‘Summer’ or the July/August holidays as we know it is here. It’s that time of year where there are more pool, creek and beach parties. It’s time to lose any extra pounds gained during your workout hibernation and get toned or ‘shredded’ for the season.
Of course, you’ve probably left it too late and now you need to drop fat fast, so use these tips to get in shape in weeks rather than months.
Lower carb intake while consuming more protein
Protein and carbs have the same caloric value (four calories per gramme) but behave very differently in your body. Protein is rarely used for energy and plays an important role in elevating your metabolism. In contrast, carbs that are not used for energy are readily converted to fat and have a much smaller effect on your metabolic rate. Also, eating carbs causes a more significant rise in insulin levels than protein and insulin inhibits fat burning.
Simply lowering your carb intake and raising your protein intake by the same amount is often enough to produce significant fat loss.
Skip a meal
To lose fat, you need to eat less. Opinions vary but most experts suggest you need to create an energy deficit of about 500 calories per day. While you could do this by weighing and measuring your food and then reducing the size of your meals, you can achieve the exact same result by simply eating one less meal a day.
Try replacing any meal of your choice with a scoop or two of whey protein. The protein will preserve your muscle mass and pump up your metabolism but provides very few calories.
Superset
Strength training is essential during a shred; it preserves your muscles mass and therefore prevents your metabolism slowing down which is something that often happens when you cut calories. However, strength training itself is not a great fat burner – unless you take steps to make it so.
Rather than rest between sets and waste half your workout time doing nothing, superset everything to increase the energy expenditure of your training session. Agonist/antagonist (eg push/pull) supersets work great, as do upper body/lower body supersets. If you superset everything, you’ll get more work done in the same amount of time and that adds up to faster fat loss.
Jump rope
Adding 10 minutes of jump rope a day to your current schedule means doing just over an hour more exercise per week which will speed up fat loss without adding more workouts. Do this 10 minutes first thing in the morning, last thing at night, or any time you can find ten minutes.
Make the commitment to doing 10 minutes of jump rope each and every day for 30 days combined with the other shedding tips in this article, you’ll be rewarded with faster fat loss.
Getting shredded might not be easy but it’s not impossible either. Yes, you’ll have to make a commitment to eating clean and training hard but if you do, you’ll soon be looking good for the ‘summer’.
If you want six-pack abs and not a beer keg belly this ‘summer’, make sure you start putting these tips into action today.
