This week’s question is a good one. Let’s have a look:
Surprisingly enough, itâs not that hard - from a âWhat-to-doâ point of view, that is. The actual mechanics of fat loss are easy, and will end up making you feel a lot better than any pile of junk food ever did. The real test, of course, comes down to willpower and the desire to actually put the work in to get the results.
Will it happen quickly? No. Will it be as easy as 20 minutes three times a week? No. Can I buy the fat-loss for 3 easy payments of $19.95? Not a chance.
Losing fat requires time, patience, and forethought. If thatâs too much for you to deal with, then you might as well stop reading now.
1. Calories
Youâve kept reading, which means that youâre my kind of person. So letâs talk numbers.
First thing first - how much fat do you want to lose? If the number is bigger than 2lbs/week, then go back to the part about time, patience and forethought, and begin again. Trying to lose any more than 2lbs/week (without the use of pretty strong supplements/steroids) will result in either a) muscle loss (which is bad), b) a lowering of your bodyâs metabolic rate (which is bad), or c) both (which is really bad). If youâre starting from a big number (i.e. your bodyfat percentage is above 15% and you need to lose a lot of fat) then 2 lbs a week is a good number to start from. Aiming for more will do the above (the bad stuff above). As your bodyfat % lowers and your weight gets lower, youâll want to aim for smaller increments per week; it gets harder to lose fat the less you have.
You see, your body doesnât want to give up the fat itâs got. Call your body crazy, but it has knowledge ingrained from a few millennia ago, when food was scarce and being fat and strong was a good way to ensure surviving both a saber-tooth tiger attack and a long cold winter without much food. With that in mind, the lower your bodyfat %, the more your body starts to rebel against your fat-loss goals.
