subject: Secret Weapon To Lower Your Body Fat Percentage [print this page] Are you looking to lower your body fat percentage? Well, I am going to tell you the best way to do this. But, first you are to be commended because most people want to spot reduce fat on parts of their body so their efforts are misguided and they fail. You have the right point of view and will be successful.
Hands down the best way to lower your body fat percentage is to lift weights. This might come as quite a surprise because people have been told that cardio exercises are the best. This is what I thought as well before I learned the truth.
Let us dissect the situation so that we understand better what we are trying to achieve. A single pound of fat takes 3,500 calories to burn. When you consider that the average person only burns 2,000 calories on an average day you begin to understand the difficulty of our task.
Running and other cardio exercises are good. However, even if you spend an hour on the treadmill you are only burning about 500 calories and so you still have 3,000 calories to go. Also, once you are done running the fat burning effects of the exercise are over.
This is where lifting weights comes in. When you lift weights you build muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat and the body has to work harder which causes you to burn more fat even when you are not working out. Now, if you do compound exercises such as the clean and jerk and others you will throw your body into a state of metabolic shock which causes you to burn even more calories for days after.
One of the best devices for doing compound exercises I have found is called a kettlebell (KB). This is a Russian device that looks like a cannonball with a handle on it. Because of its design it is ideal for swinging which brings an extra cardiovascular element to weight lifting that is usually absent. There are hundreds if not thousands of exercises that can be performed with a KB and there are more being made up every day.
Now, here is the kicker. Remember that it takes 3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat? And, remember that hour on the treadmill and you only lost 500 calories? Well, using a KB you can burn up to 20 calories a minute and lose up to 1% of body fat a week! That is how you will go about lowering your body fat percentage.
