Fat loss occurs when there's a negative balance of fat in your cells. Fat is stored or released based on your body’s energy needs. But before we dive deeper into how this works, let's clear up a few key points
We have a fixed amount of fat cells in our body. We don't create new ones, and we don't burn fat cells to the point of extinction.
We lose fat cells due to cell death but our body generate new cells leading to a fixed amount of fat cells over time.
Your fat cells can get bigger or smaller depending on how much fat gets stored in them.
If we want to lose fat we need to have more fat leaving the cell than entering the cell.
The food you eat influences how much fat your fat cells absorb and release.
Your exercise routine influences how much fat leaves your cells.
This blog post will assume you have no physiological disorder.
How does fat get in and out of our cells
Fat can enter your cells through two mechanisms: Lipogenesis and Re-esterification.
Lipogenesis is the conversion of glucose into fat. Glucose comes from carbohydrates that you eat.
Re-esterification (RE) is the absorption of fats that are in your bloodstream. This can come from the fats you eat, or fats that have been released by fat cells
The only way fat will leave the cell is through a process called lipolysis. Your body increases lipolysis when it needs energy. This could be for exercise but will mainly be triggered by your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT refers to any energy demands that are not related to exercising, sleeping or eating.
When the rate of lipogenesis and RE is greater than the rate of lipolysis, your fat cells get bigger. When the rate of lipolysis is greater than the rate of lipogenesis and RE, the cells get smaller and you are effectively losing fat.
How to lose fat
The golden rule to make your body torch your fat reserves is to be in a calorie deficit (consuming fewer calories than we spend). It is physiologically impossible to have it any other way.
In a calorie deficit, your body will be forced to use its fat stores.
There are two ways you can achieve this:
Eating less
Moving more and spending more calories
The simplest way, in my opinion, is to eat less. Yes you may get hungry at first but your body will adjust and within a few weeks you won't feel the hunger.
The trick here is to make your calorie deficit very small. If you go from eating 2000 calories a day to 1000, your body will not like that. It's also not sustainable at all.
Going from 2000 to 1800 on the other is much more doable and sustainable.
Doing this will reduce lipogenesis and RE.
NEAT and your exercise routine are the two main factors you can control to increase lipolysis. Your body needs fat for energy during any exercise bout that is longer than 3 minutes with a relatively low intensity (less than 50% of your VO2max)
It is as simple as going for a short walk. Making this a daily routine can help your body tap into its fat stores and if done consistently, rain or shine, will help keep your lipolysis rate elevated.
Low intensity exercise includes walking, cycling, hiking, swimming, jogging, rowing, and going on the elliptical. The intensity of the exercise should be easy enough for you to hold a conversation the whole time you're doing it.
The other way you can increase your lipolysis is to increase your NEAT, which can be done by doing the following:
- Walking as much as you can. If you are using your car to get somewhere, park it a few blocks away from your destination, and walk the last few blocks.
- Stand more. Get a standing desk if you can. When watching TV, stand up for certain scenes or segments. If you're watching a TV program stand up during the commercials.
- Cook your meals. This is just another way to stand more.
- Take different routes to work or to your grocery store.
- There are an infinite amount of ways you can increase your NEAT depending on your lifestyle, if you need more ideas you can email me and I'll be happy to chat about it with you
Controlling lipogenesis and re-esterification
Controlling these two factors boils down to what you eat. I've written a few articles about this in these articles:
Eating more carbs or more fat does not make a huge difference in the total fat balance.
If you eat more fat, like in a keto diet, you are going to reduce lipogenesis and increase RE, which will end up with the same amount of fat in your cells in a calorie equated diet.
On the other hand, if you eat less fat and more carbs, you're decreasing RE but increasing lipogenesis.
Will building muscle help with fat loss?
One pound of muscle burns around 7 calories per day. If someone has 30 pounds of muscle, that means they will burn 30 x 7 = 210 calories per day just to maintain that muscle mass.
Now let's be honest, 210 calories per day is not a huge number. However, it is part of the fat burning equation. It's a little detail in favour of losing weight.
A strength routine aimed at increasing your lean muscle mass will help you burn more calories throughout each day to maintain your muscle mass.
The strength workouts themselves won't burn a ton of calories while you're doing them, but the result will be more muscle mass.
Cardio and fat loss
Cardio, on the other hand, burns more calories when you're doing it but does not build new muscle. It also helps enhance your cardiovascular system which indirectly helps your strength routine by enabling you to recover faster in between workouts.
For example, a 150 pounds person biking at a moderate speed for 30 minutes will burn around 300 calories. The same person doing a weight training workout for 30 minutes will burn between 90 - 200 calories.
For cardio workouts to burn a substantial amount of calories, they need to be fairly long (30+ min).
HIIT and fat loss
HIIT workouts have the advantages of being quicker than classic cardio routines and also build new muscle.
The disadvantage of high intensity workouts is that you may need a little bit of time to learn how to do each move properly.
A classic cardio workout is very simple: go for a run or a bike ride.
A HIIT workout on the other hand requires you to do full body exercises, usually at a rapid pace. So if you're not familiar with these exercises, you'll have to spend some time learning how to do them properly.
What is the best way to lose fat?
A balanced plan that includes strength training as well as cardio and HIIT is, in my opinion the best way to lose fat. You will be using the benefits of each workout together to maximize your results.
Having a nutrition plan that allows you to be in a calorie deficit most of the time should go hand in hand with the above exercise routine.
To make sure the nutrition plan works long term make sure it incorporates food you love to eat, has contingency plans for going out, has enough fruits and vegetables and enough protein.
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