Tone Your Frame and Energize Your Life With Slimming Exercises

To get results fast, it will require some intensity, but the good news is that these workouts will get you strong and energized and at the same time they will blast the fat revealing lean muscles you didn’t know you had.

Shedding Pounds through an Active Lifestyle

You want to look thinner, but you shouldn’t plan to target just the thighs or the butt or the abs in some kind of “spot reduction” approach. The right approach means losing weight everywhere, all over your body, even in areas you didn’t think of. Slimming exercises will make your shirt fit more comfortably without that tight pull at the shoulders, and will slim the butt and thighs allowing your skirt or pants to fit more sharply. Even your puffy face and double chins will show the effects of slimming workouts.

What Types of Exercises to Do

The workouts most often associated with losing weight are aerobic. Cycling, swimming, and running are examples of aerobic (meaning “with oxygen”) exercises which elevate your pulse rate during the activity. In order to be effective, the activity needs to fulfill three criteria to be considered a calorie-burning aerobic workout: frequency (how regularly you exercise), intensity (how hard you exercise in the target heart rate zone), and duration (how long you maintain the exercise).

Another type of workout that helps with weight loss, and one preferred by a lot of men, is known as anaerobic (meaning “without oxygen”) exercise. Weight lifting falls into this category, because while you can get winded lifting weights, your pulse rate doesn’t remain elevated for an extended period, i.e., 30 or more minutes, as with aerobic exercises. That is, unless you are working a circuit hard with little to no rest between sets.

Sample Fat Burning Workouts

In the following sample exercises, slimming workouts are a full-body conditioning program. This includes a combination of cardio and strength training. The former will help with weight loss while the latter increases muscle mass which in turn zaps fatty acids from your fat cells and uses them for energy.

Running (5 ½ mph) can burn up to 700 calories an hour. Avid runners will average 5 or 6 miles per day, up to 30 miles or more per week which is why they are among the most fit people you see on a regular basis.

Walking. If your knees can’t take the pounding of even a slow jog, take up walking. It won’t burn as many calories, but at 3 ½ mph you can cover 5 miles in about 90 minutes. If running is one of the harder slimming exercises to do, walking is the easiest. You can do it outside, but many people prefer to use home treadmills for their daily cardio.

Cycling on a road bike or indoors on a stationary bike is a popular exercise for those who don’t like to run or walk. It is easier on the knees and feet and provides an excellent heart-pumping, pound-melting workout if you put some effort into it. At 12 mph, you’ll burn 400 calories or more in an hour.

Yoga workouts use the body’s own energy. While it isn’t the goal of yoga to get slim, get strong, or increase flexibility, all of these are the natural results of the daily practice of this energy arts modality. Yoga combines postures and breathing techniques to cleanse the body and relax the mind using the body’s own purifying heat and sweat to detox the body. It develops stamina, concentration, and full body conditioning. Devotees choose yoga as a great exercise program for increasing metabolism and losing weight.

Weight training workouts are actually very effective slimming exercises. Many women think lifting weights will cause them to bulk up but that isn’t true. You’ll lose inches around your thighs, tummy, butt, and upper body through building lean muscle mass. Just two or three days a week for 20 intense minutes is all it takes to improve metabolism (it’s kicked in even while sleeping) and lose inches. Toned muscles also require the body to use more fuel (food and fat), since a pound of muscle requires 30 to 40 calories per day to support itself, while fat cells don’t burn up a thing.

And an active lifestyle is the key to maintain a healthy trim body so make room for fitness in your schedule. That doesn’t mean you have to pursue a type of strenuous exercise such as running, but try to do a variety of fun slimming exercises several times a week, in addition to eating a balanced diet. In a couple of weeks, your clothes will fit better, you’ll feel more energetic, and you’ll even see things you haven't seen in a long time — like cheekbones.

About the Author:
Kevin Urban is the webmaster and editor at TreadmillTalk.com. Visit the site for detailed treadmill reviews covering 30+ brands and 100s of models.