Written by Corey Grenz
This article will start out with good news and bad news! The bad news is we are still dealing with winter weather. However, the good news is spring is a just few weeks away meaning warmer weather and summer will be here soon! Regardless of what the temperature is right now you have enough time to lose a noticeable amount of body fat the next couple of months!
Here are six steps to get you started:
Step 1: Track Your Nutrition Meticulously
One of the biggest mistakes you can make nutritionally is cutting out your favorite foods (chips, crackers, cookies, etc.) or entire healthy food groups (starchy carbs, meat, etc.) early in your nutrition plan when trying to lose body fat. While this might work for a few weeks or even a month, eventually you WILL want what you’re missing and overeat those treats which will stall your fat loss progress. It is possible to fit your favorite foods into your plan so you have better adherence to sticking with it long term. The easiest way to do this is to keep track of your nutrition by using a Nutrition Tracking App, Excel or Google Sheets document, or old school paper and pencil.
Step 2: Assess Your Progress Weekly
A second mistake you are likely to make while getting ready for summer is not measuring fat loss metrics on a weekly basis. By missing measurements or avoiding them for long periods of time it’s hard to determine what kind of progress you’re really making and what adjustments need to made to your plan. To avoid that potential frustration do weigh-ins on a weekly basis, circumference measurements and progress photos every two weeks, or a combination of them.
It might not be fun to do but it will keep you on track the next couple of months, will likely make getting results more efficient, and let you know when to troubleshoot your plan along the way!
Step 3: Keep Your Calories Consistent
This is where tracking nutrition comes in as if you’re monitoring calories, you know how much you’re consuming each day. For fat loss you want to have an initial maintenance calorie number that you stay at or slightly below to lose weight. Once you learn how to get good at keeping calories consistent you will likely be able to eat the treats you enjoy because with tracking you will learn how they can fit into your plan.
The key word in the above line is CONSISTENT as it’s very easy to eat 500 or more calories on the weekend days if you’re not monitoring what you eat. However, if your calories are consistent each week your progress will likely be consistent too!
Step 4: Drink Enough Water
Often times when you think you’re hungry it’s likely you’re thirsty. In addition, if you are weighing in on a regular basis and find your weight is inconsistent it’s usually because of daily fluctuations in your fluid intake. Finally, energy levels often decrease with the current temperature and drinking enough water can prevent this. To reduce hunger, make weekly measurements more consistent, and keeping energy elevated try to get in the habit of drinking 100-120 ounces of water on a daily basis.
Step 5: Eat Enough Protein
To get the results you are looking for make sure you always eat between your 1.0 to 1.5 gams/day of your goal body weight in protein each day within the calories number you’re consuming. This will allow your blood sugar to remain stable, lower your hunger levels, maintain or even increase muscle mass, and ensure your metabolism is functioning more efficiently.
Best of all by eating enough protein and staying within your calorie range you will have wiggle room to either fit in food that is higher in carbs or fat that you tend to enjoy.
Step 6: Lower Your Calories from Carbs or Fat
When your plan begins try to stay within your maintenance level of calories for 1-2 weeks and if you’re losing weight, GREAT – continue to stay at that number. If you haven’t lost weight, lower the calories by 5-10% from carbs, fat, or a bit of both.
Now keep your caloric intake at or slightly below the new calorie number for another 1-2 weeks and see if you lose weight or if it stays the same. If you lose weight stay at that calorie number continue at that amount. If it stays the same after 1-2 weeks lower the calories 5-10% again.
BONUS Step: Add Strategic Cardio
Regarding the sixth step it can get a bit old to lower calories every 1-2 weeks. If you would like to eat a bit more and if you have some extra time to add physical activity, try 10 minutes of walking each day. When you walk, try to go at a fairly fast pace and good time to try to do it is right after you eat one of your meals. So as you’re on your fat loss journey the first time your weight loss stalls lower your calories 5-10%/day from carbs, fat, or both.
Do that for 1-2 weeks and when progress stalls again keep the calories the same but walk for 10 minutes/day after a meal. Continue to alternate lowering calories by 5-10% with adding 10 more minutes of daily walking during your fat loss journey this spring. Once you get to 30-40 minutes/day of walking you should see a noticeable change with how you look.
Conclusion
As I mentioned the best part about the above steps is you are not cutting out your favorite foods and beverages during your quest to look better as the weather gets warmer. In addition, there is no reason why you can’t get in GREAT shape by summer and continue that progress into the fall.
The main practices you are doing is coming up with a plan, documenting what you are doing, and assessing how it’s working by using the steps mentioned above. The steps are simple because the process of losing fat is fairly simple. Follow the steps, don’t complicate them, and you’ll be happy with your results when the weather is warmer!