Guest Writer:  Sarah Scrafford

You’ve been working out for at least an hour every day and yet your weight seems to be at a relative standstill, or worse, increasing rather than decreasing as you hoped and prayed it would. You’re at a loss to understand how your dedication to lose weight could turn out this way, not after you struggle to wake up each morning and struggle harder not to hit the snooze button and cuddle back under the covers. You’re thinking of throwing in the towel and going back to a life where you can sleep longer and not have to push yourself this hard in order to lose weight. Hold that thought before you make it a reality, and push it out of your mind, at least till you understand why you’re not losing weight the way you want to, and how to make your workouts more effective without pushing yourself harder.

• Increase your workout time: Before you start to protest, let me tell you that an increase of just 10 to 15 minutes each day is enough to make you burn a few calories more. And the more calories you burn, the more weight you tend to lose.
• Increase the intensity of your workout: Not by much, but every small bit helps. Don’t push yourself beyond the message your body is sending out – stop at the first sign of aches or pains. The trick is to challenge your body, not alienate it. Concentrate on your workout rather than attempting to relieve the monotony by reading a book or yakking over your cell phone as you work out, and you’ll see a marked improvement in your weight loss campaign.
• Invest in interval training: In simple language, this means that you must alternate your regular workout with bursts of high intensity exercises. For instance, if you walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day, walk for the first 5 minutes, jog for the next (at an increased speed), then slow down to a walk, and so on. You’ll find that you burn more calories and increase your stamina as well.
• Consume a lower number of calories: It’s a plain enough fact – when you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. So count your calories by watching what you eat. A sensible diet must go hand in hand with your exercise routine for you to shed those excess pounds. You can’t eat all you want simply because you spend an hour at the gym every day and still expect to lose weight.
• Be more active: Don’t spend the rest of the day lolling on the couch and filling up on snacks because you spend some time working out each day. Stay active to boost your metabolism and lose more weight. Household chores, babysitting kids, walking to the mall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking away from the entrance – these are a few simple ways that help you burn up each of the calories that you’ve consumed.
• Build your muscle mass: Work out with weights if you want to lose weight faster. While cardio exercises do burn fat, it’s the strength training ones that build your muscles and boost your metabolism. With an increased metabolic rate, you tend to burn calories even when relaxing or at rest.

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This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of x ray technician salary. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

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