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Zest: Tips and Tricks
If you know the basics and have stuck to your diet and exercise plan but are in need of a little extra help or perhaps some sneaky insight to help speed your progress with shedding the fat try these tricks and tips.

Diet Tips
Fight the Hunger
Drink a large glass of water 20 minutes before you eat a meal, the liquid 'fills' you, dampens your hunger and helps you to resist cheating with your meal (hydration also aids your metabolism.)

Caffeine Burn
To specifically increase the rate at which your fat deposits are burnt during your exercise period switch to decaff coffee and tea, allowing your system to free itself from any caffeine reliance. Once your body has adjusted prepare to jolt your body! 1 to 1.5 hours before you exercise take a strong coffee or espresso, the shock of the caffeine to your system combined with the stress of exercise specifically increases the rate at which your body burns fat.

Need to Snack?
Always avoid snacking, however if you have to eat something outside of your planned diet munch on a bowl of bran flakes or a cereal high in fibre. The body has trouble digesting cereals high in fibre which means that the food will pass through your stomach without giving up too much in the way of excess calories.

Feel Full for Longer
Increase your protein content of your meals. Protein can help to give the sensation of satiety, allowing you to feel 'full' on less.

Avoid Food Branded as 'Low Fat'
Some (but not all) 'low fat' foods are in no way beneficial for your weight loss! True, the fat content by be lower than normal but in many cases this fat has been subsidised with the addition of sugar - heaps of sugar.
Culprits in particular that are to be avoided are: 'low-fat' yoghurt, ice cream and puddings. Which is, I know, a bummer but the simple fact is that these additional sugars are only going to be converted to fat deposits unless you go out of your way to increase your exercise regime.

Too much Caffeine
If you drink too much coffee and tea during the day you might find that you suffer from dehydration (a side effect of caffeine) and as such you will feel fatigued. To fight this sensation and to prepare yourself for your exercise regime increase the frequency and volume of your water intake.

The 3 Day Shocker
Use this method to really shock your metabolism. Follow this diet in conjunction with your exercise regime and do it for no longer than 3 days maximum. Any longer and your metabolism adjusts, the results slow down and you risk doing lasting harm to your body. This method works by greatly cutting your calorie intake combined with the use of natural fat burners found in grapefruit.
The method:
Consume 1/2 a grapefruit and a small bowl of low calorie fibre-style cereal each meal, 5 x a day.

The 2 Week Protein Binge
Use protein's properties to your advantage by going on a two week lean-protein diet. Because protein is not your body's preferred source of energy there is a reduced chance of excess calories being converted into fatty deposits furthermore your body will feel sated and 'full' faster on proteins than with fats and carbohydrates, so you can eat less without the risk or need to binge.
Combine each meal with low calorie sources of vegetables and fruit to ensure you still gain your required vitamins and vegetables.
Stick to this diet plan for no more than two weeks.

Fat Burners
Be sure to add these natural fat burners to your diet: coffee, green tea, chilli and grapefruit.

Hydration
Drink a minimum of 2 litres of water a day. Good hydration aids and encourages the metabolism.

Exercise Tips
Empty Stomach
If you're specifically aiming to lose weight (rather than build muscle) exercise on an empty or near-empty stomach to increase your metabolic rate.

A Flatter Stomach
Even athletes with six-packs can have stomachs that bulge outward. The reason being that even though they might have larger abdominal muscles their inner 'core' muscles have relaxed. To train these core muscles hold you stomach in. Constantly. While you walk, while you sit at your desk, when you lie down keep that stomach sucked in. You'll get results after 4 - 5 days, all of a sudden your core muscles will get the idea and they'll stay taught taking over where you left off, pulling your stomach in and giving you a flatter figure.

Plyometrics
Once every 6 - 8 weeks perform a week of plyometrics. This type of exercise forces rapid changes to your body not to mention multiplies your body's demand for calories (great for forming a calorie deficit.)

Comfort Zone
Always aim to step out of your comfort zone. By constantly pushing your limits you can be sure that you're always forcing the consumption of calories.

Build Muscle
The more muscle you have the more energy you burn - even while at rest. (Muscle burn 5 - 15% more calories than other soft tissues.)

20 Minute Exercise Plan
When doing aerobic exercise (swimming, running, boxing etc) try to limit yourself to just 20 minutes of exercise, aim to perform your exercise with intensity and at least twice during this 20 minute period you must push yourself to your very limits.
Your body will benefit with a greater metabolic rate with this style on intensity rather than 60 minutes of mediocre exercise.

Intensity!
Weight loss through exercise is all about intensity. To increase the intensity of your resistance and weight training begin to incorporate tri-sets, supersets, drop-sets and most importantly decrease your time of rest between each set.
Other ways to increase intensity are skip or jog between sets, increase your amount of repetitions per set (within the same time limit.)

General Tips
Read More!
When it comes to diet and exercise there is no such as thing as too much knowledge. So to really increase your understanding on these topics read as much as possible: check all the magazines, websites and books that you can get your grubby fingers on!
Avoid magazines that cater for a widespread market - any weight loss tips in such magazines are mainly there too help settle their reader's conscience. If you really want to progress you need to read magazines and other information sources that are targeted for the market professionals. (So if you see any personal trainers, pro-athletes, bodybuilders etc reading certain magazines you know you're onto a winner.)