Intro
If you’re trying to shed those dreaded few pounds of body fat, unveil those abs, reach that dream summer body or just simply achieve a healthier you… This could be the article for you! Follow these 15 ways to become a fat burning machine and achieve your goals!
Don’t use fad diets
BEWARE of fad diets!! These are usually sold as a “quick fix”, promising amazing results in very short periods of time, usually via methods of starvation or extreme carb manipulation.
These diets often do cause you to lose a lot of weight, INITIALLY, however cause severe damage to your metabolism and set you up to fail, with most finding that they quickly regain the weight they lost and some extra! Remember, any weight loss greater than 2lb per week (unless you’re severely over weight) is not maintainable, nor healthy.
Track your calories
This will greatly increase the awareness you have over what you’re putting into your body! I’m sure many of you will be surprised at how much you actually eat, and especially what types of food account for the majority of your calories.
Once you have awareness of what and how much you are eating, you can then put measures in place to reduce your caloric intake until you reach a desired deficit (eating less calories than you burn) that will allow you to lose weight at a healthy rate!
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Protein
Many people seriously under eat on their protein intake. Protein is an essential part of our diet as well as being highly satiating, of which is very important when dieting, as if you are not satisfied, you are much more likely to break and cheat on your diet! There are many good sources of protein such as:
Chicken
Beef
Eggs
Beans
Nuts (but beware of high fat content!)
However it is essential to remember, that if you add in protein to your diet you’ll need to cut back elsewhere, i.e. carbs and fats. Although adding in more protein to your diet will aid you in your dieting, it is still energy in vs. energy out and a calorie deficit will be required to lose weight.
Fibre
The majority of people consume less than half the recommended amount of fibre per day. High fibre foods like broccoli, green beans… most fruit, veg and beans etc. are immensely satiating! Keeping you feeling full for a long time. And as any bodybuilder knows, high fibre diets make going to the bathroom so much easier!
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Fats
BOOM! Shocked to see this on the list? Most people are under the misconception that dietary fats are what make you fat… WRONG! Gaining body fat is down to a calorie surplus, made up from carbs, fats and protein combined.
Your body NEEDS fats for a number of reasons, one being hormone regulation. Having fat in your diet spread out over your meals will also increase your levels of satiety, again, making you much less likely to cheat on your diets.
Some good examples of sources of fats are:
Fatty fish
Nuts
Avocados
Eggs
Milk
Carb cycling
This is an awesome method to really fire up your metabolism, helping your burn that unwanted fat off! Carb cycling is simply eating higher amounts of carbs on some days and eating lower amounts of carbs on others.
For example a standard diet could look like this:
Day 1: 200g carbs
Day 2: 200g carbs
Day 3: 200g carbs
Day 4: 200g carbs
Day 5: 200g carbs
Day 6: 200g carbs
Where as a carb cycling diet would look something like this:
Day 1: 175g carbs
Day 2: 175g carbs
Day 3: 250g carbs
Day 4: 175g carbs
Day 5: 175g carbs
Day 6: 250g carbs
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So over a period of 6 days, on both diets you’re still getting the same total amount of carbs (1200g), however they are each delivered differently. This plays on hormonal responses in your body, but in simple terms, it fires up your metabolism!
Go keto
Now, let me start off by saying that this is not for everyone… but you have to remember that in bodybuilding, everyone is different and everyone’s bodies responds differently to things. However Keto diets can work wonders for some people!
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A keto diet is basically the concept of eating very little or no carbs, in order to force your body to utilise other sources for energy (i.e. fat stores). This method of dieting can potentially yield some of the following benefits:
You feel satiated for longer
More energised throughout the day
Triglyceride & cholesterol levels can improve
Eventually naturally eliminate type 2 diabetes
Intermittent Fasting
As with the point above, again, this method isn’t for everyone and is heavily down to preference! It is essentially not eating throughout most of the day, and just giving yourself an allocated window in which you are allowed to eat.
For example, say you wake up at 7am, skip breakfast, and have your first meal at 12pm, and then eat normally throughout the day. This is a type of intermittent fasting as you have created a window where you’re allowed to eat (in this example 12pm until you go to bed).
This allows you to consume more food over a shorter period of time than you would if you were to eat with your meals spread out evenly throughout the day. This method is very useful for someone who isn’t hungry first thing on a morning, or someone who tends to crave a lot of food later on a night.
Cardio
Do we enjoy it? Not Always. But it is undoubtedly one of the easiest ways to get your body to burn some extra calories! It doesn’t matter if it’s low intensity, high intensity, or high intensity intervals… Even a gentle walk along the beach or through the woods. All of these are effective methods that will increase the amount of calories your body burns. More cardio, more calories burned… Simple!
More active in day to day life
This may have some overlap with the point above, but also covers many more aspects that you wouldn’t traditionally consider “cardio”, but by making some small alteration in your life and lifestyle, you can greatly increase your body’s calorie burning capacity.
This can be things such as walking to the local shop for a pint of milk instead of driving, taking the kids to the park to play, walking to pick the kids up from school, or mowing the grass instead of hiring a gardener, walking round to someone’s desk at work to talk to them instead of phoning them… You get the idea, just small changes, which can add up to a big difference!
It’s the accumulation of these little changes in your life that will really allow you to maximise your carlorie burning capacity!
Fat Burners
Please, I can not stress enough – fat burners are a great tool to use when cutting, however they should only be used in accordance and to support a good diet (i.e. a calorie deficit). If you eat McDonalds 5x a day, just because you take a fat burner, I can guarantee the odds are that you won’t burn any fat!
First you need to amend your diet in line with your goals, and then think about using a fat burner to enhance this! Fat burners can also yield other benefits such as giving you that little boost of energy when you need it!
References
1) “Dietary Fiber and Body Weight.” Nutrition. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
2) “Concentrations of Serum Vitamin D and the Metabolic Syndrome Among U.S. Adults.” Diabetes Care. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
3) “International Journal of Obesity – Abstract of Article: Dairy Augmentation of Total and Central Fat Loss in Obese Subjects.”Nature Publishing Group : Science Journals, Jobs, and Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
4) “International Journal of Obesity – Abstract of Article: Body Fat Loss Achieved by Stimulation of Thermogenesis by a Combination of Bioactive Food Ingredients: a Placebo-controlled, Double-blind 8-week Intervention in Obese Subjects.” Nature Publishing Group : Science Journals, Jobs, and Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
