There are many good rules for losing weight, rules that follow the slow and steady approach. The following rules are not that.
These are for those for whom good is no longer good enough, for those who want more, for those who want to lose more fat in less time.
And surprise, surprise, you don’t actually need to overhaul your daily life to lose mega calories. These small changes will help you get a newer, better, and fitter look faster.
Rule #1 – Exercise in the Morning
Lace up in the morning and you’ll be three times more likely to exercise regularly.
According to a study, involving 500 people, 75 percent of morning exercisers work out on a regular basis. The number for afternoon and post-work exercisers is 50 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
The other perk of sweating in the morning is better performance at work. According to one study, concentration and cognitive function improves after a short aerobic workout session (of 20 minutes or more) in the morning.
Rule #2 – Pump Some Iron Before hitting the Pedal
Some exercisers start their workout with cardio; some do a quick sculpting pre-cardio (that is, resistance training) before pedaling hard. Guess what? The second type of exercisers loses more fat.
According to a study, cardio done after 20 minutes of weight lifting results in losing more fat. The other advantage of lifting weights before doing cardio is that this sequence is good for your heart.
Resistance training causes arteries to stiffen and consequently blood pressure to rise. A cardio workout, on the other hand, has the opposite effect: it brings arteries to normal.
What’s more, you are able to get more out of resistance training when you do it first. Lifting weights requires coordination as well as good technique and achieving both in a fatigued can prove a tad difficult. In comparison, cardio is a low-skill activity and easier to do when tired, physically and mentally.
In short, resistance training followed by cardio is an effective (perhaps the most effective) fat burning workout.
Rule #3 – Increase Your Pace, Boost Your Metabolism
Did you know that high-intensity exercise helps you burn more calories not only while you exercise but also even after it?
After a high-intensity exercise, your metabolism stays elevated by 10 to 15 percent above its normal rate. This, in turn, translates into burning of more calories at rest.
To get the effect, do cardio at a speed which is challenging for you. Another option is to do interval training, one of the most effective fat burning workouts. In interval training, you alternate between high-intensity and low-intensity.
The high-intensity sprint must be at close to 90 percent of your maximum capacity and the low-intensity recovery period at a pace that you can manage while breathing normally.
An example of interval training is sprinting (interval training can be done with any other cardio exercise, like swimming, cycling, elliptical trainer, etc.) for 1 minute and brisk walking for the next one minute or minute and a half to recover and then repeating the sequence for a few times.
Rule #4 – Do the Two-Step
Next time you take stairs, take two of them at a time.
The two-step climb activates the fast-twitch muscle fibers of your legs, which lead to burning of more calories. The other advantage is that this way you would be able to use that part of your muscles which you normally don’t use.
You must up the ante if you want to burn more calories faster. Simple but better and more effective workouts can get you to ‘slimmer you’ more quickly.