Eat More Often And Don’t Skip Meals: It may seem counter-intuitive, but eating throughout the day helps increase your overall metabolic rate. What that means is you begin to burn more calories every day just by eating more often. You want to eat early in the day to jump-start your metabolism, and consume four to six small meals throughout the day. That may mean eating a protein and carbohydrate snack or mini-meal every two to three hours. This provides you with constant energy throughout the day, and makes you less likely to overeat at any point because you’re ravenous. As well, if you skip meals and begin restricting calories, it can actually make it harder to lose weight. If you go long periods without eating, your body goes into “starvation mode” and your metabolism begins to slow down. For example, if you eat breakfast and then nothing else until dinner your body will enter starvation mode around lunch. That means you are burning less calories than normal. If you look at how your metabolism works, it is really counterproductive to starve yourself.
Write It Down: If you’re serious about losing weight, you’ve got to keep track of everything you eat, and I mean EVERYTHING. It makes you more conscious of what you’re putting in your mouth, and gives you insight into any unhealthy eating patterns. Keeping an accurate food journal is one of the most effective ways to see what you’re eating and start doing something called mindful eating. Just remember that if it passes by your lips, then it needs to be written down. That even counts for things like water, which have zero calories.
Integrate Your Workouts: Integrated resistance training is key for weight loss. What that means is while lifting weights, integrate a cardio activity, such as jumping jacks or jumping rope, every few minutes in between sets. This keeps your heart rate elevated for the duration of your training routine, making the challenge to your body higher, resulting in more overall calories burned during each training session.
Go High Intensity: Only got 20 minutes to work out? Forget a steady-state, medium-intensity cardio workout during this time. The idea should be to do short bursts of high intensity, 15 to 20 seconds of all out exertion, followed by a 50 percent reduction in intensity for the remaining 40 to 45 seconds. You’re burning a lot more calories than just walking for 20 minutes. Push it to your limit to get the biggest gain from this type of training. Add in a 5 minute warm-up and cool down and you still are able to fit in a great workout in 30 minutes.
Simplify Your Plan: There is a ton of information out there, and a lot of it is contradictory. It’s difficult to figure out what is right and what is wrong. The best advice I can give is to keep it simple. No fad diets or overnight quick fixes. Start eating a little bit healthier foods, in the correct portion sizes, 4 – 6 times every day. In addition, workout for at least 30 minutes 6 - 7 days a week. That doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym 7 days, a week, it just means that you need to be active every day. Try weight training around 3 – 5 times a week depending on your schedule, and throw in cardio in between. Remember that if you hear about a weight loss secret that’s too good to be true, it probably is.
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