You can slim down, burn fat and decrease your workout time using a special fat burning technique called High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT which is a proven method used by professional trainers to effectively burn fat and increase cardiovascular conditioning. HIIT involves a short burst of intense cardio movement for 1 to 2 minutes followed by one minute of slow, easy movement. This peak and valley interval training has proven to be very effective at burning fat compared to other types of cardio exercise.
HIIT training is versatile so you can incorporate it into any of your workouts. If you're a jogger, you can run at a fast pace for two minutes followed by one minute of slow jog, then repeat this 3 minute cycle four to five times. The fat burning benefit will be much higher than just jogging at a regular pace for 20 minutes.
If you use a three minute HIIT cycle (2 minutes of high intensity followed by 1 minute at a slower pace), exercise a minimum of four to five cycles for a total time of 12 to 15 minutes. It is not necessary to exceed 21 minutes of training when using HIIT due to the overall intensive nature of the workout. HIIT is perfect training when you're short on time because it's extremely efficient. Lets say you workout in the morning before work, HIIT allows you to get an efficient workout in 15 to 21 minutes that's equivalent to working out much longer. HIIT is also a great time saver when exercising during your lunch break since time is limited. Most of all, HIIT works and that's why you should incorporate HIIT training to burn fat and increase overall cardio conditioning in the least amount of time.
Of course HIIT is not the only component to burning fat. You must control calorie consumption in addition to HIIT training to burn the most amount of fat. All the best training in the world will do you no good if you don't control the amount of calories you take in. I recommend decreasing your overall calorie consumption by 25% to 35% from your maintenance level intake. Most women who are inactive burn about 2000 calories a day and a 25% reduction reduces calorie intake to 1400 or 1500 calories per day.
Men on average burn 2500 calories per day given a low activity level and should reduce calories consumption to 2000 calories a day to burn fat and maintain muscle. Don't reduce calories any lower or you will burn more muscle than fat which is very undesirable. When you burn more muscle than fat, you look sickly instead of athletic, so the trick is to burn fat while maintaining your lean mass.
Unfortunately the scale is not the best way to measure your fat burning progress, so I suggest buying a scale that measures body fat. When you simply measure weight loss, you don't know how much consist of muscle, fat or water loss. Monitoring your percent body fat is a much better indicator of physical appearance and conditioning. If you're a man, your goal should be to achieve 18% or lower body fat and women should strive for 31% or lower body fat.
The type of training that works best with HIIT are as follows:
• Cycling
• Boxing (hitting heavy bag)
• Jog/Run
• Elliptical/StairMaster
• Treadmill
• Fast Pace Walk
Combine HIIT training with a good diet plan and you have the formula to a powerful fat burning machine that will get you to your weight loss goal. Eat 5 to 6 small meals per day and restrict your calorie intake to no more than 1500 for women and 2000 daily calories for men.
