What is the best way to shed fat and get in the best shape of your life? Strength and conditioning training. Why? Read on.

The Mayo Clinic tells us that “Your basal metabolic rate accounts for about 60 to 75 percent of the calories you burn every day.” Your basal metabolic rate, commonly referred to as your metabolism, is how much energy your body burns at rest. The remainder of your calories (25-40%) are used up by your daily physical activity (15-30%) and something called the thermic effect (10%).

Now, we know how to increase the expenditure of calories via the physical activity route. Move more, right? Boring but easy. What we don’t all know is how to affect that much bigger number, namely the metabolism and its 60-75% contribution to your daily calorie expenditure.

Long story short, what you need to understand is that the more lean mass (muscle, bone, etc.) your body holds, the more it costs in calories to exist all day every day regardless of your level of physical activity.

Now, a lot of people will say, “But I don’t want to look all muscley like those bodybuilders…” to which I reply, “You know how you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see? Is that muscle you're looking at?!?”

All of you that worry about getting too big, all I have to say is “good luck”. Most of you (myself included) don’t have the genetics to get to even “kind of big” let alone “too big”. Also important to keep in mind is that those bodybuilders you all see on TV are swimming in steroids so as long as you don’t rank in the top .5% of the best genetics in the world and eat steroids for breakfast, you should be fine.

Conclusion - want to lose fat? You have to use it to lose it. What uses fat? Your metabolism. How do you speed up your metabolism? Train for strength and conditioning and do so intensely. The result will be a leaner, tighter, stronger you with a metabolism that will eat up fat all day every day at an accelerated rate. Don’t know how to make that happen? We do. Call (813) 294-2836 or email us today.