5 Ways to Jack UP Your Fat Loss Program Results

Q: I’ve been on the same fat loss program for a while now and it’s not working. What should I do?

Answer:

Well, the answer’s easy. You can’t keep doing the same fat loss program (that isn’t working now) and suddenly expect it to magically start working again.

You have to change your program. That’s the first way to jack up your results from your workouts.

1) Change your workout program every 3-6 weeks.

The more advanced you are, the more often you can change your program. I personally change my program every 3-4 weeks. With beginners, I’ll use the same 3-day program for up to 6 weeks straight (with slight variations in the workouts to overcome montony).

Just don’t become one of those gym warriors who have been doing the same workout for going on 3 years straight. That’s a sure way to have the same body month in and month out.

If you want your body to change, your workouts have to change too.

Here are some more fat burning workout tips to make your fat burning routine harder, more effective, and even shorter.

2) Focus on burning carbohydrates in your program, not fat.

This is one of the secrets of Turbulence Training. By forgetting about the fat burning zone and focusing on short, burst high-intensity exercise, you will burn more carbohydrates during your workout.

Turbulence Training focuses on resistance training and interval training. Both of these use carbohydrate as the main source of energy. As a result, what you eat will go to replenish and repair your muscles.

I have no interest in you trying to train in your “target heart rate zone” for fat burning (aka – the fat burning zone).

If you want to get the most results in the least amount of time, focus on burning carbohydrates, not fat.

Click here for the hardcore “carb burning” TT workouts

3) Use supersets, tri-sets, or circuits to get your resistance training exercises done faster.

When I first started designing Turbulence Training workouts back in 1998-99, I was stuck on supersets, and my programs remained that way until 2006.

I didn’t think circuits were good enough, however, after conversations with Alwyn Cosgrove and Jay Ferruggia, I slowly, but surely, changed my mind and started experimenting with circuits again.

And now that not a day goes by that I don’t realize nutrition is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most important factor in fat loss, I’ve started finding more room for circuits in the TT programs.

Why?

Because they can help you get your workouts done even faster, and that, along with the fact that you, the TT readers, love circuit training, are two perfect reasons to put more circuits and tri-sets (and giant sets) into the TT programs.

I want you to get maximum results in minimum time while having fun, and circuits are doing that in a big way for you. The most popular TT circuit program is the May 2008 “Big 5 Circuit Workout”.

Click here for the Big 5 “no rest for the wicked” fat loss workouts

4) Shorter intervals

Again, remember the #1 rule of fat loss workouts I talked about the other day…and that is you can NOT out-train a bad diet. Your fat loss diet is the most important aspect of your weight loss program.

So knowing that, knowing our diet is the absolute key to fat loss, we can now focus on simply making our workouts shorter and cutting them back to the bare essentials.

And I’d say cutting back on interval training might be the best place to start.

Most of my interval training programs used to last 20 minutes, but it’s possible we might need only half (or even LESS than half of that) to get the maximum contribution of exercise to our fat burning success…and we just let diet do the rest.

(That’s how important diet is…that we can cut our short workouts in half again and probably get the same results!)

Look for more and more shorter Turbulence Training interval training workouts from me in the future.

5) Hybrid Exercise Training

Okay, let me say it again. Diet is more important than exercise for fat loss. And my goal is just to make short, fun, fast, effective workouts.

So how can I do that? By combining the resistance and interval training portions into one…that way I can get a 45 minute workout down to a 15-20 minute workout (as you’ll see in my upcoming TT Depletion Workouts – June, 2009).

Hybrid exercises include Kettlebell and Dumbbell Swings & Snatches, Clean & Presses, Burpees, and other methods such as Bodyweight Circuit Training.

A lot of those tips are about cutting workout time and letting your diet do all of the work. I’ll admit, that takes hard work with the diet, but on the other hand, there are lots of busy folks out there who will love the reduced training frequency and volume.

So the NEW perfect, low-stress fat loss lifestyle might look something like this:

– 2 TT Depletion Workouts per week

– 5 days of staying active & doing more leisure time activities than you have in years since starting the “I gotta go to the gym 6 days per week” lifestyle

– 1-2 days of fasting

– 5 days of regular eating (no calorie couting) focusing on a diet based on fruits, vegetables, and raw nuts, and an emphasis on including more variety in your diet than ever (trying new foods and using herbs and spices in your cooking to focus on quality, not quantity)

A radically different approach than the 10+ hours per week peddled by the fitness and bodybuilding community over the past decade.

Well, that article went off on a little bit of a tangent, but I think it was valuable. Those are 5 ways to jack up the results of your fat loss program and start moving to a low-stress way of losing fat.

But what about you?

What advice do YOU have for other folks stuck at a fat loss plateau? Post your comment below.

I’ll be back with more ways to lose belly fat with less workout time than ever before,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Click here to find out when the TT Depletion Workouts are ready!