Perhaps one of the most important hormones for keeping you young and lean is growth hormone. You see, growth hormone not only makes you lose extra body fat, but it also keeps your connective tissue and muscles healthy.

The problem here is that most people are leading lifestyles that actually decrease growth hormone levels.

So here is how to increase growth hormone so that your body doesn’t age and gain extra fat:

1. Reduce levels of insulin: Not only does insulin block fat burning, but it also reduces the amount of growth hormone your body secretes. So make sure you keep levels of dietary sugar as low as possible. Also, have balance in all your meals and more importantly, eat as many vegetables as you can.

2. Get uninterrupted sleep: Deep sleep is when growth hormone gets secreted. In fact, many hormones get secreted when you are asleep. Thus, a poor night’s sleep will not only decrease growth hormone output, but it will also decrease the output of many other hormones.

3. Do the tough exercises: Exercises that activate more muscle mass will make your body secrete more growth hormone. So don’t exercise on machines all day, this is not going to get you the body you want. Instead, use free weight movements that challenge your body.

4. Lose weight: Paradoxically, as you lose more weight, levels of growth hormone increase. Even better, levels of many other beneficial hormones increase as well. So make sure you get on a solid weight loss plan for the best results here.

5. Keep rest periods short: Shorter rest periods translate into higher metabolic demands. And higher metabolic demands translate into more growth hormone secretion. Now the catch here is that reducing rest periods is not easy, but if you do this stepwise you should be fine.

6. Include sets with a moderate number of sets: You don’t want to go too low or too high here. You see, sets within the ten repetition range seem to induce the highest levels of growth hormone output. So make sure you have an ample amount of sets in this range.

Increasing growth hormone in your body is one of the best things you can do to get in better shape and to increase your quality of life. All you have to do is take action!

Writer Katherine Crawford, an exercise physiologist and recent arm fat sufferer, instructs on how to tone up arms fast.