Little things add up. They really do. This is especially true when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle and burning more fat.
We like to focus on the big things. Clean eating. Resistance training. Cardio. And while it's good to eat better and exercise, there are also many simple tricks and hacks we can use to burn more fat.
The following five tweaks are perfect examples. They don't require more time out of your day. These hacks merely require a better use of your time. Try them. Over the course of your life, these small changes will add up to better results.
Burn More Fat
Tweak #1 - Go Hiking
Stuck on a treadmill? On average, hiking burns twice as many calories as steady-state treadmill grinding. Let's not forget that a nature walk also provides a myriad of other health benefits, such as the lowering of blood pressure.
One five-mile hike on a Saturday burns the equivalent of 10 miles on a treadmill. This is five weekly sessions of two miles each. To put this in raw numbers, a five-mile hike burns about 1,000 calories for the average adult. Now that is some serious fat-blasting exercise.
In a 21 day study on soccer players, those that supplemented with yohimbine twice a day saw a reduction in body fat by 7 to 9%. [1] Dosage was 10mgs taken twice per day.
Further research indicates that working up to 0.2mg per KG of bodyweight might be beneficial. Tiger Fitness CMO Marc Lobliner adds,
"Yohimbine HCl's effects work the best in the absence of insulin, and its effects start to diminish the more insulin is present. But this doesn't mean that you cannot eat carbs. Insulin will usually be under control on a lower carb diet as most trainers will put you on. Obviously, cardio first thing in the morning is a good time (with a scoop of MTS Nutrition Whey in your belly) and even post workout. What you can do is take the Yohimbine HCl DURING your weight training workout 15-20 minutes before you are done. Then, hop on the cardio post weights and BAM, FAT BLAST!"
Tweak #3 - Limit Rest
Here's something interesting that you probably didn't know. You can build muscle and torch more fat during your workout by simply restricting rest in between sets. If you never allow yourself to fully recover, and your heart rate remains elevated, you're going to burn more calories.
Instead of resting one to four minutes in between sets, try restricting rest periods to 15 to 30 seconds. Make sure to push sets using good form. Progressive overload is king, and you will burn even more calories by challenging your body to progress in reps and weight.
Using rest-pause style training like this will result in less time in the gym, but a much higher percentage of this time will be spent with an elevated heart rate. You'll be in the fat-burning zone.
Tweak #4 - Squat and Deadlift
Squats and deadlifts are truly full body movements. They use about 90% of the muscles in your body. Anyone that squats and deadlifts know just how challenging these compound exercises are.
Make sure to use both of these lifts each week. Also, it's best to perform the squat and deadlift while you're fresh, so make sure they are the first exercise you perform on a given day.
Not only will you burn more calories because you are working more muscles, but these movements are just flat-out brutal. They will elevate your heart rate, leave you gasping for air, and have you burning far more calories than if you were performing an isolation movement for your legs or back.
Tweak #5 - Have More Sex
26% of couples make love only once per week. The majority of couples have sex only once or twice a month. [2] From a calorie-burning standpoint, this simply won't do.
Sex burns about 207 calories for every 30 minutes of activity. The number of calories burned increases if you orgasm. If you make love once a week you're only burning about 880 calories per month. If you make love only twice a month, you're only burning about 415 calories.
Now, if you boost that frequency to three times per week, calories burned becomes a whopping and exciting 2,640 per month. Make love five times per week and you're torching 4,400 calories per month.
Let's not forget that sex is amazing for longevity and as a stress-reliever.
References
1) "Yohimbine: the Effects on Body Composition and Exercise Performance in Soccer Players. - PubMed - NCBI." National Center for Biotechnology Information, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17214405. 2) "How Often Do normal Couples Have Sex?" EverydayFamily, www.everydayfamily.com/how-often-do-normal-couples-have-sex/.