Fat loss. Something I’d imagine most of you reading this article are interested in. Or have at least attempted at some point in your life. But what is the best way to approach fat loss? And how can you do it as quickly as possible? These are two massive questions. And two that I am going to try to answer for you during the course of this article.

Many associate fat loss with having to eat salads and run on the treadmill for an hour a day. This is a common misconception. And something that has changed, especially in the modern era of physical exercise and nutrition.

Long gone are the days where you need to starve yourself and exercise like a maniac to burn body fat. Instead, we need a more pragmatic approach. An approach that allows for sustainability as well as longevity. There is no point in crash dieting and not being able to maintain that for the rest of your life. That completely defeats the objective. And is unfortunately what most ‘diets’ do. We need to find a way where you can comfortably burn body fat. And this is where calorie counting comes in.

I cannot stress enough how important calorie counting is. Tracking your calories, if only for a week or two, will give you a huge insight into why you may be struggling to burn body fat.

You see, calories are how we measure energy within the body. Calories are contained within the foods we eat. If we consume more calories than our body requires and burns, we will store the excess calories within our body. Usually in the form of body fat. In order to get the balance right, we need to work out our calorie requirements. When we know how many calories our body requires, (your Basal Metabolic Rate), we can then calculate a calorie deficit. Now this is going to be the key to your fat loss. A Calorie Deficit!

Basically, you will be eating slightly less calories than your body requires at rest. This will result in you burning excess body fat for your body main energy source. Meaning you burn body fat. Winner!

So how is this sustainable? Well, by creating a small deficit will allow you to burn fat by only making small tweaks to your current diet. Literally only small changes will be needed in order to start burning body fat once and for all. The downside. It may take a bit longer than a crash diet. But your patience will be rewarded as you will be able to maintain the diet for the foreseeable future. The beauty of this also means that you don’t have to completely cut out the foods you love. If you want a packet of crisps or a few biscuits, and it can fit into your calorie requirement for that day, you can have them. This will again allow for greater sustainability.

How can you speed it up? Well its simple really……. exercise.

Exercise will really help to speed up the process. As we exercise, we use up energy in the form of calories. So, the more exercise we do, the more calories we can burn. Meaning the more fat we burn as the body’s preferred source of fuel.

So, if we can combine a calorie deficit with exercise, that is a sure way to maximize your fat burning potential.

So, there we have it. The art of fat loss. Simple, and effective (when you get the hang of it).