Fat Loss

Everyone knows if you want to lose fat you need to do some cardio exercise, cardio raises your metabolism meaning you burn calories for a long time after completing it. For this very reason most experts agree cardio is best performed in the morning, this means you burn extra calories all day long.

The problem is most people don’t have time to perform cardio in the morning and doing repetitive cardio is boring, interval training has been proven to help shift more fat and make better fitness gains than standard endurance training for 30-40 minutes. It can also help you retain or even build more muscle.

Below is an example interval training program that you can perform in 20 minutes a day 3 times a week, in total that makes just 60 minutes a week including stretching.

Run gently for 5 Minutes to warm up, Sprint at 100% effort for 20 seconds then walk or jog for 10 seconds repeat 10x and cool down with 5 Minutes gentle running. After a while you’ll not only find your lighter but also fitter.

Exercise is as important a factor in weight loss as dieting, it helps you burn more calories and tone up. It’s also handy if you can build some muscle, muscle burns calories thats why you should add some resistance training to your fat loss regime.

Your legs contain the biggest muscles on your body and you use them when all the time especially when walking and cycling, if you want to lose fat you should do some resistance training on your legs.

Here’s a couple of leg exercises you can do anywhere with or without weights:

Squats

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, hands by your waist or on your head. Bend at your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor – as you lower yourself try and keep your knees from going over your toes.

Muscle groups used Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Gluteals and your Abs a little bit aswell.

Walking Lunge

Stand up straight, lunge forwards with your right leg, walk forwards with your left leg into another lunge. Make sure your foot is directly under your knee when in the lunge position.

Muscle groups used Quadriceps, Hamstrings and Gluteals

If your just starting out on your mission to improve your physique or you’ve been trying a while and your not seeing much improvement heres some simple rules for you to follow.

1. Lift Weights – women should do this aswell lifting weights 3 times a week increases your metabolism making you burn calories faster, it also improves muscle tone which will improve your appearance.

Maybe try a simple circuit training program.

2. Don’t switch your exercise program too often, its tempting to try every new weight lifting circuit you see. But this can be detrimental to your goals, find one program and stick to it for at least 6 weeks. Do change every so often though, this helps you stop getting bored and stops your body getting used to one thing and stopping progression.

3. Eat Less and do more – obvious I am sure you could have worked this one out for yourself, walk to the shops instead of taking the car, get of the bus a couple of stops earlier do some cardio exercise like running or cycling for 20-30 minutes every other day. Eat less does’nt mean you should stop eating just stop eating junk, eat 5-6 small meals as opposed to 1 big one.

Increase the amount of protein in your diet. Protein helps maintain muscle, muscle burns more calories.

4. Drink More water – often we confuse hunger with thirst, every time you feel hungry have a drink of water before eating and see if that cures your hunger pangs.

Avoid alcohol, it slows your metabolism, dehydrates you, makes your body release cortisol the stress hormone and makes you crave junk food. Heres the calories in all your favourite alcoholic drinks.

Circuit training is an excellent way to burn fat becuase it rises your bodies core temparature and uses all your major muscle groups, the larger the muscle group and therefore muscle used the more calories you burn.

Circuit training is a style of training that consists of moderate and high intensity aerobic exercise combined with weights and strength stations, you have a short recovery period in between the intense exercises. The short circuit training recovery period and swapping between upper and lower body movements keeps your heart rate high.

Circuit training can be done anywhere using the bodies own weight for resistance, no equipment is really required,  a set of dumbells and maybe a skipping rope could be usefull but are not essential.

Warm Up

It is essential to warm up properly before any exercise, warm up gradually to avaiod injury and get the blood flowing around your body do 5 Minutes skipping, running or some other kind of cardiovascular activity to warm up.

Try to control the movements described below – don’t jerk

Dips – Find a chair and put yours hands on it behind you, beginners will probably want to bend at the knees people a bit stronger can keep their legs straight using your arms lower yourself up and down.

Squats – Stand with your legs shoulder width apart Knees slightly bent then lower yourself up and down. People a bit stronger can stand against a wall or hold dumbells for resistance, just make sure the wall is not too rough.

Chin-ups – Find a bar about shoulder height then put yours hands on it with an underhand grip and pull yourself up and down. Beginners will won’t to use a chair to support some of your weight.

Lunges – Stand in the squat position then put one leg about 4 foot lenghts in front of the other and lower yourself up and down alternatively.

Push-ups – Put your hands level with your shoulders in front of you on the floor pull your belly in feet behind you and then push yourself up and down. Beginners and ladies will want to do these on their knees.

Split squat – Like lunges but put one leg behind 2 feet and one in front 2 feet.

Lateral raises – Like chin ups but put your hands shoulder width apart gripping the bar overhand. Remember you will probably need to use a chair to start with.

Do 12-15 Repetitions of each exercise, remember don’t rest much and then repeat the whole lot 2 or 3 times do it all 3 times a week with a days rest in between. Once you can do it all comfortable consider upping the amount of repetitions or get someone to time you 30 seconds for each exercise doing as many repetitions as you can.

Do some abdominal crunches and lower back exercises followed by 5 minutes running or skipping to cool down.