While dieting and exercising are the two main things you need to do to lose weight – or more specifically fat – there are several things you can do that will enhance your weight loss efforts. Use these tips to help you get better results from your diet and exercise routine!
Drink coffee before exercise
Exercise burns calories which, providing you are eating less than normal, will force your body to burn more fat. Unfortunately, exercising on an energy-restricted diet can be hard work because you may feel tired. Drinking a strong and preferably black coffee just before exercise can help give you energy and also increases your rate of fat burning – a real one-two punch to your fatty reserves! Caffeine, one of the main substances found in coffee, is not only a stimulant but also a lipotropic agent which simply means it makes fat cells more mobile and easier to use for fuel. If you don’t like coffee, try a caffeine pill instead. Either way, adding caffeine to your pre-workout ritual is a good way to maximize both workout intensity and fat burning. NOTE: Keep in mind that having too much caffeine can adversely gut health and may even raise your cholesterol levels so exercise caution when using this tip and definitely cut down on coffee consumption for the rest of the day.
Add cinnamon to your meals
Insulin is an essential hormone whose job is transporting nutrients out of your blood and into your liver and muscles. Insulin’s ability to do this job effectively is controlled by your insulin sensitivity which describes how receptive your cells are to the action of insulin. Low insulin sensitivity means that, instead to taking nutrients to your live and muscles, insulin ends of taking nutrients to your fat stores so, needless to say, increased insulin sensitivity is a very good thing! Exercise increases insulin sensitivity but what about the rest of the time? You can also increase your insulin sensitivity by adding pure cinnamon to your meals or, if you prefer, adding it to your coffee. This will increase your insulin sensitivity leading to better nutrient partitioning (nutrients are taken to your liver and muscles and not your fat stores) and promote more stable blood glucose levels.
Use a smaller plate
Portion control is an important part of dieting for weight loss but there is nothing more likely to make you hungry than seeing a small amount of food on a big plate. To help fool yourself into thinking you are eating more than you really are, try putting your reduced-size meals onto a smaller plate to give the illusion of a bigger meal. Make sure you eat mindfully and chew each mouthful slowly and drink 500ml of water with your meal to further fill you up.
Drink more water
Your body is made up from around 70 percent water and being even slightly dehydrated can adversely affect your ability to exercise and burn fat. To avoid even a whiff of dehydration, make sure you drink at least three litres of water per day. This will not only ensure your body can burn fat efficiently, it will buy legitimate xanax online also help prevent hunger pangs and detoxify your liver and kidneys which will, in turn, further enhance your ability to burn fat. Drinking ice-cold water may also increase your metabolic rate slightly as your body has to expend energy warming it up. Make this tip even more effective by adding lemon to alkalize your body which will help enhance fat burning and add a pinch of Himalayan Pink Rock to replace lost minerals.
Sprint – don’t jog
Jogging might be good for your heart and lungs but it’s not a very effective way to burn fat. Jogging is popular because it’s easy but when it comes to fat loss, easy doesn’t produce good results. Instead of jogging, pick up your pace and try sprinting. Head out to a soccer pitch or athletics track and try sprinting 100 meters and then slowly walking back again. Six to ten sprints should be sufficient. Don’t let the brevity of this workout fool you – you’ll not only burn lots of calories while you are doing it, you’ll also burn hundreds more afterward as a result of the afterburner effect.
Don’t exercise sat down
What do leg presses, leg extensions, the chest press machine and preacher curls all have in common? They are all performed sat down. Seated exercises may be an effective way to target specific muscles but if you want to lose weight as fast as possible, sitting down on the job makes next to no sense at all. Standing exercises such as squats, standing overhead presses, cable wood chops and Romanian deadlifts will use much more energy because, in addition to working the target muscles, you’ll also need to support and balance yourself using other muscles and the more muscles you use at a time, the more calories you’ll use. Also, don’t sit down between sets – that is another energy-saving strategy and when it comes to weight loss, the last thing you want to do is save energy!
Superset everything
A typical set of any strength training exercises takes around 30 to 45 seconds and is usually followed by a rest period that is at least as long if not longer. That means that, for a 40 minute workout, most people spend as much as 20 minutes or more resting! That is not an effective way to burn calories. Instead of wasting so much potential energy-burning time, organise your workout into supersets to halve the amount of rest. To perform a superset, simply perform your exercises in pairs so that one exercise provides a rest from the next. For example, alternate chest and back exercises, upper body and lower body exercises or biceps and triceps exercises. Alternatively, do 60 seconds of cardio between exercises – jumping rope is ideal. Remember, any time you are stationary you are not using much energy and are missing an opportunity to maximize your calorie expenditure.
So there you have it – seven effective, easy and useful tips to help you get the most out of your diet and exercise routine. Simple include one, some, or all of these tips to maximise your efforts.
Hi, my name is Dinny Morris. I’m a personal trainer and in sunny Sydney, Australia.
I work with men and women at all levels of their physical development, from overweight couch potatoes who want to get in shape, to professional athletes and natural bodybuilders who want to beef up strength and body mass.
