Gaining weight and putting on fat can be extremely frustrating and depressing, especially when you dont know how to lose it! To lose body fat you simply need to learn why you are gaining weight and the answer to that is simple. Your taking in more calories than your body burns off each day. Overtime this can pile on the pounds and increase body fat. Check out these tips to lose body fat and keep you looking lean and healthy.
Tips To Lose Body Fat – Cut The Calories
The number one reason why you are gaining weight and body fat is because you are consuming too many calories. When you take in more calories than your body needs, it will store the remainder as fat. Simple. The best way to avoid this is to eat 4-6 healthy nutritous meals or snacks throughout the day. Try and eliminate junk food as much as possible as these types of foods are typically high in fat and contain a lot of calories.
Do not eliminate them completely unless you are 100% capable of doing so. Eliminating junk food completely will probably make you crave it even more, making you more likely to give up your goal of losing body fat. Can you really imagine living the rest of your life without any kind of junk food? Didnt think so! treat yourself once or twice a week but do not consume junk food every day.
In reality everyones body is different and will require a different number of calories throughout the day to maintain what it has. To really zoom in on your weight loss goals and help you lose body fat I would firstly recommend calculating your daily maintenance level of calories using this calculator. Its quick and easy and will take 60 seconds or so of your time. Once you have a rough estimate back, subtract 300 from this number and attempt to eat around this number of calories for the first week. Yes this will mean you need to calculate the number of calories your taking in from each of your meals but is definetly worth the effort if your serious about losing body fat.
Once you’ve done this for the first week you will have a pretty good idea of how many calories are in most of your meals so you wont have to keep counting. If you try and prepare healthy nutritous meals of around 400-500 calories throughout the day the calorie counting should be pretty straight forward. Off the top of my head you could put together a meal consisting of 1 chicken breast (120 calories), 50 grams of rice/spaghetti/pasta (200-250 calories) and a few vegetables for 400-500 calories. If you can write down a few more of these meals you can consume containing around 400-500 calories you will be far more organised when it comes to eating and preparing your meals.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #2 – Get Some Exercise
Exercise is great for losing body fat and burning off calories. Their are a number of different exercises and activities that will help you lose body fat and burn calories but some can be more effective than others. If your obese or consider yourself severly overweight then exercises as simple as walking or gardening can be beneficial to you. Check out my article cardio exercises to lose belly fat for more great cardio exercises that will help you lose body fat. If you dont know much about cardio then be sure to take a quick look at cardio for beginners to help you get started. More great cardio articles can be found over at the cardio section of the site.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #3 – Remove Junk Food From The House
To help you lose body fat any junk food lying around the house should be removed or thrown out. Having junk food in your cupboards will always give you the opportunity to cheat on your diet and damage your weight loss attempts. Without any junk food in the house you are less likely to think about consuming it. Even if you want to you cant. Once the cravings pass you will be pleased you didnt cheat on your diet.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #4 – Keep Motivated
Motivation is the key to a lot of things. Being successful at something will require a certain amount of motivation. If you dont have motivation to do something it can be very hard to do it. Think about why you want to lose body fat and get in better shape. Think about that horrible feeling you get when you know you’ve cheated on your diet and fallen further behind your goals and targets. Try listening to your favourite songs to keep you motivated or keep looking at pictures or videos that help motivate you.
Another great way to stay motivated is to keep a log of your progress. Keep a log of what you eat each day and how much weight you lost that week. Write down what exercise you did (if any) and how you feel on certain days. This is a constant reminder of the progress your making and the progress you could make in say another month or two. Think about what you could look and feel like in another couple of months if you keep up your healthy eating and exercise plan.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #5 – Drop Calories Gradually
Do not suddenly go from eating 3000 calories a day straight down to consuming 1500 calories a day as this can be a big shock to your system. The best way to lose body fat and maintain this loss is to gradually cut down your calories. A sudden drop in calories can cause your body to burn off muscle tissue instead of fat and can wreck your metabolism overtime. If your body thinks its being deprived of food it will hold on to what its got and make it continously harder to lose body fat. Maintain a slow calorie drop and only decrease calories further when you stop losing weight. Subtract 300 calories to begin with from your maintenance level and gradually subtract more once your progress stalls.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #6 – Weight Training
Weight Training can have a similar effect as cardio. It will burn calories if its intense enough and can leave your metabolism reved up for up to 24 hours meaning your body will naturally burn more calories at rest. These arent the only reasons you should incorporate weight training into your routine. When losing body fat their is a good chance that some of the calories you burn will come from muscle tissue as well as fat. We dont really want to be losing muscle tissue as this can lower your metabolism and leave you looking out of shape once body fat has been burned away.
Incorporate weight training into your routine to help keep hold of your muscle tissue and burn additional calories. If your out of shape and overweight and have little to none experience in weight lifting you will actually be able to lose fat and build muscle at the same time! Building a stronger and more muscular physique is great for your health as well as your confidence and self esteem.
Tips To Lose Body Fat #7 – Patience and Consistancy
To lose body fat you will need to be patient and consistant in your efforts. Think of the amount of time you’ve been eating badly for. It could be months or even years so expect it to take time for your body to lose it as well. If you can maintain a loss of 1-2 pounds a week your doing great. If you keep that up for 2 months you would have lost anywhere between 8-16 pounds. Thats progress! be consistant and you will eventually reach your goals.
