The Fat Burn Revolution (2 page)

The only essential equipment is a set of dumbbells and an exercise ball.

So, I kept at it and found I needed to pummel the pause button a little less every time. As the weeks went by I started to be able to move faster and noticed myself getting less malcoordinated.
I found I had more energy and daily tasks that had previously been physically demanding, such as walking up the steep hill to my house, began to seem easy. Something was happening that I’d
never experienced before: I was getting fitter.

Confused by conflicting advice on the best type of exercise for fat loss? Read on and you’ll learn why The Fat Burn Revolution is changing bodies and lives
across the world.

Eventually I noticed I could match Jane and the leg-warmer-and-leotard crew in the advanced version of the workout. I could hardly believe I was doing it. Was I, Julia Buckley, now actually
‘fit’?

I wondered if I might be capable of doing some other exercises that Jane hadn’t shown me, maybe even alongside other people. So I did something I would never have imagined myself doing
just a few months previously: I joined a gym.

Nearly 20 years later, I can still vividly remember what it felt like to be that young girl entering what was a very male-dominated environment in those days, whose only knowledge of exercise
had been gleaned from a Jane Fonda video, trying to get to grips with the scary-looking equipment. It was daunting to say the least, but I enjoyed the challenge and was really excited about the
changes I was noticing in my body and how I felt. I was also tremendously proud of myself to be even going to a gym. So I just kept going until, eventually, I started to become confident in that
setting.

I’ve been a gym member ever since. I sometimes wonder how different my life and body would be today if I hadn’t started out exercising in my parents’ front room. Thanks,
Jane!

A year or two later I got my first media job at a local radio station and my career in journalism began. Over the years I have worked for many high-profile media organisations and national
titles (BBC, UKTV,
The Times
, the
Independent
,
Cosmopolitan
,
Closer
, to name a few). My passion for fitness has grown with every year and, looking back, it seems
inevitable that I’d end up becoming a fitness writer (I’ve contributed to
Runner’s World
,
WeightWatchers
magazine,
Bodyfit
,
Walk
magazine,
Trail Running
, and many more). Over the past few years I’ve also been taking on clients for personal training.

The training is intense, but the workouts are quite short and can all be done at home in your living room.

As a freelance fitness journalist, I am fortunate to have regular contact with many of the world’s top sports scientists, coaches and fitness brands. I don’t have allegiance to any
particular company, publication or ethos, and this puts me in an excellent position to take an objective overview of what is going on in the world of fitness, and to see past over-hyped products,
plans and gimmicks. I like to keep my focus on what really works for real people. I spend a lot of time on social media sites like Twitter, helping people to navigate their way through the fitness
jungle! I do what I can, but I can only reach a certain group of people that way. So, after years of frustration about the mixed messages and conflicting and confused advice often conveyed in the
media in relation to fat loss, not to mention scam ‘secrets’ promoted online, I decided it was time I created my own fat-loss fitness programme and shared it with the world.

One of my main priorities was that my programme should be beginner-friendly and accessible for anyone to do at home, with minimal equipment. However, if you’re already in good shape and
you’re now thinking the
Fat Burn Revolution
is going to be a breeze for you, think again!

The
Fat Burn Revolution
is very adaptable and everyone is free to work at their own level – but for best results you should exercise at the very upper limits of those
levels. You’ll see what I mean once you’ve read more, but trust me, this is going to be a challenge whether you’re already a regular exerciser or not.

If you don’t feel fit, healthy and strong when you start the Fat Burn Revolution, you will by the end. And if you’re already fit at the start, you’ll be in sensational
condition after 12 weeks!

As well as creating a programme that could be followed easily from home, I also wanted to introduce as many people as possible to the optimal type of training when losing fat is the main goal.
I’ll talk about the rationale behind the workouts and exercises later in the book, but be prepared for a programme that may be very different from the way you have exercised before.

I
find it heart-breaking when I see the same people turn up to the gym week-in, week-out, month after month and year after year, sweating through
long exercise sessions and trying their best to eat a good diet, but just not being able to shift the unwanted fat. Or there’s the yo-yo exercisers who show up every January and/or just
before their summer holidays, manage to scrape off a few pounds only to have gained it all back (plus extra) by the next time they squeeze through the gym turnstiles.

I promise you that it doesn’t have to be that way, and it won’t be for you once you understand the techniques and principles I’ll be sharing with you in this book. Throughout
the Fat Burn Revolution you will learn why exercise hasn’t helped these people (maybe you’re among them) to get lean. You’ll also learn what you need to do to finally burn off
that fat and get the body you want and deserve.

Before I discovered the fundamentals that the Fat Burn Revolution is based on, I used to push myself to all kinds of extremes to keep my fat levels under control and to feel like I was making
progress in my fitness training. I spent excessive hours in the gym, attended ridiculous amounts of exercises classes (from aerobics to Zumba – you name it, I did it!) and I ran crazy amounts
of miles (50-mile ultramarathon anyone?). I don’t regret doing those things, and I (mostly) enjoyed it at the time (blisters, overuse injuries and overtraining-induced illnesses
aside...).

Now I’ve experienced how much better I feel, how much better my body performs, how much my health has improved, and how much easier it is to maintain low levels of body fat by following
this regime, I don’t train that way any more.

But this is not about me; it’s about you. I was sure that most people wanting to increase their fitness and lose fat would benefit from this programme, but before publishing a book on it,
I wanted to get proof. So at the end of 2012 I put the word out online that I was looking for a group of people to test my 12-week fat-loss fitness programme. I gathered together a group of 20
people with a wide cross-section of backgrounds from across the UK, some with only a few pounds to lose, others with a few extra stones. Their circumstances ranged from busy mums to business owners
to academics to fitness professionals. I was slightly concerned that I was taking a risk in gathering such a varied bunch, but I wanted to ensure that my methods would work for virtually anyone.
The risk paid off.

I’m happy to report the results were even better than I had hoped. I was surprised and delighted and the participants were simply over the moon. I don’t like using weight loss as a
measure of the success of the Fat Burn Revolution because the numbers can be misleading, but people always ask, so, if we must talk weight, members of the group lost up to more than two stone in 12
weeks. Even more impressively, body-fat percentages fell by up to a massive 15%!

Here are some of their comments on the difference the Fat Burn Revolution programme made to them: