Fat loss is a term that is thrown around by everyone. You would think that we as gym users would have a pretty good idea of what it means by now, don’t you? Yet here we are still writing about it, still reading articles and blog posts trying to find something that works for us. The unfortunate matter of the fact is that we have been inundated with influencers and get-rich-quick schemes by business owners who have skewed the idea in everyone’s head as to what it really takes to lose body fat.
If there really was a way to find our summer bodies within a few weeks in pill form or in a smoothie form, it would be completely sold off the shelves and your local gyms would all be out of business. Yet when you walk through a shopping isle and find the health foods, you see products claiming that they are the secret while still having plenty in stock. This is the problem; the secret is that there is no secret. There are methods that work, and those methods have been around since the start of time. Hammer’s Gym is here to take you on a journey talking all things fat loss. Stay with us over the next 3 weeks as we break down some of the simplest, yet effective ways to lose fat and take ownership over our own bodies.
Now, before we get into the thick of things, we would just like to clear up a few things. Everyone should feel comfortable in their own skin, and we wish to empower every member of our gym, and every person reading this that they are enough. We wish to use these blogs as an educational piece and to offer insight if you wish to take this journey on yourself.
There is no need to follow these tips and we, by no means, would ever expect anyone to follow either. You are beautiful and/or handsome as you are.
For part 1 of this series, we are going to be covering three topics. All of which we believe are important to master before committing to your journey. The first of which is the topic of self-talk. A healthy conversation with yourself is very important to being able to hold onto your new habits for the long run.
As we covered in our intro, the hype around a quick fix to fat loss will never work, and we are here to help you for the whole process. Once we understand that it takes time, we need to truly take over the thoughts that run through our head. There will be times in your journey when you don’t want to go to the gym, or you don’t want to cook a certain meal and a take-away seems much easier. These are all thoughts that will come time and time again, and we need to be okay with this. If we do skip the gym, we should motivate ourselves to go next time and not feel guilty.
If we didn’t meal prep the way we should have and need to get a quick take away meal one night, that is okay too. We cannot put added pressure on ourselves as one month of hard work will not come undone in one day. Having the mental maturity to accept that life gets in the way sometimes and allow these guilt free hiccups to happen is all a part of the process as long as we take these breaks as a chance to get back on track for the next day or next meal.
Our second point, and we have already touched on this briefly, is that this process will take time. Most people will start out with a goal weight in mind that they are looking to hit and sometimes they will also put a time frame on this. While this is good to have goals and something to strive for, sometimes these can be unrealistic and set us up for failure. Fat loss is hard enough as it is, so if we start to notice that our goals are unachievable, this will just set us further back. Losing too much weight too quickly can result in a crash.
This is the cycle of fad/crash dieting which very rarely results in long term fat loss. Losing too little weight at a time can be deflating to our motivation and make us think that we are not doing enough and look at stopping. Where most people should strive for is 0.2-0.8kg per week for someone trying to lose 5-15kg, and 0.8-1.5kg per week for someone looking to lose 15kg+. You should also consider not “dieting” for longer than 8-12 weeks at a time.
This doesn’t mean binging and losing all your hard work, but taking a diet break every 8 weeks for 2-7 days can improve your response to the diet. Focus on habits you can stick with for years, and slowly build your threshold. You are on your own journey, and every step you take in the right direction is a great thing.
The last point on today’s post is something that we like to call the 1%, and more specifically, obsessing over the 1%. We are genetically modified to obsess over the small things. Spending 20 minutes on a cardio machine instead of 25 minutes, eating 1700 calories against 1650 calories, or the difference between having a juice cleaner in the morning or a protein shake are not big problems. These are minor issues, and our body doesn’t track this type of data, only our minds.
We should not worry about these insignificant alternations in our fitness plan as they won’t interact with our progress as much as we think. Instead, try to focus on trends over a week or a few weeks and see how your body is responding. Then we are able to make changes according to these changes and take it from there.
Stay tuned for next week as we break our way into sleep, calories and macronutrients.
