How to create your own fat loss exercise plan

A number of you guys really appreciated the last ‘How to’ post…here comes another one :-). The best way to lose fat and keep it off is to have a good diet and exercise regularly. The last post mentioned ‘how to create your own fat loss diet plan’ and today I will discuss ‘how to create your own fat loss exercise plan’.

The first step is to establish when you can workout. Some say that the best time to workout is in the morning before breakfast when glycogen stores are very low. Others say that you should try to workout in the evening as you don’t have enough energy in the morning and you will burn what you have eaten throughout the day. Which one is better? Answer to this is – It doesn’t matter. Do what suits you best. Both have their benefits and working out is more important thing than the time.

Match time with diet plan: We have discussed what your diet should be like, so you need to match the timings with your diet. At the same time, you need to see what is possible for YOU to do. What I mean to say is that if you workout in the morning, your breakfast need to be different to when you workout in the evening.

Identify equipment: You may have some exercise equipment at home, you may be a gym goer (or thinking of joining a gym) or you may simple want to use your own body to do the workouts. Regardless of what you choose, you need to identify which one suits you best. You can work each and every body part with absolutely no equipment, so you don't have any equipment excuse.

Identify strength trainings: As a beginner, all you need to concentrate on is 4 major muscle groups. These are the chest, shoulders, back and thighs (or the entire lower body). Don’t break up your workout, do full body every time you do strength training. Look for compound exercises for these muscle groups. If you have some kind of exercise equipment, try and see how you can use that to work these muscles. Make sure that all are compound movements and not isolation. Compound movements use more than 1 muscle group. It can be 1 major muscle and 2 or 3 minor muscles or can be 2 major muscle groups. The key point here is that – the more muscle movement, the more the calorie burn. Try and make a plan where you completely exhaust these muscle groups. Start off with one exercise per muscle group then introduce supper sets, then alternate between upper body lower body. Whatever you think will exhaust these muscles. Exhausting is very important for EPOC (I will discuss EPOC in a later post). Don't do strength training everyday. I suggest doing it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you want to lose fat from your stomach, thighs or butt, don’t just do crunches or donkey kicks. Spot reduction is one of the biggest myths of the fitness industry. You need to do full body workouts.

Identify cardio: Do any cardio you like. It can be jumping jacks, cycling, walking etc. - whatever you like. However, you need to do it in an HIIT and varying format. During the beginning stages, do the HIIT training on days when you are not doing strength training. Once you think you are fit enough, do HIIT right after your strength workouts. This will burn calories like you cannot even imagine. On the other days i.e. the non-strength/HIIT days, do any kind of cardio for about 20 – 30 minutes, but keep changing your speed every minute or so. Go very fast, then very slow, then medium. Basically, mix it up a bit.

Resting days: I usually take Sundays off. It is very important to take ATLEAST one day off from working out. Too much of anything is bad for you. Take a day's rest and be sureto cheat as well :-). Good, isn’t it.

Write down your plan and see how best you can follow it. Shoot me with any questions you have and I will try my level best to help you out.