As I’ve already mentioned, while cardio vascular activity is great for burning fat, anerobic exercise, such as weights is also particularly beneficial, as muscles will burn calories to recover from being exercised in this way. You may not want to bulk up, but if you can swap problem areas for lean muscle, you will not only look and feel better, but staying in shape will be easier – the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn during (and after) exercise of this kind.

Traditional thinking would say that the secret to losing weight was to do lost of cardio vascular exercise and to reduce your calorie intake. What made it so hard to do in practice was despite the miserable feeling you would have continually, burning energy on a low fat, low excitement diet, your body often didn’t seem to take any notice. The problem is that the body is a very adaptable piece of equipment and to keep getting results, you’ve got to mix up your training.

Any exercise that increases your heart rate and is maintained for a reasonable period of time will have benefits for weight loss. Whether it’s walking, running, cycling, swimming, rowing or a gym class workout, as a general rule, if it makes you sweaty it’ll do you good.

BUT

If that’s all you do, and you do the same routine week in week out, you won’t see earth shattering results and what results you do see may start to peter out.

BUT FEAR NOT

It’s easy to keep things interesting. Make sure you vary the kind of activity you are doing – different exercises or sporting pastimes use different parts of the body in different ways. A game of basketball for example is making the body work in a completely different way than going on a bike ride. If you are happy with the type of exercise you are doing, mix up the way you are doing it! Interval training is a very important part of progression in any weightloss program (more on that later), so try adding in short bursts of extra energy, increasing your effort levels above normal for set levels.

For example if you normally go for a 20 minute jog 3 times a week, try a minute’s sprinting for every four minutes jogging for one of your sessions. Once you feel comfortable with that try and reduce the recovery time (or sprint for longer).

You should try and change your workout every 4-6 weeks, whether it’s increasing intensity, changing the order of your exercises, or the exercises themselves. Don’t always feel you have to just push yourself harder for longer, just keep pushing yourself in different ways, you’ll be amazed at what you achieve!

A good amount of protein is essential for a healthy, balanced diet, but it becomes even more important when weight loss and muscle building are at stake. Eating lots of lean protein will help boost your metabolic rate, (more calories are used to digest the grams of protein in food than they contain); help your muscles repair after a workout and give you the energy you need. Traditional thinking was that large amounts of energy giving carbs were the fuel for exercise, but unless you’re taking your exercise to extreme endurance levels, stick with the protein and stay away from processed carbs.

Good sources of protein include eggs, dairy products, fish & meat, seeds and soya products. Try to include one with every meal, from a variety of sources. Eating protein before and after you work out will give you the amino acids you need to build and repair muscle tissue. Eating (a small amount) of protein before bed can help with a restful night’s sleep.

In terms of volume, aim to consume a gram of protein for every pound of body weight in total throughout the day. So if you’re around 150lbs, that’s about 25g with each meal.

I know everyone goes on about this, I know you’ve heard it all before, but I’m going to go through the reasons one more time. Drinking water can boost your metabolic rate, prevent over-eating at mealtime and stop your body feeling hungry when actually it’s just dehydrated. It’s good for your skin, for flushing toxins out of your system and if you’re going to be doing exercise (and lets be honest very little weight loss will happen without it) it’s an absolute necessity.