When I first began my fitness program I made some amazing progress with the workouts and diets that I established and it helped me because they were healthy ways to lose weight fast without resorting to pills and medicines. However, eventually the workouts weren’t helping me out anymore for some reason and I stopped gaining muscle. I decided to push more effort into my workouts until I would get the results I want. Unfortunately, my routine wasn’t helping me anymore.  I needed to find expert advice.

After a good discussion with a health and exercise expert, I learned about what is known as the plateau effect. He told me that the human body sees exercise as a hazard to its wellbeing and that losing weight was its trigger for physical harm, so it will start regulating and once it recognizes the same pattern of the same exercise routine over and over again, it will adapt and prevent the loss of fat. Doubling your workouts, will not necessarily double your body’s metabolism of calories.

He also taught me some of the most effective steps and methods to prevent encountering the plateau again, and that is by what is explained as muscle confusion, or the process of keeping your body guessing.

How to Mix Up your Weight Training:

1.       Increase weight by 5 or 10 pounds

To continue building muscle and burning fat, progressively add more weight and more reps to your workout when you are acclimatizing to the impact of the usual routine. This way, you can prevent encountering the plateau but also get a more significant workout.

2.       Increase from lifting 3 days a week to 4-5 days a week.

Spend my days of the week doing workouts and focus on specific muscle groups each day.  More repetitions for these specific muscle groups will help regularly tone and develop them.

3.       Go back and forth between training programs

Use training workout programs like P90X, Insanity, CrossFit which apply alternating to various workout programs every week, since these programs are established by trainers who know how to apply muscle confusion in a program, and know how to focus on different muscle groups per workout. If you can’t afford the trip to the gym, practice other different types of workouts such as running, stair stepper, treadmill, recumbent bike, rowing, elliptical, etc on different days.

4.       Go from 3 days a week to 4-6 days a week

It is recommended to exercise twice a day in the morning and night for at least an hour since the 10-15 minute workout will be spent metabolizing glycogen first then your fat reserves later. This helps especially during the morning when you have low glycogen levels and your body has to pull fat faster from your reserves.

If you include these exercises with some of the best diet to lose weight fast, then helpful methods should help you formulate some of the best ways to lose weight fast. But you must be consistent and disciplined, and must have self motivation in order to lose weight fast so if you want to shave pounds effectively, you need to stick to your fitness and weight loss plan constantly so as to see promising results.

When I decided that I need to lose weight fast and started exercising and establishing my fitness training regimens, I made a great deal of progress initially but never had I thought that something was wrong with my program. It wasn’t until I realized that I was not getting the results I wanted, did it hit me.

No matter how much effort I put in, even as much as finding the best diet to lose weight fast, I still wasn’t getting satisfactory results. All the exercises that I had done previously just weren’t measuring up anymore and I didn’t understand why.

Then I was introduced by a fellow exercise buff of mine, what is known as plateau effect. It was the law that states, the impact of any fitness program will wear off when you establish a pattern for more than a month.

There is a defense mechanism your body enacts to prevent from the loss of fat, an alert to your body as physical danger and sees exercise as the potential hazard.

The key to solving plateau effect is by keeping your body guessing is referred to as muscle confusion or the alterations in intensity or the type of exercise to keep getting impressive results.

How to Mix Up your Weight Training:

1.       Increase weight or reps

Adding weights not only can add to your strength, but it also rapidly builds muscle mass. Increasing muscle mass requires that your body has to burn fat that much faster to maintain it.  Incidentally, more reps also build up more muscle mass causing more fat loss.

2.       Take smaller breaks between sets by 30 seconds.

Take smaller breaks to increase your heart rate. By doing so, you also increase the oxygen demand, and the more oxygen you require, the more calories you burn.

3.       Go back and forth between training programs

Use different training programs and different types of exercises such as running, stair stepper, treadmill, recumbent bike, rowing, elliptical, etc. Not only will this help with muscle confusion, but different muscle groups depending on the type of workouts, are also developed.

How to Mix Up Your Cardio:

4.       Add 10-15 minutes to your cardio

Since the first 10-15 minutes of cardio is spent burning glycogen storage, add more minutes to your cardio in order to burn your reserves of body fat.

5.       HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)

HIIT training means 30-120 seconds of your workout should focus on high intensity exercises followed by 60-120 second periods of low to moderate exercises. Doing so burns a great deal of calories because of the sudden energy demand.

6.       Go from 3 days a week to 4-6 days a week

In the mornings, start your day right with a good Cardio workout. Since your body has low glycogen levels pre-breakfast, your body uses its fat reserves instead and will stimulate metabolism.

These options should serve as a huge in helping you to lose weight fast, but remember that the best ways to lose weight fast requires perseverance and consistency. Evaluate yourself regularly, so you know what is effective and what needs readjusting. Be consistent with your exercise, stick to healthy ways to lose weight fast which does not involve the use of medications.

I wish you monumental success in your endeavors.