How to train while losing fat.

Imagine you're freezing in your own house and the only source of heat is your fireplace. There's no firewood, so you start burning stuff in your house. Do you reach for the furniture and tearing down walls right away? Of course, not! You go for fluffy pillows expendable junk first.

If you’re working to shed fat, your body is essential looking for stuff to burn for energy and survival. But unlike you in your scenario, your body does not care what it burns. It's tearing down weightbearing walls and burning your great grandmother's antique table. It doesn't care where the energy comes from. So as you gleefully celebrate weight loss, you've actually lost water, muscle, and bone. And now you're setting yourself up for injuries, insulin resistance, and a falls. Do you still feel like doing a bell-kick? 

But don't fret, there is a way to protect your body's essential structures while losing weight.

First you need to make a change to your lifestyle. I know, easier said than done. But hear me out. Start by manipulating your nutrition and activity levels in small increments. Though fat loss sounds simple, there are many important considerations to take into account when you are going through that period. One of those is namely the approach to training while losing fat, as it can make or break your process. In this article, we’ll go through every important detail regarding fat-loss training.

Without further ado, let’s get to it!

The Deficit

One of the underlying principles of fat loss, is the so-called “caloric deficit” which implies consuming less calories than your body requires to maintain its weight and physiological processes.

In doing so, you allow the body to burn more fat than it stores, thus tapping into your fat reserves and burning them off. Though a caloric deficit is good for fat loss, it inevitably leads to loss of lean body mass (LBM), along with your fat loss. Your goal while losing fat, is to reduce the losses of lean body mass, in order to retain health, energy and metabolic rate.

Before you get into training during the weight loss phase, make sure you have the following in check:

1. Moderate caloric deficit of 400-500 calories
2. Sufficient protein of ~1g per lb of body weight
3. Good amounts of fat - 0.35-0.45g per lb of body weight
4. Sufficient amounts of carbohydrates (remaining calories after calculating protein and fats)

Once you have these in check, you are halfway to your goal of preserving LBM.

How Training Can Help You

Besides proper nutrition, strength training is essential to retain your muscle mass and keep your metabolic rate up. Though a caloric deficit is necessary for weight loss, it is highly recommended that you do your workout sessions as well.

In doing so, you will stimulate the muscle protein synthesis inside of the muscle cells and thus, create stimulus for greater retention of lean body mass (including muscle mass). This is mainly relevant for resistance training, which can also be combined with cardio training.

Important Training Considerations

Before you get into the gym and go all in on your workouts however, you have to factor in a couple of things. Otherwise, you risk poor recovery and chronic exhaustion.



Here are our best fat loss training tips:

1. Lower the intensity (Slightly)

Due to the fact you are in a deficit of energy, you inevitably have to train at a different level of intensity. Because intensity is demanding by nature, you have to make sure that you aren’t reaching failure far too often. It is recommended that you work with heavy weights, but not too heavy. Remember to always leave 1-3 repetitions in reserve, as this is what will allow you to recover well, though you are in a caloric deficit.

2. Do More isolated movements

Though heavy, compound movements must be at the core of your fat loss workouts, you can also include more isolated movements. These exercises emphasize on one specific muscle group and improve the shape and details of the muscle itself.

Looking for aesthetically pleasing muscle separations? Don’t forget your isolations!

3. Flex, flex, flex!

Besides helping you retain muscle mass, training is supposed to bring out the fine details of your musculature during the weight loss phase. This can be done not only through isolated exercises, but also… Flexing!



That’s right - Just flexing your muscles and holding that peak flexion, can help you further chisel your biological sculpture! On top of that, practicing posing can greatly help with your presentation and how you feel on your own skin. Flexing in front of the mirror looks stupid? Not anymore, it has benefits!

Conclusion

During a period of weight loss, you lose both fat tissue and lean body mass, which is every other tissue in the body except fat. Your goal is to not only lose fat, but to also retain as much of that LBM as possible.



To do so, you must ensure that your caloric deficit is moderate and supported by solid amounts of protein, fats, and carbohydrates. After having checked those important points, you must engage in regular resistance training, which is exercised at moderately high-intensity levels, without reaching failure. In doing all of this, you will set yourself up for the healthiest, leanest, and happiest version of yourself!
 
So, what is there to lose? Go crush your goals!

Don't let past setbacks keep you from creating the active lifestyle that you want. Progressive Athletics has helped hundreds of Howard County residents educate, elevate, and create lives that they love. Get started today by clicking the link above or emailing the owner at linette@progressive-athletics.com

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