You’ve been walking, running, and lifting for months, and your fitness tracker says you’ve been burning hundreds of calories every session. So why isn’t the weight coming off? The truth is, fitness trackers can overestimate calories burned by up to 50%.
The reason your weight loss has hit a plateau might be because you aren’t burning as many calories as you think and are eating back all the calories you’ve burned. The solution isn’t a restrictive diet. The answer is to change your exercise routine to boost your calorie burn.
With a few changes, you can swap out your usual workout for something far more effective, and you can finally start seeing the results you want.
Read on to learn how to double your calorie burn.
It’s All About Your Resting Metabolism
The key to burning calories even when sitting on the couch is your metabolism. The higher your basal metabolic rate, the more calories you’ll burn.
You might have heard that you can’t change your natural metabolism, but this is a misconception. Your metabolism is far more easily manipulated than you might think. There are a few things you can do to increase your metabolism, so you can burn calories even after your workout is finished.
Muscle Mass
Many people take to the treadmill or the stationary bike to burn fat. You can burn many calories on a cardio machine, but you won’t significantly affect your metabolism.
Recent studies have shown that the single most significant factor for your metabolism is muscle mass. Muscle mass matters far more than age, weight, and gender. By building more muscle, your body will burn more calories at rest to sustain the new mass.
Consider replacing a few cardio workouts with strength workouts, and you’ll notice the weight comes off more easily.
High-Intensity Workouts
When burning calories, repeated bursts of high-intensity exercise can be much more effective than sustained endurance workouts. HIIT, or high-intensity interval training, has been proven to burn up to 9 times more fat than traditional cardio.
The reason is, it puts your body through intervals of extreme stress followed by periods of rest. Overall, this ends up pushing your body harder than sustained cardio. And, after the workout, your metabolism is boosted for up to 24 hours.
And, if you’re interested in the performance aspect, studies have shown that two weeks of HIIT increases your aerobic capacity the same amount as eight weeks of endurance training. Not only will you be looking better, but you’ll be feeling better and performing better too.
If you’re unsure where to start regarding HIIT, there are tons of fun classes you can take, including boxing classes. Boxing classes can burn tons of calories, but you’ll be having so much fun it won’t feel like a chore.
Workout With a Group
One study found that people who work out with a partner or a group can increase their workout intensity by up to 200%. This is because working out with other people reduces your perceived effort.
Your perceived effort is how hard an exercise feels. When you’re running, and you hit a wall, and you’re sure you can’t go any further, it’s not because you’ve reached your physical limit. It’s because you’ve reached the limit of your perceived effort.
In other words, the exercise now feels too hard to complete. Working out with a friend or a group of other people reduces your perceived effort, which means you’ll be able to push harder than you would alone. You’ll find that you’ll hit that wall a lot later when you work out with a group.
So, if you’re looking for a way to take your fitness to the next level, look for a group class that will push you to your limit while surrounding you with an uplifting community.
Fasted Workouts
If you’re looking to make your exercise more challenging, consider doing your workouts in the morning before breakfast. Some studies suggest that fasted cardio can burn more subcutaneous fat than workouts performed on a full stomach. This is because your body will first burn any carbs in your system before burning fat.
So, if you eat breakfast, your body will try to burn your breakfast first before burning fat. However, it’s important to note that fasted cardio will make you even hungrier afterward. This results in many people eating back as many calories as they burned.
As long as you can balance your food intake with your calorie burn and still end up with a deficit, you’ll be losing weight.
Check Your Rest Times
If you spend an hour in the gym, but you’re resting up to five minutes between sets, you’re getting a lot less work in than you think. If you don’t already time your rest periods, it’s time to start. Try wearing a stopwatch or using your phone to ensure you’re not resting too much or getting lazy between sets.
You can also consider switching up body parts between sets. For instance, after a set of squats, do a set of pull-ups. This is a straightforward way to improve the efficacy of your gym time without increasing the amount of time you spend at the gym.
Take Your Calorie Burn to the Next Level
With these tips, you should have everything you need to take your calorie burn to the next level. You’ll be able to get a more effective workout, push yourself harder, and boost your basal metabolic rate, so you’ll be burning calories even after you leave the gym.
For the best results, stop in at Regymen Fitness. Our trainers are experienced and qualified, our classes are fun and exciting, and we can help you take your workout to the next level. Don’t just take our word for it; stop in for a free workout today!