s the perfect complement to my PACE workout program.

All you need to do is mix one scoop with 4 oz. of water and drink immediately after your workout to feel your body refuel. Your muscle aches and stiffness will soon be a thing of the past.

Even if you’re just coming back from an after-dinner walk, PACE Refuel stimulates new muscle growth and helps ease the aches and pains of your daily routine.

I want you to try this for yourself. I’ve seen it help my patients, and I think it can help you too.

To get your own personal bottle, click here now.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

In just minutes a day, you can program your genes to stay younger longer.

There’s new evidence that PACE-style movement slows down your aging clock, lengthening your life and making you more resistant to disease.

The professor that led the study said, “The act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process… and people may actually look and feel younger.”₁

Research now shows that exercise has the power to turn back time. Exercise affects your telomeres, making them longer and stronger. The telomere is your biological clock. It determines how long you live. And how well you live.

Telomeres are “caps” at the ends of every cell’s DNA. They act like the plastic fittings on the ends of your shoelaces, and keep your DNA strands from fraying.

Your cells are constantly dividing. And any kind of damage to your cells – from free radicals, toxins, poor nutrition, etc. – causes your cells to divide more rapidly. Each time your cells divide, a small part of the telomere is not copied. The shorter your telomeres, the less protection they offer your DNA.

Telomeres are a measure of your body’s true biological age. When your telomeres get shorter and shorter over time, they’re no longer able to protect your DNA. This robs you of your vitality and leaves you vulnerable to those dreaded signs of aging.₂

So, anything you can do to lengthen your telomeres serves to protect your DNA… and restore your vitality.

Now that you see the value of longer telomeres, here’s the kicker…

You don’t have to run a marathon or bore yourself to death with long, grueling workouts to have longer telomeres.

Recently a study of 2,401 twins found that physical activity was related to telomere length. Moderate levels of activity created much longer telomeres than either zero exercise or too much exercise.₃

People got to choose the kind of exercise they liked to do. They did things like running, swimming, or tennis. Those who exercised moderately, around 100 minutes a week, had telomeres that looked 5 or 6 years younger. Those who exercised vigorously, around 3 hours a week, had telomeres that looked 9 years younger.₄

Telomere length is also affected by stress and how you handle it. Women with the highest perceived stress levels had 10 years more of aging than women who either handled their stress better or had less of it.₅

PACE makes it easy. In just a few minutes a day you’ll calm your nerves, relieve anxiety, and lengthen your life.

After all, telomere length is the key to youth. And long-distance running and aerobics are doing more harm than good. You’re much better off doing a program like PACE, which keeps your routine challenging but in short segments, followed by recovery.

Try this simple PACE routine to slow or stop the shortening of telomeres:

1. Choose a body-weight exercise of your choice. Choose an exercise like arm circles, knee bends, leg raises, or push-ups.
2. Once you’re ready, do 100 repetitions of the exercise. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you. Take your time. Rest if you need to. But continue until you’ve done 100 repetitions.
3. Check how long it took to finish 100 repetitions. Now rest.
4. The next time you do it, try and do it faster.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

P.S. – If you haven’t already, join the PACE revolution TODAY.

1. Stein, R. “Exercise Could Slow Aging” Wash Post 1/29/09
2. Telomerase Activation http://www.telomeraseactivation.org/
3. Cherkas L., Hunkin, J. et. al. “The Association Between Physical Activity in Leisure Time and Leukocyte Telomere Length” Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(2):154-158
4. Stein, R. “Exercise Could Slow Aging” Wash Post 1/29/09
5. Epel ES, Blackburn EH et al. “Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Dec 7;101(49):17312-5. Epub 2004 Dec 1.

You are one of the first to see this.

For the first time you have access to my new PACE program.

For two years I’ve been re-working PACE to make it simpler and easier to follow, especially if you feel out-of-shape or too busy to get started.

I first published PACE back in November of 2006. It’s the first complete program that protects your heart, pumps up your lung volume, and burns fat in just 12 minutes a day.

Today, thousands of people from a dozen countries around the world are practicing my PACE program. And hundreds have sent me letters and emails, including my own patients here in South Florida.

Many tell me: “Dr. Sears… I love your PACE book, but what do I do?”

At first I was surprised by this question. But then it started to make sense. If you’re used to aerobics or cardio, PACE may be quite a shock. PACE takes as little as 12 minutes; aerobics and cardio take hours.

Gyms and community centers are full of aerobics and cardio instructors who bark commands and give orders. PACE allows you to set your own speed, pick your own type of movement, and live as an individual.

That’s quite a difference.

I understand now why it’s hard for some to get started. But your enthusiasm has inspired me to make PACE even more accessible.

The “new PACE” is packed with new research. It’s full of brand-new material. Even if you read my PACE book cover to cover, you won’t recognize this new edition.

In Chapter 1 you’ll discover research proving your lungpower is your #1 predictor of death. It’s true. Forget about heart disease, obesity, or cancer. The amount of air you can get into your lungs determines how long you will live.

Most doctors aren’t aware of this, and no one bothers to measure your lungpower during a doctor visit. But in the new edition of PACE you’ll see the clinical facts that support this critical insight and what to do about it.

Ask any doctor about lungpower, and he’ll tell you it’s impossible to change. Mainstream medicine wrongly believes that lungpower is fixed and unchangeable. Here at my clinic, I’ve proved them wrong. And in the new edition of PACE I show you exactly how to expand your lungs and boost your own longevity.

This alone would make it worth a read. But there’s so much more…

There’s new research about the dangers of long-distance running. There’s a brand-new section on foods that power up your PACE while keeping you slim. You’ll find a new streamlined chapter on heart rate and a new strategy for monitoring your heart rate that is simple and foolproof.

These new guidelines will accelerate your progress and get you there in half the time.

And the approach to getting started could not be easier.

One of the biggest changes to PACE is how to get started. In Chapter 5 you’ll find a how-to guide for PACE that’s so easy to follow I designed this chapter to stand all on its own. Even if you didn’t read anything else in the book you could use this one chapter to fuel your PACE program for the rest of your life!

PACE is accessible to you regardless of where you start from… and this new edition makes that a reality like nothing else you’ve ever seen. The “new PACE” truly is the best book I’ve ever written. It draws on my 25 years of experience and puts it together in a way that is sparking a revolution.

One of my patients is making remarkable progress using this new system.

When Terri started, she was so out-of-shape she could barely get out of bed. It took her hours to run basic errands like grocery shopping or coming to my clinic. Getting out of the car and hauling all that extra weight made life difficult.

So we tried a new approach. It’s very easy.

She walked for 45 seconds and then stopped.

She rested and then did it again.

That’s it.

Then we added the progressive element… one of the unique features of PACE. After her first week of walking for 45 seconds followed by rest, we slowly and progressively increased the challenge.

After just four months she lost 45 pounds. Today, Terri has dropped over 68 pounds and she’s still going.

BEFORE AFTER

Did you ever imagine you could lose 45 pounds by walking for 45 seconds? When I tell people this story, they look shell-shocked. But Terri isn’t the only one. I have dozens of other patients who made the same progress, many of whom you’ll see in the new edition.

It will work for you too.

In fact, as a special bonus I’m writing down the exact workout Terri followed, complete with her own story and a special interview. Called 45 Pounds in 45 Seconds, this special report is yours FREE, and I’ll send it straight to your inbox as soon as I’m finished writing it.

In the meantime, I’ve put together a whole package of free bonuses to make sure you don’t miss this landmark event.

When you order the new edition of PACE, you’ll get 3 FREE PACE bonuses right away. These are designed to make your PACE experience faster, better, and more remarkable.

To start, I just finished filming Rebuild REAL Strength, featuring two of my best PACE coaches. In this exclusive video collection, they show you step-by-step how to do ALL the calisthenics and body-weight exercises you’ll find in your new PACE edition.

These are the very same routines Terri used to drop 68 pounds in a matter of months. And my top PACE-certified trainers demonstrate them with an easy-to-follow style that makes them a snap.

They show you exactly how to do these moves to get the best possible results in the shortest possible time. And you don’t need a gym membership or any special equipment. You can do them right in your own home.

When the video Rebuild REAL Strength is offered to the public, it will retail for $29.95. Today it’s yours FREE.

But that’s not all. When you start PACE, the fat comes off fast. To help you track your progress, I’m throwing in a PACE Workbook and a PACE Body Composition Calculator FREE of charge.

The PACE Workbook is specially designed to help you keep track of each PACE session and record the measurements that matter. Having this alone will ensure you burn the most fat possible. And it guarantees you won’t get stuck in a rut or hit a plateau.

The PACE Workbook is an essential tool you won’t find anywhere else. It retails for $12.95, but it won’t cost you anything.

The PACE Body Composition Calculator gives you an exact body composition reading. It shows you exactly how much fat you have, and exactly how much lean body mass you have. These two numbers are critical for finding your level of fitness and tracking your progress over time.

These are the same measurements I take with my patients. Knowing them is the key to success and progress. And now they’re yours.

This innovative PACE Body Composition Calculator retails to my patients for $12.95, but today it won’t cost you anything.

Don’t miss out. You’re one of the first to see the new edition of PACE.

Please remember…

Today, you’ll get the hardcover edition of the “new PACE,” plus these FREE bonuses:

• Rebuild REAL Strength, the complete video demonstrations of the calisthenics and body-weight exercises you’ll find in Chapter 9 of your book.
• The PACE Workbook to ensure your progress and track your gains.
• The PACE Body Composition Calculator to effortlessly find and monitor the extreme fat loss you’ll experience with PACE.
• PLUS, the special report, 45 Pounds in 45 Seconds showing you step-by-step how Terri burned all that fat by walking for a few seconds and resting.

If you like, I’ll even autograph the book for you.

But don’t wait too long… After January 1st, this opportunity will be gone.

Join the PACE revolution today…

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

You are in the middle of the biggest epidemic the world has ever known. Two out of three Americans are now overweight. Diabetes is 9 times more likely than it was just 30 years ago. Heart disease kills over 1,000,000 each year in the US alone and the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently announced that for the first time in history, these “chronic diseases” surpassed all other causes of death worldwide.

These new threats may attack with sudden deadly ferocity. Stroke victims rarely see it coming. Half of heart attacks deaths have the first symptom with the beginning of the attack that kills. Or, they may nip at your heels until their cumulative effect brings you down or you find yourself too fat, weak and tired to do anything about it. This slow degeneration has become the “status quo” of maturing in the modern world. We won the battle with the human predators of our past. Now we must face and overcome this new threat of chronic disease.

Ironically, the key to beating our new threats may lie with recreating aspects of that primitive past. We are still perfectly adapted for a life and death struggle between predator and prey. Yet we have succeeded in completely removing ourselves from that kind of a world. As is so often the case, solving a problem presents us with a new one. No longer faced with the same physical and metabolic challenges, our own natural adaptive responses to our surroundings have got us into big trouble.

To complicate matters, without an understanding of the cause of problem, pundits have advocated the wrong solutions. Many only take you further from your natural challenges and aggravate the problem. This is why the “cardio” so popular today is worse than a waste of your time. It’s not natural to repeat the same movement continuously 10,000 times over. It doesn’t correct for what you are lacking. It’s not effective at strengthening your heart or lungs. In fact, it robs you of critical heart and lung capacity and creates a series of other health problems.

Yet for decades, you’ve heard that endurance cardiovascular exercise (if you could just make yourself do enough of this boring drudgery) would protect your heart. If this is true, why do very “conditioned” endurance runners drop dead of heart attacks at the height of their running careers? Their rate of sudden cardiac death is 50 percent higher than that of other athletes.

This happens because adding repeated “cardio” to our busy days and pushing for greater endurance produces the opposite result of what we need in the modern world. Forced endurance exercise forces your heart and lungs to “downsize.” Smaller allows you to go further.

So what’s wrong with increasing durational capacity through downsizing? Instead of building heart and lung strength, it robs them of vital reserve capacity. Your downsized heart is forced to operate dangerously close to its maximal output. This is a problem you don’t need. Heart attacks don’t occur because of a lack of endurance. They occur when there is a sudden increase in cardiac demand that exceeds your heart’s capacity. Giving up your heart’s reserve capacity to adapt to unnatural bouts of continuous prolonged duration only increases your heart risk and shrinks your lungs as well.

It’s also a poor tool for getting lean. In fact, durational exercises will stimulate your body to build more fat. Then, if you stop your “cardio”, you’ll put on fat very rapidly. And many find they have to stop because this unnatural activity has caused degeneration of their joints. If you persist through middle age and beyond, it accelerates some very negative effects of aging. It lowers testosterone and growth hormone, boosts destructive cortisol levels and robs you of muscle, bone and internal organ mass and strength.

The good news is that reversing this problem is easier than you might think. You don’t need to force yourself through grueling monotonous “cardio” at all. When you replace this strategy with exercises that mimic your challenges in a natural environment, the results come much faster and easier. On top of that, the process is invigorating and fun to do.

• Build both strength and capacity in your heart and lungs.
• Avoid heart attacks and cardiovascular disease.
• Develop a powerful and disease-resistant immune system.
• Dramatically increase your energy levels.
• Burn fat like never before.

Your body will be naturally strong and resilient. You’ll feel energized, motivated and ready to take on any challenge. Your muscles will be their intended size – no bigger or smaller. Your breath will be deep and focused.

These benefits are naturally YOURS. They’ve been lying dormant all these years – waiting for you to bring them forward.

Soon, you’ll be one of the first to be introduced to PACE® – your natural plan for health, fitness and longevity.

It’s almost ready, so watch this space…

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

Here’s one for you: PACE may save you from cancer.

A new study shows that high intensity exercise cuts your risk of getting cancer in half.₁

The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, followed Finnish men for 16 years. It tracked the type of activity the men did each week. And it found that the higher the intensity of the exercise, the lower the risk of getting cancer.

This study backs up the myriad benefits of high intensity exercise, but it’s the first study ever to look at the relationship between exercise intensity and cancer.

But here’s the point not considered by the study’s authors: Not everyone can do high intensity exercise. It was designed for elite athletes who train for the Olympics. You can’t expect deconditioned people to do this type of exercise. It’s not safe. That’s why I designed PACE. PACE gets regular folks to the point where they can do high intensity exercise, safely and quickly.

You start out easy, measuring the intensity of your exercise in some way – the number of repetitions you do, the time it takes for you to do a set, etc. Then you gradually increase it. Over the long run, you’ll notice that it’s easier and easier for you to do your exercise at a slightly higher intensity as you go.

In just minutes a day, you’ll work your way up to getting the benefits of high intensity exercise – without any stress and danger to your body. PACE trains your body to change your metabolism, burn fat, make you more youthful, and utilize more oxygen – which may be the key to its cancer-fighting power.

PACE floods your cells with life-giving oxygen. Oxygen is the basic fuel for cell metabolism. If you don’t have it, energy production drops and the cells lose their ability to repair DNA. Low oxygen levels in the cells – chronic hypoxia – is a cause of chronic disease, especially cancer.

Unfortunately, in our modern world, low oxygen levels in our cells are common. We are a nation of couch potatoes. When we do exercise, it’s usually cardio and aerobics. But those don’t raise your oxygen levels enough. The key to raising your oxygen levels is high intensity exertion.

PACE pumps oxygen-rich blood to your vital organs by up to 18 times more than light exercise such as walking.₂ PACE gives you:

• 400% more oxygen to your lungs
• 1733% more oxygen to your muscles
• Nearly double the oxygen to your brain
• 331% more oxygen from your heart

This doesn’t happen when you jog or do other medium intensity exercises.

This may be one of the reasons why our ancestors stayed disease-free. They had to do intense exertion to survive. Maybe your body needs the oxygen to thrive.

Get started with PACE today and cut your risk of cancer in half. What are you waiting for?

Here’s a workout that you can do right now – whether you’re reading this at work or at home. In fact, I’m going to do it along with you.

Get up from your chair. Make sure you have some space around you. We’re going to do some jumping jacks. Remember those from when you were in middle school? They’re a great exercise to get your heart pumping and your lungs working.

Stand with your feet together and your arms at your side. Jump out with your legs and raise your arms over your head. Breathe through your nose. Return to your starting position and repeat. Do 25 jumping jacks.

Stop and recover until your heart rate slows and you feel like you are almost back to normal.

Do 25 more jumping jacks, but this time, increase the speed. Try to get them done in half the time you did the first set. Recover.

Do 35 jumping jacks, a little faster this time. You’ll start to feel the burn in your legs and your breathing get harder.

Do a few more sets, increasing the number and the speed each time. But remember to recover in between. Do these sets three times a week. You’ll notice the time it takes for you to recover will decrease and you’ll be working at a high intensity in no time!

The new edition of my PACE book will show you exactly how to go from couch potato to high intensity exercise in just 12 minutes a day. In the five years since the first edition came out, I’ve worked with thousands of patients. Their feedback has helped me fine-tune the program. You’ll get more workouts. And you’ll learn more secrets to making PACE work for you.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1. J A Laukkanen et al. “Intensity of leisure-time physical activity and cancer mortality in men,” Br J Sports Med 2009;0:1–5. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2008.056713. http://press.psprings.co.uk/bjsm/july/sm56713.pdf
2. Adapted from: von Ardenne, M. Oxygen Multistep Therapy. Thieme. 1990. p. 144

Back in the 1930s, a German doctor and a track coach got together and invented this brilliant training technique.

The athletes sprinted 200 meters and rested for a short time.

Then they did again. A 200-meter sprint followed by a short period of rest. And again.

It worked. Their students broke world record after world record. Roger Banister, the first man to run the mile in under 4 minutes, used this workout.

It was a breakthrough in fitness. They were the first to see that doing a short burst of activity followed by rest is the best way to exercise.

But here’s the deal, you have to be as fit as an Olympic athlete to do it.

I have a better way. It is accessible to everybody. No matter what your fitness level, you can burn fat in minutes a day.

It’s called interval training. When people hear about my PACE program, they think it’s the same as interval training. And while PACE uses some of the same principles, there’s a major difference.

Few people are conditioned enough to do interval training. Think about the workout they used. Could you sprint the length of two football fields and be ready to do it again after a 90 second break? Probably not.

But you can do PACE.

The secret is progressivity. You don’t have to start with a high intensity workout right off the bat. The idea is to work your way up to it. You just have to tax yourself a little bit more every time you do a set.

One of the breakthroughs of PACE is that you can get the benefits of high intensity training regardless of the level you start at. You can bulletproof your heart, expand your lung capacity, and drop a ton of weight by making small, incremental changes.

Take my patient Terri, for example. I told you her story a couple of months ago. When I first met Terri, the only exercise she could manage was to walk 45 seconds. So that’s what we did. I didn’t make Terri do wind sprints. We worked at her level. The only thing I asked of Terri is to push herself a little more each time.

It’s those incremental improvements, or progressivity, that helped Terri get back in shape. Now she’s running. And biking. And swimming laps. She tells me that she’s more active than she’s ever been – even when she was a kid!

Terri stuck with PACE because she started to see results fast. Now she’s showing her friends how to do PACE.

To get started yourself, pick an activity that you like to do. It just needs to be something that will give your heart and lungs a bit of a challenge. I like bicycling and swimming because they avoid overuse injuries. What you do will depend on your level of fitness. Here are some guidelines:

• Do a light warm up and stretch before each exercise session.
• Start with 20 minutes every other day. (This averages to only 10 minutes per day).
• Start easy and increase gradually.
• As you get into better shape, you will increase the intensity in each session.
• Begin breaking those 20 minutes into shorter “mini-intervals” of exercise and rest.
• Use briefer and briefer episodes of gradually increasing intensity.
• A light activity “cool down” for a couple of minutes has been shown to reduce muscle soreness after exercise.

As it gets easier, focus on increasing the intensity. In other words, as your body adapts, step it up a notch. You shouldn’t be lightheaded. Feeling slightly winded and panting is what you’re looking for.

This weekend it happened again.

In 16 minutes 3 people lost their lives at the Detroit marathon.

Thirty-six-year-old Daniel Langdon collapsed at about 9:02 am on Sunday between the 11 and 12-mile markers and 65-year-old Rick Brown collapsed at 9:17 am, near where Langdon went down. One minute later, 26-year-old Jon Fenlon collapsed just after finishing the 13.1-mile half-marathon.₁

When I was watching the news this morning I heard the announcer say sudden death “was rare” during marathon events. I suppose that depends on how you define “rare.”

In 2006, at least 6 runners lost their lives in marathons in the US. In March, two police officers, one 53, the other 60, died of heart attacks at the Los Angeles Marathon. Three runners in their early 40s all had fatal heart attacks during marathons in Chicago, San Francisco and the Twin Cities. And on October 29th, at the Marine Corps Marathon, a 56-year old man collapsed at the 17th mile marker, never to recover.₂

In 2007, two high-profile marathon related deaths occurred here in the United States, one in Chicago and one during the Olympic trials in New York. A third runner died during the London marathon.₃

In 2008 a young woman – Erin Lahr – collapsed and died three miles from the finish line during the Dallas White Rock Marathon.₄ And during the New York City Marathon two men died during the race and a third one died a week later. There was also a fatality at the Little Rock Marathon the same year.

I’ve seen this up close. Twenty years ago, I provided emergency care for marathon races.

At one event I was surprised to see a thin young man collapse to the ground just yards from our emergency aid station. His heart continued to violently race, as we put an oxygen mask over his blue lips. Another runner in his 20’s made it to our station but had to kneel down to wait for emergency assistance. He was weak, dizzy and frightened, with a dangerously irregular heartbeat.

In spite of what all the so-called fitness gurus tell you on TV there is plenty of evidence that marathon running accelerates heart disease and on occasion can trigger sudden cardiac arrest.

Results from Boston area hospitals reveal the risks and damaging effects experienced by dozens of marathon runners they’ve studied over the last ten years.

Dr. Arthur Siegel, the director of internal medicine at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard University has authored more than two dozen studies on runners of the Boston marathon.

In October of 2001, Dr. Siegel published two studies in the American Journal of Cardiology.₆ Between 1996 and 2001, he drew three blood samples from 80 middle-aged male runners. They drew the first sample just before the marathon. They drew the second sample immediately following, and then a third sample a day after the marathon.

The results: Twenty-four hours after the race, the men – none of whom had any history of heart disease – exhibited early-stage signs of cardiac damage similar to the symptoms that appear during a heart attack.

This happens because adding repeated “cardio” to our busy days and pushing for greater endurance produces the opposite result of what we need in the modern world.

Routinely forcing your body to perform the same continuous cardiovascular challenge, by repeating the same movement, at the same rate, thousands of times over, without variation, without rest, is unnatural.

Our ancient ancestors never ran for long distances without rest. Maybe it happened rarely but never routinely. It doesn’t happen in the animal kingdom either.

Long-distance running shrinks your lungs and downsizes your heart’s output. Nature designed your body to adapt to whatever environment it encounters. If you ask it to run long distances repeatedly and routinely, it will adapt to meet the challenge more effectively. When you run long distances like in a marathon you’re actually training your heart to get weaker.

Why does this happen?

Your body downsizes your heart and lungs to enable a long-distance run. A smaller output will take you long distances more efficiently in the same way an economy car with a small engine gets you better gas mileage.

But that’s not what your heart was designed for… it’s built more like a Ferrari: powerful bursts over short distances with plenty of reserve power when you need it.

My PACE program is designed with that in mind. Your heart needs reserve power in times of stress and trauma. Small blood and oxygen output, which is what you get as a marathoner, spells heart attack.

If you’re new to the idea, your first PACE workout will be a single period of exertion followed by recovery.

You will start at a speed and level of intensity that feels comfortable to you. Then you will gradually increase your level of intensity until you are panting and breathing heavily. When you reach this level of exertion you will stop and recover. That’s it.

This is the foundation of PACE. You start off easy, you gradually increase the intensity, you reach a level of maximum exertion, and you stop and rest.

To get started, you can walk, run, swim or choose an “instrument.” An instrument is simply an exercise device like a treadmill, a rowing machine, an elliptical, a bicycle, etc.

Do one set and see how you feel. When you’re ready do another set. The key is making progressive changes. Little by little you increase the challenge. Each time you practice you do something a little different.

The advantage of PACE is that it’s easy to get started, no matter how out of shape you are when you get started.

The second edition of my PACE book will be out in the coming weeks. Even if you read the first one you’ll be surprised. There’s a ton of new material and the approach has been streamlined. PACE is now easier to do and easier to understand.

Stay tuned.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1. Associated Press. Autopsies Planned in Marathon Deaths. AOL News. Oct 19, 2009
2. Reynolds G. “Is Marathoning Too Much of a Good Thing?” The New York Times, Dec 7, 2006
3. McGrath, T. “Are You Running Yourself to Death?” MSNBC, Nov. 1, 2008
4. McGraw, D. “Runner Collapses, Dies at White Rock Marathon” The Dallas Morning News, Dec. 15, 2008
5. Willdorf N. “Run for Your Life?” The Boston Phoenix, Apr 11 – 18, 2002
6. Siegel A., et al. “Effect of Marathon Running on Inflammatory and Hemostatic Markers.” Amer Jour Card. Volume 88, Number 8, 15 October 2001

A cover story in TIME magazine tells you exercise won’t help you lose weight.

In the article, a professor from Louisiana State University says, “… for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless.”₁

If you’re a regular reader you may already recognize the ignorance of this professor’s statement.

What is he missing?

Well, it depends on what type of exercise.

My rebuttal to this ignorance is going to take awhile, but bear with me, this is important.

Conventional exercise, like aerobics, jogging, marathon running are not the best exercises for weight loss. That type of exertion actually trains your body to make and store more fat.

When you exercise for long periods at a time, like most people do when they go to the gym, you push your body into its “fat burning zone.” Most fitness gurus tell you to get into your fat burning zone and stay there for as long as you can take it… but that’s a problem. You don’t want to burn fat during exercise.

Burning fat during exercise tells your body it needed the fat. This trains your body to make more fat for the next time you exercise.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t use exercise to lose fat. In fact, it’s one of the most effective tools you can use to hit and maintain your ideal weight. I use it myself and I recommend it to my patients.

However, if you want to burn fat and keep it off, exercise in short bursts of high intensity. This is the basis of my PACE program.

How does it work? It has to do with what your body uses for fuel during exercise. For the first two or three minutes of a workout you burn ATP, your body’s cellular energy source. Then you start burning carbs from muscle tissue. After about 20 minutes you switch to fat.

Exercising for short periods will use these carbs during exercise. Then you start to burn fat after your workout – while you replenish the carbs.

This is known as your “after burn.”

Researchers at Laval University in Quebec divided participants into two groups: long-duration and repeated short-duration exercisers.₂ They had the long-duration group cycle 45 minutes without interruption. The short-term interval group cycled in numerous short bursts of 15 to 90 seconds, while resting in between.

The long duration group burned twice as many calories, so you would assume they would burn more fat. However, when the researchers recorded their body composition measurements, the interval group showed the most fat loss.

In fact, the interval group lost 9 times more fat than the endurance group for every calorie burned. Doesn’t this defy the laws of physics? No, it just illustrates that exercise continues to affect your metabolism after you stop. The short bursts stimulated a greater after burn.

You might think burning fat during exercise makes sense. But your body will adapt to any routine you give it, including exercise. And if you burn fat during a workout and you do that workout consistently, your body will make sure you have new fat to burn each time you go to the gym.

After a while your body becomes efficient at building and preserving fat necessary for long aerobic sessions in preparation for the next endurance workout. In doing so, it sacrifices muscle and preserves fat.

So don’t bother trying to use this strategy to lose body fat. Your body will fight you in the effort and you can only do it by sacrificing lean tissue like muscle and internal organs.

Durational exercise tells your body to build fat. That’s how your body adapts to this kind of activity. Then, if you stop your cardio routine, you’ll put on even more fat very rapidly. This is common as your body gets into the routine of making the extra fat.

It’s an endless cycle. And eventually, everyone stops doing cardio. Many just get bored. But many find they have to stop cardio because this unnatural activity has caused degeneration of their joints.

And another point: If you persist through middle age and beyond, cardio accelerates some very negative effects of aging. It lowers testosterone and growth hormone, boosts destructive cortisol levels and robs you of muscle, bone and internal organ mass and strength.

But short-duration exercise – like PACE – actually increases levels of growth hormone. Researchers from Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England tested growth hormone levels in sprinters and endurance athletes. On average, the sprinters had 3 times as much growth hormone as the endurance runners.₃

The biggest point they missed is this: The most important changes from exercise occur after, not during, the exercise period. The way you exercise affects your metabolism for several days. The important changes begin after you stop exercising.

This is good news. It means all you have to do during your exercise is stimulate the adaptive response you need – like reducing your need for fat or building reserve capacity in your heart. Your body will continue making the important changes afterwards – while you rest.

You don’t need to go to the gym to get started. Even if you’re out of shape you can start with a challenge that’s within your reach.

Let’s take walking as an example. This is the easiest way to get started if you’re de-conditioned or facing a physical challenge.

Here are a few points to consider: When you’re walking, you need to start at a comfortable pace and slowly speed up until you feel your heart rate increase. When you feel this extra bit of exertion, maintain it until you start to feel winded. Then stop and catch your breath. Take a few minutes to recover and focus on your breath until you’re breathing normally. This will be your first “set.”

It may look something like this: You put on a comfortable pair of walking shoes and some loose-fitting clothes. You start off on the sidewalk or on a quiet street. You could also go to the gym and work on a treadmill.

You warm up by walking at a normal, comfortable pace for 1 to 2 minutes. Then you slowly start to walk faster. As you increase your speed, pick a target and then maintain it. This is a little subjective, so you’re going to have to get a feel for it.

For example, when you start off walking at a normal pace, imagine your top walking speed and then work back from there. So tell yourself, “I’m going to walk normally and then increase my speed by about 15%.” Then hold that speed and maintain it for a few minutes.

If you don’t feel like that increase is giving you a challenge, go up a notch until you’ve increased your speed by 20 to 25%. Then hold that speed and maintain it for a few minutes.

This is how you gauge your exertion level. You know you’re getting close when you feel your heart rate go up. And when you feel this extra exertion, look at your watch and see how long you can sustain it. If you can do it for 2 to 3 minutes, great. If not, it doesn’t matter. Just follow this pattern.

After you’ve challenged yourself for a few minutes, stop and rest. Ideally, you should feel winded. You should be breathing heavier than you usually do and you should feel your heart beating faster. Now begin your recovery period. Allow your heart rate and breath to return to normal.

When you’ve completed your first set, try another. At this point, repeat your first set without increasing your intensity. If you want to ramp up the challenge, increase the amount of time you walk at a faster speed.

By walking and first gauging your exertion capacity, you can do a productive PACE routine at your own level. It doesn’t matter how quickly you can walk. Even if your top exertion speed is just above your normal walking speed, you can give yourself enough of a challenge to expand your lung volume and build reserve capacity in your heart.

This gradual build up in cardio-pulmonary power will get you to higher levels and extend your endurance. Little by little, you’ll become more and more conditioned and better able to handle more intense challenges.

When you feel you’ve improved your exercise capacity – or if you want to start with something more challenging than walking – use this same formula with swimming or biking. Both give you a good heart and lung workout.

Swimming is helpful if you have a disability as the water’s buoyancy will take the strain off your joints and make it easier to move. Biking is also very effective for de-conditioned beginners and you have the option of doing it outside or in the gym.

Like walking, take it slow and evaluate your exertion level. Don’t strain yourself. Take small, deliberate steps and stay with your program. Within the first week, you’ll start to see progress.

By gently encouraging your heart and lungs to maximize their output, you’ll be able to improve right away. What’s more, you’ll be able to successfully start a productive PACE routine, no matter what your age, condition or personal history.

As you progress, do less walking and put more focus on swimming and biking. And when you feel ready, try some of the basic routines in your PACE book. Once you’ve made headway with your heart and lungs you’ll be able to increase your challenge and activate your native fat burner.

With a sufficient challenge, you’ll start to burn fat after your PACE routine. This fat burning will last as long as 16 to 24 hours after you finish. But your first goal will be to build cardio-pulmonary power by establishing a PACE routine that accommodates your current situation.

This in itself is a major victory. A lot of folks can’t get past the false assumption that they’ll never be able to do it. With PACE, you never have to make excuses, as you can always find a routine that perfectly matches your current level.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1. Cloud, J. “The Myth About Exercise,” TIME Magazine, August 17, 2009, pp. 42 – 47.
2. Metabolism 1994; 43: 814-818
3. Van Helder WP. et al., Effect of Anaerobic and Aerobic Exercise of Equal Duration and Work Expenditure on Plasma Growth Hormone Levels, Eur J Appl Physiol 52 (1984) : 255-257.

“Your lungs… I said your lungs are shrinking.” I’ve actually said this more than a couple of times to my patients. You see, I mean the size of my patients’ lungs. Why? Because they shrink with age. And that’s not good.

The new edition of my PACE book will be ready in the coming weeks.

It’s easier and more approachable and packed with new research – including new proof that your lung volume is your number one indicator of all-cause mortality.

That means the bigger your lungs, the longer you’ll live.

Part of what gives you the capacity to live robustly is getting enough oxygen. But your lungs are losing their capacity and vitality. In fact, they’re actually shrinking.

Sooner or later, you’ll begin to notice you get tired more quickly, you’re less virile, you get colds and the flu more often, and it takes longer to recover from illness.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. You can stop this loss of vitality by taking a few simple steps to take care of your lungs.

When you were born, you took your first breath. With that breath, you cleared your lungs and started on your path in life. As you grew, your body built a complex network of blood vessels and alveoli to carry oxygen into your blood stream for delivery to your organs, muscles and cells.

But by the time you reached 20, things began to change. You stopped growing lung tissue and your lung capacity stabilized. This lasted for about 10 years. Then, around 30, your lungs started to decline. The alveoli that deliver oxygen to your blood began to die off.₁

You lose almost 20 percent of your vital lung capacity between the ages of 30 and 40. And the decline continues until you reach old age. By 50, you’ve lost nearly 40 percent of your breathing capacity.

What does all of this mean to you? Think of it this way: If you get the flu at age 35 or 40, you can generally shrug it off. That’s because you have the extra lung capacity you need to sustain yourself—even if the flu or pneumonia takes some of your lung volume out of commission with fluid.

But if you’re 65 or 70 and you get a bout of flu or pneumonia, you won’t have the reserve lung capacity to sustain you. That’s why the death rate is so much higher for seniors who get these respiratory diseases. They simply don’t have the lung capacity to get them over the hump.

Even when you’re not fighting a respiratory infection, bigger lungs are able to supply your working body with more oxygen. They also restore cell health by removing cell-eroding carbon dioxide.

When there’s plenty of oxygen circulating around the body, your muscles can afford to use it to build reserve sources of energy for times of stress or exertion. But as your lung capacity decreases, your normal everyday activity takes up more of it, leaving you very little reserves.

And that’s not all. As your lung capacity diminishes, you’re more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke that permanently affects the rest of your life. Lack of oxygen reserves cause 50 percent of all heart attacks.

Fortunately, you can implement a simple exercise program that will improve your lung capacity and minimize the consequences of losing lung volume. If you focus on improving your lungs’ elasticity, increasing bone strength for posture and improving the function of your diaphragm, the rest will take care of itself.

The best way to do it is simple: High intensity, short-interval workouts that burn calories and fat—just like my PACE program.

Healthy lungs require more than just exercise though. A diet rich in protein and vitamins is also essential. Consider adding the following vitamins for the best results:

• Beta-carotene (25,000 international units) shields your lungs from air pollution and smoke, keeping the small air sacks in your lungs cleaner and healthier.
• Selenium (50-200 micrograms) helps keep your lungs elastic.
• Vitamin A (5,000 international units) turns into beta-carotene, which your body needs for lung function.
• Vitamin C (1,200 milligrams) helps people with asthma breathe easier and is a great antioxidant.
• Vitamin E (600 international units) fights aging and protects your lungs.₂

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1. “Aging Changes In the Lungs.” Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Health Encyclopedia (www.enh.org)
2. Prevention’s Healing with Vitamins. Rodale Books: Emmaus, PA, 1996.