Your Guide to Simple Fat Loss

Simple fat loss is possible if you focus on these 4 non-negotiable priorities when it comes to losing fat and keeping it off for good.

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With overwhelming amounts of (conflicting) information available at our fingertips, trying to lose weight has never felt more complicated.

You are not alone if you’ve been overwhelmed into inaction because you can’t figure out what your priorities should be when all you really want is simple fat loss.

Keep reading to learn more about the top four things you need to prioritize to make the process of losing fat as simple as possible.

You can also grab your headphones and listen to this episode of The Live Diet-Free Podcast for more info on the weight loss “Big Rocks” for simple fat loss: 

Create a Calorie Deficit

Whether or not you want to count them, calories still matter.

A lot.

Taking in fewer calories than your body needs is priority #1 when it comes to fat loss. In order to lose weight, we need to be taking in fewer calories than our bodies need.

The issue is that many of us are taking in more calories than our bodies need so the excess ends up getting stored as fat.

The Calories In part of the equation is pretty simple: we take in calories from the things we eat and drink.

Calories Out can feel a little more complicated, but can be broken down into the following categories:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – This is the total calories your body needs to keep you alive and it actually contributes a significant number of calories to your total daily expenditure.

Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) – These are the calories you body burns in order to digest and absorb the nutrients from whatever you’re eating. 

Thermic Effect of Activity (Exercise) – These are the calories you burn while you’re exercising.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) – These are all the calories you burn doing stuff throughout the day outside of your structured exercise time.

So the equation looks like this:

Calories In from Food & Drinks vs Calories Out from BMR+TEF+Exercise+NEAT

When Calories In > Calories Out you experience Weight Gain (this is also called a calorie surplus)

When Calories In = Calories Out you will Maintain Weight (this is also called calorie balance)

When Calories In < Calories Out you will Lose Weight (this is also called a calorie deficit)

There is no denying energy balance. If you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit by either decreasing how many calories you eat and drink, increasing how many calories you burn through exercise and NEAT, or a combination of the two (your best bet.)

While the scale can’t tell us everything we need to know about fat loss, the reality is that if the scale is refusing to budge, you’re likely consuming more calories than you realize causing a surplus. This is why nutrition is so important if you really want to see simple fat loss.

What To Do: Conduct a 1 week food audit and look for places that you can cut out junk food or liquid calories and increase nutrient-dense food like lean protein and veggies. If you’re a numbers-based person, consider tracking in an app like MyFitnessPal to learn how many calories you’re currently taking in.

Eat Sufficient Protein

Protein, found in foods like meat, poultry, and seafood, is always important, but even more so when you’re in a calorie deficit and consuming more is one of the easiest ways to see simple fat loss.

Lean proteins help build and repair every tissue in your body, including bone, hair, skin, nails, and muscle. Muscle is especially important because when you say they want to lose “weight,” typically you want to lose fat.

Taking in sufficient protein will help you retain muscle while losing fat, which, in turn, will give you the lean, fit look that you’re probably shooting for.

Additionally, protein plays a role in synthesizing hormones, boosting your immune system, and can increase satiety (how satisfied you feel after you eat) – which is especially important in a calorie deficit since it’ll help you not feel hungry and miserable all the time!

What To Do: Aim for .7-1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. Just take your weight and shoot for that many grams of protein and if you end up a little bit under, no biggie because you’re still within the range.

If you’re not interested in counting calories or tracking macros, shoot for 1-2 palm-sized portions of lean protein, which equates roughly to 25-50g per meal. If you eat fewer meals, shoot for the large portion size and if you eat more frequently, having less at each meal is fine.

Strength Train Regularly

Resistance – or strength – training is any exercise that requires your muscles to contract against an external resistance (or force) – in the form of your bodyweight, dumbbells, medicine balls, barbells, tires, etc.

Strength training is important for a whole host of reasons, including building a stronger heart, reducing blood pressure and cholesterol, controlling blood sugar, relieving anxiety, and helping manage quality of life for lots of conditions.

Specific to weight loss, strength training helps you retain muscle while you’re eating in a calorie deficit. Remember, ideally you are losing fat and keeping your muscle, so the combination of sufficient protein and regular strength training is important.

Another simple fat loss benefit of strength training is that it can help increase your metabolism, which is the sum of all processes in the body. This is because muscle has higher energy demands than fat. Admittedly, this increase in metabolism is quite small but over time an increase in muscle mass can make a difference.

Lastly, after a strength workout, your body continues to need oxygen at a higher rate than normal (this is called Excess Postexercise Oxygen Consumption, or EPOC), which means that your body is burning calories at a higher rate than normal for several hours after. 

In other words, you get a lot of bang for your buck in a strength training workout.

What To Do: Aim for 3 strength training workouts per week and make these your priority. If you’d like to add in a day or two of high-intensity interval training or steady-state cardio, that’s fine, but don’t do so at the expense of your strength training.

Be Patient and Consistent

Healthy weight loss usually occurs at a rate of ~.5-1% of your bodyweight per week. This means if you’re 200 pounds, you may lose 1-2 pounds per week.

But here’s something else you should know: weight loss is rarely linear, meaning it’s unlikely you’ll lose 1-2 pounds every week.

More likely, it’ll look something like 1 pound the first week, half a pound the second, none in the third, 2 in the fourth, etc. Lots of factors contribute to this but just know that it’s likely and don’t get too bent out of shape when it happens.

Losing 3.5 pounds in a month might seem like nothing, especially when every social media influencer is promising that you can lose 20 pounds this week with their special products, but look at it long-term, that’s over 40lbs of sustainable and simple fat loss over the course of a year

That said, losing 3.5 pounds – primarily of fat – that you won’t put back on, is way better than the smoke & mirrors of losing a bunch of water weight (which is all that happens during most rapid weight loss.)

Given this realistic rate of weight loss, it’s likely that it’s going to take a while to reach your goals. That’s why it’s so important to be patient and consistent.

This is not a sprint.

You need to commit to this for the long-haul and make lasting changes to your lifestyle if you want to reach your weight loss goals and maintain your new weight once you get there.

What To Do: Setting smaller, interim goals to celebrate along the way, and focusing on your actions rather than outcomes can make a big difference in whether you commit to seeing the process through or give up prematurely. And read this: 5 Keys To Being Patient & Consistent with Your Weight Loss.

Putting It All Together

Forget everything else you’ve heard and focus on the following priorities if you’re looking for simple fat loss tips and you’re serious about developing a healthy body that you love:

-Create a calorie deficit

-Eat sufficient protein

-Strength train regularly

-Be patient and consistent

If you’re ready to get off the weight loss rollercoaster and start creating the happiest, healthiest and most confident version of yourself, check out Gone for Good and let me know how we can help!

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