Best Fat Burners & Weight-Loss Tips For Men

The number one step in losing weight is creating a nutrition and exercise plan that you can stick to. But a few weeks in, you might find that your progress is waining, and the uphill struggle is getting more and more of a challenge. When the slump strikes, supplementing your diet can give you that extra boost to lose more inches and power through that plateau. We explore the best fat burners out there, plus a fail-safe guide for weight loss.

Best Fat Burners for Men

Fat burners, as they’re most commonly known as, are simply supplements that help the body to break down fat cells. Often, people think of fat burners as an instant remedy for knocking off a few belt notches, without considering diet and exercise. In reality, fat burner supplements complement a healthy diet and exercise, accelerating and supporting fat loss.

Most fat burners work by catalysing a process within the body called 'thermogenesis', which is a series of metabolic reactions in the body that break fat cells down to free fatty acids. The breakdown of the fat cells generates heat, which is where the name fat burners comes from.

Here are three of the best fat burners:

Thermopure contains a blend of natural ingredients, which combined with exercise and a well-balanced diet, can support fat loss by stimulating thermogenesis and supporting macronutrient metabolism, making it one of the best fat burners out there.

Mythermo X-Treme™ features Kola nut to support a weight-loss programme, with a higher caffeine content and a range of vitamins and minerals – making it your ideal training buddy when pushing through high-intensity workouts, and earning its top spot on the best fat burners list.

Garcinia Cambogia is high on the list of the best fat burners as it's a natural ingredient that's been shown to support fat metabolism, plus it's caffeine-free – great for those that prefer not to feel the effects of caffeine from their supplements.

What's a Healthy Weight for Men?

This can be a difficult question to answer for anyone who lifts weights – particularly those with a more muscular physique. This is because you may be in excellent health with a low body fat percentage,  but because of all your muscle weight, you can wind up in an obese category. Men are typically recommended to carry between 12 and 20 percent body fat.

If you're a male aged 25-59 years of age and consider yourself average or slightly below average when it comes to activity levels, the following chart is a guide to the healthy weight for a fellow of your size.

Weight-Loss Tips for Men

The two most important factors in losing weight are, of course, having the right nutrition and exercise plan in place.

Workouts for Weight Loss

If you want to work on your exercise endurance and burn fat in the process, performing circuits can bevone of the most effective ways.

The secret to effective circuits is to set them up in advance in a way that boosts your heart rate and keeps it up for as long as possible, all while allowing sufficient rest that doesn’t let it drop too much or allow your muscles to stiffen.

The next secret is to hit as many muscle groups as you can, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it ensures an all-over body workout, which means strengthening that targets all areas. Conditioning the body is about putting the body through the motions in preparation for optimum performance. When you’re focussing on isolating smaller muscle groups in the gym, you may be unaware of the stabilising muscles that you’ve been neglecting to exercise by using seated exercise machines. By working your body as a whole using circuits, you can be more confident that these muscles are getting the exercise they need.

Here are 3 highly effective conditioning circuits for your to experiment with:

Workout 1: 2:1 Intensity Burn

The 2:1 exercise to rest ratio is common for high-intensity interval workouts, as it means you’re going full throttle and allowing the body the minimal rest it needs. This is ideal if you want a workout that avoids cutting corners and sees you working to the max in a much shorter amount of time.

Try doing 30 seconds of each exercise, then rest after your full circuit for half the time that you've been exercising. Repeat for as many circuits as you can (10-20 minutes is ideal).

As with all circuits, you should feel free to vary the exercises involved – as long as you choose a routine that hits all muscles. Here’s a few ideas, which you may replace as you see fit:

• Burpees
• Pushups
• Lunges
• Squat
• Pullups
• Crunches

Workout 2: Lean Burner Workout

This circuit involves weights as well as working with your own bodyweight. For this, you should go from one exercise to the next with 1 minute in between and perform the entire circuit 5 times. For the first round, you should perform 12 reps of each exercise and then reduce by 1 rep for each following round.

• Dumbbell bench press
• Barbell bent-over row
• Pullups
• Hang cleans
• Jump squats
• Push press

Workout 3: Heart Racer Circuit

This workout is similar to the last, combining bodyweight, free weights and, this time, a slightly more intense regimen with slightly more strenuous resting allowances. The goal here is to activate as many muscle fibres as possible to burn more calories. Due to the reduced sets and shorter rest, you will keep your heart rate up and racing for the duration. Perform the following list as one round and then repeat 3 times with a 3 minute rest in between each round.

• Wide-grip pullups
• Bar dips
• Close-grip pushups
• Alternating bodyweight lunges
• Standing barbell press
• Crunches
• Battle ropes (30 seconds)
• Sprint (30 seconds)

Diet Plans for Weight Loss

Of course, your diet plays a massive role in the amount of body fat that you carry. For some, ‘diet’ is a dirty word that can mean anything from starvation to fashionable trends that don’t work in the long run. What we mean by your diet is nutrition – the fuel that you put in your body to keep it working as it should, which should be all about balance. Being overweight comes as a result of consuming too many calories and not burning them off.

Your nutrition is about choosing the right diet plan for you, beginning with the most important question: is it something that you will be able and willing to realistically stick with over the coming weeks. Ask yourself:

Is it sustainable? I diet isn’t a one time thing. While many people may use a diet plan to get in shape for their holidays or a particular date in the near future, jumping in and out of diets can affect your metabolism and ultimately result in you piling the weight back on.

Is it affordable? Sadly, your budget does come into it. It’s not always possible to subscribe to food delivery services that provide your diet for you. Taking charge of your shopping list is the best way to overcome this. By knowing the nutrient content of everything you add to your list, you can be sure of what you are putting in your cupboards as well as your body.

Will it suit your lifestyle? It’s not about giving yourself excuses. “Diets don’t fit in with my lifestyle” isn’t going to cut it. But if you declare you’re going on a low-carb, high-fat or a high-protein diet, or perhaps something different, you need to look at how that will fit in with your day-to-day living. If you’re very active and workout regularly, fats and carbohydrates are as important for energy as protein is for your health. You simply need to work out what you need and how it balances out with the amount of exercise that you do.

Enjoy this article on the best fat burners? Pack these essentials in your gym bag to support your weight-loss journey...