Faster Fat Loss Thats Healthy

I received a telephone call from a lady

last week. Her first word was "heeeelp"!

She was on a weight loss program and

only losing about one half pound per week.

She wanted to speed things up but didn't

want to do anything that was unhealthy.

Here's what I told her:

If you're interested in losing fat, you're

objective is to create a daily caloric

deficit. For example, If you're consuming

1700 calories per day, and expending 2000

calories per day, your caloric deficit is

300 calories.

So, if you'd like to increase your daily

caloric deficit, you have two options; to

decrease your caloric intake by eating

fewer calories, or increase your caloric

expenditure via more activity / exercise.

However, you cannot decrease your daily

caloric intake much lower than 1200 to

1500 or so without potentially creating

health and metabolism problems. So, the

remaining factor in the deficit equation

is caloric expenditure through increased

activity / exercise.

The good news is that you can substantially

increase your caloric expenditure. For

example, if you're exercising for 30 minutes

three days per week, over a period of

several weeks you can increase your exercise

to 60 to 90 minutes per day, six to seven

days per week. An example of this would be

60 minutes of aerobic exercise, six to

seven days per week and 30 minutes of weight

training three days per week.

So, in this example, you would increase your

monthly exercise minutes from about 360 to

1800. Plus, in addition to the calories that

you're expending during exercise, you would

also substantially increase the number of

calories you're burning 24 hours-a-day, yes,

you'll even burn more calories while you're

sleeping. You can't beat that, can you?

So, if you want to speed-up your fat loss,

here's your game plan..

1. Tone your muscles with weight training

three days per week. Toned muscles supercharge

your metabolism! This should be done just

after your aerobic exercise session.

2. Do some type of aerobic exercise (walking,

jogging, swimming, stationary cycling,

aerobic dancing, etc.) on a DAILY basis

(preferably in the morning) for 30 to 60

minutes! Note: If you haven't been exercising,

be sure to gradually increase your exercise

time.

3. Do an additional 15 to 30 minutes of

aerobic exercise in the evening, five days

per week. Some people like to do this just

before their dinner meal to decrease their

appetite, but after dinner is fine too.

In the interest of injury prevention and

not getting bored with your exercise, try

to alternate the type of exercise you do.

For example, walking in the morning and

aerobic dance in the evening.

4. Incorporate "intervals" into most of your

aerobic sessions. Intervals are a powerful

tool to help boost your metabolism. they

are explained in detail in my article,

"Intervals for Weight Loss."

5. Develop a more active lifestyle. Look

for the "hard" way to do things - the way

that requires the most energy expenditure.

Put this plan into action and you'll like

the results - you'll look better, feel

better, have less body fat and more muscle

tone! Get movin'!

copyright 2004 by Greg Landry, M.S.

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