Want to look trim in 2015? Follow our top tips for beating
the bulge.
What's your diet goal for 2015? To beat the bulge and get
into shape? A MORI survey found that the average British woman will spend 31
years of her life on a diet – sad, eh? There's more to life than restricting
calories. In fact there are tons of easy ways to fend off the extra pounds
without miserably totting up your daily calorie intake. Try these super-easy
tips and tricks to help you reach your ideal weight and stay there for life!
Refuelling hazard
The more you exercise, the hungrier you get and so you might
eat more or believe you ‘deserve’ to eat more after a good workout. In some
cases you might just want to eat more as a reward for having survived the
session. It’s important to eat according to our whole day’s activity level, not
just according to how hard you’ve exercised in the gym, particularly if you
have a sedentary job.
Ditch the boyfriend
Don’t panic – it’s only for the workout. Men usually burn
more calories than women in the same workout due to being heavier, in addition
to which Mother Nature acts to protect women’s role as child bearer, which
means we maintain adequate body fat for nourishing healthy babies. Doing your
partner’s workout, then, might end up with him shedding pounds but you only
shedding tears. Go solo, girl!
Turn on the afterburners
Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) is the term
given to the body’s attempts to recharge and restore itself immediately after a
workout, a process that results in additional calorie burn. Research has shown
that high-intensity interval training leads to greater EPOC than steady cardio
workouts, so turn up the dial with alternate bouts of maximum effort and rest
for serious results. Try the Tabata format – eight periods of 20 secs full-out
work followed by 10 secs recovery.
Muscle up to slim down
Lifting heavier weights for fewer reps will promote muscle
growth, but don’t worry, you won’t end up looking like a novelty circus act
because women lack the necessary testosterone to get bulky. The important thing
to know, here, is that a kilogram of extra lean tissue will burn an additional
100 calories in 24 hours. If you consider that a resistance training programme
can reasonably be expected to add 3kg of muscle mass to your body, this equates
to using up an extra 300 calories a day, just by doing your everyday
activities. This adds up to a whopping 14kg of fat loss over a year!
Running on empty
Exercising in the morning, on an empty stomach, is a great
way to shed fat. Research shows that fasting (which is essentially what happens
overnight as we sleep) leads to increased adrenalin and reduced insulin levels,
creating an environment that is more conductive to the breakdown of fat for
energy.
Team tactics
Working out in the gym can sometimes be a lonely experience,
and it's possible to get into a rut when you attend the same studio classes
every week, so give your fat loss hopes a sporting chance by joining a netball,
hockey or tennis club, or try football or rugby which are both sports growing
in popularity for women. Not only will variation keep you motivated, these
sports incorporate the need for repeated bursts of speed (interval training)
that we know burns fat.
Heart attack
Alternating your exercises between upper and lower body
results in an extra calorie burn because your cardiovascular system has to work
harder. Peripheral Heart Action training, as this is known, challenges the
heart to keep pushing blood from one extreme to the other, in order to deliver
oxygen to fuel the muscles. A routine like this also allows you to move straight
from one exercise to the next, as muscle groups get a chance to rest, so you
can get your workout done quicker.
Don’t get isolated
Compound exercises require several muscle groups to work
together in harmony, as opposed to moves that specifically target one muscle.
The beauty of these exercises is that they are more demanding and so will tone
your muscles but at the same time burn more calories. Try 15 repetitions of
each of the following: squat, chest press, deadlift and lateral pull-downs.
Rest for 2-3 mins and repeat once or twice more.
Explode the fat
Also known as jump training, plyometric exercises, which
developed in Eastern European athletic training in the early 1970s, involve
stretching the muscles prior to explosively contracting them. This type of
training mimics the motions used in sports such as skiing, tennis and
volleyball so if you enjoy dodging moguls, chasing down ground strokes or
charging the net, you’ll love these. And now for the good news – because this
type of training is so intensive, it results in high calorie expenditure so is
a valuable weapon in your fat loss armoury.
Think big
Forget exercises for your arms – really, there’s no need to
even worry about them! Press-up, barbell chest press and incline dumbbell press
are all chest exercises that will also challenge and therefore tone your
triceps. Similarly, bent over barbell row and lateral pull-down are intended to
target your back but will also tax your biceps. Focus on the bigger muscles and
the little ones will take care of themselves.
Bear the load
Weight-bearing activities, such as walking and running, use
more calories than those in which your weight is supported, like swimming and
cycling, because you have to support your own body weight. To optimise your
calorie burn in the gym, swap the cycle and rower for the treadmill or stepper.
Forget the gym
Believe it or not, your 30-60mins sessions in the gym might
not be the most important ingredient in your fat burning endeavours. Recent
research has coined the term non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
referring to standing, moving, and even fidgeting during everyday tasks.
Scientists have found that this can add up to as much as 350 calories per day,
the equivalent of a moderate intensity 60mins studio class. So resist the phone
and email at work, go talk to people face to face. Enjoy standing in queues and
even on TV nights regularly get off the sofa and move around a bit. As one of
the supermarket giants claims, every little helps!
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