Patience isn’t a virtue that all of us have. And, when it comes to losing weight or burning off body fat, we don’t want to wait for the results.
In fact, many of us are more motivated to drop this unpleasant fat as fast as possible. Unfortunately, with so many different diets and fat burning fads, it’s hard to know which ones are effective and safe.
But, don’t worry, because we have you covered. If you are looking to blast away the fat and drop some unwanted pounds, then check out the following fat burning tips:
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1. Reduce your caloric intake
Ideally, the first place to start when trying to lose fat is by reducing your overall daily caloric intake. Brace yourself for a little bit of math here. A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. (1)
So, to lose one pound of fat per week, you will need to theoretically reduce your intake by 500 calories per day.
But, it’s important to note that you don’t just remove 500 calories from your diet and think the body fat will melt off. The calorie reduction needs to come from unhealthy fats and high-carb foods.
Additionally, you should also consider the following tips:
Eat 5-6 Smaller Meals throughout the Day – there’s too much conflicting evidence to support this recommendation as a surefire way to lose weight. However, it can be an effective means for reducing your caloric intake throughout the day. Eating smaller meals throughout the day will help you to control the amount of calories you have per meal and it will also help to prevent you from feeling hungry all the time.
Portion Control – It doesn’t matter how many meals you eat during the day, if those meals have huge portions then you are hindering your fat burning success. Keep your portions within reason, so that you don’t consume too many calories in one snack and blow your entire caloric intake for the day.
Eat nutrient dense foods – One of the problems that people run into when reducing calories is missing out on essential nutrients. To prevent this from happening, you should include foods that are dense in nutrients like a cup of nonfat Greek yogurt with a side of fruit. This combination is a great option for one of your meals and ensure you are getting some much needed vitamins and minerals.
Oatmeal for Breakfast – Oatmeal is a fantastic food when trying to lose weight and burn off fat. It’s low in calories (up to 150 calories), dense in nutrients, and it’s been linked to many great health benefits like: reducing blood sugar and bad cholesterol, fills you up, and high in fiber. Oatmeal also helps dieters lose weight as it’s slow to digest and promotes the release of satiety hormones like PYY (peptide YY). This hormone helps to reduce caloric intake and also decreases the risk of obesity. (2)
2. Consume more Protein
Protein is an essential macronutrient linked to many processes within the body like building muscle and supporting connective tissues. It also plays a significant factor in weight loss.
Research shows that increasing your protein intake during a period of reduced calories, will help you to lose weight/fat and not muscle mass. Furthermore, evidence shows us that increasing your protein intake can help you to burn off the dreaded stomach fat. (3 , 4 , 5)
Additionally, consuming more protein, in conjunction with resistance training, will help you to build more muscle mass.
And, did you know, the more lean muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be?
Although, genetics and age play a huge factor in metabolism, increased muscle mass can help boost your metabolism and help you to burn off more calories while at rest. (6)
3. Fluctuate Caloric Intake
Just like when training in the gym, it’s important to switch up how you eat so that your body doesn’t get used to it and stop responding in the way you want it to.
It’s recommended that you fluctuate your daily caloric intake by changing up when and how you consume those calories.
One great way to accomplish this fluctuation is via intermittent fasting (IF). This popular fitness trend cycles periods of eating with fasting (not eating).
Intermittent fasting has shown a great deal of success in regards to losing weight. IF can help you to burn off that fat quicker by increasing your metabolism and helping you to consume less calories. (7, 8)
There are many popular IF strategies, but the easiest one to implement is the 16:8 plan. This means that you fast 16 hours per day and eat only during an 8 hour window.
So, that would look something like eating between 11am and 7pm, then fasting from 7pm to 11am the next day. Remember, just like with an overall caloric reduction, intermittent fasting requires you to drink plenty of water all day long and to eat healthy foods during those 8 hours.
4. Drink More Water
Water is the most essential substance we can consume. Our bodies are mostly made of water, which means that just about every major and minor system or organ requires water to function properly.
It can’t be emphasized enough – you need to drink an adequate amount of water each day.
In regards to weight loss, water can be another effective tool. Drinking more water has been shown to help burn off more calories. (9)
Additionally, drinking water before a meal can help to control your appetite by making you feel fuller prior to eating. Lastly, there’s a wealth of evidence that proves drinking more water will help you to reduce your overall daily caloric intake. This is mostly due to drinking less beverages with high amounts of sugar and calories like sodas or fruit juices. (10, 11)
5. Cardio
Cardio is the number one way to physically burn off fat. Depending on the intensity of your cardio activity, you can easily reach that magical caloric deficit of 500 calories per day just by running or riding a bike.
If you are trying to lose more than a pound of fat per week, then ramping up your cardio efforts can really impact your caloric expenditure and speed up the fat burning process.
Perhaps, the most significant cardio method for fat loss is high intensity interval training (H.I.I.T).
HIIT is when you switch between intervals of maximum effort with intervals of minimal effort. For example, sprinting for 20 seconds and then walking for 60 seconds.
Over the last two decades, research has proven that HIIT is one of the best methods for losing fat as you burn more calories during the activity and even after your workout is done. Like intermittent fasting, the success of HIIT has made it one of the most popular health and fitness trends today. (12)
6. Resistance Training
Resistance training, as mentioned above, is how you build more lean muscle. And, as we already stated, an increased amount of muscle mass will help to increase your overall metabolism. One study found that resistance training can lead to an increase of 9% in resting metabolism for men. (13)
Although, not as much as cardio, resistance training can also help you to burn off calories and chisel away at your physique. Perhaps, the least known weight loss benefit for resistance training, is that you burn more calories for longer periods after your workout than cardio.
Some evidence shows that your metabolism will remain elevated for up to 38 hours after your muscle blasting session. This means that you will continue to melt off the fat after an intense training session, even if you are just resting during that period of time. (14)
To sum it up, resistance training can really help you to burn off calories during and after workouts, increase your metabolism, build muscle, burn off fat and transform your body.
7. Get Consistently Good Sleep
A lack of sleep not only makes us moody and negatively impact on our cognitive functions, but it’s also detrimental to our weight loss efforts. (15)
When we don’t sleep well, it can throw our ghrelin and leptin hormones out of whack. These hormones are responsible for our feelings of hunger.
Research has also linked sleep deprivation to making poor food choices when we eat and consuming nearly 400 calories more per day. Bottom line – the less sleep we have, the more calories we will consume. (16 , 17)
So, start focusing on getting at least 6.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep per day and give your body the rest it needs to lose weight and burn off fat.