Most people looking to lose weight look to see what the scales say in order to measure their weight loss success. However weighing yourself is not the best way to measure fat loss.

Lots of people will see the number on the scales go down, however their level of fat loss has hardly been affected. Many popular diets and weight loss methods may make you lose weight, but instead of losing fat you end up losing muscle. Losing muscle is the exact opposite of what people want when getting into shape, as the less muscle you have  the lower your metabolism will be and the more likely you will gain more fat!

So the key is to focus on losing fat whilst maintaining/gaining lean muscle.

Below are some key points to consider when looking to lose fat:

1. No fad diets

Many diets are designed to restrict calories by such a large amount that weight loss is almost exclusively from losing muscle. The key to healthy eating for fat loss is to have a balanced diet and to watch your portion sizes. Don’t starve yourself!

2. Get into resistance/weight training

Doing weights/resistance exercises isn’t just for people wanting to get ‘buff’. Increasing your muscle mass increases your base metabolic rate – what your metabolism is while you’re at rest. The higher your base metabolism, the more calories you will burn even while you’re sleeping.

3. Step up the intensity

Training to lose fat is less about the amount of time you exercise and more about the intensity. Inadequate intensity will not stimulate your body to make the desired fat loss changes. See  Interval Training For Fat Loss for an example on how to increase the intensity in your workouts.

4. Mix it up

Any form of exercise is only good for as long as it takes for your body to adapt to it. Keep up fat loss benefits by making changes to your training regime.

In my next post I will explain why traditional ‘weight loss’ methods miss the mark in terms of stimulating fat loss.

Tags: fat loss, tips, weight loss