In this post, I'm going to outline 3 main steps you can take today to get start of your fat loss and body transformation journey. Just 3-steps. No games. No theory. Just practice steps for focused and fast fat loss. These 3 steps will give you a much clearer picture and overall plan so you know where to go and what to do to slim up and lose fat.
I understand how discouraging it can get if you've struggled, in the past, to find a brief and simple plan to follow for weight loss and building a better body. I've been there and I've confused the hell out of myself before I found what worked to lose fat, build muscle, and change my body.
Without a clear plan, it becomes that much harder to reach our goals. For some really weird reason, many people see something they want to do, then they go out and do it without sufficient planning. If you're going to fly a kit, you obviously have to know how to set up the kit and launch the kite into the wind first.
You're going to avoid the confusion and frustrations by first drafting a plan. If you want to lose 9 lbs, then fine, you must have a plan to get there. Without one, you're like a wandering drunk in the middle of a desert. If you don't know the paths to the oasis.... or the way out to Vegas, then how are you going to survive? That's why we need a plan.
When I started bodybuilding and bulking up to gain muscle mass, I wanted to build muscle desperately. Being really pumped up. But I didn't know what to do so I went and seeked knowledge. Common sense.
So pay attention to these 3 steps and you'll overcome your confusions and frustrations. 10 lbs, 20 lbs, 30 lbs. You'll be able to lose however many pounds of fat you want as long as you stay focused and dedicated to a plan. Put the plan to action. So after I go over these steps, make sure you understand the main points and get to work. Put the plan in action. Action. Don't hesitate. Action is key.
Here are the 3 steps,
1) What is your exactly goal?
First, ask yourself,
- what are my goals?
- how many pounds do I want to lose?
- specifically, how many pounds of fat do I want to lose?
- how many days will I give myself to lose an x amount of pounds? (x denotes your desired number of pounds you want to lose)
- set a clear deadline of the number of pounds you will lose in x number of days/months/years
Be specific about what you want fat loss, weight loss, stronger body, six pack abs. Write down in a journal or notebook (I happen to use a moleskin journal for goal setting and workout logs but you can use something much cheaper like a one-subject binder notebook) how many pounds of fat you want to lose and in what day, week, or month you want to achieve that goal. It helps to be specific because that'll show you clearly where you want to go. You want to zone in and focus on the end results, goals. So take out a piece of paper, pen/pencil, or notebook and start writing. Goal setting is your first step.
2) Knowledge
Acquire the knowledge to lose fat. You can only lose fat, get stronger, and become healthier if you have the correct information. In other words, you have to know what to do. It only makes sense this way. To get started, focus on this fitness equation,
Nutrition + Exercise + Recovery = Fat Loss
Mind blowing? No, I'm sure you already know that. Of course, the devil is in the details. You have to know how to eat right, exercise properly, and recover well to lose weight. So here's a brief rundown of the main rules for each factor of the equation,
Nutrition
- Fat loss requires a calorie deficit, meaning a negative energy balance. You have to burn more calories than maintenance calorie requirement to create that deficit. You can achieve this in 2 ways; eat less and/or exercise more.
- Maintain a high protein intake to maintain a high metabolism. Metabolic rate is the rate at which your body processes nutrients into energy. The higher your metabolism, the more calories you'll burn, and the more fat you'll also burn.
- Eat essential fatty acids; omega-3s and omega-6s found in flax oil and flax seeds
- Stay away from fried foods and foods containing trans fats and saturated fats
- Eat mostly low GI complex carbs
- Eat 5-6 smaller meals per day rather than 3 large meals
Now these nutrition rules require some explaining and in the interest of time, I recommend these 3 books to further your education and plan your diet,
- The Abs Diet, David Zinczenko, get it at amazon.com or barnes and noble
-Bodybuilding Revealed, Will Brink at Bodybuildingrevealed.com
-Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, Tom Vento at Burnthefat.com
Exercise
You have a lot of choices for exercise. When it comes to fat loss, you don't have to stick with hours and hours of mind-numbing boring cardio or make love to the treadmill every day. You can train with weights using circuits. Or crank out pushups, situps, burpees, crunches, pullups (body weight exercises). Or you can do high intensity interval cardio rather than the long slow distance cardio you're so used to. High intensity means you alternate short bursts of high intense exercise with short rest periods, the repeating it several times.
Take running for example. Run fast for one minute, then rest by walking very slow for a minute, then run fast again for a minute, and repeat the interval 4 more times. That's a high intensity interval workout right there that will burn even more fat and calories in half the time it takes you to do one hour on the treadmill.
The various exercise modalities for fat loss includes strength training/weight lifting, body weight exercises, regular slow boring cardio, and high intensity interval cardio.
For more information on effective fat loss exercising, look up these terms on google,
- "strength training for fat loss"
- "weight lifting to lose weight"
- "lose fat with weights"
- "high intensity interval training"
- "HIIT cardio"
- "high intensity conditioning for fat loss"
The books I recommended above in the nutrition section will also give you a great overview and full workout plans for fat loss. Further, check out Bodybuilding.com's exercise database and workout archives for articles on how to exercise to lose weight. Take note.
Recovery
Recovery is just sleep. Get 8 hours of full sleep every night since the body changes most during sleep. Fat loss occurs most during sleep. This is not complicated. It's easy and effortless. Sleep is fun.
3)Action
After gathering some knowledge, acquiring workout and dieting information, and reading them through, it's time to formulate your plan of action. Take a day to put all the pieces together. Plot the number of days you'll work out. Write out your diet. Everything doesn't have to be perfect. When you have a plan, put it to work. Start with day 1.
The key is to have a rough outline or plan to get started. Don't worry about perfection. Start working out and eating right as best as you could from day one of the planned program. A bag of chips once a week won't hurt either. You don't have to stay ultra-strict to the plan. As long as you get most things right, you'll be fine. Get 85% of the program and you'll reap an equal proportion of the results.
And over time, as you get more experienced with training and dieting, you'll know how your body is responding to the training and dieting demands placed. You'll know your body better. You'll know what works. You'll know what doesn't work. You'll lose fat.
That's it. Now get to work and start educating yourself on how to lose fat. Come up with that plan. That roadmap. That clear path. And get to work.
To your success. Train Smart. Train Hard. Train Safely.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
Related posts:
- 10 Simple Steps to Get Huge and Shredded If you’re currently stuck on what to do to build muscle or suffering from information overload, then wipe out everything you’ve known about bodybuilding and gaining muscle mass in general right now. If for whatever reason you can’t get started on a workout and nutrition program to get huge and shredded, erase your knowledge bank [...]...
- The Ultimate Exercise to Lose Body Fat What is the best and ultimate exercise to help you lose the most body fat in a short amount of time? I think that’s a top question that many dieters want to know. The answer is simply, the barbell back squat. Why the squat? The squat is a compound free weight exercise that works multiple major [...]...
- How to Lose Body Fat with the 100 Burpees Challenge If your goal is to lose fat, improve fitness level, get fit, look no further than the workout I’m about to reveal. You might be struggling to find a good exercise training method for how to lose body fat in the most efficient way possible. The most simple exercise method, from my experience, to lose fat [...]...
- The Goals of Project Physique and Body Transformation Hi everyone, this is the first post or article here at Project Physique so let me orient you to this site’s entire concept. If you haven’t, check out my “About” page to get a general idea of what this site is all about. Over the last 60 years or so, thousands of research studies have been [...]...