Fat Loss… What’s holding you back?

FatLoss

With summer just around the corner and the met office ‘promising’ the hottest summer since the 1970’s, everyone and their gran are embarking on a new ‘fat loss mission’. The unfortunate truth however is… most will fail!
They won’t fail because of the lack of initial drive, commitment or desire to drop body fat, but they’ll fail because of how they attempt to achieve it.
Commitment, drive and desire are required for when it comes to Fat Loss as it can be a long journey where many individuals see plateaus and even experience small set-backs. Having said this, that same drive and desire can result in you making huge, drastic and un-sustainable changes to your lifestyle, nutrition and training routine. The main issue here is the un-sustainability of the changes.
When we discuss Fat Loss during our Personal Training Courses we spend a lot of time focussing on the compliance of clients and how we can make small changes to elicit maximal Fat Loss. The reason we approach Fat Loss like this is, as a Personal Trainer or client you should be focussing on stopping fat gain initially and regulating your daily habits (such as calorie intake) and not focus on Fat Loss – this will occur naturally if you do the above to start with. Furthermore, this leaves you with plenty of tools in your tool box for when Fat Loss slows down. If you use all the tools, methods and strategies at the beginning of your journey then when you or your client plateaus you are limited in what changes / progress you can make.

Below are 5 of our top tips to help you start a sustainable and realistic Fat Loss plan:

  1. Stop gaining fat:

    Our first bit of advice would always be to stop gaining fat. In most cases if you regulate your calorie intake then you will stop gaining fat and possibly even drop body weight! By regulating your calorie intake and not being overly focussed on what you eat initially makes the changes small and sustainable. Moving forward however, food choices are important for both body composition but also health.
  1. Find a physical activity you enjoy:

    At first the most important thing you need to do to cause fat loss is generate a calorie deficit. In order to drop fat, you must be in an energy / caloric deficit. The type of activity you do to create this deficit doesn’t always need to be in the gym. The more fat you have to lose then the less exerting the type of activity needs to be initially. If you go all out on day 1 and start attending CrossFit workouts, 7 Spinning classes a week or running 5km every night, eventually you will lose motivation and the drive will go. By starting with something simple like 3 walks a week, 2 games of 5 a-side football a week or 2 gym classes a week you will generate a caloric deficit but also have scope to progress when the results start to slow down.
  1. No quick fixes:

    If it is a quick fix then I promise you it is a quick fail. In most cases quick fixes such as pills, weight loss shakes and other product or service which guarantees a beach body in two weeks is nothing but a fad. Unfortunately however, by nature we prefer to spend money, over restrict ourselves on a shake diet, drop a small bit of weight and then relapse to only start again than embark on a structured Fat Loss regime.
  1. Hydrate, Hydrate and Hydrate:

    A lot of the time we over eat because we are dehydrated. It’s not uncommon to mistake dehydration for hunger. However, please be warned; increase your water intake slowly and gradually otherwise you’ll be on the toilet all the time.
  1. Find a reputable and good coach:

    Unfortunately there are a load of uneducated and unqualified coaches out there giving poor advice and charging a lot of money to do so. If you find a quality coach who has a good reputation then your Fat Loss journey shouldn’t involve unnecessary compromises – we highly recommend FLM Training qualified Personal Trainers!
To summarise the above, if you’re looking to shed a few pounds, drop some body fat or drop a dress size before summer then the first steps should include: regulating your calorie intake, increase your physical activity doing something you enjoy, stay away from fad diets or fat loss pills, hydrate and find a good Personal Trainer.
We hope you found this short blog interesting and helpful. If you’d like more information or if you have any questions then please contact us via social media or at info@flmtraining.co.uk

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