Hierarchy of fat loss
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of fat loss? Diet and exercise, right? Yes, these are undoubtedly important but when your fat loss efforts come to a standstill, it is good to remember that there are other factors that play a role in the process. We have arranged them by importance in a Hierarchy of fat loss. These are: diet, sleep, stress, physical activity and training.
1. Diet – no training can overturn a bad diet. In order to lose weight, you have to create calorific deficit. High intensity training increases appetite, which makes some consume more food. Therefore it is important to combine intense training with balanced diet. Make healthy choices when you shop and if necessary use diet and weight loss supplements to get a boost. Chronic overeating and overtraining can lead to insulin resistance. If your weight loss comes to a halt, try reducing the amount of training you do and food you consume by a little.
2. Sleep – Have you noticed that when you have not had enough sleep, your cravings for carbs increase? This is no coincidence. When you are in a state of chronic sleep deficiency, your body needs a fast energy source. This is why sweet things look so attractive when you are tired – a double blow to your dieting efforts. Sleep is a milestone for optimum health and when not sufficient, it affects everything – mood, hormones, stress levels, appetite, willpower, energy, ability for quality training and recovery. If your body receives less than 7 hours sleep very often, this is likely to be a barrier on your fat loss path. Try this: in the next few weeks make a daily plan which includes more sleep at night time. Forget about staying late on social medias or watching TV.
3. Stress – Every one experiences stress at some point in their daily life. Stress can affect your eating habits (emotional eating) or affect your sleep. Even intensive training is perceived as stress by the body and it releases more cortisone – the stress hormone. This in turn has negative impact on muscle recovery and what is more under stress the body tries to store additional fat to use as energy source. Try this: make a list of things that make you calm – a 15 min walk in the park, 20 min in the bath, breathing exercises, listening to music etc. They can reduce your stress levels and will help you sleep better and avoid emotional eating.
4. Physical Activity – it may sound surprising to you that even people who train 4-5times a week also can be classed as having a sedentary lifestyle. If you are sitting for 8 hours behind a desk, this makes you inactive and you should try and stand up and move about more often. That gives you the opportunity to break the sitting in one and the same position and will help avoid the imbalance in the musculoskeletal system. Additionally you will burn more energy. If you are already training- this is good, but try and increase your body movement as much as possible. It is easy – use the stairs instead of the lift, park further, run with your children or dog, park or get off one stop further from your destination.
5. Training – last in this hierarchy of fat loss is the training. It plays a vital role in the muscle creation or preservation, regulates imbalances in the body, boosts confidence, improves bone density; it supports healthy heart and so on. What is more, larger muscle mass means burning more calories when resting bringing you closer to your fat loss goal. Without the first 4 steps in the fat loss ladder though, training can be ineffective for weight loss. For the ladies looking to get into shape we recommend power training with multi-joint exercises 3-4 times a week, 2 cardio sessions of 30 min each and 1-2 a week high intensity interval training.
Be S.M.A.R.T. about your goal and consistent, the results will follow soon.
