Fat burners can be an effective weight-loss aid when used properly. The first step is learning to avoid these 5 potential pitfalls.
by Shannon Clark Apr 28, 2011
You've heard of fat burners, the pills that can make fat melt off your body like ice cream from a kid's cone, right? Not exactly. Fat burners are supplements. They're designed with ingredients that can really give you an extra boost to help burn fat. But they can't replace a solid diet and exercise plan.
Think of fat burners like a scope on a sniper rifle, only you're trying to shrink fat cells. Diet is the gun, the heavy artillery; exercise is the firepower; and fat burners may help you aim a bit better and kill fat more efficiently. But fat burners don't work to their best effect when they're used improperly. Usually, it's because people don't take into account the following five basic concepts for using a fat burner efficiently to lose weight. If you follow, the next fat burner you invest in may help you trim the fat and reveal that body you've been working hard to build.
1. Diet Is 80 Percent Of The Weight-Loss Battle
One of the biggest mistakes that many people make is thinking they can just take a fat-loss support supplement and weight-loss results will be theirs. They think the fat burner is the miracle solution they've been looking for. But sticking to a calorie restricted diet is 80 percent of your battle. If you can do it and stay consistent with it, then you've done 80 percent of the work. The rest is exercise, time, and you can get extra help from supplementation.
Fat burners can help enhance fat loss, but they're only going to do so if a proper diet is in place. Fat burners work in a variety of ways. They can boost energy, help curb appetite, promote fat to be used for energy, and even increase your metabolism and core temperature so you burn more calories throughout the day. But, if you take a fat burner and then feast on burgers, pizza, and bagels, you won't be seeing fat loss any time soon.
Take a hard look at your diet and determine if it fits your fat loss goal. To lose fat and reveal a toned physique you'll need to be eating slightly fewer calories than your maintenance level, getting lots of protein, and maintaining other clean and healthy eating habits with slow-digesting carbs, healthy fats, and lots of fresh vegetables. When you feel confident about your diet and in control of your nutrition environment you can start to explore fat support supplementation.
Fat burners can help enhance fat loss, but only if a proper diet is in place.
2. Stay realistic with your expectations.
Some people believe if they're using a fat burner, they should be able to melt pounds of fat off each week. Not gonna happen.
While your rate of fat loss can be enhanced, you won't be dropping 10 pounds in a week simply because you're using the supplement. Remember: A safe rate of fat loss is 1-to-3 pounds per week for average, healthy individuals. You can push this rate up to 4 pounds per week, but it's not sustainable. Eventually, your body will hit a plateau and fat loss will slow.
If you're dropping weight too quickly, on a fat burner or not, you could be losing lean muscle mass. And unless you want to look like shapeless coat hanger instead of a toned, fitness model or bodybuilder, you should rethink your fat-loss plan.
Write down your expectations for your weight from week-to-week and month-to-month. When you meet those small goals overtime, you'll stay more motivated and see great results from your program. With the help of a fat burner, your fat loss will stay on track.
3. More Is NOT Better
Fat burners are designed specifically to give you the proper doses of various ingredients to support fat loss. But that doesn't mean that the more of the ingredients you take, the more results you'll see. Supplement manufacturers state the serving guidelines and directions so you can have a way of measuring what dose works best for you.
It's always best to start with the lowest dose listed on the package and stay at that dose for at least two weeks. After that, you can determine if you want to bump up the dose to the higher end of the spectrum if it's listed on the packaging. If the product lists only one serving size, you should stick with it.
4. Overdoing Caffeine Will Wear You Out
If you can't start your day without a cup of coffee and you drink another 3-or-4 throughout your day, be careful about choosing a stimulant fat burner. Most fat burners, unless directly specified, contain caffeine or a caffeine-like substance, a stimulant. If you want to take a stimulant fat burner, watch your total intake of caffeine over the course of the day.
While you will definitely love the energizing benefits you'd get from such a high caffeine intake, if you're mixing fat burners with multiple cups of coffee or any other caffeine-containing beverage, you could really burn out quickly. You could experience fatigue easier and have a harder time recovering from workouts. In the end, that equals slower results.
So while you may think that combining coffee and fat burners will only help you see results faster, you'll end up killing the positive effects of a fat burner by over-stimulating your body. Either switch to decaf coffee while using the fat burners, or at the very least, use decaf around the same time when you take the fat burner. That way you won't get a huge caffeine overdose in a short period of time. Before you even get started on your fat burner, make sure to shop around a bit and find the one that best matches your needs and preferences. There are a number of different products available to use, so it's important that you don't just jump on the first one without looking at the differences among them all.
Mixing fat burners with high levels of caffeine may burn you out quickly.
5. Results Need To Be Measured
Once you pick out the fat burner you're going to use, give it 2-to-3 weeks before assessing progress. But you absolutely must assess your progress. Whether you take progress photos, body-part measurements, body-fat measurements, or just your weight on a scale, you won't know if a product is helping you see results if you don't know your starting point.
Certain people react better to certain ingredients in fat burners, so what works best for one person may not necessarily work best for another. After several weeks, if you find that you aren't seeing the results you had hoped for, consider using a different product instead. By keeping a close eye on your progress overtime, compare products so you can find one that's ideal for you.
To tie it all together, if you stick to a fat-loss diet and exercise plan, write out your fat loss expectations (remember to be realistic!), take a fat burner according to directions, don't overdo the stimulants, and measure your progress-you'll find that supplements to support fat loss can keep their promises. That isn't to say that every product on the market is exactly the same quality. It takes some research and shopping around to decide on a fat burner. But keep these five basic tenets in mind, and you'll be standing as the victor on the fat-loss battlefield. And looking good doing it!
References:
BodyBuilding.com - Original Article: 5 Truths About Fat Burners
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/5-truths-about-fat-burners.html
by Shannon Clark Apr 28, 2011
You've heard of fat burners, the pills that can make fat melt off your body like ice cream from a kid's cone, right? Not exactly. Fat burners are supplements. They're designed with ingredients that can really give you an extra boost to help burn fat. But they can't replace a solid diet and exercise plan.
Think of fat burners like a scope on a sniper rifle, only you're trying to shrink fat cells. Diet is the gun, the heavy artillery; exercise is the firepower; and fat burners may help you aim a bit better and kill fat more efficiently. But fat burners don't work to their best effect when they're used improperly. Usually, it's because people don't take into account the following five basic concepts for using a fat burner efficiently to lose weight. If you follow, the next fat burner you invest in may help you trim the fat and reveal that body you've been working hard to build.
1. Diet Is 80 Percent Of The Weight-Loss Battle
One of the biggest mistakes that many people make is thinking they can just take a fat-loss support supplement and weight-loss results will be theirs. They think the fat burner is the miracle solution they've been looking for. But sticking to a calorie restricted diet is 80 percent of your battle. If you can do it and stay consistent with it, then you've done 80 percent of the work. The rest is exercise, time, and you can get extra help from supplementation.
Fat burners can help enhance fat loss, but they're only going to do so if a proper diet is in place. Fat burners work in a variety of ways. They can boost energy, help curb appetite, promote fat to be used for energy, and even increase your metabolism and core temperature so you burn more calories throughout the day. But, if you take a fat burner and then feast on burgers, pizza, and bagels, you won't be seeing fat loss any time soon.
Take a hard look at your diet and determine if it fits your fat loss goal. To lose fat and reveal a toned physique you'll need to be eating slightly fewer calories than your maintenance level, getting lots of protein, and maintaining other clean and healthy eating habits with slow-digesting carbs, healthy fats, and lots of fresh vegetables. When you feel confident about your diet and in control of your nutrition environment you can start to explore fat support supplementation.
Fat burners can help enhance fat loss, but only if a proper diet is in place.
2. Stay realistic with your expectations.
Some people believe if they're using a fat burner, they should be able to melt pounds of fat off each week. Not gonna happen.
While your rate of fat loss can be enhanced, you won't be dropping 10 pounds in a week simply because you're using the supplement. Remember: A safe rate of fat loss is 1-to-3 pounds per week for average, healthy individuals. You can push this rate up to 4 pounds per week, but it's not sustainable. Eventually, your body will hit a plateau and fat loss will slow.
If you're dropping weight too quickly, on a fat burner or not, you could be losing lean muscle mass. And unless you want to look like shapeless coat hanger instead of a toned, fitness model or bodybuilder, you should rethink your fat-loss plan.
Write down your expectations for your weight from week-to-week and month-to-month. When you meet those small goals overtime, you'll stay more motivated and see great results from your program. With the help of a fat burner, your fat loss will stay on track.
3. More Is NOT Better
Fat burners are designed specifically to give you the proper doses of various ingredients to support fat loss. But that doesn't mean that the more of the ingredients you take, the more results you'll see. Supplement manufacturers state the serving guidelines and directions so you can have a way of measuring what dose works best for you.
It's always best to start with the lowest dose listed on the package and stay at that dose for at least two weeks. After that, you can determine if you want to bump up the dose to the higher end of the spectrum if it's listed on the packaging. If the product lists only one serving size, you should stick with it.
4. Overdoing Caffeine Will Wear You Out
If you can't start your day without a cup of coffee and you drink another 3-or-4 throughout your day, be careful about choosing a stimulant fat burner. Most fat burners, unless directly specified, contain caffeine or a caffeine-like substance, a stimulant. If you want to take a stimulant fat burner, watch your total intake of caffeine over the course of the day.
While you will definitely love the energizing benefits you'd get from such a high caffeine intake, if you're mixing fat burners with multiple cups of coffee or any other caffeine-containing beverage, you could really burn out quickly. You could experience fatigue easier and have a harder time recovering from workouts. In the end, that equals slower results.
So while you may think that combining coffee and fat burners will only help you see results faster, you'll end up killing the positive effects of a fat burner by over-stimulating your body. Either switch to decaf coffee while using the fat burners, or at the very least, use decaf around the same time when you take the fat burner. That way you won't get a huge caffeine overdose in a short period of time. Before you even get started on your fat burner, make sure to shop around a bit and find the one that best matches your needs and preferences. There are a number of different products available to use, so it's important that you don't just jump on the first one without looking at the differences among them all.
Mixing fat burners with high levels of caffeine may burn you out quickly.
5. Results Need To Be Measured
Once you pick out the fat burner you're going to use, give it 2-to-3 weeks before assessing progress. But you absolutely must assess your progress. Whether you take progress photos, body-part measurements, body-fat measurements, or just your weight on a scale, you won't know if a product is helping you see results if you don't know your starting point.
Certain people react better to certain ingredients in fat burners, so what works best for one person may not necessarily work best for another. After several weeks, if you find that you aren't seeing the results you had hoped for, consider using a different product instead. By keeping a close eye on your progress overtime, compare products so you can find one that's ideal for you.
To tie it all together, if you stick to a fat-loss diet and exercise plan, write out your fat loss expectations (remember to be realistic!), take a fat burner according to directions, don't overdo the stimulants, and measure your progress-you'll find that supplements to support fat loss can keep their promises. That isn't to say that every product on the market is exactly the same quality. It takes some research and shopping around to decide on a fat burner. But keep these five basic tenets in mind, and you'll be standing as the victor on the fat-loss battlefield. And looking good doing it!
References:
BodyBuilding.com - Original Article: 5 Truths About Fat Burners
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/5-truths-about-fat-burners.html
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