NUTRITION
Most people know that lean cuts of meat, a variety of fresh fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes, small amounts of whole grains, and plenty of water are the basis for a healthy nutritional regime, and are conducive to burning fat effectively. The right mix of these food groups will be slightly different for each person. Monitor how you feel after eating certain foods and adjust your intakes accordingly.
Ensure you eat protein, low glycaemic (G.I.) carbohydrates, and a small amount of fat with every meal, to promote fat burning. Each of these macronutrients plays its own role in helping you to burn fat - for example, protein helps your muscles repair effectively, low G.I. carbohydrates provide your body with the vitamins and minerals it needs, and fat helps keep you fuller for longer so you don't get hungry between meals.
Protein sources include meat, seafood, tempeh and eggs. Low G.I. carbohydrates include green vegetables, some fruits, and legumes. Fats include olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds. Note that many foods contain more than one macronutrient - e.g. eggs have both protein and fat, and legumes have both protein and carbohydrates.
EXERCISE
There are three types of exercise I would recommend including into your week, to enhance your fat burning potential:
1. Resistance Training
2. Cardiovascular Training
3. Mind-Body Exercise
Resistance training assists with fat burning by helping us to build muscle. Muscle is a very metabolically hungry tissue that likes to burn calories, and having more of it means that we will burn more calories, even at rest. Resistance training could involve lifting free weights or machine weights, doing body weight exercises (e.g. squats, lunges, push ups and chin ups), or using a resistance band to do exercises.
Cardiovascular training is the 'huffy puffy' type of training that is great for the health of our heart and lungs. Once you have a good base level of fitness, you can incorporate intervals, or 'short bursts' of high intensity cardio into your regime to 'fire up the system' and enhance your fat burning potential. High intensity doesn't have to mean high impact. A high intensity burst could be cycling as fast as you can for 30 seconds followed by 1 minute 30 seconds of an easy, recovery pace.
Mind-body exercise is often under-rated in terms of fat burning, but in fact it has huge benefits in this area. Fat burning readily occurs when we are in a state of relaxation, and mind-body exercise can also help us recover faster and solidify the benefits of our more intense forms of exercise. In this category are relaxing forms of yoga, tai chi, Qi Gong, and general stretching.
SLEEP
We go through both physical and psychological repair phases while we sleep. Should we receive inadequate physical repair time, we may either choose not to exercise the following day because we don't have enough energy, or we may complete an exercise session at a less than optimal level, thus meaning decreased performance and fat burning results.
As well as requiring physical energy for an exercise session, we also require mental energy. Lacking this, we may decide our motivation is inadequate to attempt any form of exercise that day. Had we slept well and other factors in our life remained the same, we would have chosen to do the exercise session and received the calorie burning effect as well as numerous other benefits.
When we wake up feeling refreshed and energised after a great sleep we are more likely to make nutrition choices that support our goal of burning fat. It is easier to opt for something healthy if we have the energy to prepare it and if we are not craving a quick carbohydrate/fat/salt fix that might be the case after a poor night's sleep. Get in your 8 hours and reap the benefits for fat burning.
STRESS
As mentioned in the exercise section, our body burns fat when it is in a state of relaxation. Many people in modern society are in a constant state of stress and are hugely inhibiting their body's ability to burn fat. They are constantly producing cortisol - a stress hormone that is very good at storing fat, particularly belly fat.
This mechanism used to be important back in the days when we hunted for our food, our life may have been in danger (so a stress response was important for survival), and food was scarce. However, in modern times it is largely mental and emotional stress we are constantly putting ourselves under, and it is having an adverse effect on our fat burning ability - especially due to the high sugar, processed foods that many people choose to consume when stressed. So do your body a favour - do some deep breathing, take time out to relax, and decrease the amount of 'stuff' you have going on in your life!
These principles come from Elly's book 'The Natural Balance Guide to Burning Fat for Good'. Read the book to find out how your thoughts and relationships also affect your body's ability to burn fat. Find out more about Elly and Natural Balance Health and Fitness at http://www.naturalbalance.co.nz
Find out more about the book at http://www.burningfatforgood.com
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