Staying lean 365 – 5 tips to keep off body fat
One of the biggest issues I deal with, be it professional athletes or general population, is reduction in body fat with my clients either trying to get or stay lean. As an athlete excess body fat is wasted space and weight, as a human in general excess body fat can be unsightly as well as lead to a myriad of health issues and hormone disturbances. Can you have a high body fat percentage and be healthy? Sure, but it’s even better still to be lean and healthy so let’s find out how.
- Be consistent! This is the big one and probably the one that is most said and least adhered to. I think the main reason people aren’t consistent is they are chasing fast weight loss results not the lasting effects of a reduction in body fat (there is a difference). Many people will attend a HIIT class 5 days a week while starving themselves for a ridiculous 8 week transformation challenge expecting a miracle then go back to their stagnant lifestyles until they receive the next advertising flyer from their gym to do it all again, in the meantime they have packed on more weight than before and managed to screw up their metabolism to make it harder and harder to get results in the future until someone like myself comes along and has to fix the mess that’s been made. If you change your focus to the long term then the quick fix methods tend to lose steam pretty quick and positive habits take over, and I’m not talking about consistence as in going to the gym 5 days a week forever (unless you want to), just the daily habits of being active and eating well which will take us on to the next tips.
- Eat clean! Now this doesn’t mean chicken and broccoli every meal but it does mean don’t eat crap every night of the week, or even every second, third or fourth night of the week for that matter…. actually just don’t eat processed crap. The thing about living in an affluent society is that treats aren’t treats any more they are more like conveniences. Back in the day high carbohydrate foods were a rare delicacy, we might have stumbled across a bee hive, dug up a tuber, found a seasonal fruit bearing tree or some berries, a lot has changed in our external world since then but not a lot has changed inside our bodies from a biochemical point of view so, eat whole foods, try to make things from scratch, and avoid pre packaged processed crap no matter how “healthy” the label says it is.
- Be Active! This one is a no brainer, the more you move the more you lose, if you sit on your ass all week and then go and do an aerobics class once a week hoping you’re going to look like Brad Pitt in Fight club or Melania Trump you probably aren’t going to get there. I can already hear the excuses, ‘but Cam I work an office job I can’t be active all day’ to which I say BULLSHIT you’re just being lazy, go to the bathroom once an hour (more than that and your colleges might think your weird… or sick) and do 15 body weight squats and 15 wall push ups, take the stairs, go for a walk around the block at lunch time, before work and hell spoil yourself do it after work too. There are more ways to be active than excuses you can come up with so shut up and just do it!
- Sleep well, Sleep is when we recover, de-stress and generally sort ourselves out. Bad sleep equals high stress equals high body fat. It’s a pretty simple equation, so how do you do it? Well that’s pretty simple too, try any or all of these. Stay off electric devices at least 40 min prior to bed, no TV in the bedroom, put your phone on aeroplane mode (even better leave it out of the bedroom), sleep in total darkness or use an eye mask, use white noise like a rain sounds app or a fan through the night, stay cool, have a cold shower before bed, do box breaths just before you lay down (4 seconds in, 4 second hold, 4 seconds out, 4 second hold, repeat 5 times) short of that there is various supplement stacks that can help you distress and sleep better. Feel free to ask me about them here
- Live to a standard! And a high one at that. When you go to a doctors you have expectations, they will be well dressed, well groomed and hygienic, well spoken, intelligent and caring to name a few, if any of these standards are missing you won’t like the experience and you will probably not go back to that doctor. The same applies for your own life, you want to be healthy and lose body fat? Be fit and Lean? Well hold yourself to a standard that will enable that and don’t accept anything less and always give more than promised.
- BONUS.. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER!! This was too important not to leave out but didn’t fit into the five, you should, each day, be drinking around 1 litre of water per 25kg of body weight and an extra litre per hour of hard exercise (they say fluid, but realistically you shouldn’t really be drinking anything except water and maybe a black tea or coffee so I say water), water is the essence of life and the foundation of everything we are made of, without it we can’t detoxify , or function both metabolically or in general.
Now you know, you need to do! Remember tip 5 and it all flows on from there, if you still need some motivation assistance check out my blog on staying motivated or get in contact with me directly.
Till next time.
Your strength coach,
Cam
