For example, have you ever gotten dressed in the morning and thought your arms looked too flabby to wear that sleeveless top?  Or maybe you put your jeans on only to find that you look “stuffed” into them?  If you’ve let yourself go (even just a little bit), you know much it can drag your self-esteem down and makes you feel horrible.

Even worse, visceral fat (fat that collects around your organs) is dangerous to your health, leaving you prone to loads of problems like heart attack, diabetes and even cancer.  Your visceral fat increases as you age and you’re at a greater risk if you tend to carry the extra weight around your mid-section.

And it’s a viscous cycle: Fat makes you feel bad about yourself.  Feeling bad about yourself brings on stress (whether you’re conscious of it or not) and stress causes your body to produce more cortisol…and cortisol makes you gain more weight!

But if you’ve been putting in overtime on the treadmill hoping to sweat off those extra pounds while watching the calorie counter like a hawk, and NOT gotten the results you want, there’s a really good reason.  I’m going to explain why and show you how to get back on track so you can get back into your skinny jeans, get healthy and feel really great about yourself again.

Okay, let’s talk about that workout again…

Defining your workout based on the number of calories you burned (you know, the I’ll-stop-when-I-reach-400-calories-burned workout) is a time-wasting formula doomed for certain failure right from the start.  I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you, so don’t feel bad if that’s how you’ve been working out.  We’re going to change all that starting today, so stick with me…

Despite what you may have been told, the truth is that it’s NOT how many calories you burn during your workout that matters.  It’s how many calories you can burn throughout the day, long after your workout is over, that counts.

I’m talking about reprogramming your body to increase your metabolism.

See, your metabolism works 24 hours a day, so you’re burning calories around the clock no matter what.  But even if you worked out for an hour a day, it doesn’t matter how many calories you burned during your workout, you’re still never going to burn as many calories as the person with a higher metabolism.

So, how do you boost your metabolism?

Short bursts of high-intensity exercise.

High-intensity workouts trigger a physiological effect called EPOC, which stands for Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption, but it’s better known as the “Afterburn”.  The Afterburn is when your body continues to burn calories even after your workout is over…for up to 48 hours! That means you can train your body to burn fat all day long, even while you’re sitting at work, watching T.V., and yes…even sleeping.

Here’s how it works:

To recap, the Afterburn occurs after an intense bout of exercise that forces your body to go into oxygen debt. The oxygen debt causes a metabolic deficit, which forces your body to expend more energy to make up for it…and that extra energy is provided by your body fat.

In essence, you’re using your own body fat as the fuel to increase your metabolism.  How awesome is that?!  Goodbye muffin-top, hello skinny jeans.

And since triggering the “Afterburn” is directly related to your level of intensity—the more intense your workout is, the greater the Afterburn and that means more fat burning all day long.  If you start doing high-intensity workouts regularly, you’re basically turning your body into a fat-burning furnace that torches calories 24/7!

Now can you see why it makes NO sense to pay attention to those “calories burned monitors”?!

If there’s one major point I want you to learn here, it’s this:

Fitness is intensity dependent, NOT time dependent.

There are several key variables that will shoot your intensity level through the roof.  The amount of rest you take between exercises and sets, the amount of weight you use, the type of exercises you do and the speed at which you perform those exercises has e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g to do with how good your results will be.

This is really important because by increasing your intensity, you increase your work capacity, meaning you’re able to perform more work (exercise) in a shorter amount of time than you did with your old workout.  That’s how you get to the intensity level you need to trigger the Afterburn!

Don’t be like that girl who stands in front of the mirror doing a million bicep curls (with dumbbells that weigh less than a can of soup) thinking that’s going to tone her up…That is NOT intensity.

How long should a high-intensity workout be?

If you’re working out with enough intensity, there’s no way that you can workout for more than 20 to 30 minutes.  Since you’re expending more energy in less time, you don’t need to waste an entire hour doing a more “traditional” workout.

Think about it.  Let’s take running for example…If you ran all out at 100% effort (a sprint) for as long as you can, how long do you think you can run for before you fall flat on your face from exhaustion?  10 seconds? 20 seconds? Maybe 60 seconds if you’re Superwoman!

So even if you have a crazy busy schedule (kids, work, social life), anyone can spare a mere 30 minutes a day for their health.  It’s a small price to pay for getting fit and trim, gaining more energy, increasing your overall health and feeling like you’re in your 20’s again.

Tomorrow’s Lean Body tip is, “3 Killer Techniques That Get Rid of Stubborn Ab Flab”

See you tomorrow,

-- Shin