Shape up Shortcuts: 8 Tricks to melt fat and tone muscle faster

We all want easier, quicker, faster ways to lose weight and for most of us, that means crash diets, heavy working out sessions at the gym, and a whole ton of weight loss pills, patches, creams, motions, potions, appetite suppressants and much more besides. What if we were to tell you that there was actually 8 tricks to melt fat and tone muscle faster and it didn’t involve cracking out your credit card for dodgy pills on the internet, or spending a small fortune on a personal trainer to make you hate your life when you get grabbed from your bed every morning to go for a run. Ladies… Read more to find out!

1. Eat more foods that are rich in fiber. Rather than focusing on what you should cut out of your diet to lose weight, you should pay more attention on the food groups that you should eating more. Fiber is just one of those food groups. Fruits are the best foods to eat for this, and as well as containing enough fiber to keep your insides working fast to flush out waste products, you will increasing the amounts of minerals and vitamins that your body needs in order to survive. Ideally you will want to look at fruits such as avocados, kiwis, papaya, oranges, apricots and strawberries.
2. Drink green tea. This helps to speed up your metabolism, if scientific studies are anything to go by, and green tea has actually shown benefits on body fat – antioxidants help to burn off the weight and the goodness will give you more energy to make you work out harder should you do decide to hit the gym.
3. Carry water with you everywhere you go. When you get hungry or fancy something to eat, drink ice cold water instead. The water will fill you up, making your tummy and your head think that you do not need to eat, and the ice cold water will need more calories burned within your body to enable it to be warmed up and passed through your system. Technically, by drinking more water, you are killing two birds with one stone.
4. Make your plate more colorful! The more colorful your meal, the healthier it is likely to be for you so start treating your plate like the blank canvas it should be and get creative! Think about all the foods with bright colors – peppers, tomatoes, spinach, peppers, etc. These are all foods that are very high in nutritional content and will be doing more good than a McDonalds ever will.
5. Speaking of McDonalds, the fastest way that you are going to melt fat is by cutting out fast food for a little while. This food is not exactly great for your body girls. In fact, you are putting basically empty calories in your body – there is no good nutritional content to be had for them.
6. Eat! One of the biggest mistakes people make when they want to melt fat and tone muscle faster is by starving their body and this has been shown in plenty of studies to be very bad for you AND your weight loss! Starving yourself causes your body to stockpile on the stuff it already has within it so losing any weight at this point is going to be practically impossible.
7. Give in to your urges. If you want a piece of chocolate cake, have a piece of chocolate cake. Who really cares? Just do a few minutes extra on the treadmill tomorrow. Denying yourself your favorite foods is just going to leave you craving it more so every now and again, give in and have yourself a very sweet treat.
8. Eat little and often. People are so focused on the three meals of the day – breakfast, dinner and tea, that they often forget that this is not exactly the best way to eat. You should be aiming to have 5 or 6 meals a day, smaller in size than the three you usually have, to set your blood sugar levels at a steady level and to ensure that your body is trained as to when the next batch of food will be coming. Try having a smaller breakfast at 7/8, a fruit snack plate at 10, lunch that consists of a healthy salad at around 12, a whole-wheat sandwich at 3, a smaller supper at 5 and then a light piece of fruit at 8. It sounds like you are eating a lot of food but we promise you, it will be good for you!