Health

It was an experiment that didn't work. I hoped to stop my irresistible chocolate cravings once and for all, by setting them free for one month. My logic was that by eating all the chocolate I wanted during the holiday season, I would get sick of it, if not sick FROM it, and feel so terrible that it would be easy to go back to the self discipline of a healthy diet — and stay on it.

Wrong. Chocolate cravings don't go away, even when you have a mouthful of the stuff. Though the scale doesn't show it, clothes do. The space between shirt buttons are gaping and jeans leave a red mark around my waist. I've gained a layer of fat during my four-week binge.

Which means it's time to turn to my "no-effort" fat loss technique — a weight belt. That came from another experiment, discovered years ago during a busy spell when I didn't have time to work out. My dusty old six-pound ankle weights had sparked an idea: what if I fastened the weights into a "belt" and carried extra pounds around all day?

The results were great. First, we don't realize how often we sit and stand on any given day. Each slow and controlled sit-and-stand was like a squat; one that worked the glutes, lower abs and legs. I got noticeably stronger, though the weight of the belt was nowhere near the resistance I usually lifted in an actual squat.

But the best part of that experiment was the gradual melting of fat, combined with the building of muscle. It takes many calories to pack around 10 or 12 pounds of steel every day. As elite athletes know, there are only two ways to lose fat without losing lean tissue: lose the fat slowly, or change the body ratio to build up more fat-eating muscle.

Here's the science: when you go on a "diet" where you start eating less food, the body will burn muscle as well as fat to get the calories it must have for fuel. At the same time, muscle needs a lot of nutrition, and also requires the flushing of its waste products, so a lot of calories are burned merely bringing in nutrients and carrying off the residue. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, and that's not even counting the calorie-burning physical work required to build up and maintain muscle in the first place.

The "weight belt method" is good for athletes and active folks who rely on their muscle and don't want to lose any of it. Here's how to do it: buy a pair of ankle weights, which can be found at many big box stores in the sporting department. The pair of weights should equal 10 percent of your body weight. Fasten two tabs of the ankle weights together with a strong safety pin. Fasten the "belt" around your waist using the other tabs, and secure it with another safety pin.

Use your improvised weight belt only one hour a day for the first week to get accustomed to it. The second week, wear it three hours a day. After that, wear it as often as you wish. Never carry more than 10 percent of your body weight on the belt. Important: Give it time to start working. You may not see results on the scale at first, because you're putting on muscle while you lose fat. But your clothes will soon show that the layer of fat you put on over the holidays is really melting away.

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WinaSturgeonistheeditoroftheonlinemagazineAdventureSportsWeekly(adventuresportsweekly.com).Forthelatestintrainingandworkoutinformation,goto:http://adventuresportsweekly.com