5 Minutes to More Fat Loss!

by Kris Pitcher

That's right! Five minutes to MORE fat loss! Adding just 5 minutes to your current cardio workout will kick your program up a notch, and your fat loss up too. We don't want to add a lot of time right off the bat. Too much change too quickly - well that's a recipe for disaster.

A gradual increase will set you up for success. Here's how to do it. Adding 5 minutes every 2nd workout until you reach 45 minutes while keeping your speed and intensity the same. For instance, I'm doing 30 minutes 5 days each week. On Monday I do my 35 minutes. Tuesday I do 30. Wednesday I do 35...Thursday I do 30, and Friday I do 35. Monday rolls around and I do 35 each day of the week. Gradual increase. The next week, I add 5 more, and so on.

By adding 5 minutes, if I weight 140 pounds I am burning an additional 22 calories (assuming I'm walking 3.5 MPH). In a week that's an extra 550 calories. I'm pumping up the fat loss! Different activities have different calorie burn qualities and I looked up a few examples:

stationary rowing or cycling = 39
circuit training = 45
step aerobics = 56
rollerblading = 39
jump roping = 56
downhill skiing = 34

Activities of daily living count too. Just a few more minutes of an activity can add up - and I'll be honest, these make me laugh:

house cleaning = 20
chopping wood = 34 (because I'm chopping wood all the time)
marital e hem "relations" = 8 (everyone knows you need more than 5 minutes)
shoveling snow = 34
gardening = 25

Adding just 5 more minutes to your routine won't break the time bank. It might break the fat plateau though. Kick things up a notch and commit yourself to more fat loss. It's just 5 minutes!