If you're considering losing weight or just want to have a more cut and toned appearance, you have doubtlessly encountered many different tips and strategies for burning fat. However, crash diets and excessive exercise programs can not only undermine your progress towards a leaner appearance, but can also be very dangerous to your health. For the best possible fat burning results, you need to take an approach that will maintain or increase your muscle mass while still cutting calories.
The formula for losing weight is very simple; if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose body weight. By doing no exercise at all and absolutely minimizing food intake, you can lose weight. However, you do not want to lose any and all body weight; you want to lose fat, not muscle or organ tissue! Not only will losing weight through starvation dieting make you look and feel worse, but it is ultimately a self-defeating process. This occurs because of how the body chooses the fuel to sustain itself. If insufficient food intake is available in the system to fuel the body, especially on a consistent basis, the body will respond as though it is starving. This is a survival mechanism which enabled people to survive in times of scarcity. In order to survive, the body responds by reducing its overall caloric needs. In other words, the body responds to too little calories by reducing the metabolism. It decreases the energy level, making you feel tired and making it difficult to exercise. Further, before it starts burning off its stores of fat, the body starts burning muscle, decreasing the calories burned even further. While this strategy is useful in times of famine, it is the opposite of what you want to occur if you wish to burn fat.
To burn fat, you need to decrease calories but also maintain your metabolism. This means that any diet plan you choose should not aim to drastically undercut the calories that your body needs. This is one of the reasons that many doctors and fitness experts recommend losing more than one or two pounds of body fat a week for maximum health.
To maintain or even increase your metabolism while dieting, there are several steps that you can take. There are a wide variety of fat loss supplements available on the market which largely serve to help increase the metabolism or otherwise to increase your energy. While many supplements can be used by anyone, some fat burners for men are now on the market, as well as specific supplements for women . When you are considering a supplement, it is helpful to know some of the ingredients that you may encounter. For example, one of the most common fat loss supplements is green tea or green tea extract. This is because green tea is a powerful antioxidant and boosts the body's metabolism. Other teas, such as wu long tea or rooibos tea, are also frequently included because of their antioxidant qualities and their fat-burning reputations.
Another frequent addition to fat burning supplements is caffeine. While most people use caffeine simply to feel more awake when they are tired, caffeine has been scientifically proven to help burn fat. Many athletes take substantial amounts of caffeine before workouts for the stimulant and fat-burning effects. Some scientific studies have even shown an enhanced effect on the metabolism if caffeine is combined with green tea.
You may also see guarana as an ingredient in fat loss supplements . Guarana comes from a shrub native to Brazil and contains significant amounts of caffeine, though any additional effects on metabolism are not yet well known. Kola seed extract is also included in some supplements and also contains caffeine. If you choose a supplement that contains caffeine, make sure that you increase your water intake, as caffeine is also known to have diuretic qualities that can dehydrate you. Due to the toxins that are released when burning fat, it is especially important to watch your water intake during a diet and exercise plan.
Another botanical ingredient that is found in fat burning supplements for women and men is cocoa seed extract. Cocoa seed extract contains theobromine, which is a stimulant that is similar to caffeine. However, the stimulant qualities of cocoa seed extract are not quite as potent as caffeine, making this supplement a particularly good choice if you have difficulty with caffeine jitters.
Whatever supplement you choose to help with your efforts to burn fat, keep in mind that you will experience the best results by carefully restricting calories and exercising appropriately. Strength training, such as weight lifting, and cardio workouts, such as running or aerobics, are both important components of a fat burning exercise program. Cardio workouts are important for the health of your hearth and circulatory system and also help burn significant amounts of calories. Your heart rate is generally increased for a period after your workout, during with your metabolism is increased and you burn more fat. Strength training, on the other hand, helps to build muscle mass. Many people, especially women, tend to underestimate the importance of strength training because they may not want to appear outwardly muscular. However, building muscle is one of the best ways to boost your body's metabolism. Not only do you burn calories during the workout, but your body continues to burn additional calories over the next 24 to 48 hours after a strength training workout, far longer than the similar effect from a cardio workout. In addition, by increasing the body's muscle mass, you increase your base metabolic rate even when resting. This means that it becomes easier for your body to burn calories and burn off fat. Strength training also helps you appear more cut and defined as you lose fat, and helps your body to exercise longer and with less potential for injury.
Exercise, diet, and supplements are all tools to help your body burn fat and improve your appearance. While you will not look different overnight, you can start to see results within weeks of starting your fat burning regimen.
