3 Things That Make Losing Body Fat More Difficult

Reducing body-fat and leaning out are two of the biggest goals people have when starting at Equity. The first place we like to start is moving more and improving nutrition. Then once we hit a plateau we have to start looking at other areas.

The Weekday-Weekend Cycle is generally the next place we look at when working with people. There are 3 concepts that we need to break down in order to understand this cycle.

1. Starvation
   The basic concept for losing weight is consuming less calories than you are burning. If you burn more than you take in there will be weight reduction.
   This concept can be taken too far, where the calories are too low and the exercise is too high. This deficit will trick the body into thinking it is starving and needs to hold onto as much fat as it can in order to survive for the ongoing deficit. This is how people skinny-fat happens.
   
   To counter this calories should be increased and added emphasis on weight training. Increasing the calories will tell the body it is not starving and start burning fat instead of saving it. Weight training will start building lean muscle mass which will increase lean muscle mass.

2. Excessive Weekends
   When we overly constrict ourselves during the week we feel restricted and the seesaw usually flips the other direction and there are no boundaries (or very limited boundaries). Statements like “I was good all week”, “I earned this”, “I need to have some fun” start the flood gates. Major restrictions and constant dieting result in going to0 hard in both directions. When we over do it our body can’t metabolize (use) all the calories and nutrients, so the excess gets stored as fat.
   
   To counter this we want to level out our ups and downs. Instead of crazy lows during the week and crazy highs during the week ends we work on leveling it out. We want gentle rolling hills, rather than tall mountains and deep valleys. This way the body can use the food to growth lean and strong.

3. Alcohol
   Alcohol does two things the first is it increases calories and we talked about that above. Drinking calories is an easy way to put on weight fast, but lets assume that you’re consuming alcohol and staying within your calories (and/or macros). When alcohol is consumed the body treats it as a poison and wants to get it out the the body as soon as possible so it prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol before anything else. This means that anything consumed while alcohol is in your system is likely not going to be metabolized right away and the body will store it as fat.
   Again similar to the excessive weekends this leads to the holding holding onto extra fat. Even with lower calories body-fat can accumulate with excessive alcohol.
   
   To counter this limiting alcohol consumption is the solution.

These three parts create a vicious loop that makes it very difficult to reduce body-fat and lean out. By using the techniques to counter those issues you can help reduce your body-fat.

Other areas to focus on is increasing protein, be consistent throughout the week, and lifting heavy things.

Thank you for reading. If you are looking for help and accountability reach out to me via email or text 443.206.5544.

Cheers,
Coach Berek