Want to lose a few pounds of body fat so you have a lean, strong physique come summer?
Here are five simple tips for making it happen. The good news:
These five strategies will improve your metabolic health instead of killing your metabolism so that you’ll be able to keep the body fat off FOREVER.
#1: Do Metabolically Stressful Training To Lose Body Fat Fast
To lose body fat, you need to generate as much physiological stress as possible so that your body uses a significant amount of energy and produces a dramatic buildup of lactic acid in the shortest period of time.
The effect will be a lot of calorie burning, the use of fat for fuel, and a thriving metabolism. You will also build lean muscle mass, which when combined with increased protein intake (see #4), will radically improve the amount of calories your body burns daily.
How To Do It: Lift weights with fairly heavy loads (75 to 90 percent of maximal) and short rest periods. Train a high volume using multi-joint lifts and the biggest muscle groups—squat, deadlifts, step-ups, pulls, rows, chin-ups, and presses.
#2: To Put on Muscle, Focus on “Stressing Out” Your Muscles
If you want to build muscle, you need to apply a lot of “stress” to the muscle, but in this case the stress must be tension, or weight. The continual loading will cause the muscle to adapt and grow bigger over time.
Most people don’t use simple tools like tempo, volume, and intensity when trying to put on muscle. They train haphazardly, without controlling the down motion of the muscle contraction.
Or they don’t use adequately heavy weight, always lifting in the same 8-12 rep scheme, with the standard 3 sets. Instead, you need to vary your training to force the muscles to adapt and grow.
How To Do It: Count the tempo of every lift and focus on longer time under tension to build muscle—favor a 4-second eccentric tempo and 1-second concentric. Also, alternate between high-volume training (at least 4 sets of 8-10 reps, 75-80 percent 1RM, for example) and high-intensity training (4-8 sets, 4-6 reps, 85-90 percent 1RM, for example) every 2 to 3 weeks.
#3: Favor Sprints Over Steady-State Cardio
Steady-state cardio, such as distance running, is all about efficiency. It trains the body to use the least amount of energy to produce the greatest amount of work.
Nothing about aerobic exercise is in line with the goals of fat loss or muscle building. Because the body adapts so quickly to repetitive aerobic exercise, doing it for fat loss is choosing the least effective means to reach the end goal.
Sprint training, on the other hand, works wonders because it applies a lot of metabolic stress to the body in the same way that lifting weights with short rest periods does.
How To Do It: There’s no end to sprint training options—novices can try 8-second cycle sprints with 12 seconds rest, repeated for 20 min. Intermediate trainees can try 30 seconds jogging, 20 seconds at 80 percent, and 10 seconds sprinting, repeated for 20 min.
Experienced trainees can try six 30-second all-out sprints with 3 to 4 minutes rest. Or do a descending distance protocol of 400, 300, 200, 100 meters, repeated 2 to 4 times.
#4: Focus on Food Quality & Up Your Protein
There is no mystery how to promote optimal body composition: A high-quality, high-protein intake, a lot of vegetables, fruit, beneficial fats, and other nutrient dense REAL foods.
Why is this way of eating so effective for reducing body fat?
First, whole foods require more energy for the body to digest and utilize than processed foods. They are also more filling and haven’t been scientifically engineered to stimulate food intake, so you eat fewer calories without even trying.
Second, eating a high-protein diet and lower-glycemic carbs leads people to eat fewer calories, and it sustains lean muscle mass for a higher metabolic rate. This benefit is profound when you are trying to lose body fat.
If you make the mistake of cutting your calories without upping protein, you lose muscle along with the fat so that the amount of calories your body burns at rest plummets. This will cause you to gain the fat back very rapidly once your diet is over and you increase your calories.
How To Do It: Eat high-quality protein and fat at every meal, focusing on getting 10 grams of essential aminos acids. This is most easily done by eating meat, fish, or eggs because animal products are more amino acid dense than plant proteins.
De-emphasize carbohydrates, getting the vast majority of carbs from veggies and fruit. If you go very low in carbs (below 50 grams a day, for example), consider cycling high-glycemic whole food carbs, such as starchy veggies (potatoes, sweet potatoes) or boiled grains every 5-7 days.
#5: Reduce Stress with Diet—Focus On Recovery
High levels of stress can quickly deplete hormones that aid in fat loss and support tissue repair after hard training. You must teach yourself to manage your daily mental stress.
You also need strategies for quickly removing the stress that comes from exercise so the body can recover and adapt by losing fat and building muscle.
How To Do It: To manage mental stress, try deep breathing, visualization, or meditation. To speed recovery from training, eat antioxidant-rich foods like berries, green vegetables, and whey protein.
Try to schedule enjoyable, pleasurable activities post-workout to aid recovery, such as listening to music or getting a massage.
Don’t negate your hard work in the gym by bingeing on high-sugar processed foods to “comfort” yourself when you feel stressed. Instead, turn to proven mood-boosters like super dark chocolate, coffee (be cautious with the caffeine), or an omega-3-packed meal like salmon.