You're going to the gym, or exercising at home, you're paying attention to what you eat, you've even cut out the majority of those sweet treats, but you're still not seeing the weight come down or the clothes hang loose.
You're not alone. Many people encounter obstacles on the path to a healthier, leaner body. The good news is, you're not destined to never lose weight, you just need to make some adjustments to what you are doing

What I would do!
1. Review my diet. The first thing I would do is re-evaluate my diet. If I was calorie counting and tracking, I would see if I was hitting my current targets consistently and if so, I would reduce the calories by 100 - 200 and monitor for the next week or two. Still not moving in the right direction? I would reduce them again.
If you are not someone who likes, or can stick to calorie tracking, I would keep a food diary for a minimum of 3 days, 7 being better. I would write in the diary as soon as I have finished the meal, or snack, so I'm not trying to remember what I ate come the end of the day! This food diary then gives me an understanding of what I am truly eating each day - your baseline.
Now you have your baseline, you have an opportunity to see what you could remove, or replace. For the most part, I'm a huge fan of replacing the higher calorie foods with high volume, low calorie foods. This could mean replacing half your portion of rice in your evening meal with non-root vegetables like green beans or broccoli. I'd remove the pasta from my lunch and replace it with a bean salad. I'd remove a slice of toast from my tofu scramble at breakfast and have an apple instead. I'd replace my snack of raisins for grapes.
It's not just about eating less, it's about eating smarter. And if you want to get technical, all we are doing with both the approaches above is creating a calorie deficit. The beauty of replacing high calorie foods with high volume, lower calorie foods, is you can eat as much as you were previously - to stay satisfied and full - but with a lower calorie load.
2. Limit processed foods. I would remove heavily processed foods from my diet and try to make sure at least 80% of my diet comes from single ingredient foods. This means Whole-grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, beans, nuts and seeds. These foods will support point number 1 of trying to eat more high volume, lower calorie foods, keep you fuller for longer with increased fibre intake and will generally support your overall health.
3. Resistance train. I would resistance train at least 3 times per week. This will help preserve muscle mass as you are losing weight, avoid the 'skinny fat' look and increase the amount of weight loss that comes from fat stores instead of lean tissue.
And whilst you shouldn’t rely on resistance training only for your fat loss, muscle is metabolically active, so the more muscle you have, the more energy, or calories, you will burn at rest. Resistance training can also improve mitochondrial density and function which is crucial for fat metabolism.
4. Increase daily activity levels. Finally I would look to increase my daily activity. Resistance training is great, but training for 3 times per week often equates to about 3 hours of exercise. There are 168 hours in the week - if we are moving for only 3 of them we are losing a huge opportunity to use energy and, vitally, improve your health.
Increasing your daily step count is often seen as the most common way of increasing your daily movement. The advantage of using steps is it is an easy way to monitor and manage your activity levels. If I were really struggling with fat loss I would try and increase my daily steps to at least 10,000 a day, 12,000 being even better. The benefits of walking also go far beyond fat loss and include reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and many other chronic health conditions.
The above steps alone can transform your fat loss journey. The best part about them is they are accessible to everyone. We can all increase reduce our calorie intake, focus on whole foods, increase our activity and resistance train (which can be done at home if a gym isn’t right for you).
If you are serious about fat loss, be consistent, stay positive and stay focused. Follow these steps and you will see the fat drop off and the weight on the scales move over time! And if you need help kicking off your fat loss journey, or getting past a sticking point, get in touch using the details here - I’d love to help.
Martin
healthfocusedfitness.fit
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