Fat Loss Series: Understanding How To Reduce Body Fat

Let’s face facts. Most people want to lose fat, get leaner, and achieve their dream body. I’m going to talk about a few of the best ways to reduce body fat.

Fat loss has been one of the most searched topics since the birth of the internet. Yet, most don’t quite understand what it takes. As new diets, supplements, tricks, and hacks are being released seemingly every waking minute, the concept of fat loss seems to be more confusing, and even harder to grasp. Frankly, it’s unacceptable. We can thank all of the bad eggs in the fitness industry for that.

Although there are many different diets, products, and tools that promise the fat loss you’ve always wanted, there are two sound principles - there are more, but these two have the greatest impact, that have stood the test of time. We’ll be going through those principles today.

Before we do so, I think it would be good to make sure that you and I are on the same page. These principles are “best” for fat loss in the context of modern life. The concepts we’ll go into would not be beneficial if we were hunting and gathering, eating very little, and moving a ton each and every day. The fact is, we’re not. Food is more readily available than ever before, and we’re getting more sedentary year after year. So, the below principles are sound and extremely helpful, given you don’t live in a hunter gatherer tribe in the middle of the forest.

Principle #1 - Resistance Training

It is a common way of thinking to believe that cardio is the answer to fat loss, and rightfully so. It helps people lose weight relatively quick due to its ability to tell the body to burn tons of calories in one bout. There’s just one problem, though. We’ve become addicted. Chronic cardio is one of the many reasons individuals have trouble losing body fat. So, what’s the solution?

Resistance training.

Resistance training, or weight lifting, is going to be one of the best ways to reduce body fat AND keep it off. Why? Weight lifting sends a signal to the body telling it to become more efficient at lifting heavier things. Its response is more lean muscle tissue, healthier hormone function, and an improved metabolism. All of these are must-haves for long term fat loss in the context of modern life, especially an improved metabolism. The more calories your body burns at rest, the more likely it is for excess body fat to stay off for good.

Principle #2 - Nutrition

We all know that nutrition plays a huge role when it comes to fat loss. However, it’s not as simple as eating clean or eating healthy, although that does help. Fat loss is all about energy in vs. energy out. In other words, calories in vs. calories out. In general, you need to burn more energy than you consume in a day in order to facilitate fat loss. So whether you eat healthy, dirty, or a little bit of both, it’s important to understand exactly how much you’re eating in order to figure out the changes you need to make. This starts with tracking your food intake each day to find out what you eat on a daily basis, and from there figuring out how many calories you should remove in order to lose fat. The two best things you can do nutritionally to actively lose body fat is eating healthy and eating slightly fewer calories than your burn in the day.

The Takeaway

One of the biggest reasons people don’t see long term success is because they are unwilling to get a bird’s eye view of everything that is going on with their fitness, which includes tracking food and tracking your performance in the gym. There is no such thing as a solution if a problem isn’t identified in the first place. These are only a couple of the best ways to reduce body fat. To learn more about reducing body fat, view our other fat loss blogs!