Going to bed frustrated that you’re still fat, regardless of all your efforts?

Wake up fat and depressed, concerned that you will never lose weight?

Or are you just sick and tired of being fat and ready to take some actionable steps to lose weight and feel great?

Then check out these 5 serious fat loss tips below. You may find one or more to be your missing piece to finally dropping that extra body fat!

To best illustrate my Top 5 Serious Fat Loss Tips, I’d like to begin by outlining the 5 ways that STOP fat loss in it’s tracks:

1. High insulin levels. Eating too many carbohydrates (for your body’s requirements), improper food combinations, and lack of sleep all lead to excess insulin levels. Insulin is your ‘fat storage’ hormone. Anytime insulin is released – you lose the magical effects of glucagon, our ‘fat burning’ hormone. Consequently, this spells trouble for your fat burning efforts.
2. Chronic inflammation. Inflammation is one of the ways, your body attempts to heal. Whether it’s a bump, scrape or excess tissue damage from poor food choices or emotional stress. Fat burning stops because it has other, more important priorities, and it’s not slimming you into those sexy levy jeans.
3. Dehydration. Not drinking enough water inhibits detoxification. Doing so keeps your toxins in,  ‘gunking’ up your metabolism. Removing toxins is one the ways to a healthy metabolism and stubborn fat loss.
4. Lack of sleep. Not sleeping enough causes a whole host of health problems. When it comes to fat loss, what do most of us crave when we’re tired? Ya, Sugar, caffeine, anything quick to pick us up! To our detriment, these substances cause a spike in insulin resulting in fat loss disaster.
5. Not enough or too much exercise. As it turns out, getting the right amount of consistent exercise is critical to any fat loss efforts. Current research points to short bursts of intense exercise followed by rest and recovery. This has to do with optimizing cortisol and how excessive levels force the body to break down muscle tissue in times of ‘fight or flight’. Most importantly, the less muscle you have on your body, the lower your metabolism. The lower your metabolism the lower your chances at burning body fat.

Now ——what you’ve been waiting for……My Simple Solutions to burning body fat! Look below for my Top 5 Serious Fat Loss Tips.

Serious Fat loss tip #1: Ditch the grains and the sugars. Instead, replace these high carbohydrate sources with colorful fruits and vegetables. Whole fruits and vegetables are lower in carbs, rich in health promoting nutrients, and keep insulin down for best fat loss results.

HOW MUCH CARBS?
For fat loss, keep carbs to 50-150 g per day.

Serious Fat loss tip #2: Have a healthy source of protein and fat with every meal. Best not to snack. Eating 2-3 meals a day without snacking trains your body to use ‘body fat’ as a source of fuel instead of relying on food.

HOW MUCH PROTEIN?
A good rule of thumb is 0.8 g per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of ideal body weight being careful not to exceed more than 25 g of protein PER meal. So, if you are 150 lbs. of ideal body weight (68 kg), your protein requirements are roughly 54 grams divided between your 2-3 meals per day. Athletes are closer to 1.2 to 1.7 g/kg daily. Basically, you want just enough protein to meet your demands to repair and regenerate. Too much at one sitting shifts the body away from repair and into accelerated aging, growth and fat storage due to the increase in – you guessed it – insulin!

HOW MUCH FAT?
A good rule of thumb is if meal containing protein, is high in fat (such as dark meat poultry with skin, fatty meats, or cheese), then add 2-3 tsp. of oil, butter, mayo OR 1-2 tbsp. nuts/seeds, OR 1/4 of an avocado. Double these amounts if the protein source is not high fat (such as skinless poultry, lean meats, or protein powder).

A KEY point to understand is that being fat doesn’t come from EATING fat necessarily. Being fat comes from the inability to BURN fat, which, can be a DIRECT consequence of relying on grains and sugars as a primary fuel source. In other words, being a ‘sugar burner’ instead of a ‘fat burner’.

Best dietary fats for fat burning are coconut oil and butter from grass fed cows. These particular fats are high in compounds that the body uses for energy and increased metabolism, instead of storing as fat.

Serious Fat loss tip #3: Get 8-9 hrs of solid sleep every night. Be consistent! Sleep deprivation (less than 6 hrs. a night) can lead to insulin resistance and hormone deregulation as well as increased risk for cancer. Therefore, to optimize fat loss, be asleep by 9 or 10pm (latest) and wake by 6am. Most noteworthy is the release of proper Growth Hormone (between the hours of 10pm and 2am). Growth hormone is your anti-aging, fat loss, muscle growth hormone.

Serious Fat loss #4: Start your day with 1 litre of pure, filtered water. Interestingly enough, just drinking enough purified water will increase your metabolism and help you burn fat.

HOW MUCH WATER?
A good rule of thumb is to calculate half of your body weight in pounds and consume roughly that amount in ounces of pure, fresh, clean water per day.

Serious Fat loss #5: Perform short bursts of high intensity, weight bearing exercise, 2-3 times a week with recovery days in between. Additionally, be sure your recovery days include walking, restorative yoga, and/or light swimming.

Weight bearing exercise builds muscle. Hence, the more muscle you have on your body, the faster your fat loss and the longer you will keep it off. The ultimate, end result is that you’ll look and feel sexier too! Isn’t that what we are losing the body fat for? Love to hear your comments….WHAT ARE YOUR REASONS FOR DROPPING BODY FAT?

I would LOVE to hear your comments, feedback, or questions about any of these tips? Please write your thoughts below!

You can download an audio version of the blog post here.