How drinking water can help flush fat

DietPixie’s brilliant new fitness expert, Myke Gray, will be giving you weekly advice on getting the body you want. In his first article, Myke lets you in on a cast iron weight loss weapon.

If weight loss is your primary goal, one of the most important things that you need to do is to find out your metabolic rate.

Okay, so we know that long-term eating sensibly and exercising regularly is the best approach to all-round good health.

But summer is coming, we feel like shit and look like rice pudding in shorts – we need to act fast. Sensible is for the winter months. Follow these five workout ideas for the fastest route to burning the bulge…

1. Get thee to a treadmillery

Running – especially on an incline – is one of the best ways to burn calories fast. Whether on the road or in the gym, a good, intensive run will give your body a cardiovascular workout, and tone your legs and tum.

Make sure that you warm-up properly – especially if you haven’t jogged for a while – and protect your joints and feet by wearing well-fitting trainers and knee supports.

2. No heavy petting, no bombing

Swimming is an all-round brilliant workout – just look how skinny fish are. But to really benefit, you have to actually swim. Not lounge about floating on your back and having a little think, not paddling up and down the shallow end like a happy Labrador, but proper up-and-down lengths, for a solid hour. It’ll feel nice and then it’ll wreck – that’s how you know it’s working.

3. Stroll to the Finnish line

Nordic walking is a form of walking using poles. Done correctly it is far more intense than a normal stroll and works your whole body. An hour and a quarter of Nordic walking will burn around 500 calories, but because your body is supported by the poles, you feel less knackered than a jog or power walk. Clever.

4. Let’s Get It On (but at a robust pace and with maximum effort please)

Yes, as it says in the bible, perhaps: shagging is great. Not only is it fun, not only does it make boys and girls like you, but it also burns a devil load of calories in just one easy session.

But this isn’t a case of lying back and thinking of England, no, this is a case of jumping around and thinking of the whole England team. Energetic bedness will work through several hundred calories per half an hour…

5. Pump it up

Of course you could just hand over the reigns to a scary, grimace-grinning fitness instructor at a Body Pump class.

The latest in paid-for-calorie-scorching-masochism, Body Pump is apparently the most popular group fitness routine of all time, and uses barbells and weights to a hardcore aerobic workout.

It hurts like fuck but by Jove does it do the job.

Image: jzmolek

“Incentive, inspiration, drive, enthusiasm, impetus, stimulus, spur, impulse, and driving force are just some of the synonyms I found when I looked up the word motivation in the dictionary.” Read more of this extract from celeb trainer, David Kirsch’s new book, The Ultimate New York Body Plan.

One of the prerequisites to successfully completing any challenge is motivation. Without it, any challenge, including this one, will ultimately become too daunting to see to completion.

Most women have problems with their ‘muffin top’, that unsightly tyre of flab that rests smugly atop our jeans - a constant reminder of the family-sized bag of Maltesers we ate just after lunch.

Unfortunately, flab manages to squeeze its way out in other places. Hands up if you’ve got a fat back? Yes, it sounds strange, but if you’re storing excess fat on your back, it will spill over the edges of a tight top - a second muffin top, if you will.

Ever fancied killing two birds with one stone when it comes to getting fit?

Not only will our exercise ideas benefit your health, but they will please your partner and improve your sex life too. We promise!

The obvious one is active rumpo, but that’s not all you can do to get your pulse racing up and your BMI backing down.

Want to shed the pounds? Well, DietPixie has just what you need:

ACHIEVE YOUR WEIGHT LOSS GOALS
LOSE WEIGHT ON THE CHEAP
HOW TO GET A FLAT STOMACH
FOODS WHICH WILL HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT
10 NOVEL WAYS TO BURN 500 CALS

Find out which fitness DVDs are right for you?

ROSEMARY CONLEY
DANCE EXTREME
VICKY BINNS
NATALIE CASSIDY
DAVINA MCCALL
DIRTY DANCING
DANCE EXTREME
SHILPA SHETTY

So you want a flat stomach. You are certainly not alone.

Many people spend hours in the gym in the quest for a perfect tummy, but very few get the results they want.

Why? Well, for starters, fat around the stomach is the hardest to get rid of.

Sick of spending hours at the gym with nothing to show for it?

Are you wondering whether it’s all been worth the countless hours spent on the treadmill when the only pounds you seem to be shedding are from your bank balance?