Gyms and fitness centers across the land are packed right now. They are filled with people who have made a New Year resolution to Lose Weight and get a leaner, healthier body. Sadly, by the time the month of March gets here, most of those people will no longer be making the daily trip to the gym.
But there is good news. That doesn't have to be you. With some Simple nutrition and exercise strategies, you can stay motivated and get results.
You can lose weight and get healthier and make your New Year resolution a success.
Don't make weight loss complicated
Complicated programs are a big reason many people fail to stick to a weight loss plan. Whether it's the crazy food or some really long complicated workout routine, people get frustrated and give up. For both the exercise plan and the diet, keep things simple.
Don't change everything all at once when you start a weight loss program
When most people decide to lose weight, they jump right in with both feet. They radically change their eating habits and their lifestyle. This is almost impossible to sustain for the long term.
It's a lot easier to make a few simple changes at a time until they become habits.
The idea of starving yourself for the rest of your life in order to drop a few pounds doesn't sound all that appealing. Severe calorie restriction is one reason why so many people give up on losing weight.
That's why metabolism-boosting strategies are so popular. If you can boost your metabolism by other means then you don't need to reduce your calories. Well, at least not as much as you would have to otherwise in order to get results. Reducing your caloric intake too low for too long can reset your Resting Metabolic Rate to a lower level.
This brings fat loss to a stand still and starts a downward spiral that ends in a weight loss plateau at best.
Far more likely, it causes the dreaded rebound where you end up adding more fat to your body than you originally lost. When you severely restrict your calories, a lot of the weight you lose is muscle, not fat. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, so less muscle means a lower resting metabolic rate.
Let's take a look at some simple slimming secrets you can develop to keep your metabolism revving so you are burning more calories every day.
Increase your fiber intake to lose weight
This is really important for health as well as weight loss. The modern Western diet is severely lacking in fiber. The typical American gets around nine grams of fiber per day while they should be getting at least 30 grams or more.
The key point here is that eating more fiber burns more calories. By getting the recommended amount of fiber, your body can burn another 200 calories per day. That's over a pound and a half of fat in a month.
Increase your protein intake to boost your metabolism
Another thing you'll want to do is eat more protein. It takes energy (calories) to digest food. It takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest fat or carbohydrate calories. Plus, protein is more filling. For example, a plain, baked chicken breast is roughly only 200 calories. How many of those do you think you can eat at one time?
Perform the right kind of exercise to burn more calories
Another way to burn more calories is by changing the type of exercise you do.
Lots of aerobics in the fat burning zone is not the way to go if you want to boost your metabolism. You don't burn as many calories as you think doing aerobics. In fact, the average marathon runner only burns about one pound of fat during an entire marathon.
If you want your resting metabolic rate to skyrocket you need to be performing some type of high intensity interval training. This type of training has been shown to boost your metabolic rate for up to 48 hours after the workout is over. If you combine this type of training with the simple nutrition tips listed above, you'll be well on your way to increasing your resting metabolic rate and burning fat at a faster rate than you ever have in the past.
With a traditional cardio exercise like jogging or biking this could mean 30 seconds of hard running followed by 30 seconds of walking or slow jogging and repeating for 10 rounds, which is a 10 minute workout. This also works for resistance training, such as performing 20 seconds of bodyweight squats followed by 10 seconds of rest and repeating eight times for a four minute bodyweight squat workout.
The exercise secret for those that can't stick to an exercise program
Here's a bonus tip that works like crazy. Forget the gym. Forget the home fitness equipment. Forget all the long, complicated exercise routines that seem to take up most of your day. If you've always struggled to stick with an exercise program, start with this and work it until it becomes a habit.
After you've been able to stick to it for a month or so, you can expand the workout.
The simplest start is to exercise the second you get out of bed. Roll out of bed and perform as many bodyweight squats as you can in five minutes. Rest when needed and count your total reps. Repeat every day and try and beat your total over time. This helps to make exercise a habit and you won't have lack of time as an excuse later in the day.
As the habit starts to stick you can expand the workout. Make it a 10 minute workout and alternate between squats and push ups. Always push yourself to perform more work (repetitions) over time.
Focus on the tips in this article. Eventually they will become habits and you won't even think about them. Once that happens, you can include more nutrition and workout strategies without getting overwhelmed.