Lose Fat and Live Longer

This year utilize these 5 tips to reduce your fat percentage

Every year millions of people proclaim their New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. As a health and fitness expert I tend to minimize the usage of the term ‘lose weight’.

Why?

I don’t believe people should become too obsessive over a particular target weight. As long as you are exercising, which along with a proper diet is the BEST way to lose fat, then you will be adding muscle mass. Lean muscle mass weights more than fat. Did you know that one pound of fat occupies more space than one pound of muscle? Although you will be losing fat, you will also be adding on more lean muscle mass becoming both slimmer and stronger!

So how do I shred fat and keep it off for good?

1. Consistency – Exercising in a consistent pattern is habit forming. Your body likes to be in a pattern so if you regularly work out 4-6 times per week for a few months it will become the ‘new normal’ for you. You will feel like garbage if you go a week without a workout.
2. Workout Buddy – Having a workout buddy doesn’t necessarily mean you work out together. It could be a friend or co-worker at your office that you walk to the gym with and go your separate ways during your workout. This way someone is holding you accountable. On the days when you feel like skipping the workout your workout buddy can help motivate you and vice versa when they are feeling low energy.
3. Build Muscle – Don’t fall into the ‘fat burning trap’ and think that the only way to lose fat is by doing cardio. A combination of resistance exercises (weights) AND cardio is the ticket to a smaller waistline! Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does and therefore your metabolism will be increased.
4. Decrease Alcohol – Alcohol consumption is an often overlooked factor in those looking to lose weight and shave off fat. A big night of drinking can provide the equivalent of an entire daily caloric intake! Some of these extra calories can be stored as fat. Check out this previous post for a great example of how alcohol can affect your fat loss goals.
5. Eating – Those that skip breakfast are more likely to overeat later in the day. Look at your body like a furnace. It needs fuel to fire. Smaller more frequent meals are preferred over a massive dinner serving. While we are on the subject of food increase your vegetable, fruit, seed and nut intake while reducing your grain, dairy, and sugar intake. Eat pastured meat (animals that graze in a field as they were intended as opposed to grain fed ‘super-farms’). Avoid processed foods and choose to make home cooked meals rather than prepared ones. Stop drinking pop too – that stuff is nasty!

Follow these 5 tips and you will be on your way to a leaner, healthier body in the New Year! Do you have any tips I’ve missed? I’d love to hear about them below.

Disclaimer: As you can appreciate entire books have been written on proper dietary considerations. This post only briefly touched upon a few of the changes that are beneficial to fat loss.

This article is also featured on The GoodLife Blog.