Besides eating healthy, do you think it’s impossible to exercise for less time and still lose more fat? Absolutely not, if you do the right moves.
Extensive research on lifestyle and weight management shows that exercises such as insanity aerobic classes, spinning and sprinting - not jogging or walking - might be the key to fast abdominal fat loss. High-intensity exercises result in greater fat loss and overall health benefits than moderately intense activities.
The research also showed that five to ten seconds of short burst exercises such as sprints done repeatedly for about 30 minutes three to four times a week can help overweight women lose at least two to three kilos of body fat in 12 weeks and gain strong lean muscle resulting in a net body weight loss.
On the other hand, achieving this same effect with moderately intense activities such as jogging, walking, dancing, and rowing would take longer compared to the above.
This does not mean that an exercise like jogging doesn’t serve its purpose as far as weight loss is concerned. Jogging is still thought to be a more effective method for shedding belly fat than any strength or resistance training.
Before indulging in any cardiovascular/ aerobic exercise or resistance training/ lifting weights, just know that participation in regular aerobic exercise typically can result in little or no gain in muscle mass, whereas moderately hard resistance exercise over a period of time may increase muscles mass.
Choose cardio workouts more to weight lift if your main aim is to shed excess weight. Use resistance workouts to tone up your body opting for lightweights while increasing the number of repetition you do in each set.
To help you add sprint interval to your exercise routine, here are a few recommendations:
Your warm-ups should always be at least 5 to 10 minutes walk building up to an easy jog. Then, alternate 20 to 30 seconds sprints with a 3 minutes easy jog in between for 30 minutes.
Thereafter cool down for 5 minutes by jogging easily slowing down to a walk. Finish the exercise by stretching to relax your muscles.
For an intermediate workout, warm for 5 minutes by walking building up to a jog. After that, alternate 30 seconds sprint with a minute and a half easy jog for about 20 minutes.
Do this repeatedly over the set time then slowly cool down for 5 minutes using an easy jog that comes down to a walk.
Stretch as you finish your workout. At any point should you feel uneasy with the exercise, just relax and get back to it when you feel better.
Combining the above exercise with abdominal workouts and healthy diet over a period of time will help you reap the results that you want.