How to Lose Excess Fat Fast

Whether you want to slim down for an event or just want to lose weight for yourself, shedding excess fat takes discipline and willpower --- especially when you're on a self-imposed deadline. Fortunately, a positive attitude and expert advice can help. While diet and exercise are no-brainers, other little-known techniques --- such as making sure you get enough sleep --- can also help you burn fat fast.

Instructions

• 1

  Replace foods that are high in fat with healthy, low-fat foods, such as fruits and vegetables, especially if you aren't eating three servings of each every day. Consider the "DASH" eating plan, which stands for "Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension." It includes lots of whole grains, fish, poultry, fruits, vegetables and nuts and limits sweets, fats and red meats. It helped participants lose weight in a Kaiser Permanente study led by researcher Jack Hollis, Ph.D., and published in the August 2008 issue of the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine."

• 2

  Drink green tea for an extra metabolism boost. It contains catechins, a type of antioxidant that helps burn up to 70 additional calories a day.

• 3

  Keep a daily food and exercise log. According to Hollis's study in the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine," patients who kept a food log lost twice as much weight as those who didn't during a six-month period.

• 4

  Eat a protein bar 90 minutes before you begin a workout. In Genevieve Monsma's "Marie Claire" article "7 Ways to Burn Fat Faster," "Hot Point Fitness" author Steve Zim states that this will give you extra energy to work out longer and more intensely, which means you'll burn more calories.

• 5

  Target your problem body areas with strength training at the beginning of your workout. For instance, if you're worried about excess belly fat, do crunches and the plank exercise to work your abdominal muscles. Although you can't lose fat on just one part of your body, you can tone certain areas for a tighter, slimmer appearance.

• 6

  Save cardio for the last part of your workout, as New York's Lift Gym owner Ken Fitzgerald recommends in "Marie Claire." Since it takes your body 15 minutes to start actively burning fat, starting with strength training gives your body a chance to warm up. That means by the time you hit cardio, every minute will count toward your weight loss goal.

• 7

  Change your routine frequently to give your body a new challenge and avoid boredom, which can lead you to work out for shorter periods of time and sabotage your weight loss. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service lists jogging, bicycling at over 10 miles an hour, swimming, aerobics and brisk walking as the top calorie-burning exercises in its "Calorie Burner Chart."

• 8

  Do short bursts of high-intensity exercise when you start to fade, instead of just quitting. If you have an off day where you can't get your energy up for a high-intensity workout --- or if you're just beginning your routine and need to build up your stamina --- interval training can help. Short periods of high-intensity exercise mixed with longer periods of low-intensity exercise is better than a full low-intensity workout without any challenges.

• 9

  Sleep eight hours every night. In his "Good Housekeeping" article "Lose Weight Faster," personal trainer Jim Karas writes that more sleep cuts down on late-night snacking and keeps metabolism from slowing down.