I’m constantly asked about special workouts for fat loss after 40 and I always respond that the workouts that build muscle tissue and burn fat work no matter what your age. I love boxing as a workout for fat loss because it provides total body conditioning. You’re working more than just one muscle group at a time, which burns more calories than isolate exercises, such as body twists, leg extensions and etc. The more muscles you move, the better the workout for fat loss.
You can’t exercise away a bad diet.
No matter how long you workout in the gym, how strenuous the exercise or how frequently you go, you simply can’t offset a bad diet with exercise. You have to do a full 20 minute kettlebell workout, one of the best calorie burners, to work off one jelly donut. Throw in a burger, fries and soft drink and you’d be at the gym all day to work off that heavy lunch. Eating healthy meals that are rich in nutrients but lower in calories is part of the weight loss program. YOU MUST CHANGE BAD EATING HABITS AND LEARN NEW ONES TO LOSE WEIGHT. It’s the combination of healthy eating and regular exercise that does the trick.
Strength training is the primo workout to lose weight.
You want more muscle tissue to help you maintain weight loss, but diet alone won’t do it. Aerobic exercises actually use both muscle and fat tissue for fuel, so they won’t provide the long term help you seek to not only take off pounds, but keep them from returning. Strength training is proven to burn fat tissue while building muscle tissue. The more muscle tissue you have, the more calories your body burns even when you’re not exercising. While cardio burns more calories while you’re doing it, strength training provides after burn. The muscles continue to burn calories up to 24 hours after the workout.
Create a workout schedule and healthy eating plan and stick with it.
It’s really not magic. Creating a plan to workout three times a week and eating healthier whole foods is simple. Sticking to the plan, well, that’s a different point. I have a client that started out extremely out of shape and not ready for a tough workout. He read an article called the nitric oxide dump, where you do ten each of four simple exercises, squats, tin soldier, jumping jacks without the jump and air pullups, three times a day at least two hours apart. He did it for one month. He could cope with the four minutes. He next added weights and then came to the gym. He wasn’t prepared at first to devote a full hour at a time, but doing something, got him ready for the big workout.
- Start increasing your activity every day to burn fat. Go for walks, park further from the store, take the stairs. These mini daily life workouts help to burn fat.
- Never do strength training two days in a row. Your muscles need time to recuperate.
- Put on some gloves and shadow box. If you can’t go to the gym, throw some punches at home. The exercise will help your body and releasing that aggression will help both your body and your mind.
- HIIT workouts burn tons of calories. Since they are nothing more than working your hardest for a minute or two and then backing down the effort to moderate for several minutes, it’s a great deal like boxing. It’s just another reason boxing burns fat.