Your body is a lean, mean, fat-burning machine just waiting to happen! All you need is the knowledge and determination, and your extra weight will be gone in no time. In fact, you don't necessarily have to make drastic changes. Try these 10 simple tweaks to your lifestyle, and you will see results.
1. Lift weights. Muscle is the key to a high metabolism. Gals, that doesn't mean you have to look like a female wrestler. Building lean, sleek muscles ups your calorie-burning. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) accounts for 60 to 70 percent of your daily calorie expenditure, and it's closely linked to the amount of muscle you have. Muscle burns more calories than fat? even while you sleep!
2. Get moving with your cardiovascular exercise. When you perform cardio, enzymes are produced that break down fat and enable the body to use it as an energy resource. The average person has 100,000 calories worth of fat stored on their body -- roughly enough to run for 200 hours. For fat to be burned as energy, oxygen needs to be produced. People with a high cardio capacity are able to burn fat very easily because their bodies are efficient at delivering oxygen to muscle cells.
"There's a fitness term called the 'after burn'," says eDiets Chief Fitness Pro, Raphael Calzadilla. "This refers to the calories that you burn 24 to 48 hours after your exercise session. What that means to you is a faster metabolism that burns fat at an accelerated rate."
3. Try interval training. Your body has an amazing ability to adjust to routine. If you don't change things up, you can get stuck in a rut. Try interval training -- bursts of high-intensity moves -- to boost metabolism. Studies show that people who do interval training twice a week, in addition to cardio, lose twice as much weight as those who do just a regular cardio workout. Just insert a 30-second sprint into your jog every five minutes or add a one-minute incline walk to your treadmill routine.
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