As we see that the days and months are flying by, heck last blog post, we were talking about XMAS lights and New Years Resolution, now we are in March and well its approaching Summer time! 

For most that means, its shred and shine time! Shred the clothes and shine! Nooo…not all the clothes!

We wanna look good and we wanna shine! We basically hibernated the last few months and now its time to lean down! 

Diet. Booo..horrible word. Get the word “diet” out of your minds. It already has a negative connotation. Plus, they are short lived and never work.  Remember that show, The BIGGEST LOSER, they placed contestants on strict “diets” and they lost a ton of weight! BUT, probably out of the 97 contestants they had, only 2 or 3 maintained the weight loss. Diet is bad. 

Habit is good. Getting into the habit of making better choices and eating better. Burning more fat. 

How does fat loss actually work? 

Simple explanation…you need to be in a calorie deficit.  Meaning you need to burn more calories than you consume.

Ex. You eat 2000 calories and burn 2,500 calories. That puts you in a 500-calorie deficit. 

And since it takes 3500 calories to burn 1 pound of fat, if you are in a 500 calorie deficit daily, in a week, you should have a 1lb fat loss. Not seem much. Well, if you want to keep it off in the long run, its perfect, contestants on The Biggest Loser were losing 10-15lbs a week! Through extreme fad diets, liquid diets, juice cleansers, all the hocus pocus stuff…AND they all gained it back! 

So how are calories burned? Typically, its done by 4 ways

• Resting Energy Expenditure- It is what we burn while just resting. (Reading this is burning calories…your welcome)
• Exercise Activity Thermogenesis- This is calories burned from exercising.
• Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis- Its non-exercise but still moving…washing dishes (cough..cough..I do this A LOT) Sweeping…just moving around…
• Thermic effect of food: It’s the small amount of calories you burn from eating or otherwise digesting the food. Yes, that includes spicy foods, so next time buy some of my spicy lemon turkey plates! They spicy but they help burn calories! 

So now that we know the ways to burn calories, what is important for the fat loss…

• Caloric defict- As mentioned above, you must consume less calories than you burn.

*Important to note, you will not burn as much calories as you lose weight, your body will adapt, its pretty smart. (Its called Metabolic Adaptation). 

       2)  Weight Training- Weight Training has shown to burn slightly more calories that cardio. Cardio is                       not bad at all, it can help for sure. Combine both and boom…lean and mean!

3) Enough Protein- You need to eat a sufficient amount of protein for your fat loss. Typically, you just need 0.7-1 gram of protein per bodyweight. And if you are over 20lbs overweight, I like to use your ideal bodyweight. 

So, you followed the suggested plan, you started losing fat, now what?

Here’s a couple of Keep the Fat off strategies…

• Lean down at a slow rate- Losing a lot of weight/fat is bad, you will gain it back…I am still waiting to be proved wrong. If you wanted to go on vacation in May 60lbs lighter, yup, not gonna happen healthy. You will make it worse. 
• Leverage your new found habits- Build habits. Order water. Order extra veggies. Meal Prep. No fried food. No overload of sugar. No process foods. 
• Create a plan: Write it down. Manifest your goal. Lose additional 15, 10, write it down. Plan it. If you know how many calories it takes to lose 1lb per week. Figure how much you need to cut out OR add to. 

What are my goals?

To me, these are the realistic body fat percentages to shoot for.

Mens body fat- 10% – 20%

Womens body fat- 18%-28%

I have been tested numerous times and tested by water, which is supposed to be the most accurate and thru a formula I learned of and I have gone from my lowest ever of 7% to probably my current percentage of 18% (married life…totally kidding…but for real…wifey cooks good!) No, I actually planned my bulk. I can not teach it if I don’t live it! 

I tried to keep this simple and minus all the science mumbo jumbo…trust the process. Give yourself time. Look at what you eat. You got it! SWOLL LEAN.