Carey for Fitness    

How to Lose Fat Safely, Effectively and Permanently

As Personal Trainers, the number one request we get from clients is fat loss. It's interesting to note that the general public is more health-conscious and the availability of low and no-fat products has increased dramatically and yet, our population continues to get fatter. In fact, the average adult weighs 8 pounds more than a decade ago!

So why do we continue to gain weight? Some researchers have estimated that our population expends 100-400 kcal less per day compared to a few decades ago because of labor-saving devices like escalators, elevators, remote controls, computers, and urban transportation. Take-out Taxi means we don't even have to leave the house for delicious, fast-food. If we do go out for dinner, Valet Parking cuts out the few blocks of walking to our vehicle. We've got to face it - laziness rules!

We also live in a society where food is in abundance. Portion sizes tend to be huge and processed foods fill our cupboards and fridges. Some researches have suggested we consume 100-300 kcal more per day than a few decades ago. Expending less energy, consuming more food and a society where exercisers are a minority results in a society that is getting fatter! 

So what can you do about it?

You've got four choices: diet, exercise, both or liposuction. The first option will definitely result in failure. Ninety-eight percent of people who go on diets gain the weight back. It appears that losing the weight in the first place, is not the hard part. In fact, people successfully lose weight all the time. It's keeping the weight off that's the hard part. The problem is that when you diet you lose valuable, energy-burning muscle tissue which drops your metabolism making it easier to put the weight back on. And secondly diets are, by nature, a short-term phenomenon. You often feel deprived during the diet-stage and thus, once you've lost the desired weight you return to old habits and patterns and the weight is quickly regained. 

The second option to lose fat is exercise. This is a good choice but unfortunately, for many people, exercise by itself is a painfully, slow process. A fat-loss exercise program may exhibit a 2% change in body-fat over a 12-18 week period which would translate into 3 pounds of lost fat. That's equates to about a pound lost per month. When people are looking for immediate results, they often don't have the patience to wait! 

The third option is to exercise and diet simultaneously. Research has found this method to be most successful at reducing body fat and, most importantly, helping to keep it off. 

The final option, liposuction, is a costly choice. Furthermore, if the diet and exercise habits of the individual are not altered, the individual will eventually get fat again. Even though they may have less fat cells, the fat cells they still have can get bigger! 

What is my magical fat-loss program?

Well, nothing really magical but a solid plan. Here's a program that incorporates exercise and healthy eating that will ensure you reduce your body fat safely, effectively and permanently:

1.      Aerobic Exercise: The American College of Sports Medicine recommends aerobic exercise 5-7 days/week for 20-60 minutes each session to maximize fat loss. If you're just starting with exercise you may want to take a couple months to progress slowly into this 5-7 days/week range. Aerobic activities like walking, running, cycling, swimming, fitness classes, hiking, cross-country skiing, stair climbing and rowing will do the trick. These activities expend a lot of energy and will burn up a lot of fat and thus, should be the focus of your exercise program. The intensity of your aerobic workouts should be within a 5-8/10 on the rating of perceived exertion scale. This means you should be able to work up a sweat, feel your heart pumping and be breathing more rapidly. I also encourage you to split your weekly aerobic workouts into easy, moderate and hard days to vary the intensity and train all energy systems.

2.      Resistance Exercise: Aerobic exercise should encompass most of your training time, but regular strength training workouts are also critical to maximize fat loss. Muscle is an energy-burning tissue and therefore, if you have more of it, your metabolism revs at a higher rate making it easier to burn fat both during and after exercise. You don't need to spend a lot of time in the weight room. Pick exercises for all the large, major muscle groups and perform just one set of 8-15 reps. You should be able to get in and out of the weight room in 20-40 minutes. These short muscle-toning workouts are sufficient to achieve the results you're looking for.

3.      Eat 5 to 6 small meals and snacks each day. Studies indicate that when people eat more regularly throughout the day, they are less likely to overeat or indulge in less-healthy choices. Food at regular intervals also maintains a more balanced blood sugar level which keeps your energy levels higher throughout the day. Try to consume smaller meals or snacks every 2-3 hours during the day.

4.      Drink 8 glasses of water every day. Our body is 50-60% water and when we are dehydrated, our body and its organs and systems don't function at their optimal level. This limits your ability to exercise intensely and ultimately, will affect your ability to burn body fat. Many scientists also suggest that headaches, minor aches and pains, low energy, sleeping problems and injuries may be a result of dehydration! Eight glasses of water each day will replenish the fluids you lose throughout the day as a result of normal human respiration.

5.       Focus on what you should be eating instead of what you shouldn't be eating. Ensure you consume 5 vegetable and 3 fruit servings every day. Fruits and vegetables are high in nutrients and water-content and low in fat and calories. It's much more difficult to overeat when your diet consists largely of fruits and vegetables. If you fill up on your fruits and veggies, you're going to have less room for the high-fat, nutrient-poor foods.

6.      Practice the 80:20 rule. You can't expect to be perfect for the rest of your life and setting these types of high expectations will definitely set you up for failure and feelings of inadequacy. Instead of saying, I'm never going to eat chocolate again, decide that you'll eat it only once per week. Instead of determining that you're going to eat perfectly 7 days a week, decide that you'll eat really healthy 5 days a week and then 2 days, you'll allow for a few indulgences. This is much more realistic and is something that you can adhere to for the rest of your life. We have to stop thinking "All or Nothing". This just leads to failure and then the resultant binges. Remember that if you want to be 10 pounds lighter 10 years from now, then it's not what you do over the next 6 weeks, but rather what you do for the next 10 years! So ask yourself, what type of a nutrition plan can you follow for the next 10 years?

7.      Limit your alcohol intake. Alcohol poses a number of problems. It is high in calories and lacking nutrient value. Some researchers have also suggested that because alcohol is metabolized in the body first, any food consumed in combination with the alcohol will be more easily converted to fat. And finally, and probably most importantly, alcohol reduces your inhibitions. You may be more inclined to indulge or make poor choices because you aren't able to think clearly or examine the long term consequences. Of course, you can't decide to never drink again, but instead of drinking every night with dinner, limit it to 1-2x/week.

8.      Increase your daily activity. Try to think of ways that you can be more active throughout your day without having to actually exercise. The calories expended from walking a few extra blocks, taking the stairs, or performing errands in an active fashion really add up! If we could learn to just be more active throughout the day, we wouldn't have to spend hours in the gym!

9.      Try not to eat large amounts of food past 8:00pm. Eating late at night often goes hand-in-hand with high-fat snacks and overeating. Secondly, it never feels good to go to bed on a full stomach!

10.   Keep an activity and food log. Record your daily exercise and what and how much you eat. Some researchers have found that just the act of recording the foods you eat, result in better choices and a healthier diet. Also by writing everything out, you may also start to notice patterns. For example, you may observe that the days you don't exercise are also the days you eat poorly. You can then take appropriate action. It's also a good idea to set daily goals to break the long-term ultimate goal into smaller chunks and to keep your goals in the forefront of your thoughts. Be sure that your goals are behavioral in nature (i.e. drink 8 glasses of water, exercise for 30 minutes, eat 5 small meals) instead of body-focused (i.e. I will lose 1 pound, 10 inches etc.). 

Our last final words of wisdom are to be patient. Safe fat loss often takes months and sometimes years - definitely not weeks or days! Be persistent and consistent! Finally, accept your genetics. If you come from a pear-shaped family, you most likely will always be a pear-shape. But you do have the choice of being an in-shape or an out-of-shape pear-shape! Don't compare yourself to other women or men, instead, try to implement these changes because they are healthy changes and you deserve to take care of yourself! We know from experience that if being thin is your goal to make you happy, you're never going to be thin enough to be happy! So learn to be happy in the body you're in right now!


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