Fat Loss Tips For The New Year!
It’s almost New Years Eve 2024 – very soon we’ll be walking into 2025! Like most people that have gone a little overboard during the Holiday season, you may have gained some unwanted body fat. Whether you’re new to the fitness game, or an experienced lifter, that means you’ll be hitting the New Year right and chasing fat loss. With that in mind, here’s some fat loss tips for the new year!
Tip # 1 – The Kitchen Is Where You Begin
A key to successfully losing body fat is to avoid fad diets. Instead, think in terms of long term lifestyle changes, and take your time. If you drop fat too fast you’ll lose too much muscle – a lifter’s worst nightmare come true! It starts in the kitchen. Your goal should be to lose 1-2 lbs of body fat per week. This rate of fat loss should be a result of reducing calories and increasing physical activity.
Tip # 2 – Cut Simple Carbs First
Step #1 is to gradually decrease your calories by reducing sugary simple carbohydrates. Begin with about a 250 calorie per day reduction.
Just 250 Calories?
Yes! If you have not lost any body fat after your first week, reduce your daily calories by another 250. Focus on simple carbohydrates first. A point to be made here is that you need carbs for energy. Therefore, if you find you’ve reduced carbs below 75-100 grams of carbs per day, focus on lowering fat intake. Never cut protein! The only change you should ever make to your protein intake should be going from a high-fat protein to a lower-fat protein. Finally, make sure you’re using an app or journal to track daily calories and macronutrient percentages.
Do Carbs Make Me Fat?
The truth is that carbs alone do not lead to fat gain. However, when people eat too many sugary carb foods, thereby taking in more carbs than the body needs for energy, the excess is converted to fat. This is not helped if these foods contain high amounts of fat. Some lifters and certainly the average person don’t understand the hormonal impact of consuming too much sugar during the day.
The Role Of Insulin
It works like this: sugary carbs directly impact insulin, a powerful natural anabolic hormone, but one with a negative downside. Yes, you need carbohydrates for energy. But, and it’s a big “but”, you only need so much. What happens if you overload your energy needs and your total calorie requirements for the day by eating excess sugary carbs? They will be stored as fat. Are you an endurance athlete training for hours a day? Then losing fat without cutting carbs shouldn’t be a problem. However, most lifters and average people are not active enough to attempt to burn off those extra calories. (1, 2)
When You Should Take In Simple Carbs
I advocate consuming roughly 50% of your total daily carb intake in the hours around your workout. That includes your intake of simple carbs. On off-days, take in less simple carbs and have most of them early in the day. For example, divided among breakfast, a mid-morning snack, and perhaps lunch.
Tip # 3 – Plan Your Meals (Meal Prep)
My next tip is this: you should plan your meals ahead of time. Have a menu laid out for the week and prep what you can beforehand. This specifically applies to work meals and, if you want, dinners. The reason is that in doing so, you will have no excuse not to eat healthy. If you bring your lunch to work, you have no reason to run out to Mickey D’s.
Another scenario is, like me in my working years, to not be able to sit down to lunch. That means you’ll need to bring either meal replacement shakes, or protein powder and bars. In my case, I was a retail manager that almost always worked alone – all day (retail supplement business). Therefore, I couldn’t leave, and I couldn’t sit down to a meal. I depended on protein shakes and bars, which works perfectly in this kind of scenario.
Tip # 4 – Cardio (Get Active!)
Of course, changing your macronutrient profile is not the only thing you will have to do to lose fat. You will have to be more active. Lifters typically understand this, and simply work cardio sessions into their schedule. If you’re new to exercising, you might not realize this. For you, the best thing you can do is to begin gradually. Do NOT jump into some extreme cardio routine. Instead, start simple. Try brisk walking, working up in distance and time. Or, ease into the cardio machine of your choice. Extreme means you’ll burn out quickly. Easing into it gives you a better chance of sticking with it for the long-term.
How Much Cardio?
It all depends on how much fat you’re trying to lose. If it’s a moderate amount, think in terms of 3 30-40 minute sessions a week. You can work up to 4 or 5 times a week, or alternate, say, treadmill work with brisk walking. Experienced lifters will know what works for them, newbies will have to experiment.
Add These Supplements!
Of course, illpumpyouup.com has supplements that can help you succeed in your fat loss journey! A great place to start is with a fat burning pre-workout. You get the best of a good pre-workout plus it burns fat! I suggest Bucked Up (Das Labs) LGF Burn. What if you want to stick with the Pre you’re currently using? No problem! Our best selling thermogenic fat burner is Hi-Tech Lipodrene. It’s one of the strongest fat burners on the market! I suggest this if you don’t use LGF Burn. If you do use it, then I suggest Lipodrene on your off-days.
Make Carbs Work For You!
A great way to help you lose fat is to incorporate a glucose disposal agent into your program. I suggest 5% Nutrition Freak Show. Also called nutrient partitioners and insulin mimickers, this exceptional product (and all Glucose Disposal Agents) prevent excess carbs from being stored as fat, and instead pulls them into the muscles. Cool, huh?
Wait, There’s More!
Another great fat loss supplement is 5% Nutrition’s All Day You Shred. What’s great about this product is that it combines thermogenic ingredients with 5%’s classic BCAA 6-gram blend with the one-of-a-kind 10:1:1 ratio. There’s also an EAA blend, and the caffeine comes from a natural source.
What About Stim-Free Options?
I can’t forget stim-free products for those people that have a hard time with caffeine. For starters, I suggest SPECIES Nutrition Lipolyze Evolved, a stim-free thermogenic and appetite suppressant. From there, we have products that support keto-dieters, thyroid support (the thyroid is often called “the master of the metabolism”), and much more! Check out all our fat loss products here.
Summary
Fat loss takes dedication. You have to stick to it to be successful. If that’s your goal, think lifestyle changes, follow the tips presented here, and start 2025 off with a bang!
References:
- Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology, Chapter 18, The Endocrine System, by Frederic H. Martini, p.617-620.
- Hormones: What They Are, Function & Types (clevelandclinic.org)