Healthy Fat Burning Tricks

Whether it's following the grapefruit diet or wearing extra layers of clothes while exercising, individuals often go to unhealthy lengths to drop body weight. However, there are some tricks to induce fat loss without resorting to extremes. Research indicates that tweaking your exercise, nutrition and supplementation program can provide quick fat loss without endangering your health.

Perform Cardio After Weight Training

In research reported in the February 2007 issue of the "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise," researchers explored the impact of prior resistance exercise on fat metabolism during subsequent cardio training. They observed that participants who performed weight training and then cardio burned more body fat compared to those who only performed cardio. Researchers suggest that prior resistance exercise increases growth hormone levels, which in turn helps burn more body fat during subsequent cardio.

Perform High-Intensity Aerobic Interval Training

High-intensity aerobic interval training, or HIIT, is a form of cardio that alternates between high and low intensity. Researchers from the University of Guelph in Canada investigated the effects of HIIT training on fat metabolism. They reported in the December 2006 issue of the "Journal of Applied Physiology," that women performing seven sessions of HIIT over a two-week period experienced a 36 percent increase in whole body oxidation, or fat burning.

Eat Almonds

Researchers from the City of Hope National Medical Center examined the impact of an almond-rich diet or complex carb-rich diet on a weight reduction program. Overweight and obese adults adhered to a low-calorie diet with 84 g of almonds or complex carbs for 24 weeks. Scientists reported in the November 2003 issue of the "International Journal of Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders" that subjects on the almond-rich diet lost more body fat, especially around the waist, than the complex carb diet. Include almonds as a healthy fat source while on a calorie-reduced diet.

Sleep Enough

Although sleep is sometimes not considered a part of the fat-loss equation, it may play a role in fat loss. Scientists reported in the December 2004 issue of the journal "PLoS One," that subjects with short sleep duration, defined as less than eight hours of sleep a night, had a higher BMI, a measurement of body fat levels based on height and weight, than those sleeping eight hours. Researchers found that short sleep duration decreased leptin, a hormone that decreases hunger, and increases ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger. Therefore, make sure to get at least eight hours of sleep a night.