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Exercise is one of the main pillars of healthy weight loss and there are a wide range of options you can try out to find which fits your lifestyle the best. Whether you’re short on time or love going on long runs to explore the terrain of your neighborhood, rest assured there’s a workout style out there that fits your interests and makes exercise fun.
If you’re aiming to lose weight, there are some options which are naturally going to help you reach those goals faster, boosting your metabolism and burning more calories than a short walk or a light yoga session. As you work to create a healthier lifestyle and integrate positive habits into your daily routine, this is one of the best exercise hacks to try out for enhanced fat burn which will help you to feel your best in your body.
You’ve likely heard of HIIT, or high intensity interval training, as a great method for boosting fat burn and improving your metabolism. Along the same vein, Tabata is another great workout that combines a similar ideology of short work periods with even shorter periods of rest to maximize your energy usage in a short and effective workout. “Tabata is a fat-crushing workout that consists of 20 seconds of high-intensity interval training, followed by 10 seconds of rest, all of which is repeated 8 times,” explains NSCA Certified Personal Trainer, John Fawkes. You can make your Tabata workout as long or short as you would like, but as with HIIT it’s not advised to exceed 30 minutes so you don’t burn yourself out.
Just as HIIT is effective in enhancing your metabolism and allowing for fat burn to continue long after your workout, Tabata holds many of the same benefits in a short and effective workout. “This evidence-based exercise leads to weight loss because it boosts metabolism and heart rate--and in an incredibly short amount of time at that. What's more, Tabata has been shown to bolster maximum oxygen intake by 15%, helps the body burn calories post-exercise, lowers blood pressure, and functions as a full-body workout,” explains Fawkes.
Not only is Tabata a quick and effective workout, but it also only requires a few sessions a week for noticeable weight loss results. “Recent research released in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that performing Tabata three times a week (provided you do it for at least twelve weeks) was the most effective in impacting health,” says Fawkes. There’s no reason to spend hours training each day to reach your body goals when you can sprinkle several more intense workouts throughout your week for even better results.
Fitting exercise into your daily life doesn’t have to take up hours of your time and become something that you dread. Finding a faster and more efficient way to workout, like Tabata or HIIT, can help you make the most of your time in the gym while warranting big results, in tandem with a healthy diet. If your go-to excuse for avoiding fitness is that you don’t have the time, try following a Tabata class on YouTube just three times a week to ease into your new healthy routine without feeling overwhelmed by the time commitment.
