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Fitness Questions - Increase Your Calories To Lose Weight!

Fitness Question:
I am very serious about losing my weight, I have been exercising 2 a day
and on a 1,000 calorie diet a day. I want to know what kind of of exercises
will help me the most to lose the weight and build muscle tone, I need to
drop at least 20 pound before June and hopefully 35-40 can u give me some
insight on what to do exactly?

Fitness Answer:
The first thing you need to do is increase your calories! If you're truly eating only 1,000 calories/day, your body will most likely go into a "storage" mode. This is basically because the moment your body thinks its not getting enough food, it will horde all the calories and hold onto the fat since it thinks its going into starvation mode. Your body will also slow down your metabolism because it thinks a "fasting state" may be close and it will want to preserve as much energy as possible. This is done through holding tight onto the fat stores and not releasing them.

The key is to increase your calories with highly nutrient dense food to fuel your body! I would recommend not eating any less than 1,500 calories/day and make sure your protein levels are kept high. In terms of diet, I would focus on lean protein sources (chicken breast, turkey breast, egg whites) and lean fibrous carbs coming mostly from non-starchy vegetables (broccoli, mushrooms, yellow squash, green peppers, etc.) Try and limit all starchy carbs from your diet and limit fruit after 6pm, since it contains lots of simple sugars which will effect your insulin levels and hinder your weight loss.

In terms of exercising, limit the "2 a days" and stick with a highly intense 1 hour session 4-5 days/week. If you're training twice a day, you will eventually burn out and never want to go to the gym again. Hit it hard for an hour and get out of the gym. Your 1 hour workout should consist of 30 minutes of weight training and 30 minutes of high intensity cardio. For weight training, focus on one main body part per workout and try to take every set to positive failure to really tax the muscle and make it grow. In terms of cardio, burn some major calories with high intensity interval training and focus on exercises such as jumping rope and the treadmill. More info on specific exercises to use can be found here:

Weight Training Exercises

Cardio Exercises

High Intensity Cardio

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