Want to get fit faster than last year's failed New Year's resolution? Want to get involved in something that promotes fat burning, even after the work out is over with? Well, pick up the weights then!

Weight training is a more efficient way of burning fat and building muscle, and research proves this. Perhaps the most trusted source of this research is Dr. A. Scott Connelly. Dr. Connelly is the founder of the MetRx nutritional supplement line and also has devoted his life to cardiovascular medicine and the science of fitness. Not to mention he is the most buff 55-year old you will ever see.

Connelly's best selling book, "Body Rx" offers great advice that can be utilized by anyone. First and foremost he tells readers to get off the treadmill. He goes on to say that weight training is much more efficient and effective because it increases your metabolism and also builds lean muscle that burn off fat. As the adage goes, the more muscle you have, the more fat you burn.

Second, Connelly recommends upping your protein intake. Though the different phases of the "Body Rx" program recommend different amounts of protein for each cycle, Connelly generally recommends eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight in order to keep fat burning and muscle building at an optimum level.

In the book Connelly also makes it simple to monitor how much protein you are consuming with each meal.  His strategy is that the size of a deck of cards contains 20 grams of protein. So if you divide up your daily protein needs based on that, it is much easier to reach your daily requirement.

Next, he recommends eating plenty of high-fiber complex carbohydrates and low-fat protein, and eliminating processed foods containing fructose ("the Stealth bomber of sweeteners"). Although Connelly designed a line of supplements marketed by Met-Rx, he restricts his supplementation recommendations to one short chapter and does not push his own line.

Connelly recommends eating 6 small meals each day rather than the usual 3 big meals. The reason for this is that by eating small healthy meals throughout the day you keep your metabolism going strong and you also prevent your body from going into starvation mode. When the body is in starvation mode atrophy begins occurring. Your body starts to eat away at muscle tissue to stay alive. You do not want this. The nutrition part of the program is just as important as the weight training part of the program.

The exercise program in the book focuses on weight training, with 20 exercises divided into four different weekly workout sessions. Illustrations of the exercises, which work all the major muscle groups, include both machine and free-weight options. Charts--both filled in with his prescription and blank for you to log your actual program--are provided for meal planning and exercise.

His book says that if you use these tips you will see a totally new body in 6 months. I personally believe that if you use these techniques – the nutrition ones are perhaps the most important – you will see a dramatic change in the way you look and feel in as little as 1-2 weeks. The fat will literally melt off and you will start to see lean muscle that you haven't seen since you were a young adult, heck, maybe you have never seen it!

If you use these tips and integrate them into your weekly routine, I am confident you will see dramatic shifts in not only the way you look, but the way you feel. You will have more energy throughout the day and you will be more confident knowing that you look amazing!   



Dan Olson writes for KSTW-TV in Seattle. All opinions expressed in this column are his.