You can burn fat calories in several ways. To optimize weight loss, you should combine sensible eating with a progressive training approach, including both resistance and cardiovascular training. The human body is already programmed to burn fat, so all you have to do is give it the tools it needs. Even small changes to your diet and workout programs can cause significant improvements in fat-burning and help to improve the shape of your body.
Step 1
Decrease your daily caloric intake to force the body to burn more calories from fat. To lose a single pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories. Find your maintenance daily caloric intake (see Resources), then subtract 500 to 750 calories to find your new daily calorie total.
Step 2
Divide your daily nutrition into five or six small meals. Eating more frequent meals elevates your metabolic rate, causing the body to burn more fat calories, according to "The Abs Diet." This approach allows many people to eat more and feel fuller without suffering the consequences of storing excess body fat.
Step 3
Reduce your carbohydrate intake, especially in the evening. Carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of fuel. In fact, the body has no need to dip into stored energy (body fat) if it has plenty of glucose in the blood to fuel itself. You need not go on a low-carbohydrate diet to cause a shift toward fat burning. Try taking in most of your carbs in the early part of the day and focusing on eating lean proteins (chicken, fish and turkey) and healthy fats (olive oil, avocados and nuts and seeds) at night.
Step 4
Do resistance-training workouts three to five days a week for 30 minutes to an hour. Weight training forces your body to burn fat in many different ways. You burn calories while you are lifting weights, but you also burn more for up to 48 hours after your workout, according to "The Abs Diet." In addition, you will build lean muscle, which burns more fat calories at rest.
Step 5
Perform cardiovascular exercise immediately after your resistance training. Weight workouts expend all of your muscle-stored carbohydrates, known as glycogen. This forces the body to tap into fat stores to produce energy. According to "Combat the Fat" author Jeff Anderson, this strategy makes your body burn fat calories directly.
References
- "Combat the Fat"; Jeff Anderson, 2008
- "The Abs Diet"; David Zinczenko, 2004
- "Xtreme Lean;" Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman, 2006
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