The Ultimate Guide to Losing Body Fat

With about 61% of the population still being overweight in the UK, it has become increasingly important to tackle the issue of losing body fat. Losing fat is a hormonally driven phenomenon and can be associated with a lot of diseases such as diabetes and heart problems. People have come up with a lot of ways of losing body fat, the most effective ones being the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle and regular strength training, as well as temporary solutions like fad diets. We will discuss different ways of losing body fat and the ways they are harmful and beneficial to our body. Let’s begin with fad diets.

Why fad diets are not the answer?

Almost everyone at one point in their life has had the urge to go on a dieting spree and that is the time when the idea of a fad diet is the deemed most attractive. Fad diet is a weight loss plan that promotes drastic loss of fat in a short amount of time. Fad diets can be of different types, they can either promote a certain method of eating food to promote body loss or omit it completely. They consist of guidelines that mention when and how much food should be consumed, as well as the kind of food that should be eaten. Everyone is so busy with their daily routines that undergoing a full life style change can seem very tedious. That is why people opt for fad diets. Fad diets require no exercise and promise to reduce fat in a short time; ranging from 3 days to over a week.

Any kind of rapid body fat loss is unsafe. To lose body fat it is important to change your lifestyle and fad diets offer no such change. It can cause health risks due to the quick loss of muscle mass and lean tissue. It should be kept in mind that it is medically proven to not lose more than two pounds per week. A healthy balanced food intake is extremely important to achieve a healthy fulfilling life.

How to begin your journey towards losing body fat?

Losing body fat involves a huge lifestyle change. It involves commitment and most importantly it requires the willingness to change. The key to transforming yourself to a leaner and slimmer version of you lies in the kind of food you eat and of course, the regular amount of exercise. Some helpful and informative tips are listed below that will benefit you in your body fat loss journey and encourage you to take it up as a lifestyle change.

Lose the fat you have:

The method of losing body fat contains one very vital step; the calorie deficit. The idea is simple, to burn more fat than the fat you take in. Your hormones play a very important part in this. There are two types of hormones, the ones that release fat and the ones that store fat. To regulate these hormones it is important to take care of the following things:

  • The type of food you eat and the intake of that food
  • Drinking a lot of water
  • Exercising regularly
  • Relieve stress
  • Maintain a regular steady pattern of sleep

A calorie deficit is only possible once you eat less amount of food than you eat usually. However that does not mean going in to starvation mode. Make a list of the types of food you eat all day long. Once you have the list of those foods, mark the ones that are processed and high in sugar content. These are exactly the kind of foods you need to avoid. Processed and sugary foods have no nutritional value and only contribute to the fat storage cells in your body. To lose body fat it is important to replace these foods with healthy alternatives.

Learn about the foods that make you fat:

To achieve a permanent lifestyle change, it is important alter a few habits too. Make a habit of reading the contents of the food that you are buying. Check the nutritional value and the added sugar content and make a mental note; is the level of sugar more than the nutritional content? If yes, then it’s best if you put that product in the back of your closet and never open it again. Read up on foods that are essential for the body and also have fewer calories. There are many fruits and vegetables that contribute to negative calories. Foods like celery, cucumbers and carrot promote fat loss and at the same time have an amazing detoxifying effect on the body simultaneously. You can now lose fat in a healthy way and rejuvenate your skin, make your hair shiny and strengthen your nails all with one basic lifestyle change.

Losing body fat by lifting and running:

Diet alone cannot help stimulate body fat loss. The most common mistake that people make is to confuse exercise as the means to only lose fat and not gain muscle. Calorie loss in the form of exercise should be kept secondary because along with losing fat, your main concern should be preserving muscle mass. The idea again is to carry out a lifestyle change instead of looking for a temporary reprieve from body fat. There are two forms of exercise that are done to lose body fat and maintain muscle mass:

  • Cardiovascular training: Commonly known as ‘cardio’, this form of training is mostly used as an effective way to lose body fat. However more than losing fat, cardio training is very important for a healthy lifestyle. It builds stamina and generally improves the quality of life. It is the ideal way to become a functional human being. Cardio training includes interval workouts like running, stepping and anything that gets your heart rate up and builds resistance to help reach your weight loss targets.
  • Resistance and strength training: In order maintain and gain muscle mass, strength training is even more important than cardio. It can burn as much as fat as cardio, if not more. Most people do not know that larger muscle burns more calories and more fat. A well designed strength program increases your metabolism for more than 37 hours after the workout. This along with a well maintained diet can be the ideal way to go lose body fat.

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