How to lose fat by burning more calories in your sleep

Losing fat is without doubt the most common goal I hear as a personal trainer and although you may here about some amazing new weight loss training program keep in mind that what most people want is FAT loss not weight loss. What's the difference and why does it matter as long as you are lighter on the scales? There is a very big difference and if you want to keep the fat off it is very important to make sure you understand what the difference is.
Weight loss can come from three main sources ; fat, muscle and water. Unfortunately losing water and muscle is relatively easy. Simply dont drink or eat and hey presto you weigh less. The problem with this you cant go around in a permanent state of dehydration and expect your body to function properly and if you lose muscle you lower your metabolic rate ( your metabolism is closely related to the amount of muscle you have). If you lower your metabolic rate then you reduce the amount of calories you need each day.

In fact any time you drastically reduce your calorie content your body says to itself " we haven't got many calories coming in so lets keep our fat stores because they are a good source of energy and lets burn up our muscles to make up for the lack of calories coming in". Clearly this isn't a good option.

It gets worse though. If you stay on a very strict calorie controlled diet for a while your body keeps buring muscle until the amount of calories you need match the amount of calories you are consuming ( as you lose muscle your metabolic rate drops and youn eed less calories). As no-one can survive or maintain such a diet long term eventually you start eating more. Now you are eating more than your body requires so you weight goes back up faster than it went off in the first place. Obviously this is not a good long term fat loss plan.

The other factor to consider is we lose muscle at the rate of around 0.5% per year over the age of 30. So our metabolism is slowing anyway.

Fortunately there is a way to combat this. What you need to do is some form of exercise that stops muscle loss from age and increases your metabolic rate so your body burns more calories even when your asleep.

Many people think that cardiovascular training is the best form of exercise for fat loss. Unfortunately this is not true. Whilst it does burn calories and will help to lose weight it's not the most effective and is very time consuming.

Every good fat loss training program should include weight training and interval training. Both these forms of training will boost your metabolism from 12 to up to 48 hours after your workout as your body repairs the damage you did during your workout.Yes I did say damage. Training causes small micro tears in the muscle which the body spends energy to repair and make stronger than before.

Don't panic, weight training will not necessarily make you bigger. There are many ways to perform weight training and the body will react differently depending on the weights ,repetitions and recovery time between sets. Choosing the right repetition range and recovery period will ensure that the body doesn't bulk up. Contrary to popular opinion it is quite difficult to "bulk" up. If it was easy there wouldn't be any demand for steriods.

Females have even less of a worry about putting on muscle as a womans testosterone level is significantly lower than a males.

Weight training is also very good for maintaining bone density and decreasing your risk of lifestly diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Interval training is cardiovascular training but done at very high intesnity for short bursts. The benefit of this type of training is that because of the intensity it causes chemical changes in the muscles which takes energy to restore to normal levels so once again your metabolism is raised after the workout.

So how do you lose fat and burn more calories in your sleep? Interval training and weight training will cause damage in the muscles that needs to be repaired. Our body goes into repair mode when we sleep!

So if your not already doing some weight training and interval training and you want to lose fat then the sooner you start the sooner you will be on your way to the body you've always wanted.