5 Essentials For Fat Loss

EAT IN A HEALTHY CALORIE DEFICIT

The most important component for fat loss is making sure that you are in a caloric deficit. Without a deficit in place, the other fat-loss tips below will be not be helpful. In order to lose fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume.

To lose about a pound a week, you need to eat 500 fewer calories a day. Just make sure you don’t eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day for women; eating too few calories will slow down your metabolism.

It’s not just the quantity of calories that matter but also the quality. Your daily calories should fit into a specific amount of fats carbs and protein.

The easiest way to do this consistently is to use FlexPro Meals. Right now you can even get two free meals with their New Year Meal Plans.

To find the amounts that you should be eating use my macro calculator here. Try Macro Calculator

GET ACTIVE OUTSIDE OF THE GYM

After your workout at the gym, you probably feel like your activity is done for the day. In reality, what you do outside of the gym also has a big impact on your fat-loss success.

One way to increase your daily activity, is by getting in 10,000 steps a day. This little addition will rapidly boost the total amount of calories burned throughout the day. Other ways to get active outside the gym include gardening, doing chores, and playing with your kids.

WEIGHT TRAIN AT LEAST THREE DAYS A WEEK

During your gym time, you should focus on strength training. While cardio can help you burn calories and put you in an overall calorie deficit, strength training and lifting weights will help you lose long-term because strength training helps you build muscle, and more muscle mass means your body burns more calories at rest.

Strength train at least three days a week starting out. You can increase that number as you progress and see results.

ADD HIIT TO YOUR FAT-LOSS PROGRAM

Although you may not be focusing on cardio in your fat-loss fitness plan, you should still incorporate HIIT, which will get your heart rate up and help you torch calories. HIIT, which stands for high-intensity interval training, can help you get in an effective workout in a shorter amount of time. In HIIT, you do a period of all-out exercise followed by an even longer period of rest. You can do HIIT with bodyweight exercises, weights, or cardio. For fat loss, add HIIT to your program one or two times a week.

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

A lack of sleep could increase the production of stress hormones that cause your body to store fat, and can also cause increased food cravings, mental fog, and lower ‘real’ energy. All of these will impact your effectiveness in the gym and impair your ability to stick to your eating plan.

Source: written by FlexPro Meals Athlete, Paige Hathaway. Originally published on paigehathaway.com