Drop Weight Faster

Drop Weight Faster

Incorporate these five activities into your downtime to increase energy, reduce soreness, and drop weight faster

By Jayme Moye

A Hotter Body No Sweat

As soon as you slip off your sneakers after a workout, your body starts repairing the "damage" you did to your muscles. In fact, it's actually this recovery process—not exercise itself—that makes you stronger and leaner, says Stacy Sims, PhD, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at the Stanford School of Medicine's Prevention-Research Center in Palo Alto, California. "To speed your results, research shows that what you do when you're not exercising is nearly as important as the workout itself," she says. Get on the fast track with these minimum-effort moves. 

The Move: Log More Z's

The Benefits: We know, we know—if you could lose a pound every time you heard about the advantages of sleep, you'd never have to work out again. But if seven to nine hours of shut-eye still isn't a priority, here's some incentive:

Not only does deep sleep kick up production of tissue-repairing growth hormone, but studies show that lack of it is a weight-gain double whammy: It prompts your body to consume more calories and shuts down its ability to recognize a full stomach. When you're tired, your gut produces more ghrelin, a chemical that triggers sugar cravings. "It causes your body to seek quick energy from food to try to keep you awake," says neurologist Chris Winter, MD, medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Meanwhile, fatigue suppresses leptin, a fat-cell hormone that tells your brain, "OK, stop eating now." For this reason, says Winter, "prioritizing sleep is probably the best thing you can do, recovery-wise, to meet your body-shaping goals." 

The Move: Get Going a Little

The Benefits: You may feel like rewarding yourself with some downtime, but doing a low-key activity the day after a big workout will prolong the muscle-sculpting perks of increased circulation. "Fresh blood flow brings fresh nutrients to your muscles and helps flush waste products like lactic acid," says Sims. What's more, staying active has also been proven to reduce post-exercise muscle soreness and suppress nervous-system activity that can result in poor sleep.

Take an easy yoga class or go on a walk with friends at a conversational pace. If you're sitting behind a desk all day, stroll around the office for about 10 minutes every couple of hours to get things moving. Then prepare for a different kind of reward: a less-painful gym session tomorrow. 

The Move: Upgrade Your Post-Workout Snack

The Benefits: Sports scientists have long advocated having a bite after exercising to help promote muscle repair. An even more compelling reason: less belly fat.  Exercise activates cortisol, a stress hormone that gives you that extra surge to push until the end of spin class, says Sims. But lingering in that state for too long can backfire; cortisol not only inhibits the muscle-repair process but also alters your metabolism so that your body stores more calories as fat (typically in the abdominal region) instead of burning them off. Luckily, chowing down on some protein within 30 minutes after your workout will prevent these deleterious effects, says Sims, who suggests eating a hard-boiled egg or substituting low-fat milk for the fruit juice in your smoothie. Even Starbucks fans are in luck: with a nonfat mocha latte, you'll get the cortisol antidote (protein) from the milk, plus a secret weapon—caffeine. One study found that, when ingested with carbs (the chocolate, in this case), caffeine increased muscles' energy production 66 percent more than carbs alone. 

The Move: Massage It Out

The Benefits: A post-workout Swedish massage isn't just an indulgence: Research shows that it boosts strength recovery by 60 percent. "Massage reduces inflammation in the tissue and increases blood flow to the area, which is what speeds up recovery," says Sims, who recommends letting muscles cool down completely for a few hours after exercise before having a light massage. You don't even need to see a therapist—DlY rubdowns provide the same benefits.

Set aside 10 minutes before bed on days when you exercise intensely, says Sims. For the best result, use long, smooth strokes over the muscles worked, and use a foam roller or massage balls on hard-to-reach spots. lf you find a knot, move slowly from the outside in, but keep the pressure light to make sure you don't agitate an already inflamed muscle. For acute soreness, apply a cold compress or ice pack for about 20 minutes to further decrease inflammation. 

The Move: Boost Your Water Intake

The Benefits: Dehydration substantially slows your metabolic rate—so even if you're killing it at the gym, you could be negating the calorie-burning advantages if you aren't drinking enough H20, says Shawn Talbott, PhD, a nutritional biochemist in Salt Lake City. And it's not just the eight-glasses-a-day (or 64 ounces) rule you've heard time and time again. Experts advise downing an additional 16 to 20 ounces of water for every hour you train. If swigging the recommended amount of water feels like a Herculean task in itself, remember that most standard bottles of water contain 16 ounces, so four of them (not eight) equal eight glasses. 

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