Your beach body did not turn out the way you planned? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us, but fortunately it’s never to late to get back on track!
Even if you’ve had a lazy and hedonistic spring, you still have enough time to trim your body fat and make the best out of the summer months. We assume you’d like to burn some fat and get a leaner six-pack on the quickest way possible, right? Snap right back into great shape by following these tips:
1. Fasted cardio
Many studies show that performing your morning cardio on an empty stomach leads to burning up to 20% more fat than doing it after a meal. Experts recommend it as the most effective way to speed up the melting of your fat by combining the fat loss benefits of fasting and medium intensity cardio. After the session, eat a no-carb or low-carb breakfast to make the fat-destroying effects of your elevated cortisol levels last longer.
2. Supplementation
Increase the effectiveness of your fasted cardio even further by taking a thermogenic fat burner and 10 grams of BCAA as soon as you wake up. This mix will raise your metabolic rate, supress appetite and stimulate muscle growth.
3. Cardio splitting
The best way to make cardio facilitate significant fat loss is by splitting the time you spend working out into 2 or 3 sessions instead of doing it all at once. Perhaps one in the morning, one after lunch and one later in the evening. For optimal results, include both steady state cardio and HIIT cardio in your routine – a longer, steady state cardio session right after you wake up, and two shorter HIIT sessions throughout the day. This will keep your metabolism peaked and help you burn more fat around the clock.
4. Supersets and compounds
Weight training is essential to burning fat. The more intense your workout is, the more calories you burn (both during and after the workout), while the muscle growth helps speed up the metabolism by itself, and there is no better way to hit it heavy than the superset. That being said, you need to focus on compound movements such as deadlifts, squats, bench presses and pull-ups, since they stimulate greater fat loss and ignite growth in more muscle groups than isolation exercises.
5. Cut down the carbs
This is the plan: each week, eliminate around 25 grams of carbs and add in around 10 grams of protein in your diet. Protein can help weight loss, while lowering the carb intake will assist in shedding excess water and make the body use fat for fuel.
6. Fight off cravings
Expect to experiense intense sugar cravings once in a while – you’re only human after all, and no level of discipline can make these annoying sensations go away. However, discipline is the only tool to successfully combat them. Remember, getting super lean requires you to be in a constant calorie deficit, and no cheating is allowed if you’re serious about shedding a significant amount of body fat in less time! Here’s a useful trick for the moments of despair: drink a big glass of cold water infused with 10 grams of BCAA’s.
Or just try to wait it out. We usually give in to food cravings because if we don’t, the intensity of the uncomfortable sensation would increase until it drives us crazy. That’s actually not true. Cravings build up, crest, and then disappear, so if you simply resist the urge to gulp down a bag of potato chips long enough, you’re more likely to eliminate it altogether.