5 Things You Can Do To Lose Weight Faster

November 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

Do you exercise fast and furious to lose weight but are getting slow results?

There have been times for me, while doing some killer workouts, that it seemed my results were going in the wrong direction.  Sometimes it was because I hit a plateau, but other times it was because of other things I was doing throughout the day that was making me sluggish and keeping me from putting in the full effort of which I knew I was capable.

If you are in such a situation and would like to step things up a bit, here are five simple things you can add to, or take from, your daily routine so that you can get the body you want even faster.

  1. Drink coffee before your early morning workout. Drinking a cup of coffee (preferably with little to no cream and sugar) just one hour before your workout will help you burn more calories.  The caffeine will awaken and energize you so that you can exercise harder and faster.  It just may be the momentum you need to squeeze in an extra set of reps resulting in more calories burned.
  2. Give up energy drinks, soda, and, yes, even Gatorade. With the exception of perhaps a couple brands of energy drinks, these drinks are loaded with empty calories.  Meaning, they have no health benefits whatsoever.  They may give you energy at first, but then you crash because of the high levels of sugar and are left feeling drained.  As for Gatorade, I cringe when I see my children’s coaches telling them to drink this so-called thirst quencher that is loaded with wasted calories.  Unfortunately Gatorade is also loaded with sodium which makes your body retain water and which makes you even more thirsty.  Therefore you want to drink what?  - More Gatorade!  Green tea or water with a lemon wedge, sugar free, would be a better choice as a thirst quencher.
  3. Do interval training, such as Tabatas. Interval training consists of bursts of high intensity exercises with a short rest period in between.  While the words “high intensity” may scare away some people, the good news is that you get your workout done in a shorter amount of time (15 to 20 minutes).  For some reason, not quite understood, this type of workout burns more calories then would be burned in 40 minutes of cardio.
  4. Do body weight strength training exercises. Not daily, but 2 or 3 times a week.  If you are limited on time and can only do one, push ups are an excellent choice.  Aim for three sets of 15 reps.  Though some may disagree as you can read here, I still believe weight training increases the amount of calories you burn.
  5. Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep nightly. We hear this quite often these days, but we do burn lots of calories when we get an adequate amount of sleep.  This is by far the most important on this list, as lack of sleep results in stress, lack of motivation, and it ages us faster.  All of which hinder our weight loss progress.

Popularity: 10% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Posted by Julie | Filed Under Blog, Weight Loss