Train Smarter, Not Harder

Q: I feel like I’ve been slaving away for hours on the treadmill for several months, but my weight won’t budge. What do I need to do to start seeing results?

A: If you feel you’re not getting a fair return on your time investment spent on the treadmill take a step back and look at your overall program. Is it solely cardio training? What intensity are you training at? How often do you train? Do you do any resistance training? How are your eating habits? These are just a few questions to think about because if you’re not seeing results chances are something is being out of balance.

If you’re looking to lose weight and you’re not doing any resistance training you are making a huge mistake. All the time I hear people tell me they only do cardio and once they lose weight then they will start lifting weights. Why? Stop limiting yourself to the number of calories you burn during the workout itself. What’s more important is the number of calories you burn after the workout. Weight training helps you lose weight faster than traditional cardio because not only do you burn calories during your workout, once you’ve completed your workout your metabolism stays elevated for some time increasing caloric burn, something that doesn’t happen with traditional steady state cardio. For more see Achieve Faster Fast Loss.

As far as the treadmill goes try including high intensity interval training. The benefits are faster fat loss and shorter workouts. Similar to resistance training this style of training is great because you burn calories after you workout is complete as well as the workout itself. For more on high intensity interval training see Burn Fat Fast.

Remember, what you do outside of the gym counts too. Eating small frequent meals can also give your metabolism a boost. Japanese researchers took two groups and fed them the same amount of calories for a two week period. The first group ate only twice a day and the second group ate six meals per day. The group eating only twice a day lost more muscle and the group eating six times per day lost more fat.

To lose more fat and retain your muscle plan to eat every three hours and keep meals small. Include weight training and high intensity interval training at least three times per week to maximize your results.