8 Expert Tips and Scientific Facts to Help You Burn Fat Fast

Weight loss is all about burning fat, but how do you do that in a way that doesn’t harm your wellbeing? We’ve rounded up the best expert tips and scientifically proven facts to help you burn fat faster and look after your wellness in the process.

 

1. Drink Green Tea: Wellness expert Hallie Levine details, ‘Green tea isn’t known only for its cancer-fighting benefits: It may help boost your metabolism, too. People who took green-tea extract three times a day saw their metabolic rate increase by about 4%, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.’ Joy Bauer, a New York City nutritionist and author of Cooking with Joy, comments that because green tea contains catechins, it increases your brain’s levels of the metabolism-speeding chemical norepinephrine.

 

2. Pump Iron: ‘A pound of muscle burns up to nine times the calories of a pound of fat,’ notes Richard Cotton, MA, chief exercise physiologist for myexerciseplan.com. Levine explains, ‘Weight training increases your resting metabolic rate, which is the number of calories you burn while sitting on your butt. What’s more, it gives your metabolism an added boost after you exercise: It remains in overdrive for up to two hours after the last bench press, according to a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.’

 

3. Eat Iron: Samantha Heller, RD, a nutritionist at the New York University Medical Centre, warns, ‘If you don’t have enough of this mineral, your body can’t get enough oxygen to your cells, which slows down your metabolism.’ Good sources of iron include lean red meat, chicken, fortified cereal and soy nuts.

 

4. Drink Plenty of Water: ‘A new German study found that when you drink 17 ounces of water (about two glasses) within a certain time frame, your metabolic rate shoots up by about 30%,’ says Levine. ‘Using these results, they estimate that by increasing your current water intake by 1.5 litres a day, a person would burn an extra 17,400 calories a year, resulting in about a five-pound weight loss.’

 

5. Get Your Thyroid Checked: Pamela Peeke, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland and author of Fight Fat After Forty, points out, ‘The thyroid gland controls your body’s metabolism, so one of the first signs that it may be off is an inability to lose weight.’

 

6. Avoid Alcohol: While everyone likes a glass of wine with dinner, drinking water instead can help keep your favourite meals from going straight to your hips. ‘Alcohol slows your metabolism by depressing the central nervous system,’ Levine states. ‘A British study found that when alcohol was added to a high-fat, high-calorie meal, less dietary fat was burned off and more was stored as body fat.’

 

7. Start Interval Training: Researchers at Laval University in Quebec have shown that high-intensity interval training burns more fat than regular, consistent aerobic exercise. Glenn Gaesser, PhD, director of the Kinesiology Programme at the University of Virginia and author of The Spark, recommends, ‘Even if you just have 10 minutes for a quick workout, you can walk at a normal pace and then add in a 30-second bout of speed-walking every three minutes.’

 

8. Consume More Calcium: A study published in the journal Obesity Research found that if you eat low-fat dairy products, such as non-fat yoghurt and low-fat cheese, three to four times a day, you can lose 70% more fat than low-dairy dieters. Study author Michael Zemel, MD, director of the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, explains, ‘Calcium serves as a switch that tells your body to burn excess fat faster.’

Categories: expert tips, fat-burning, green tea, Interval Training, iron, metabolic rate, Metabolism, nbsp, study, study published, Weight Loss

Blowtorch Fat in Minutes With Our MetCon Workout Routine!

While some people love running long distances or spending big blocks of time on the gym machines, most of us want to burn body fat as quickly as we can. If you want better wellness but don’t have the time for lengthy workout sessions, there’s a solution for you: metabolic conditioning complexes, or “MetCon”. There are several reasons why this form of exercise is beneficial to your wellbeing – aside from weight loss. MetCon gets your heart rate pumping, your breath soaring, your body mass leaner, your core more stable and your body fat absolutely blow-torched. Best of all, MetCon takes a matter of minutes, so take a few out of your day to try our routine. Do each exercise one after another with minimal rest in-between sets, and then do the routine another three to four times with two- to three-minute rests between each circuit.

 

1. Two-Point Bent Over Row: For this you’ll need one dumbbell or kettlebell that weighs roughly 20-25% of your current body weight. Hold your chosen “bell” in your right hand with your feet about hip-width apart and your knees soft. Then hinge your hips back until your torso is roughly parallel to the ground, making sure you maintain a flat back while you do so. Place your left hand behind you on the small of your back and, with the weight at arms length, row it up into your torso until your hand contacts your rib cage. Do five reps on each arm.

 

2. Right Arm Swing: Start in the same position as above, only this time with your feet about shoulder-width apart. Hinge back at your hips until your torso is about a 45-degree angle to the floor, and the bell is hanging between your legs. Explosively drive your hips forward until your right arm reaches the level of your breastbone – make sure your right arm is kept perfectly straight when you do this. Then, quickly hinge your hips back again and allow your arm to fall back between your legs. Perform 10 reps.

 

3. Single Arm Overhead Push Press: Holding a dumbbell or kettlebell in your right hand at shoulder level in a racked position, place your feet shoulder-width apart. Make sure your elbow is tucked in towards your torso with a neutral grip. Then, dip your hips into a ¼ squat position by slightly bending your knees, followed by aggressively driving your hips and straightening your knees while simultaneously pressing the bell overhead and locking it at arms length. Lower the bell down, reset your position and perform five reps on each arm.

 

4. Left Arm Swing: Start in the same position as the Right Arm Swing (see above), but with the bell in your left hand. Hinge back at your hips until your torso is about a 45-degree angle to the floor, and the bell is hanging between your legs. Explosively drive your hips forward until your right arm reaches the level of your breastbone – make sure your right arm is kept perfectly straight when you do this. Then, quickly hinge your hips back again and allow your arm to fall back between your legs. Perform 10 reps.

 

5. Double Arm Swing: Again, this is the same starting position as the other swings, only with the bell held in both hands. Hinge back at your hips until your torso is about a 45-degree angle to the floor, and the bell is hanging between your legs. Explosively drive your hips forward until your right arm reaches the level of your breastbone – make sure your right arm is kept perfectly straight when you do this. Then, quickly hinge your hips back again and allow your arm to fall back between your legs. Perform 10 reps.

Categories: arm nbsp, arm reaches, arm swing, degree angle, explosively drive, fat-burning, legs explosively, legs perform, metabolic conditioning complexes (MetCon), quickly hinge, reps nbsp

Can’t Think of a Fitness Resolution? Try One of Ours!

With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, now is the time to take a look at what you want for your wellbeing. Do you wish you could burn more fat? Or do your aims lie in building more muscle or gaining flexibility? If you’re struggling to think of what you want to do to take your wellness to the next level, or you don’t know what to do in order to achieve your goals, we’ve got the five most common fitness goals, as well as the expert advice you need to reach them.

 

1. Burning More Fat: According to Scott Weiss, DPT, ATC, CSCS, a New York based physical therapist and athletic trainer, you need to burn more calories overall if you want to burn more fat. The way to burn a higher percentage of fat calories is to take up long, slow distance exercise, but if you kick up the intensity you can burn the highest total number of calories and total fat overall. The “afterburn” effect of interval training – also known as excess post oxygen consumption (EPOC) – helps you to burn more calories, so Weiss recommends alternating 20-30-second sprints for every five minutes of running at your normal pace.

 

2. Running Faster: Whether you want to beat your friend in the next 10K or just top your personal best, you need to improve your stride length and frequency (or the distance you take with each step and how fast your legs move. Founder of Inspire Training Systems Neal Pire, CSCS, author of Plyometrics for Athletes At All Levels, explains, ‘Ultimately, running speed is based on the product of stride length and stride frequency. This involves increasing the strength and power of your hip extensors, especially your glutes and hamstrings.’ For this you need squats, step-ups, single-leg Romanian squats and calf-strengthening moves in your workout.

 

3. Lifting Heavier Weights: Pire notes that gaining strength requires two things: pushing yourself past your comfort zone and using weight that fatigues you at no more than six reps. Research suggests that doing two to six sets of six repetitions, and having two- to five-minute rest periods in between each set, will get you the best results. Pire adds, ‘Get rest between sets so that you can repeat your performance the following set.’

 

4. Increasing Your Endurance: Strengthening your heart, increasing your ability to uptake oxygen in the muscles and dealing with the by-products of exercise such as lactic acid is essential if you want to win out against your athletic opponents. Weiss notes, ‘You want to use a combo of long slow distance and high intensity interval training (HIIT)…Not only does HIIT help strengthen the heart muscle, but it stimulates a greater uptake of oxygen in working muscle. Plus, the more hydrated you are, the less likely you are to feel a burn while you work out – so drink up.’

 

5. Improving Your Agility: When you’re agile, this translates into dodging puddles on a rainy day or sidestepping a hole in the pavement when walking or running. Weiss comments, ‘Agility is the ability to start, stop and change direction efficiently.’ To improve your agility, Weiss recommends ladder drills, the 5-10-5 football shuttle test and figure-eight cone drills along with box jumps for advanced exercisers.

 

6. Increasing Flexibility: There are four kinds of stretching in which you need to take part if you want to increase your flexibility. Firstly, you need to take up static stretching, or lengthening a muscle and holding it for 30 seconds and focusing on one specific muscle. For passive stretching, you need to use a strap, gravity, body weight or another person to apply force while you relax. Then you need to incorporate PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) stretching, which involves a relax and contract method often used by athletes. Finally, Weiss recommends two to three sets of 20 dynamic stretches, which ‘includes multiple muscles and joints and provides the best crossover for exercise and sport.’

Categories: burn, calories, fat-burning, flexibility, Interval Training, Muscle, nbsp, strenght, stride length, weiss, weiss recommends

Why This Supplement Is Your Diet And Anti-Ageing Secret

Eating to lose weight may sound like a contradiction, but healthy, nutritious meals keep us fuller for longer and can help us to stop snacking on high fat foods. Some supplements are a great way to complement our diets further because they have fat-burning qualities, and much more to benefit our wellbeing.

Shed the weight, look young…

Capsaicins are found in chilli pepper and have been linked to weight-loss, but research in Japan recently showed how other properties found in raspberries have similar effects to those in chilli peppers. Raspberry ketone extract is a supplement that shares a similar chemical make-up to capsaicins. Scientists in Japan found that animals who were given the extract did not gain as much weight as those that weren’t given it. This happens because the substance encourages cells to use up fat stores. Although this can be good news if we’re trying to lose weight, researchers also found that the extract could have an impact on our appearance – potentially making us look younger.

Anti-ageing qualities

In other studies looking at raspberry ketone extract, the researchers looked at how it changed skin cells. When we lose our hair it’s not always due to ageing and hormone sensitivity, with some of us suffering from alopecia. The scientists applied cream containing the compound to the skin of people with alopecia. They found that after a five month period, 50 per cent of the participants saw hair growth returning. As well as encouraging our follicles to produce more hair, the extracts can also bring elasticity back to skin, which becomes less firm as we get older. Scientists working on the study reported that the compound had this effect on those taking part in the study. This means that raspberry ketone extract could help us lose weight, while also improving hair growth and making our skin more elastic.

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Why This Supplement Is Your Diet And Anti-Ageing Secret

Categories: fat-burning, Lose weight, supplement, Weight Loss