Burn Fat Fast- 15 Fat Loss Tips
Burn Fat Fast- 15 Fat Loss Tips
When it comes to fat loss, everyone wants to know the secret to burning fat fast, well look no further because we have outlined, not one, but fifteen different ways to help you shed those unwanted pounds and lose the weight you want.
The problem with burning fat and weight loss is that nearly everyone will regain it and often put on more weight than they had to start with. This is usually the result of people choosing methods that they cannot stick to long term.
So, our advice to you? That’s simple, choose any of the fat loss tips below that you can see yourself staying consistent with for not weeks, but months, even years, and then seek to attack those methods that are probably a little harder for people to incorporate into their everyday lives.
Just remember, “Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity”.
1. Make sure you are in a calorie deficit for fat loss
This is probably the most important of them all which is why we included it first.
Energy balance is the relationship between your energy input (calories consumed) and energy output (calories burned through exercise and NEAT).
A calorie deficit can be achieved by one of the following two ways;
- Reducing your input of energy/calories consumed so it is below the level of your output
- By increasing output without an increase in input
Simply put, if you aren’t in a calorie deficit then you will NOT lose weight. It doesn’t matter whether your approach is low carb, keto, intermittent fasting or even vegan, if you aren’t consuming less energy than you are burning, then you will NOT lose weight.
The only exception is where an individual has never undertaken a resistance training regime before. There is evidence to show that an individual training for the first time will be able to gain muscle and lose body fat at the same time, even if they are consuming more energy than they are burning (calorie surplus). Don’t believe us? Check out some of our client transformations who did just that.
You can try every diet and training program under the sun, but if you are not in a calorie deficit then you will not lose fat, let alone burn fat fast. Not sure how many calories you need to eat to lose weight? Read here to find out.
2. Majority of your diet should be based around whole foods and minimally processed for fat loss
Foods like meat, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish, fruit, whole grains, vegetables, etc. should be the staple in your diet. A sustainable approach is an 80/20 split where 80% of your diet consists of nutrient-dense good quality food sources and the other 20% is allocated for foods a little more calorie-dense and classed as less “healthy”. This will allow for greater consistency in the diet as fewer restrictions will often lead to better, longer-term results.
3. Don’t restrict foods you enjoy
Adherence is one of the most important factors when it comes to getting results that you can sustain. There is no point choosing a diet that contains minimal foods you truly enjoy as that would be boring and tedious, and who wants to do that, right?
This doesn’t mean that you get to eat ice cream and pizza, because let’s face it, that will never fit into our calorie goals.
However, incorporating foods that you enjoy, but still allowing you to stay within your calorie deficit and thus leading to you achieving your fat burning and weight loss goals, would be an approach we would highly recommend.
You can also make most foods taste a lot better with the use of herbs and spices, so get creative!
4. Hit adequate protein intake for greater fat loss
Being hungry is something a lot of people struggle with when they are trying to lose weight, not to mention that they also struggle with hitting their protein requirements. Protein is also more satiating than carbohydrates and fats, meaning it keeps you fuller for longer, it’s probably a good idea to try and get some more.
Not only is protein essential for building lean muscle tissue and losing body fat, it is also essential for a host of other bodily functions such as growth, repair, immune function and cell development.
While different macronutrients will have different roles, protein will be the most important to get right. Adequate protein intake falls in the range of 1.2-2.3 g/kg with 2g/kg generally being spot on for most individuals.
Protein also has a higher thermic effect of food compared to the other macronutrients with at least 25% of total calories consumed being burnt through this process.
As a result, your body ends up storing less energy which will aid with greater fat loss.
5. Include foods of high satiety
Adding protein to your plate is not the only way to feel full. There are also a number of other food sources that will help keep hunger at bay, such as vegetables and fruit. These are both high in fiber which will help slow digestion and they also contain low calories, so you can fill up your plate with them!
These foods also contain a tonne of micronutrients. Vitamins and minerals that will be depleted through everyday stressors will affect your energy levels and fat loss efforts, so making sure you consume 3-4 servings of a multitude of colored vegetables and fruit per day will help.
6. Manage stress
We can never eliminate stress entirely from our lives, but we can manage it effectively in order to achieve greater fat loss. The adrenal glands produce cortisol and stress alters their function by depleting neurotransmitters in the brain, causing carbohydrate cravings and instances of over eating.
Lack of neurotransmitters can lead to disturbed sleeping patterns causing changes in the release of growth hormone, blood sugar regulation, and immune function.
Elevation in cortisol can also lead to increased cardiovascular risk.
We have both internal and external stressors in life. Internal stressors would be stressful things going on inside the body. For example, if you are continually eating foods that made you bloated and gassy, this will increase inflammation within the body causing you to be more acidic and inflamed which will be very stressful internally.
Then we have external stressors. This could be your job, finances, relationships etc. Basically, everything going on around you that causes you to be stressed out.
As you can see, elevated stress hormones can have a whole host of negative effects on our overall health, including fat loss.
So how do we manage stress? This is going to be person specific, but generally speaking, meditation and deep guiding techniques have been shown to help with managing stress.
Basically anything that helps you relax! This could be going for a long walk in nature, doing some yoga, playing with your dog or taking up a new hobby like learning an instrument.
We want to help shift your nervous system from that sympathetic (fight or flight) state with increased adrenalin, to a more parasympathetic state, or as some like to call it your “rest and digest”.
7. Keep active through NEAT for faster fat loss
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that’s not related to any type of formal exercise. Cleaning the house, cooking the dinner, and even fidgeting are all great examples of NEAT that burn calories and a lot more than you would expect.
If you go to the gym for an hour, there’s still another 14 hours or so that you are awake. This makes up a much bigger proportion of your daily energy expenditure than that 1 hour of resistance training.
Just by choosing to move more and doing more of the things that we were designed to do, could be the deciding factor as to whether or not you are losing weight or achieving fat loss, even if you are hitting the gym consistently and reducing your food intake.
You see the problem is that if we are sitting down for 90% of the day, then the amount of energy (calories) we need to consume to lose weight is going to be FAR lower than you anticipated.
A simple way to get yourself to move more is to set a step target. We usually advise anywhere from 8,000-10,000 steps per day but simply aiming for higher than you are achieving right now is a great starting point!
Click here to learn about 10 proven ways to boost fat loss with NEAT.
8. Get more sleep for greater fat loss
Sleep is a complex and essential biological process that is required on a daily basis for all humans regardless of age, sex or ethnic origin.
Sleep also has important roles in controlling the functions of many other body systems, and this becomes very evident in states of sleep deprivation.
The average total hours of sleep that each person gets per night has decreased to less than seven hours per night over the last three to four decades. This is becoming increasingly common in today’s society due to changes in sleep culture and the adoption of a 24/7 lifestyle, along longer working hours.
People who sleep less tend to eat more and have higher instances of cravings. This is because sleep patterns affect the hormones responsible for appetite (ghrelin and leptin) which send signals to and from your brain and stomach that tell you when to eat and when to stop eating.
Sleep deprivation can interfere with your body’s ability to regulate food intake correctly, resulting in situations where you may possibly overeat even though these decisions are not in line with your weight loss goals.
9. Take photos
Nothing in life worth having comes easy, and the same goes for getting in shape. A great motivator can be to take progress photos. You’d be astounded as to how much your body changes week to week and if you are not taking photos regularly then it will be hard to notice this.
We suggest that you take photos every week in the same room of your house and at the same time, on the same day. This will lead to greater motivation and hopefully greater consistency so you can reach your fat loss goals sooner!
10. Add a quality omega supplement
Essential fatty acids such as Omega 3 & Omega 6, are essential to the human body as we cannot produce them ourselves. They play a role in immune function, inflammatory responses & central nervous system reactions. They are very important for health, performance & recovery. Aim for a 3:1 Ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 as we tend to get a little too much Omega 6 through our diets.
11. Chew your food
The first thing we need to understand is chewing your food. This will allow the secretion of amylase and sucrase which are carbohydrate digestive enzymes.
It will also mix our RNA and DNA in with the foods so we are less likely to have this immune response if it does permeate through the gut lining and also reduces the load and work required from our HCL pancreatic enzymes and bile.
This therefore means that it’s more likely to be digested and less likely to ferment and produce bad bacteria.
Protein digestion is contingent upon what happens in the stomach. if you don’t chew your food and break down your food enough then there is a high chance you won’t be breaking down the protein in the stomach.
if you have poor digestion, for example, leaky gut, which is when undigested peptides that get through the digestive system and into the bloodstream, you can synthesis yourself and your immune system to foods and you can develop what is known as a food allergy.
Anytime you eat that food your immune system will remember it and over the course of weeks, months or years, if you chronically expose yourself to that food then you can have a substantially inflammatory response that causes a bunch of immune system dysregulation.
Gluten is a perfect example. Everyone blames gluten nowadays but it’s just a protein we don’t digest very well. However, in order for gluten to be a problem, your immune system has to be a problem first of all. You had to of exposed yourself to something food related over time that your body can no longer tolerate or process.
12. Exercise regularly
Strength training involves lifting weights to gain muscle over time. All though strength training has a number of other health benefits apart from just burning fat, it is something we recommend that everyone should do.
People usually start their fat loss journey because they want to look better and feel more confident in their own skin. If we were to just diet without incorporating any form of resistance training, we would have a very soft appearance, and not the “toned” look that we all aim to achieve.
We recommend that you exercise 3 times per week for no longer than one hour. If you have a plan to follow when you step into the gym and you know exactly what you need to do, then it should not take you any longer.
13. Track your lifts
Creating an environment in the gym where you are constantly challenging yourself and progressing through each session, where you are getting stronger over time, will lead to better results and overall greater fat loss.
You need to provide your body with a stimulus great enough in order to make it want to change. Building muscle and burning fat is a long process and if you are always going into the gym and lifting the same weights every week then you will not see the progress that you want.
14. Drink more water
Having a well-hydrated body helps maintain a proper fluid balance, which helps with muscle energy and the elimination of waste in the body. Your body uses water to maintain its temperature, remove waste, and even lubricate your joints.
Health authorities commonly recommend eight 8 ounce glasses per day which equates to roughly 2 liters.
However, some of you will need less and some will need more depending on body weight and activity level.
But did you know that drinking more water can help you lose weight?
Being dehydrated results in all the cellular processes in your body running less efficiently, including your metabolism.
Your metabolism consists of the build-up of substances (anabolism) and the breakdown of substances (catabolism). Basically all the biochemical processes that occur in your body and being even slightly dehydrated can cause a significant drop in metabolism.
So drinking more water if you are below the amount your body needs will boost your metabolism and aid with your weight loss.
Research has also shown that drinking a glass of water before a meal can help reduce the amount you eat by making you feel more full and you actually end up eating less.
Check out these other 7 health benefits of drinking more water.
15. Shopping & preparation
When it comes to adherence preparation is key. We highly recommend that you block time to do a food shop every week, so you have all of the ingredients you need.
If you have meals prepared then you will be a lot less likely to end up in a situation where you have to choose an unhealthy meal or quick, “high calorie” snack for lunch. Cooking your own food also allows you to be more conscious about what you’re putting in your body and how much calories those foods contain, thus leading to greater fat loss because you will be staying consistent with your calorie deficit!