By Russ Howe
If you were to ask any online search engine how to lose weight you would likely be met by a world of over-complicated, conflicting information. Likewise, in the real world many trainers will tell you so many different opinions that fat loss can occasionally come across as a fine art or rocket science.
The good news is you're not alone in your problem. In fact, well over half of the gym population in the UK and USA have no idea how to drop unwanted body fat, such is the level of confusion surrounding this controversial topic.
Yet despite the masses of people looking for an answer to this problem and the countless so-called miracle fixes to it, it remains one of health and fitness' biggest troublesome areas. There are a few things you can do right now, today, in order to fire up your body for a new healthy way of life, dropping unwanted body fat levels and keeping them down forever.
The four rules to fat loss are as follows:
1. Increase your protein intake right now.
2. Avoid cutting out nutrients like carbohydrates and fats.
3. Get in your barn and find those old dumbbells. Lifting weights is highly recommended.
4. Swap out long aerobic workouts for shorter, more effective cardiovascular exercise like interval training.
Increased protein intake has been well documented for it's fat loss benefits. Protein has less impact on the body's fat storage system than the other two nutrients, carbohydrate and fat, therefore it makes it the perfect snack throughout the day. You should be consuming around 1.5 grams of protein for every kg of your body weight.
This will do you no good, of course, if you then fall for the commonly made mistake of avoiding fat and carbohydrate based foods. This misconception was first made popular in the early 2000's by celebrity diets who believed that cutting these two vital nutrients would lead to quicker weight loss. It did, but at a very high price. Individuals often felt very ill and then piled on any pounds they had lost the moment they went back to eating a regular diet. An eating plan high in protein, moderate in carbohydrate and quite high in healthy fats is a perfect match here.
Weight training is probably the most underrated tool at your disposal in your gym facility.
This may be a surprising addition to the list for many people, who falsely believe that weights are just for building big muscles. But weight training is among the most effective fitness methods to shift unwanted body fat. Not only will it help you to get leaner and fitter, the after-effect of your gym sessions will see your body's metabolism boosted for up to 14 hours - during which time you will burn a serious amount of body fat!
If you have never previously trained with weights at all then you should be able to enjoy fabulous results by hitting a three day program each week. Try to focus on full body workouts, beginning with the safety of the resistance machines in your local gym before moving on to free bar work when you feel confident enough to do so.
The other important aspect of any effective fat loss program is, of course, cardiovascular exercise. Just as many people wrongly believe that lifting weights won't aid fat loss, many people also wrongly believe that the way to build a better body is to spend two hours per day jogging on the treadmill. High intensity interval training, otherwise known as HIIT for short, allows you to complete your cardiovascular work in far less time and has been proven to burn more than six times the body fat of a much longer aerobic workout.
If your goal is to learn how to lose weight and maintain your new results into the long-term, combining a high protein, high fat, moderate carbohydrate diet with a combination of high intensity interval training and resistance based training is currently by far the most effective way to do so.
The good news is you're not alone in your problem. In fact, well over half of the gym population in the UK and USA have no idea how to drop unwanted body fat, such is the level of confusion surrounding this controversial topic.
Yet despite the masses of people looking for an answer to this problem and the countless so-called miracle fixes to it, it remains one of health and fitness' biggest troublesome areas. There are a few things you can do right now, today, in order to fire up your body for a new healthy way of life, dropping unwanted body fat levels and keeping them down forever.
The four rules to fat loss are as follows:
1. Increase your protein intake right now.
2. Avoid cutting out nutrients like carbohydrates and fats.
3. Get in your barn and find those old dumbbells. Lifting weights is highly recommended.
4. Swap out long aerobic workouts for shorter, more effective cardiovascular exercise like interval training.
Increased protein intake has been well documented for it's fat loss benefits. Protein has less impact on the body's fat storage system than the other two nutrients, carbohydrate and fat, therefore it makes it the perfect snack throughout the day. You should be consuming around 1.5 grams of protein for every kg of your body weight.
This will do you no good, of course, if you then fall for the commonly made mistake of avoiding fat and carbohydrate based foods. This misconception was first made popular in the early 2000's by celebrity diets who believed that cutting these two vital nutrients would lead to quicker weight loss. It did, but at a very high price. Individuals often felt very ill and then piled on any pounds they had lost the moment they went back to eating a regular diet. An eating plan high in protein, moderate in carbohydrate and quite high in healthy fats is a perfect match here.
Weight training is probably the most underrated tool at your disposal in your gym facility.
This may be a surprising addition to the list for many people, who falsely believe that weights are just for building big muscles. But weight training is among the most effective fitness methods to shift unwanted body fat. Not only will it help you to get leaner and fitter, the after-effect of your gym sessions will see your body's metabolism boosted for up to 14 hours - during which time you will burn a serious amount of body fat!
If you have never previously trained with weights at all then you should be able to enjoy fabulous results by hitting a three day program each week. Try to focus on full body workouts, beginning with the safety of the resistance machines in your local gym before moving on to free bar work when you feel confident enough to do so.
The other important aspect of any effective fat loss program is, of course, cardiovascular exercise. Just as many people wrongly believe that lifting weights won't aid fat loss, many people also wrongly believe that the way to build a better body is to spend two hours per day jogging on the treadmill. High intensity interval training, otherwise known as HIIT for short, allows you to complete your cardiovascular work in far less time and has been proven to burn more than six times the body fat of a much longer aerobic workout.
If your goal is to learn how to lose weight and maintain your new results into the long-term, combining a high protein, high fat, moderate carbohydrate diet with a combination of high intensity interval training and resistance based training is currently by far the most effective way to do so.
About the Author:
Today's writer: Get expert facts on how to lose weight with sought-after personal trainer Russ Howe PTI. South Shields personal trainer posts new tips to his workout and dieting blog every week for his followers.