People often have the misconception that in order to get rid of their fat they need to starve themselves. Starving yourself only leads to a slower metabolism and your body to holding on to its fat reserves in order to conserve it for later. What you really want to do is eat 5 balanced Low-GI meals a day to boost your metabolism and make your body burn fat. For example you should eat breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, and dinner. When you are eating 5 meals a day, your body expects food and thus does not see a reason to hold on to fat reserves. Also if you are eating Low-GI (Glycaemic Index) meals your blood sugar is balanced. A balanced blood sugar level means that you are fuller for longer and don’t have energy dips and spikes, which lead to you grabbing the wrong kinds of foods like chocolate, chips or white bread. Eating 5 meals a day and making sure your blood sugar is level, allows your body to use up fat restores when exercising, taking supplements or just living your daily routine. Foods to stay away from include sugar, sweets, chips, white bread, fatty meats, cakes, biscuits, and sweet fizzy drinks. Also avoid foods high in oil, made with cream or covered in pastry or cheese. Rather choose wholegrains, rye, lentils, beans, baby potatoes, lots of fruit and vegetables, lean meats and fish. Sticking to the right eating plan is essential for fat burning and you will not only shed the weight but you will also feel healthy and full of energy.

The body normally uses a mix of carbohydrates (as glucose) and fat as fuel. When you use more energy than you have ingested from food or drink, your body uses up its fat and glucose storage. The ratio at which you burn fat to glucose depends on the intensity and duration of exercise you are doing. Exercise is a great way to use up energy and allow your body to eat away at your fat reserves.

The Fat Burning Zone: You have seen it on some cardio machines suggesting when you go at a higher intensity or pace as you use up more energy, which burns more fat. The body burns a higher percentage of fat after 90 minutes of exercise, whether it be walking, dancing, cycling or doing cardio machines at the gym.

Don’t forget that exercising for fat burning and exercising for weight maintenance are two different things. Initially you will need to put in some extra effort, energy and time into your training to lose weight but once you have lost the weight you can take things a little easier.

Weight training uses the force of gravity (in the form of weighted bars, dumbbells and machines that target muscle groups to lift weights) and the fact that muscles are made to fight gravity by contracting and tightening and lifting the weights.

Cardio exercise is short for cardiovascular, which refers to the heart. Thus cardio exercise is exercise that raises your heart rate and keeps it up for the duration of the activity. Cardio exercise can also be called aerobic exercise. Cardio exercises include running, fast walking, swimming, squash, cycling and vigorous step, dance classes and the cardio machines at gym.

Muscle burns more kilojoules/calories than fat. Now we are talking lean toned muscle here, the kind you would see on Fergie, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Aniston. Weight training helps you to increase your lean muscle mass and tighten up your body, which means less of the flabby, wobbly stuff. With more lean muscle you will burn more energy even when your body is at rest, while cardio only burns when you are in action. This has been proven in metabolic studies.

Don’t get despondent if your weight goes up as muscle weighs more than fat. Measure centimeters rather and watch how you drop dress sizes and transform your body from flabby to fabulous.