For any person attempting to lose weight, burning fat is the most important thing you can achieve. If you’re not burning fat all you’ll lose is muscle, and if you lose more muscle then the more fat you’ll actually put on. Muscle mass naturally burns more calories during your body’s resting state. If your body has a higher fat percentage it will slow your metabolism down.
Don’t skip your breakfast. When you first arise in the morning, your body has just finished an 8 hour fast. After enduring such a fast without nutrients, your body enters a catabolic (muscle wasting) state and starts breaking down protein. This is an important time to get some much needed nutrition ASAP! A healthy breakfast is critical to any successful fat-loss diet.
Consume a meal every 2½ to 3 hours. This means that you will be eating a meal 5 to 6 times a day. Not only will this type of eating regime stimulate muscle maintenance and fat loss, it is also an important technique for dominating food cravings. You see, when people skip a meal, or haven’t eaten in a while, their blood sugar plummets, and their will power becomes weak. In other words, people who go a long time without enjoying a meal are much more likely to cheat on their diet. So in saying this, having small meals often and regularly will help eliminate those cravings that may have caused you to fail all attempts to lose weight in the past.
Even if you are one of the few who can fight off the cravings for food caused by missing meals, you have to be careful. If you miss meals too regularly, your body will start activating enzymes that store fat. This will make losing weight much harder. So don’t do it! Eat!
It’s a good idea to reduce how many carbs your eating. Your body’s fuel will come from a mixture of fat, protein and carbs. When you reduce your carbohydrate intake, your body’s stores of carbs will diminish quickly. This creates an effect in your body, and it will use a greater amount of free fatty acids (fat) for fuel. Cutting down on your carbs will also have a hormonal fat-burning effect. When you decrease the amount of carbs that you eat, insulin (a storage hormone) decreases and glycogen (a fuel mobilizing hormone) increases. This causes a larger number free fatty acids to be released from fat cells and burned, assuming that you’re working out properly.
Choose compound exercises instead of performing isolation exercises. Compound exercises train multiple muscles across many joints, whereas isolation exercises attempt to train only one muscle at a time. The good thing about training with compound exercises is that you will be working the largest amount of muscle in the shortest amount of time.
Generally, the more muscle you use per exercise, the greater the energy (calorie) demand will be on your body. This obviously burns more calories, which is definitely a good thing, but it also encourages the body to hold on to its lean muscle during fat loss phases, which helps keep your resting metabolic rate high. In addition, compound exercises have been shown to stimulate the release of your body’s natural anabolic hormones. This further encourages the growth of lean muscle.
Be accountable to someone. If you can’t afford a trainer full-time, hire one to write your training programs for you and monitor your progress. You may only need them once a month, but having them there will offer you someone you are accountable to on a regular basis. This will keep you staying focused.
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