Lisa Cuerden gives an essential guide to finding the right exercise for you

At this time of year especially, many people are looking to lose body fat and to increase fitness levels. To achieve this, first and foremost, it is important to find exercise you enjoy. Succeed in this and you are more likely to stick to it long-term. Exercise is for life not just for January and February and those weeks leading up to your summer holiday.

If you don’t exercise at the moment then start by trying to introduce exercise into your life three times a week. I’m not including walking in this. You should be doing something of low intensity every day just to stay healthy.

The best exercise to lose body fat is High Intensity Interval Training. It really is amazing for burning fat and takes only 10-20 minutes, so no matter how busy their lifestyle, anyone can fit it in. It also increases EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) resulting in an elevated fat loss state for up to 24 hours after you finish your workout. Compare this to low intensity exercise which, if you are lucky, may last only up to eight hours.

Excessive low intensity exercise can actually increase body fat as it puts a lot of stress on the body. And increased stress means higher cortisol levels – which means increased body fat.

HIIT trains the body to effectively remove metabolic waste from the muscles between intervals. By quickly removing lactate and other byproducts resulting from high intensity exercise, you enable the body to be primed and ready for another bout of high intensity exercise with less rest.

To try a 10-minute HIIT workout that can be adapted for all fitness levels go to youtube.com/user/ljcuerden There are many benefits to weight training. Firstly it will increase your muscle mass, therefore increase your metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn at rest). If you are a woman, take note: it WILL NOT make you big. You don’t have the hormonal make-up for this to happen. Men do but that still takes time and effort as well as the correct diet.

Other benefits are improved strength and reduced risk of injury, osteoporosis, back pain, arthritis, heart disease and diabetes. Weight training has also been known to fight depression.

Yoga is an amazing way to lose bodyfat because it de-stresses you. One of the reasons people can’t lose body fat is because our modern day society sends their stress levels through the roof. Stretching your tired worn out body, resting your mind and relaxing your body will reduce your cortisol levels (the stress hormone in your body) which means your body fat percentage will decrease.

Cardiovascular training will always have a place when it comes to exercise but, if your ultimate goal is fat loss, doing only cv exercise, or too much of it, can have a detrimental effect on your body. Doing a form of cv training such as cycling, running, power walking, spinning, aerobics, step that you enjoy once or twice a week will definitely help you to improve your fitness and health.