Should you train for fat loss?

“What is the best exercise for fat loss?”

Probably the most frequently asked question when it comes to a client who wants to lose a bit of weight.

…and secondly should you be training for fat loss at all? Is exercise the most effective method of losing body fat.

Both are interesting questions but fat loss is down to one thing…

Expending more calories than you consume

So what is the most effective method of fat loss? is it exercise?

When you begin to understand the energy balance, calories in vs calories out.  Training for weight loss can be really difficult if you do not address the amount of food that crosses your lips.

Walking briskly for an hour would only burn 200 kcal roughly.  Now this is dependent on the individual but ask yourself this…how long would it take you to consume a mars bar (roughly 200kcal)?  Not long at all I’m guessing.

When I meet new clients, the blame for gaining weight or an inability to lose weight is always blamed on not exercising as frequently as they used to.  Now this can be attributed to weight gain for sure but never is food mentioned and if food is mentioned it always boils down to quality and quantity.

Energy expenditure is often over exaggerated and typically quite hard to rely on so I personally would not deem it as reliable tool on some of these fitness watches, and when we typically use that exercise session or activity as a way of consuming or replacing those burnt calories with food, we no doubt will be on a path to weight loss failure.

So be wary of using tools that track calories burnt as I believe the greatest success would be from tracking energy intake instead.

The biggest cause of weight gain is not understanding how much food crosses our lips.

Understand this and then understand how much you burn is a recipe for success.

Long term weight management has been shown to be more successful when exercise has been combined with diet adherence and behavioural change.  Exercise alone is just unsustainable.

So track your food intake or learn food values, weigh yourself to track progress and be accountable and also add in extra movement and activity when you can.

Intrigued to understand more, why not book a call to discuss how our coaching programmes 99% guarantee you to tone up, lose weight, lose body fat without huge sessions at the gym or giving up all the food you love to eat.