Chris Chew asked:


Do you know that you are actually fighting against nature when you are attempting to lose weight? You see, way back long ago, when a caveman’s next meal was uncertain and he was hungry, the body will store and conserve as much fat as possible to ensure its survival.

Furthermore, it will lower the metabolism rate so that less fat is being burnt for energy. Therefore we all have this built-in survival mechanism and this is the reason why skipping meals when trying to lose weight is not such a good idea. Now, you can see why it is so easy to gain weight and so difficult to lose them?

Although we now have certainty when our next meal is coming, our body will still instinctively store fat for it is a natural survival mechanism since the body can’t think. Fortunately, there are a number of ways we can raise our metabolism and keep fat at bay.

If you want to burn fat by raising your metabolism, try lifting weights. Lift weights using compound exercises with high repetitions. The idea is not to build muscles but to raise your metabolism in order to burn fat. Since compound exercises such as dead lifts, squats and bench presses work on many muscle parts, you will be puffing and panting. In other words, you are having a good fat burning cardio work out.

Because the exercises work on many muscle parts, more calories are expanded and that meant more fat is burnt. Don’t waste your time doing puny exercises like bicep curls or tricep extensions. Yes, these exercises have their places, but they are not efficient for fat burning.

You should also limit the number of sets of each exercise to 3 or 4 sets since there are some studies showing that there is no difference in doing four or six sets for fat burning purpose.

Next, do pay close attention to how long you rest in between sets. Resting for too long, say for 2 minutes will clear a fat burning hormone releasing chemical called lactate from your bloodstream. Therefore if you want to burn fat, you need to keep lactate in your blood stream for as long as possible. Therefore do not rest more than a minute in between sets.

Yes, you say that there is not sufficient recovery time after the last set and performing the next set before recovery will not be efficient. Well, you can get around this easily by alternating the exercises such as doing a lower body exercise, and then do an upper body exercise next.

Tempo when lifting weight is vitally important. By swinging your weights up and down will get you nowhere, perhaps even getting an injury. This is because when you swing the weight up, you are using momentum and when you lower them quickly, you are using gravity to assist you.

Therefore, slow things down to a consistent rhythm but fairly quickly enough to get a cardio workout.

Although the above exercise techniques are not meant for building muscles but for raising metabolism to burn fat, if you have never lifted weights before, you will also gain some muscles. Do know that muscles are natural fat burner and the more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism. When you have gained enough muscles, you will become a natural fat burner.



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