Fast-track your fat loss: every second counts in this hardcore program designed to help you lose 10 pounds in four weeks

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, April, 2003 by Jim Stoppani

Beach weather is right around the corner, which means it's nearly time to don that new bikini. You say you're putting off the day when you confine yourself to the tiniest of dressing rooms--the one with the bad lighting and fat mirrors--and expose your worst fears to your own hypercritical eye? Well, congratulations. Your procrastination has paid off big: This M & F HERS four-week workout program is designed to melt at least 10 pounds of fat from your winter physique. The bad news is that you may have to buy a whole new (read: smaller) summer wardrobe.

SUBTRACT the FAT

Burning fat is as easy as simple arithmetic. If you can add and subtract, then you're well on your way to mastering weight loss. There's no other way to lose bodyfat than to burn more calories than you take in. If you eat 1,800 calories of food each day, then you have to burn more than 1,800 calories each day to lose weight. The greater the difference between the amount of calories you burn and the amount you consume, the greater your weight loss.

You can create a daily calorie deficit in a number of ways. Any activity will burn calories, but the higher your intensity and the longer you do it, the more calories you'll incinerate. But don't just calculate the amount of calories burned from the actual time you spend working out. Exercise not only burns calories itself but also causes your body to burn calories for a while after each workout. Again, intensity and type of exercise are the biggest influences.

LIFT WEIGHT to LOSE WEIGHT

Think cardio is the only way to lose weight? Get this: Resistance training has an even bigger effect on calorie use post-workout than aerobic exercise. In fact, lifting weights can burn 20%-30% more calories (and a greater percentage of fat) for up to two days after your workout! (1,2) The added benefit of gaining muscle, a highly metabolic tissue, increases your basal metabolic rate--the amount of energy expended at rest before adding any type of activity--even more.

The trick is to train all your major muscle groups, keeping the intensity high and your rest periods to a minimum. The following workouts (see poster) are designed to do just that. They'll not only help you burn the maximum amount of calories during the workout but also keep burning calories when the workout is over. And the best news is that the majority of those calories will come from fat. (1,2)

LOSER'S manual

Be sure to cycle each workout into your routine. Experienced and intermediate lifters should do each of the three workouts once a week, allowing at least 48 hours of rest in between. Beginners should start with two workouts per week and slowly build up to three. And don't forget the cardio! For these four weeks, you'll do cardio twice a day, performing high-power intervals on the days you don't lift weights. Follow the cardio guidelines on the poster to keep the calorie-burn setting on high.

A word of caution before you begin: This is a temporary program. Because of the extreme intensity and volume of work involved, don't follow it longer than the time suggested or you'll run the risk of overtraining. Follow it for up to eight weeks at the maximum, then return to your own routine or pick up a new one from the pages of M & F HERS. Feel free to keep these workouts in your bag of tricks, but curb your frequency and intensity.

REFERENCES

1. McNeely, E. Unpublished data.

2. Schuenke, M. D., Mikat, R. P., McBride, J. M. Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management. European Journal of Applied Physiology 86:411-417, 2002.

BY JIM STOPPANI, PHD