3 Steps to lose fat
Intro
Losing weight, in particular losing fat, is a popular topic with no shortage of resources on how to do so — which is a good thing. The issue is that with so many resources and conflicting advice, it’s hard to know what to believe. We know that every person is different and will have to achieve their desired goals in a way that works for their unique needs; making it even harder to weed through the noise and “one size fits all” approaches. However, there’s a simpler way to look at this.
There are three core things that work for everyone in order to get rid of fat at your core. In order of importance: (1) Diet (2) Sleep / Recovery (3) Exercise.
There are no substitutes, supplements, magic pills, or juice cleanses that will help you long-term. Even a bone broth fast will only help you appear trimmer for a short amount of time (unfortunately). And let’s get real — how many lemon-water fanatics are still doing their fasting and are actually healthy? There is no replacing a diet high in fiber and whole foods, sleeping 7.5-9 hours a day and avoiding stress, and exercising 60+ minutes throughout the day. A simple formula, yes, but challenging to do. So let’s focus on making the basics more do-able.
Why is it so hard to lose fat in the first place?
The body prefers to use carbohydrates as fuel and store fat
Unless you’re training for long enough periods or already operating in a keto state (referring to the body preferring fat over carbohydrates), then your body naturally prefers carbs over everything else. Due to their molecular structures, carbohydrates are easier to break down and obtain energy from than fat, resulting in quicker access to energy. If we want to effectively lose fat we must first use up our carbohydrate stores of energy. The rate at which you burn through your carbs and begin burning fat depends on the individual. Factors such as diet, age, duration and intensity of exercise are all key factors here.
It’s not recommended to go on low carb diets in order to burn fat. Read that again.
This approach can cause dizziness, fainting, soreness, fatigue, and injury. Without proper guidance, training, and fuel for our muscles, bad things happen. Sustained fat loss takes time and consistency — so as a rule of thumb don’t fall for the lose-fat-quick schemes.
Fat loss is fat loss, and targeting only stomach fat is... not a thing
The stomach is the first place we store fat and the last place to get rid of fat — making fat loss around the midsection particularly difficult. While we can work to improve conditioning and composition of abdominal muscles, there is no targeting fat loss for your tummy. Save your money on all the gadgets promising to lose extra fat in certain places and rejoice in the fact that when we lose fat the right way, we lose fat everywhere.
There are no tricks: fat requires a lot of work to burn
The body stores fat and carbohydrates as its two main sources of fuel. Fat is a caloric dense source of energy. One gram of fat contains about 9 calories. In comparison, one gram of carbohydrates contain 4 calories. It takes twice the amount of work to burn the same amount of fat. In order to lose fat, you’ll need to operate in a “calorie deficit.” This means you must burn more calories than you consume. For many, it also means becoming comfortable with being a little hungry! Our body must first get rid of all excess fat before we begin to see fat loss around our mid-section.
An important note: everything we do must be in moderation. Starving yourself in hopes to lose more fat quickly is a recipe for disaster. Feeling the natural sense of hunger, however, should be taken as a good sign that you’re likely burning calories. Remind yourself of that the next time you find yourself feeling hangry.
Types of Fat
Good Fat
Adipose Tissue
Adipose tissue is a loose connective tissue and plays a major role in storing energy. Adipose fat also serves as an important cushion and insulates the body from heat and cold, and has been recognized as a major endocrine organ. This means it’s involved in producing hormones such as leptin, ghrelin, testosteron, estrogen and inflammatory process mediators (tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and resistin). We love a healthy amount of this kind of fat.
Brown Fat vs. White Fat: When is fat good for you?
There is a type of fat, known as brown fat, that provides benefits to us in the forms of energy, hormone production, and insulation. If we were looking under a microscope; the good fat cells would appear brown, while the bad fat cells would appear white. There are animal studies in which they were able to turn the harmful white fat into beneficial brown fat by introducing low temperatures to mice. As a result of the change in fat, researchers were able to provide beneficial improvement in the metabolic dysfunctions of obese mice. The process of using fat to keep the body warm could provide a novel therapeutic strategy for treating visceral fat-associated obesity, diabetes, decreasing body weight and body mass index, despite increased food intake.
Bad Fat
Visceral fat & subcutaneous fat
There are two main types of fat: visceral which lines our organs, and subcutaneous which lies beneath the skin. Each type of fat increases naturally with age and has negative associations including inflammation, diabetes, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and high morbidity.
Abnormally high amounts of fat located in the central segment of the body surrounding our organs is known as visceral obesity. This type of fat is not as visually apparent but is still associated with medical disorders such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and several malignancies including prostate, breast and colorectal cancers.
Nutrition: Healthy eating habits to try
Less calories coming in than you have going out
This is the most important and straightforward rule to follow. There is no way around the fact that if you eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight. An abundance of calories will result in excess energy which will be stored first as fat. If you continue to operate in this calorie excess state, then you will continue to gain weight. Keep in mind it takes about a 500 calorie deficit per day to lose one pound.
As a reminder, most people will benefit from receiving personal advice from a professional because just like our medical needs, every person’s ideal nutritional plan is going to look different.
K.I.S.S. and eat for energy
Help yourself remove all barriers of counting calories by Keeping It Super Simple and eating for energy
Some people enjoy measuring calories by weighing everything they eat and plugging into their favorite nutrition app. Most people do not enjoy this process. In fact, it can create more stress than it is worth — understandably turning people off from the idea of minding their calories completely.
Keeping it super simple and eat for energy is a way to make this a fun process that takes minimal counting, weighing, and thinking. Before, during, and after eating ask yourself: “does this food/meal give me more energy than it takes?” Get rid of things that make you feel worse after because they take energy away from you. Eat more of the things that give you energy. Have fun experimenting!
Rely on whole foods as your main sources of nutrition
Relying on whole foods as our main source of nutrition helps us in a few ways. Whole foods give us higher nutritional value in fewer calories in comparison to processed foods. This will lead us to need fewer calories, while still benefiting from the same amount of nutritional energy.
Additionally, whole food sources will help create a healthy microbiome ecosystem; feeding the good bacteria and starving the bad. A healthy microbiome will lead to less craving, more efficient use of energy, and less belly fat.
It is hard to over-eat on a whole food diet, but it is still possible. Be mindful of this and continue to KISS and eat for energy.
TIPS:
Foods to avoid if you want to lose fat
White carbs - break down into sugar
Gluten - inflammatory to our gut
Sugar - white sugar and liquid sugar are definitely not okay! A great anit-microbial sugar substitute is honey
Dairy - creates inflammation and mucus
Processed and fried foods (trans-fat)
Alcohol
Foods to enjoy if you want to fat
Protein - eggs, tofu, pasture raised chicken, fish, beef, pork
Vegetables — prebiotic veggies like sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, or veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cruciferous veggies, spinach, asparagus peas, legumes (which not leaky gut-friendly, but for those who don’t have IBS/IBD they are definitely nutritious.)
Healthy fats - can be used as alternative fuel sources which provide more energy per gram than carbohydrates. Possibility to starve off hunger pains and create a more stable source of energy. Fat is our brain's preferred energy source. A high fat- ketogenic type diet is Not recommended for diabetics (ex. Avocado, fish, flax seed, chia seed, olive oil)
Complex carbs & fruits - takes a longer time to break down and digest than simple carbs, so they provide a longer-lasting, low blood glucose energy level. Sources include bananas, yams, complex carbs, and apples.
Drinks - Green tea, black coffee, water, green juice
Fasting provides a quick fix to belly fat, but should be practiced before adopting as a lifestyle change.
2. Sleep & Appetite: 12 Tips for Healthy Sleep
The less you sleep, the more you eat.
Sleeping less than seven or eight hours a night will increase your probability of gaining weight, being overweight, being obese, and significantly increases your lieklihood of developing type 2 diabetes.
In a study performed by Dr. Eve Van Cauter at the University of Chicago, most people who slept less than five to six hours a night saw a strong rise of hunger pangs and increased reported appetite by the second day of short sleep, in comparison to those who were getting eight or more hours of sleep (1).
In a separate study by Dr. Eve Van Cauter, individuals who got 4.5 hours of sleep ate more calories each day than when they got a full 8.5 hours of sleep. Not only did their overall calorie consumption increase, but they also ate worse types of food for their health. Their snack cravings for sweets, carbohydrate-rich foods, and salty snacks increased by 330 calories(1).
The reason you gain weight when your sleep becomes short is because of two hormones: leptin and ghrelin. Inadequate sleep muted the leptin “I’m full” signals, and increased volume on the ghrelin “feed me” signals(1).
Leptin = “I’m full”
Ghrelin (the grinch) = “Feed me”
Figure 13: Sleep Loss and Obesity
12 Tips for Healthy Sleep
Stick to the same sleep schedule: Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time — even on weekends.
Exercise, but not too late and not too much (at least 30 min exercise, 2+ hours before bed.)
Avoid caffeine and nicotine: caffeine can take as long as eight hours to fully wear off.
Avoid alcohol: alcohol prevents you from getting into deep REM sleep, keeping you in the lighter stages.
Avoid large meals and drinks as they can cause indigestion and constant bathroom breaks
Avoid medicine that delays or disrupts sleep. Examples of medicine to take early in the day include heart, blood pressure, or asthma medicine. Avoid over-the-counter cough, cold, and allergy medicine as they disrupt sleep patterns.
Don't nap after 3pm.
Unwind and relax before bed. Make a relaxing activity like stretching or reading a part of your bedtime ritual.
Take a hot bath or hot shower. Getting out of a hot bath or shower leads to a drop in internal temperature, making it easier to fall asleep. A hot bath or shower also puts you in a meditative brain state helping you slow down and relax.
Keep your bedroom dark, cool, and gadget-free.
Get daylight from the sun and limit artificial lights as much as possible.
Don’t lie awake in bed. If you have a hard time sleeping, get up and out of bed for a relaxing activity until you feel sleepy.
3. Exercise
Exercise Avoidance Hack 101: there are no exercise avoidance hacks.
Another hard truth; the only way to lose belly fat through exercising is by exercising. There are no sleeves or sweat bands that will do it for you. You can’t buy fat loss pills and expect sustained results without moving your body. Frequent, consistent, and adequate exercise will help you increase the amount of calories you burn on a daily basis, even on rest days.
We can debate all day about what type of exercise is best (which we did below), but there is not one answer. Factors such as time, interest, budget, and sustainability all play a role in determining the best form of exercise for you. A general truth in regards to exercise is it is less about what type of exercise you do, and more about how consistent you are with your chosen activity. So choose the kind of exercise you like the most, only for the amount of time you have available, and make it a part of your daily routine for your best chances at losing belly fat.
Best type of exercise to target belly fat
High Intensity Interval Training
While preference for exercise is based on each individual, there are some ways to get rid of the most belly fat in the shortest amount of time. My favorite is high intensity interval training aka HIIT. High intensity training burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time, making the workouts easy to fit into a busy schedule. When combined with strength training, HIIT helps you continue to burn calories even after your workout is complete (as the body works to repair itself). Vigorous exercise can significantly increase the amount of fat loss in high risk populations when combined with a high fiber diet. When done consistently, all forms of exercise will reduce body weight, visceral fat, total body fat, and fat around the midsection (as long as you’re keeping your healthy eating and sleeping habits a top priority). However, high intensity exercise provides quick results in the reduction in visceral fat in elderly and overweight adults.
Endurance Training
Endurance training provides the benefit of depleting carbohydrate stores during the workout and forcing the body to adapt its energy source to fat. Because fat provides more energy per gram as fuel, we are able to go longer with less calories (hence, endurance training utilizing fat).
Endurance training often requires less equipment than other forms of training which makes getting started and remaining consistent even easier. However, like all forms of training it’s easy to bite off more than you can chew in the beginning and create unsustainable habits when you’re looking for quick results. We’re with our bodies for the long run, so let’s treat it that way.
People's first thought when practicing endurance training is to go for a run, but running (and jogging) places a lot more stress on the body than we realize. Running on hard surfaces such as concrete is especially hard when you haven't properly prepared the body to be able to handle that stress. I encourage people to try low impact forms of endurance training such as walking, swimming or biking, rather than always diving right into running.
Find a balance, Switch it up
The correct answer in what type of exercise burns the most fat, endurance training or strength training, is: both. High intensity interval training burns more calories in a shorter amount of time and continues to burn calories after you have finished. Endurance training utilizes fat as fuel. helping you burn more fat as your endurance increases. Find the balance between HITT, strength training, and endurance training that works for you to burn the most fat.
How long should we exercise?
High intensity exercise is my speciality so I’m always going to be an advocate for that — but I also stand by the philosophy that any exercise is good exercise. I can talk endlessly about how sitting is bad for your health and leads to obesity, and I find that conversation just as important as this one. While 60+ minutes of exercise is recommended, it doesn’t have to be all high intensity, and it doesn't have to be all at once. Not only do you have the option to break up your workouts through-out the day — it is actually recommended.
If you’re looking for somewhere to get started you can try our 30 day core challenge, 28 day get moving/get fit challenge, or our 20 minute at home workout to help break up your day and get you moving.
Tips to get started
PLAY: become a kid again. Like any form of flow, exercise should be challenging but rewarding. Remember being a kid and playing so hard that you didn't know you were out of breath? Do that again. Running is not for everyone. Half marathons and ironmen are not for everyone. Find your way to play.
Start slow and learn to identify your limitations. Avoid failure early on by beginning only with activities you know you can’t fail at. Is it 10 morning squats a day? A round of golf on Sunday morning? Anything is better than nothing. Create the habit first, then intensity will follow.
Do what you love and comes naturally, because consistency is key. The reason we begin by avoiding failure is because habit forming is about remaining consistent. Once a week is not a habit, and it takes repetition to see changes in health and decrease in fat.
Ramp up intensity when you are ready. Pretty soon those 10 morning squats will feel as natural as brushing your teeth. Maybe now you can try 20 squats? Or go for a walk at lunch time? Slowly increasing intensity will help you see visible results which will motivate you to keep going.
Practice accountability. Why are workout partners so important? They hold you accountable. Finding a workout buddy or a trainer can help remain consistent.
Listen to your body and practice flow. No matter who you are or how much you enjoy exercise, some days you just do not feel like playing. And that’s okay! I have a rule called always do your warm-up where you ALWAYS DO YOUR WARM-UP. If at the end you are not ready for your workout then take it easy that day. We would rather avoid injury and burn out today so we can get back after it tomorrow.
What you don’t have control over
Not everything about fat loss is in our control. A few factors such as age, genes, and gender are some things we cannot do much about.
Age: As we get older our metabolism slows down. We are no longer able to eat the same amount and maintain the same weight. There are things we can do to mitigate this such as resistance and HIIT training and eating less.
Genes: Some people are born with the ability to process fat and excess calories more efficiently than others. Your family history can often give you an idea of what your body type is but with the right diet, sleep, and exercise regimen you can lose the amount of fat you choose.
Medications: There are medications that will pack on a few extra pounds and increase cravings that you may not have otherwise had.
Conclusion
Additional Things to consider before getting started
Choosing your own level of fitness and happiness should not be dependent upon any person’s opinion besides your own. With factors such as age, genetics, medications, and lifestyle circumstances everyone's situation is unique and should not be compared to each other. In addition, everyone will have “off” days, and beating yourself up about having the extra dessert is worse than actually having the dessert itself. So live a little! Just do not let it become a habit (more than 2 days in a row and you’re in trouble).
References
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https://whealthyperformance.com/articles/what-is-fasting-and-should-you-try-it
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https://whealthyperformance.com/articles/why-sitting-is-bad-20-min-at-home-exercise
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