5 Unexpected Ways To Burn Fat

While reading a fat loss article in a well regarded health mag over the weekend, I thought about how boring and repetitive health and fat loss articles have become. So on this Motivation Monday, I wanted to bring you something a little different. Read on for 5 slightly unexpected ways to blast through fat! 

1 - ‘Enrich’ Your Life. Seriously!

Decrease abdominal fat by up to 50% by simply ‘enriching’ your life with more social interaction, more community engagement, challenging work situations and team/group activities. 

Yep, you read that right! This study suggests that positive stressors such as lots of daily momentum and activity, complexity of circumstance (i.e. that challenging but really exciting work project you’re about to tackle) and social stimulation can actually help your body convert energy-storing white fat to energy-burning brown fat. And exercising while in a group or team can boost these results again! So you get skinnier AND happier, all at once. Alright!

2 - Focus on eating micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), not macronutrients (proteins, carbs, fats, etc) first.

Switch your focus from carbs, calories and proteins and obsessing about what foods make you ‘fat’ or ‘skinny’ to concentrating on eating for optimum health and wellbeing by getting most of your energy from nutrient dense foods like vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds. By providing your body with all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients it needs to operate effectively, your body will be a happy camper and will burn fat optimally. This isn’t to say you have to turn vegan, in fact lean proteins, healthful carbs and good fats are super important in your diet BUT by focusing on eating the nutrient-dense stuff first, your body will be satisfied from a health perspective, reducing cravings and hunger. Fat loss becomes easier and your immunity will get a big boost too! Can’t fit all your fruit and veggies in? Hit up a wholefood supplement like this one.

3 - Stop relying on cruisy long runs (or worse, walks!) for fat loss.

Yep, running’s great and we love nothing more than a good ol’ walk but here’s why these things won’t keep you lean in the long term (unless you are doing a seriously serious amount of them, or pushing yourself hard!). 

Let’s tackle walking first – yep, walking is an awesome start to your exercise program if you’re sedentary, or very overweight but these days, our lifestyles are so centred around sitting still that a 30-60 minute walk is really just making up for all that time spent on your butt – it’s not going to help you burn serious fat. And running, well it’s one of our favourite activities for sure and will help you shed kilos initially but unfortunately, after about six weeks you’ll probably plateau. 

So what to do!? Work with intensity! Whatever that means for you… it could be that on your runs, you sprint as hard as you can every second minute. It may be that you use hills and stairs to get your heart rate skyrocketing in the middle of your session. And regardless of who you are, it had better mean some good quality resistance sessions! Make it functional, use your own bodyweight, or hit the gym – whatever you do, make sure no muscle is forgotten! Hit the workouts section of Bondi BUF for ideas, join a local workout group, or simply google ‘interval training’ and you’re good to go.

4 - Eat Probiotic Foods.

Your digestive system is home to trillions of microbes – some that help fat loss (the good guys) and others that inhibit it by causing stagnation and bloating (duh, the bad guys). 

Bottom line – you need more of the good guys to crowd out the nasty, fat-storing kind! Either take a good probiotic supplement, or find your gut flora heroes in fermented foods like plain organic yoghurt, kefir, kimchi, kombucha, miso and sauerkraut.

5 - Stop eating bread every day!

Nope, we don’t think bread is ‘evil’ and yep, we know it has a few health benefits but seriously, eating the stuff for brekky and lunch almost every day of the week is a sure-fire way to add a lot of empty calories, sugar and salt to your diet.

Treat bread as a ‘sometimes’ food, along with other calorie-dense and gluten-packed carbs like pasta, packaged cereals, muffins and sweetened muesli (no, 20g of sugar per 100g is NOT ok – that’s more than you’ll find in half a block of Lindt dark chocolate and you’re eating it for BREAKFAST, oh dear...) and you’ll find the weight begins to creep off, rather than on. Treat brekky as you would any other meal of the day -  at least 4-5 times per week, reach for protein, veggies and good fats.

Over-and-Out peeps!