Get ready, because you are about to be called out on the Top 3 mistakes you are making with your fitness program that can destroy your metabolism, zap your energy and keep your body soft and flabby.

Hours of cardio

Cardio activity is not the be-all end-all solution to fat loss and working longer and harder will not help you lose body fat ? in fact it can make you store more fat! We have gotten hung up on the notion of "calories burned" for decades. This causes us to obsessively look for ways to increase our calorie burn in the hopes that we are also burning more fat. Unfortunately you are only risking the loss of muscle tissue and receive little to no increase in your metabolism once the exercise session has finished.

Besides, why would you want to continually torture yourself with the unnerving thoughts of minutes needed to burn fat? What if you happen to miss a day or eat too much at that friends wedding? We have all done the miles and the hours, but honestly, what results has this habit delivered to us?

The latest common sense approach teaches us that it is not about how many calories you can burn per exercise session, but how many calories you burn 24-7. You already possess the most powerful fat burner available ? your own muscle tissue! So why punish yourself and risk the loss of your fat burning machinery with endless low intensity activity?

Toss aside the notion of long, slow mind numbingly boring bouts of cardio activity out the window. Intensity is the KEY to getting the most out of your cardio in the least amount of time and will give you much better results. So revamp your cardio program with new, energizing short burst interval training.

Target the trouble spots

Toned arms and visible abdominals are not created by some "magic:" exercise that mysteriously melts fat off a particular area of the body. It is time to banish the old fashioned "Spot Reduction Myth" once and for all.

There simply is no "one" exercise that acts like a "magic eraser" to rid your troublesome body parts of unsightly fat. That is not how the body works. If you seriously want to lose body fat, you instead need to challenge all of the muscles in your body to boost your metabolism, so you lose fat all over.

Resistance to strength training

"I don't want to bulk up; I just want to get toned". Could it be you saying this?

If so, let us have a think about what you are saying here. Toned, simply means you have shed the fat that once covered your muscles ? so we can see your nice, firm muscle definition. And muscle is what gives your body a lean, tight shape.

No, you will not bulk up like a man. Women simply do not have the hormones to get "bulky" so women will only ever get lean, toned and firm. The only reason some women feel like they look bulky is because they have excess body fat while toning muscle tissue, but are not eating in a way that supports fat loss.

Plus, muscle takes up less space than fat and the quickest way to drop a jeans size is to incorporate proper strength training into your fitness routine. If the thought of lean, toned, firm, muscle tissue makes you cringe, then you need to get used to a thin, soft, fat and flabby body. For lean, toned, firm, fit bodies have low body fat and a lot of lean muscle.

Instead of working for endless hours month after month for little results try eliminating these fitness mistakes from your exercise program. Stop working against your body and start letting your body work for you to achieve your fat loss goals.