How to lose FAT (Effectively)

The age old question, all Personal Trainers get asked: by clients, by family members, people in the gym, people at weddings, in queue's at the shops...everywhere.

What's the secret?

What's the magic sauce?

"Tell me and I'll do it!"

"Is it easy? Is it unbearably hard?"

The answer is: it's actually relatively easy. And if it is unbearably hard, you're doing it wrong.

You just need to get two key elements correct.

My new client has dropped 3kg's in the last month since starting, using my methods in this blog. Of course, everything is specifically tailored to him in terms of nutrition and what we do in training sessions, but you can do it too.

In theory, getting the two key elements correct is super simple. In practice, one of them may not be as easy, for some. It depends how much you actually want to lose some body fat. You only get out of something what you put into it.

Go in half hearted, get half hearted results. Go all in, commit to the plan, and get all-time results.

What are the two key elements?

Training and nutrition. Everyone knows that. Let's break down the training side of it first and possibly see why you're failing, or finding it tough.

To burn body fat, we do not need to work out relentlessly until we can't move. In fact, it's the opposite. Low intensity exercise wins every time.

Exercise at low intensity - between 65-70% of our maximum heart rate - burns fat. Exercise at high intensity - 80%+ of our maximum HR - burns carbohydrates stored in our muscles, not fat.

Our body has two ways to provide itself with energy: our aerobic system and our anaerobic system.

Our aerobic system uses oxygen and fat stores to provide energy. A marathon runner uses this system.

Our anaerobic system requires glycogen, which is energy stored in our muscles: quick release energy, if you will. This is required for quick responses (fight or flight episodes). A 100m sprinter uses this system.

We've been told HIIT , training at almost maximum intensity levels is the way to lose fat. Social media marketing shows us ripped 'influencers' training until they can't stand up, dripping in a puddle of sweat.

This can work...but if you've done this and not seen results it's because you're burning stored carbohydrates (glycogen) from your muscles to fuel your training. You're not optimising fat burning.

At low intensity we burn more fat than carb. At high intensity we burn more carb than fat (see image).

Our body is designed to want to re-stock these carb stores - after hard sessions we crave carbohydrates like bread, pasta, sugars etc. One slip of will power and you're done.

This, combined with not being able to sustain/hating the high intensity sessions, means we stop and give up. I've seen it so many times.

Fat loss needs to be done in a way we can repeat it, easily and consistently, for weeks, months, even years if we have a large amount to lose.

To train at that 65-70% max heart rate, low intensity, fat burning sweet spot, we need work out what 65-70% of your maximum heart rate is. First, we need to find out what your maximum Heart Rate (HR) first.

We will use a 30-year-old as an example.

Our maximum heart rate is said to be 220 minus our age.

So for a 30 year old, the maximum heart rate is 190 beats per minute (bpm).

65% of 190bpm = 123bpm.

70% of 190bpm = 133bpm.

For the most effective fat loss, a 30 year old would need to exercise, keeping their heart rate in a range from 123bpm to 133bpm.

How do you know your heart rate when exercising? Many people now have Apple watches, or HR monitors which tell you instantly what your heart rate is. Keep an eye on it to check your HR is in the fat burning sweet spot - 123-133bpm for a 30-year-old.

If you don't use a smart watch or heart rate monitor, you can take your own HR manually. Find your pulse (neck or wrist points are best), count the beats for 10 seconds and multiply that number by 6 (= 60 seconds). Do this every few minutes while exercising to check you're in the 123-133 bpm range.

For my client, his fat burn sweet spot HR range during our sessions is 110-122bpm. This equates to a slow pedal on a exercise bike, a walk (he golfs which puts him in his range for 3 hours!) or some low intensity movements we have developed. For him specifically, he loves high intensity training, so it's a challenge to keep him in this lower zone.

You need to be in the 65-70% bpm range for 30-45 minutes.

Here is my clients full protocol which has led to 3kg fat loss in his first four weeks:

• Wake up, hydrate with water. Coffee.

• 9am - train, fasted (no breakfast).

• Warm Up

• 5 minutes exercise bike intervals @90% max HR (15s on/45s off)

• 30 minutes low intensity, 65-70% HR training.

• 10 minutes intervals @ 70-80% (30s on/off)

• 30 minutes of weight training.

• 10 minutes of stretching / mobility.

• Wait 1 hour until eating.

We do this three times per week. For 3 other days, he does 45 minutes of sweet spot training on his own - for him it is walking or cycling - at the 65-70% bpm range. The client finds this easy, he can talk while training, and he doesn't crave any foods after as it is low intensity. It's repeatable, easy to build into his day and the results breed a positive mindset.

None of this training would work if the nutriton side of things are not on-point.

This leads us to the second key element - Nutrition.

To lose fat, we need to consume less calories than we use. You will have heard of this as being in a calorie deficit.

This does not mean a radical drop in food, restricting food groups such as carbs, fats or, heaven forbid, protein, or intermittently fasting. It simply means we need to eat a little less than we probably already are.

I ask all fat loss clients to fill out a food diary over a whole week. I add everything up to see how many calories they consume on average over the week, and I see how those calories affect the macro nutrients - carbohydrate, fat and protein - as a percentage.

Using a 30-year old as an example again, a male, 180cm, 85kg, with a desk based job, doing no structured exercise sessions, would approximately need around 2500 calories per day to maintain their weight and fat percentage (this is approx. I work out each persons exact numbers client by client, and you should too).

If the 30-year-old wanted to lose fat, I would drop them down to 2200 calories per day - but I would want to see those 2200 calories split into 35% carbohydrate, 35% protein, 30% fat.

A good app to track these numbers is Fat Secret or My Fitness Pal. You enter your foods eaten and it gives you all the relevant numbers. For some clients I guide them on exactly what to eat, others like to track on their own. It's so important to track food in the beginning, otherwise you're just guessing and wasting time. In my 15 years of experience, 99% of people are too high in carbs and way too low on protein.

The client would also engage in the sweet spot, fat burning training, for 30-50 minutes, 5 times per week. With me or without me. I would expect to see around 2-3kgs weight loss per month doing this initially. This would lessen and plateau as time goes on, then we need to change the numbers around a bit. I would also like the client to engage in resistance training - weights, kettlebells, resistance bands - for lean muscle gains and increased health. Everything is laid out easily for the client to tick off each day.

If the client can set aside 1 hour per day, (you can break the time up) they would see awesome results. It's a mission to lose weight and gain some lean muscle, you need to put in the time to achieve it. I have heard every reason possible for people not to do it - it's ok, if we can't set aside the time to track food and exercise properly, we can't expect any results.

That secret I spoke about at the beginning is... time. The secret sauce is...committing to a plan.

So there you have an effective way to lose fat. Low intensity training for 30-50 minutes, 5-6 times per week, along with a calorie defecit. Not training as hard as you can, feeling like death and starving yourself.

If you want to see some muscles when the fat disappears, add in some weight training.

High intensity training does have a place - a huge place - for enhancing performance and heart health and lean muscle gains, but for fat burning, low intensity is the way.

If you have some fat to burn and would like some help, please get in touch to see which plan I have is best for you.

Whether you're in Spain for 1-1 sessions, or somewhere else in the world for an online 1-1 plan, or would like to have a 1-week training camp to see how to do it best, get in touch.

Thanks, as always for reading!

Iain