How to Burn More Calories While Sitting Still

Put the fat-burners down.

Seriously, put them down, stop wasting your money.

The accepted, modern way of burning fat that you can see in every gym seems to be as much cardio as possible, with as little calories as possible, and all the most recent "fat burning supplements."

The supplements have a few things in common:

• They promise to help you lose fat by burning more calories through the day (calories in vs. calories out)
• They have unpronounceable, poor quality ingredients in random quantities
• They feel like they work because they include substances such as caffeine which increase makes your heart race faster (negligible increase in calories burnt)
• They are expensive. As. Hell.

So, with so many people wanting to lose weight and so many companies lying to these people... I will tell you the real way to burn more calories while sitting still.

Your resting metabolic rate is what dictates the amount of calories you burn while "resting." There are tonnes of factors which contribute to the amount this is, and the individual variance here is massive. But, some of the influences here are, weight, age, gender, health, and muscle mass.

So why does muscle mass increase metabolic rate?

Muscle is an expensive tissue for your body. It costs a lot of energy to build, and good amount to maintain—more than fat tissue. So for example, 5 lbs of fat on our body would use up less energy in an hour of doing nothing than 5 lbs of muscle.

Calories are energy, and so, it is clear here that muscle is advantageous for increasing metabolic rate. Since in modern times, we all spend a lot of time not really moving around, this is the best way to burn more calories without doing anything.

In the process of building muscle, you teach your body that calories are needed for rebuilding tissues, whereas vigorous cardio and starvation diets teach your body that energy is scarce, and should therefore be stored (as fat). This will not only lead to a higher metabolic rate, increased muscle mass, and reduced body fat, but will also change the composition of your body. You will notice a more shaped, athletic look sooner than you realise.

To Summarise

Weight loss supplements, mixed with hours of cardio and extreme low calorie diets are the absolute worse thing you can do for long term progress and weight loss. In the short term you may see great results, but keeping this going once your body adapts after a few weeks will be impossible while being healthy and happy at the same time.

Instead, invest your time into weight lifting and a varied, nutrient dense diet in order to build muscle and allow your body to prioritise energy on growth rather than fat storage for the next spurt of dieting.

Doing this will allow for long term, sustainable results which will change your outlook on life and fitness, while improving all other aspects too.

Please note that this guide is aimed at beginners. If you would like any further advice or information, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]