I have written an article which bordered on the science of fat burning and gaining through calories deficit and surplus, but it’s easy to get lost in all the information about calories and how to track it to help achieve weight loss.
For an average person, it’s not practicable to keep calculating the number of calories that you eat and burn. I may be putting my head on the chopping block for this, but EXCEPT YOU’RE BEING PAID FOR IT, TRACKING YOUR CALORIES IS A DRUDGERY! And it’s not sustainable. Your knowledge of how to track your calories would not make a real difference if at some point, you can’t keep up with the level of attention that it entails and you start to backslide. A few pointers that are practicable and more easily formed into a lifestyle would go a longer way in helping people reach their weight loss goals. That is why I have decided to give you these tips to help you burn a considerable amount of fat in just FOUR WEEKS. So, if you’re reading this, count yourself lucky.
I am going to give a list of eight practicable things you can do to lose fat so that you don’t have to bother with tracking your calories.
Before you go on, I have to tell you that it’s important to make a healthy lifestyle off these tips so that practicing them doesn’t feel obligatory. Learn to love the process.
Oh, and no, you can’t burn a lot of fat in four weeks. F**K YOU CAN’T!! I lied! And I’m not apologizing for that because you should have known. After putting on weight for years- decades for some, you can’t expect to lose it in a month or two (even though some frauds on the internet may tell you otherwise).
If you’re not ready to give your weight loss journey the time its going to take, it doesn’t matter if you’re willing to starve yourself or workout for four hours every day, it won’t work in the end if you don’t keep at it!
If you’re the type to give up so soon, you may as well just stop reading now. I’m sorry, but this is not for the weak minds! Consistency, I always say, is the key.
Okay, now that you’re probably more realistic about the process of losing fat than when you opened this article to read, we can now go on with the important stuff that’ll help you lose a whole lot of fat OVER TIME. If you’re still reading, I’m guessing you’re ready to put in the required work.
let’s get it…
Eat a lot of protein
You should cut down on the carbs and fat in your diet and substitute with more proteins. You would really have to embrace proteins if you want to fast-track your weight loss. Protein is inherently a weight-loss booster for a number of reasons.
The breakdown energy required for proteins is what brings the advantage. Proteins require large amounts of energy from themselves to be broken down, and after a lot of this energy (in calories) has been used for their metabolism and the ones needed by the body for daily activities has been absorbed, much less percentage of the protein calories is available to be converted to fat.
Let’s take an example: If we go with a thermic effect of 30% for protein, this means that 100 calories of protein only end up as 70 usable calories. This is unlike fat and carbohydrate that are broken down with much less energy and still retain a large portion of their calories for other activities- including storage of their excess calories as fat.
Another reason it’s important to have proteins on your side in your fight for weight loss is that proteins help to reduce the appetite you have for foods. It also helps to cut cravings and desire for late-night snacks.
You can get healthy protein from both plant and animals.
Intermittent fasting
You don’t have to starve in order to lose weight but it does help to go hungry sometimes. Intermittent fasting is basically just an eating pattern. It is more about having a window of eating that is much smaller than your window of fasting. Keeping your eating window small and your fasting period (whenever you’re not eating during the day) larger is good for burning fat. For example, you could keep your eating window between 11am till 7pm meaning you would eat over a period of 8hours and have 16hours of fast during a day. You could keep it even smaller and have a larger period of fast. Another pattern which works for some is to go one day of normal eating and the other day not eat at all. This seems extreme but it gives results. Just make sure you don’t run the risk of backsliding.
Cut off empty calories
Yes, the whole point of this article is to have to bear with less talk of calories, but its almost impossible to talk fat loss without at least mentioning CALORIES DEFICIT. The whole concept of fat loss is based on achieving a calories deficit. You should know a thing or two about empty calories too. They are those foods that are basically meant to make you fat with little or no nutritional value to show for it. Added sugar and solid fat are major examples of empty calories. Common foods that contain added sugars are; sports and energy drinks, soda and even fruit drinks. Ice cream contains a good amount of solid fat, while foods like cakes, donuts, burger, French fries, pizza, chocolate contain both solid fat and added sugar. Meats like sausage, hot dogs, bacon, and ribs contain solid fat.
Swap these foods for healthier choices. For example, take ordinary water instead of soda or alcohol. If you feel the need to take something sweet, opt for fresh fruits instead of fruit drinks or soda. These contain natural sugars which are not bad for weight management. Vegetables, whole grains, legumes, lean protein and dairy are also healthy.
Drink a lot of water
Instead of filling yourself up with soda, fill yourself up with more water. The result is that you are fuller without upping your daily calories intake. Water has no calories. What you get from this is enough of water which is good for your body to function better (just be sure not to drink too much over a short time) and you get to have little space to fit in less calories in your stomach.
Drinking a glass of water about 30mins before eating would generally help you eat less. Its quite logical. You tend to eat less when you’re full or almost full right? At the end of the day, it’s easier to achieve a caloric deficit due to eating much less.
Eat more fiber
Fiber helps you feel full for a relatively longer period of time, thereby helping you eat less.
High fiber foods also help absorb sugar slowly, thereby protecting against fat accumulation.
Fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds are a few examples of high-fibre foods that can boost fat burning and weight loss. So yeah, eat foods that are high in fibers!
Cardio training
Cardio can range from low to high intensity. They are physical activities to help burn lots of calories and achieve a caloric deficit.
For an exercise to qualify as cardio, it should meet these two criteria:
- raise your heart and breathing rates, and
- improve the function of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system.
Activities more leisurely like walking and casual bike riding are cardiovascular in nature but they aren’t cardio exercises (unless you lack conditioning from not doing enough exercises). That’s because they don’t challenge the heart and lungs enough to improve their function. Cardio is usually more challenging. Cardio is also much more than jogging. It also includes dancing, H.I.I.T (High-Intensity Interval Training) workouts, cycling, stair climbing, boxing etc. The range is limitless. You just need to keep the intensity high enough to challenge your cardiovascular system. If you find it difficult to speak, even in short sentences, then that likely means you’re in the right range for the activity to qualify as cardio exercise.
You don’t have to do cardio every day. 3-5 times a week is enough depending on how fast you want to burn fat.
Weight training
Weight training helps to build muscle, but in the process helps to burn fat too. Weight training helps you burn fat fast and get in shape by replacing your fat with muscles mass and increasing your strength in the process. When combined with the right eating habit, you speed things up. It’s not easy to eat less and still have to go to the gym, but all of this is just to ensure you keep achieving this much-emphasized caloric deficit regularly. When you’re working out on an empty stomach, the body derives energy from stored fat, thereby burning more fat. To ladies who are usually concerned about being muscular due to weight training, I have to say, mild weight training wouldn’t get you looking like Dwayne Johnson. Train with weights!
Consistency
Did I mention consistency before? Well, it’s worth mentioning again. Keep at all these things, because it’ll take time!!
This can’t be overemphasized because it’s the most important of all these pointers. Once you stop before reaching your goal, then you’ve opted for the surest way of not reaching your goal.
Concluding Thoughts
You don’t have to suddenly cut off some of these unhealthy foods, especially some you might be addicted to – like alcohol. But try as much as possible to progressively reduce their intake until you can completely cut them off because they’re unhealthy!!
The major take-away is that you should eat as little as possible and be as physically active as possible. This would put you in a position to achieve this caloric deficit that I can’t stop talking about.
Good luck.