When it comes to people’s top goals for improving body composition, fat loss often takes the cake. But we can’t talk about how to lower body fat percentage without touching on how to drop pounds in general. That’s because you can’t necessarily target fat loss in one specific area — say, just your arms or belly. You have to work to reduce fat all over. Here are some useful tips on doing exactly that!
1. Steppin’ it up!
It may seem small, familiar and just a little too easy, but it’ll make a difference: Get on your feet more often. It’s difficult to burn enough excess calories in an hour-long sweat session alone. But frequently taking breaks from your seat? That could actually make or break your daily deficit. In fact, a recent study found that simply standing rather than sitting for six hours a day could help a 140-pound person burn more than 50 extra calories in 24 hours. And that doesn’t involve any movement, just static standing. Imagine the calorie-crushing possibilities if you took brisk walks on the daily.
2. HIIT it hard!
Besides taking more moments to stand up, doing a more efficient workout means you’ll blast more calories and burn more fat. For that, you’ll want to turn to interval workouts.
Metabolic conditioning (aka metcon) workouts place a high-demand on the body by testing its different energy systems. Aim for sticking with metcon workouts of about 30 minutes and HIIT workouts (in which you work at an even higher intensity) for about 15 minutes. Plan to do these every other day, or take two to three days of rest between each, so your body can properly recover.
As you get in better shape, you’ll see that you burn more calories week after week, because you don’t get as exhausted. That’ll also help you reach the caloric deficit you need for weight and fat loss.
3. Muscle Matters
Beyond sweat-inducing intervals, another way to increase your fat-burning and muscle-building potential is resistance training. And you’ll want more muscle to burn more daily calories.
Science backs up this need to lift weights for weight loss. A recent study involving about 250 individuals in their 60s pitted cardio workouts against strength sessions. The researchers found that while you need both, resistance work wins out in terms of losing fat without losing muscle.
While lots of people place emphasis on how this helps you burn more calories at rest, progressive strength training on a regular schedule makes is possible for you to push yourself more in your next workout. Aka the more you strength train, the harder you work in your next workout, and the more calories you burn overall. Hello, calorie deficit, weight loss and body fat reduction.
Everyone is different, what works for one person might not work the same for the next, and here at Doctor’s Weight Control we understand that. This is why we offer personalized plans for not only weight loss but also weight maintenance. This is one of the many reasons why Doctor’s Weight Control is the top weight loss center in Central Florida! Call us today to make an appointment!
