Mix cardio and strength training to lose weight. Photo / Thinkstock
The best ways to drop weight before summer are to tighten your diet and exercise plans, writes Susan Edmunds.
If you are trying to get into a new bikini in time for summer, there are ways to tailor your workout to increase weight loss.
Personal trainer Terrence Robertson, of Iron Evolution, stresses that when it comes to fat burning, 70 per cent of success can be put down to
improving your eating habits. Cut carbohydrates and load up on clean, unprocessed foods and lean animal protein.
To make up the exercise side of the slimming-down equation, opt for workouts that combine strength training with cardio exercise. This will get your blood pumping - and give your metabolism a kick-start to burn more calories.
If you really want to ramp up the number of calories your body is burning, strength training is the way to do it. It increases lean muscle mass, which burns calories even when you are not doing anything.
He recommends cutting down on the amount of rest you get while doing strength training. For example, set up a circuit where, instead of taking a break after doing bicep curls, you immediately go into squats to work out your legs, then a different exercise for your triceps.
"For fat loss, I recommend alternating supersets [sets of weight-training exercises performed back-to-back without a rest] or a circuit that uses compound exercises [exercises that use more than one muscle group at a time]. Supersets and circuit training require a lot of work with little rest. This means burning a lot of calories in a short period of time."
Interval training is another way to fire up fat burning. If you are going for a run, run as fast as you can for a minute, then jog for two minutes. A workout that varies in intensity burns more calories.
He recommends people working out for weight loss not do anything for too long. "Sessions should be 45 minutes, max. Anything more than that and you're burning muscle." Aim for moderate exercise daily and look to lose weight slowly. About a kilogram a week is the fastest most people should lose weight.
But, Robertson says, if you are going to the effort of working out anyway, you should get a programme that offers more than just weight loss. "If you're exercising, you might as well address core strength, mobility and flexibility issues."
The most important thing is to keep going.
"Even a perfect programme and the ideal diet will fail to produce any kind of result if it is only followed for four days. I would rather see someone train for 15 minutes twice a week for a year than start a one-hour programme, five days a week, but stop after three weeks."
