To lose weight and keep it off, there are four areas that you need to continually maintain: diet, resistance training, cardiovascular exercise and conditioning work. Using all four, you will not only quickly shed excess body fat, but keep it off the rest of your life. Consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise plan.
Diet
Your success starts and ends with diet. You need protein to replace amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, that you burn while training, and the only place to get them is from dietary protein. Get yours from beef, chicken, fish, eggs and milk. Essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6 are required for hormonal production and regulation, and without them your metabolism will plummet. Get your fatty acids from fish oils, nuts, flax and seeds. Any carbohydrates you consume should come from fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Resistance Training
Even if you do not want to build muscle mass, you need to maintain what you have or your metabolism will slow down, which means you will burn fewer calories. Train your entire body with compound lifts that work multiple muscle groups at the same time. Exercises such as the squat and deadlift, bench press, chin-up, row and military press not only build lean muscle mass, they burn a lot of calories by speeding up your metabolism for quite a while after you are done training. Train hard with short rest periods, but never sacrifice technique for a couple of extra pounds on the bar.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardiovascular exercise is a great way to burn fat, and you can vary not only the intensity, but the duration as well. You need not stick to one kind of exercise either. You can use a rowing machine one day and walk the next day, and go for a swim on the third day. For a larger boost to your metabolism, do your cardiovascular exercise in the morning and lift in the evening, which will speed up the rate at which you burn fat twice in a day instead of once.
Conditioning
Conditioning does not just mean running. You can do whatever you want for extra exercise assuming it is low intensity. Bodyweight exercises such as pushups, body weight squats and jumping jacks can be done on the days when you are not lifting to burn a few extra calories. Other exercises such as sled dragging or running against a resistance chute not only burn calories and strengthen your legs, they also improve your tolerance for training volume. Mix up your conditioning workouts to keep them interesting.
References
- PubMed.gov: Fiziol Cheloveka: Acute Testosterone and Cortisol Responses to High Power Resistance Exercise
- PubMed.gov: European Journal of Applied Physiology: Acute Hormonal and Neuromuscular Responses to Hypertrophy, Strength and Power Type Resistance Exercise
- "Journal of the American College of Nutrition"; Beyond the Zone: Protein Needs of Active Individuals; Peter W.R. Lemon, Ph.D.; 2000
- PubMed.gov: Dietary Supplements Affect the Anabolic Hormones After Weight-Training Exercise
- PubMed.gov: Dietary omega-3 fatty acid supplementation increases the rate of muscle protein synthesis in older adults: a randomized controlled trial
- PubMed.gov: Decrease of Serum Total and Free Testosterone During a Low-Fat High-Fiber Diet
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