One of the major goals that bring people into the gym is that they’ve finally decided now is the time that they are going to take control over their body and work towards fat loss and losing body fat that’s been slowly accumulating over time.
Fat loss is a Billion dollar industry and for a good reason. All you have to do is take one look around you, and you see sights of overweight individuals, infomercials promoting the newest, latest, and greatest fat loss supplements or fat loss programs, or hear words of disgust coming out of your neighbour’s mouth about how much weight they have let themselves gain.
America is growing more and more overweight, but luckily, people are finally starting to take positive steps towards changing this picture.
Fat loss is not an easy journey, but when you equip yourself with the right kind of information, coupled with a little motivation to keep the momentum going, you can certainly see good results over time.
Easy Steps For Fat Loss
Fat Loss Step 1: Patience
Right from the very start, you must be setting realistic expectations for what you could potentially see from your fat loss program. Many people get stuck with the idea that they want to lose 20 pounds in three months.
While you may lose weight rapidly right off the start, depending on which type of diet program you use (low carb diets are notorious for rapid water weight loss), understand that it is not going to continue at that rate.
If you think back and see how long it took you to put the excess weight on you’re trying to lose, it should be clear that it’s not going to disappear quickly as well.
Fat Loss Step 2: Calorie Counting
The absolute best method to ensure that you do lose weight is through calorie counting. Unfortunately, a large number of people would rather not become walking calculators and therefore are looking for a way out of calorie counting while dieting.
What you need to know about this factor, though, is that ‘eating healthier is not enough. You need to eat less. You can only eat absolutely healthy foods, but if you’re still taking in more calories than you’re burning daily through all your body functions, you aren’t going to lose fat.
This is where many people go wrong. They claim that they are eating a healthy diet yet still cannot lose weight. When this is the complaint, I’d place a large bet that the problem is due to one of two factors.
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- They are taking in more food than they realize, despite the fact it’s healthy
- They are not accurately reporting their food intake
By calorie counting, assuming you are doing it properly, you’re going to know exactly how much you’re eating so that if you don’t see weight loss, you know where you stand. When you don’t count calories, you’re literally taking a blind-sided approach and hoping for the best.
This isn’t to say you must count calories – you can very well count ‘points’ or count servings (which are based on calories anyway), but some sort of a tracking method needs to be present to see optimal results.
Very overweight individuals or those who typically eat extremely unhealthy may get away with being able to lose weight by just eating healthier off the start, and this is simply because, with the change in food choices, they automatically reduce their calorie intake. Eventually, that progress will slow, though, and counting will need to resume.
Fat Loss Step 3: Diet Is #1, Exercise Is A Great Supplement
The third thing to get clear in your mind is the fact that diet is the single most important factor for weight loss. You may be able to exercise off five pounds, but if you have 10+ pounds to lose, you need to watch your diet.
Many people think they’ll just workout more and not have to watch what they eat, but that doesn’t work, at least 90% of the time anyway.
The reason for this is that it’s far too easy to eat back what you burned off during an hour-long session, putting yourself no further ahead.
It’s a very smart move to add exercise to your daily schedule as it usually helps with better diet adherence and will also promote fat loss rather than lean tissue loss, but don’t expect large volumes of weight to be lost on exercise alone without any type of dietary adjustments.
Fat Loss Step 4: Metabolism
Next, you need to realize that you are no different. People who claim that they ‘just have a slow metabolism or are genetically meant to be overweight are looking for an excuse to place blame on for their lack of results.
True, some people do have a slightly slower metabolism than others, but it’s still not slow enough to prevent weight loss from taking place entirely if a proper diet and workout was assumed.
Typically those who are claiming that they are different are just different because they aren’t willing to put in necessary work to make results happen.
Unless a proven metabolic disorder has been established, slightly slow metabolism does not need to mean you cannot move closer to your goal weight.
Fat Loss Step 5: You Are Not The Same
On that note, you also should know that you are not the same. By that, I mean that you are not going to get the exact same results on said diet as your neighbor did, who claims it was like a miracle cure.
Each person is going to have their own dietary weakness, food preferences, metabolic responses to different types of diets (high versus low carbohydrate), etc. Therefore you need to play around with a few different factors and realize what works best for you.
It’s great to pay attention to what other people are doing and getting results from, but also keep your own individuality in mind. If you know you’re just asking for trouble if you cut out all carbs from your diet, a low-carb diet is not going to be effective for you, no matter how wonderfully it worked for someone else.
Fat Loss Step 6: Screw-Ups Will Happen
Finally, it’s important that on your quest for fat loss, you do not expect absolute perfection of yourself. Note that there will be moments when you do falter and don’t stick with your diet or miss a workout program.
Expecting absolute perfection is only going to set you up for failure since you’ll adopt a black and white thinking pattern, being much more likely to just give up if you do experience a problem.
Instead, expect yourself to give your best effort, but also understand that small screw-ups aren’t going to dramatically hinder your results in the long run.
What’s more important is that immediately after you’ve faced a setback, you get right back on the program to further move towards progress.
Conclusion
So, keep these points in mind if your goal is fat loss. Maintaining realistic expectations, being sure you do take responsibility on the diet side of things, and being patient with yourself regarding setbacks will go a long way towards ensuring you get the results you’re looking for.