The majority of the people I work with, including myself, want to lose body fat.
The hardest situations I face are the ones that have already achieved this goal of losing body fat once before. I’m sure you can relate to this…
Relate to the fact that losing weight and body fat was so much easier the fist time around and for some reason every time we try to buckle down and get that results again, it gets harder and harder.
Maybe it’s the mental side of it?
Or maybe it’s because you’re just not motivated to diet again…?
Is it because you’re not a beginner in the weight room anymore?
Or could there even be a science behind this that stops our body from permanently getting rid of that fat?
Well in my personal opinion and experience, it’s honestly all of the above.
Depending on how hard you dieted in the past, especially if you did a crash diet or some fad, your mental game probably isn’t at its best right now. That can leave you hopeless on the idea of long-term results and assuming that once that 30 day plan or goal is hit, everything just falls apart like it did last time.
I assure you that it is possible and things will not just fall apart again, IF you play it smart and focus on the long run while losing weight.
And simply put, you got motivated once… YOU CAN GET MOTIVATED AGAIN.
A beginner in the weight room… Now that is just a lame excuse and even though you reading this may not be saying that, believe I’ve heard it.
The facts are true – that your first 1-3 years in the weight room are the golden years and you can build a lot more muscle and strength in that time period. But that doesn’t make it impossible; it just slows down, as your body isn’t going to just pile on muscle like a machine forever.
And even though the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn daily… this entire fact, or excuse, has nothing to do with your body’s ability to stop burning fat or losing weight. Whether your rate of building lean muscle has slowed down or not, you can still very much burn more fat and lose weight.
These facts may make things more difficult and I’ve watched them slow many clients and myself down, multiple times. But they’re ALL things that can be overcome.
So lets get to a little bit of the science… What is actually happening every time you add body fat to your body?
Before we can answer that question, we need to recognize fat for what it is.
There is brown fat, white fat, visceral fat, and subcutaneous fat. Yeah, we have a lot of different types of fat on our body and the crazy part is that some of them are needed!
For instance, brown fat holds the smallest percentage of fat on our body but the leaner you are the more likely you are to have more of this fat and its can benefit you by protecting hormones and preventing diseases.
White fat is found more often and also has some benefit too it. The dangerous fat on our body, which is also the unappealing fat, is the visceral and the subcutaneous fat.
Subcutaneous fat is more visible to the eye, but visceral fat is located closer to our organs and is something that can be more likely to cause disease or other health risks.
When we think of subcutaneous fat, it’s the fat we typically store on our belly, butt and thighs.
Now before I go on, I just want to give a little fact to all those ladies reading this who’s “Hips don’t lie”… The fat that stores on your butt and thighs is partially there for a good reason!
At some point it can get excessive and you may need to lose weight to lower that amount, but if you’re healthy and fairly lean and are still holding some fat in those areas – you’re actually an above average healthy female. This can be a sign of a healthy body, protecting you from things like metabolic disease and as you know when you’re in a healthy metabolic state – you’re in the right place for fat loss.
So, there is nothing wrong with a big booty!
Back to all the fats… When we diet and lose weight, the majority of body fat lose seems to be white fat. But when we exercises on top of this, we not only lose more total fat overall but we also lose more subcutaneous fat as well – which means that we can visually see the loss much more.
Scientist have done countless studies on all the different types of fat, how to lose it, what is the hardest to get rid of, and what seems to keep coming back.
This is where the facts get a little frustrating…
According to professors at Harvard, the best way to lose subcutaneous fat is throughout hard training done at a higher intensity, frequently.
Hmm… Weird, train hard and do it consistently along with your nutrition plan and you’ll lose the ugly fat. No surprise, right?
The issue with it all is that our body has to work the hardest and consistently do it in order to lose this ugly fat, which means we need to be patient and trust the process.
This just brings us back to the mental side of things, as I discussed earlier. So when we consider a plan, we need to look at the long run and not the short-term goal.
And now you’re probably thinking, “Well why not just kill this 6 week challenge and have a plan ready for you when you get done? Get the quick result, then keep it afterwards?”
Well, the first answer has nothing to do with science… Whatever you can do to lose a dramatic weight in a short period of time may not be the healthiest and when it is, it’s not sustainable.
It’s not sustainable because we either had to go to extremes to get there or we had a very large amount of weight to lose at the beginning, therefore it came off a bit quicker at first and as we go the pounds slow down.
The second answer has a little science too it and it’s the bad news of the situation.
When we gain body fat from lack of movement, binge eating, drinking, and junk foods in general, it is very much likely to be stored as subcutaneous fat.
So when we fall off that diet and gain some weight, it unfortunately doesn’t turn into hormone boosting brown fat cells or white cells that are easily burned.
It is more likely to turn to subcutaneous fat we don’t like and that takes the longest to burn or visceral fat, which can be a huge risk to our health and life.
This is why the yo-yo style of training and dieting we do is so dangerous and depressing, because every time we fall into that drift – it gets harder and harder to lose it the next time.
This is one of my biggest motives to live a healthy lifestyle that promotes good health and staying leaner year round. This is why the bodybuilding industry has been a dangerous place to be, we get extremely lean and then binge 10lbs right after the show since we deprived ourselves leading up to it.
I get it, because I did it. It’s hard not too when you want to look so good on that stage.
The great part is that the bodybuilding community is catching on to more than just purely appearance and realizing good health can be achieve with the aesthetic looks, but that’s an entirely different rant I’ll save you from today.
My goal today isn’t to explain to you the science behind how you screwed up, but instead to open your eyes to why it is harder each time and how you can stop it. I wrote this article because I’ve been there and done the ups and downs of this journey and I know it is a mental game that is not fun to be in.
But you can win the game.
Success is difficult, but very simple…
When you train, train your hardest. What is the point of half assing a rep or workout? You’re there and probably paying money to be there, give it 100%.
Stay consistent. Doing 4 days a week for a year is much better then doing 7 days for a month, 3 the next, 6 the next, and then falling off for a month… Your body is smart and your metabolism will adapt to anything you give it, so get a routine you can live with and stick to it.
Nutrition is KEY and just like the point above, you need to be consistent with it. Whether you’re paleo, tracking macros, or using The Handful Diet – find something that works for your lifestyle and that you can see yourself doing for years to come, then stick to it.
No more bingeing…. I know, easier said then done – believe me I get it. But it’s the brutal truth. You’re killing results with this and it wasn’t until I stopped doing it myself, every single weekend, that I started seeing serious results that stuck around. I will never fully restrict myself or a client, we need to enjoy foods and social events, but moderation is absolutely crucial for results and if you don’t plan around these situations you can kill your results.
These things are all absolutely crucial for the results you want and if you don’t know how to specifically go into each aspect or create the right plan for you, you should probably consider a coach.
We all need them, even us coaches.
I have a few spots available going into the end of this year and as a coach who specializes in Nutrition, Training, and Fat Loss – I’d love to get you on my team.
Click HERE to apply for coaching.
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