
Motivate Fitness
8 Rules for Fat Loss Training

1. Prioritize Nutrition
Nutrition is the single most important thing for fat loss. If you are serious about
stripping off body fat, you must make time for grocery shopping, cooking, meal
prep, doing dishes, and keeping a food journal. If you don't have time for this,
make time. Cut down on time wasters like social media, web surfing, playing on
your cell phone, or TV and take care of your top priority for fat loss – your
nutrition. Get plenty of natural, single-ingredient foods, meats, fish, whole eggs,
beans, good carbs and vegetables along with quality supplements such as fish
oils, branch chain amino acids, and multi vitamins.
2. Pick Compound Exercises
Regardless of your goals, effective training starts with picking the right exercises.
The best exercises for fat loss are the ones that include many muscles such as
squats, deadlifts, push-up, planks and dumbbell or body weight rows/chin-ups.
3. Get Stronger
While most people understand that getting stronger is important for building
muscle and enhancing performance, its relevance for fat loss is often overlooked.
When your goal is fat loss, you want to burn as much fuel as possible. To do this,
you want your body to be as fuel inefficient as possible. One of the huge
problems with cardio for fat loss is that the more you do, the better you get at it
and thus the more fuel efficient you become. With resistance training the
opposite is true. The better you get at strength training, the more weight you can
lift and the more it takes out of you. Spending some of your training time getting
stronger allows you to do all your other forms of training (e.g., metabolic
resistance training, conditioning) at a higher/faster level and this makes them
even more effective for getting rid of unwanted body fat.
4. Build Muscle Tone
Virtually everyone trying to lose body fat should gain some muscle. Most people
know this, but it bears repeating again and again. Even a few extra pounds of
lean muscle means a lot more calories burned each day.
5. Jack Up Metabolism Post Training
Years ago exercise scientists told us to do long, slow cardio in order to burn fat.
However, this answer was a response to the wrong question. Fat loss training
is not about what burns the most amount of fat during a training session, it is about
what burns the most amount of fat in a 24 hour period. Short, high-intensity
exercise creates an oxygen debt known as excess post-exercise oxygen
consumption and this results in a metabolic boost long after the training session
is over.
6. Schedule Wisely
When designing a weekly plan for your training, consider how different styles of
training affect different systems and thus affect recovery. Allow for some spaces
between different types of stressors. For example, if you stress something one
day, do a lighter session or work a different type of stress the next day. For
example: resistance training one day / cardio the next.
7. Rotate Strategies
As with any goal, following an effective program will only work for so long before
you hit a plateau. With fat loss programs, switch as needed to different strategies
such as the following:
Metabolic resistance training: Use moderate weights for moderate reps while alternating upper/lower body exercises or doing whole body circuits.
Strength training: Use more traditional strength training methods to allow you to lift more weight when you return to metabolic resistance training.
Bodybuilding: Focus on building lean muscle to raise metabolic rate and doing brisk walking to burn a few extra calories.
Strength plus conditioning: Focus on getting stronger in the weight room and doing challenging forms of conditioning to boost EPOC (that after-burn effect).
Rotate your diet too: Depending on the intensity of your workout vary your carb intake. Lower intensity = lower carbs / Higher intensity = more good carbs.
8. Get Outside
We are made to be outdoors so do something physical outside. Run sprints at the
track, find a hill and do sprints, push or pull a sled. Ride your bike or grab a
sledgehammer and try to beat an old tire to a pulp. Also, doing some other
activities such as sports or outdoor recreation is great to not only burn a few
extra calories, but also to have fun, reduce stress, and enjoy the benefits of the
finely conditioned machine you are building in the gym.
If following these eight steps appear complexed or difficult, don't do them alone. At Motivate Fitness we teach, guide, and enact these actions with you step by step through our FIT IN 42 program. If you are looking for results and tired of feeling like a hamster on a wheel, click the banner below to finally achieve your weight loss goals.