4 Things NOBODY Tells You About Fat Loss (AVOID MISTAKES!)

First. Most people are unaware that not all body fat is created equally. Within our fat cells are two receptors, alpha and beta receptors. You’ll remember them as alpha for “awful” and beta for “beautiful”. This is because alpha receptors tell the body to store fat rather than burn it. Whereas beta receptors do the opposite and encourage fat to be burned off for energy. Where on the body do we have the highest density of these awful alpha receptors? For males, to protect our internal organs, they have the highest density within our belly fat and love handles. For women, for child bearing purposes, it tends to be around the hips and waist. This is what makes these areas so “stubborn” to lose fat from yet is where most of us starting a diet want to lose fat from first. Which then leads many of us to question, is there a “shortcut” to burning off fat from these stubborn areas? There isn’t. Instead, realize that only once you’ve lost enough fat cells from other areas of the body will your body start focusing on burning off your more stubborn fat cells for energy. Patience and consistency are keys.

Second: weight loss isn’t linear. Aside from knowing this, what else can you do? To start, we recommend all of our Built With Science clients to weigh themselves everyday using the same scale, first thing in the morning, after they’ve used the washroom but before they eat or drink anything. If you apply this you’ll still see some variation but it won’t be as big. Then, see what your average weight is for the week and compare those week to week. Be prepared for periods of 2-3 weeks where your weight just doesn’t budge or even increases. This is completely normal. However, in the event that your weekly weight hasn’t budged for at least 3-4 weeks, then that’s a sign it may be a good time to change something up.

Third of our weight loss tips. Weight loss doesn’t mean fat loss. Although the very low calorie, high cardio approach will help you lose weight quickly, most of the weight you do lose will be muscle rather than fat. The result? Pretty much just a “smaller” version of you - but with some of the negative side effects of muscle loss such as fatigue and hunger. To look and feel the way you really want, you need to lose fat while preserving or even building as much muscle as you can in the process. Focus on slow, gradual weight loss while also lifting weights regularly and prioritizing those workouts rather than just doing a ton of cardio. You also need a high protein intake. So to start, I’d recommend aiming to eat at least 0.8g/lb of your bodyweight in protein every day. If you’ve already been doing that, then experiment with increasing it up to 1.1g/lb of your bodyweight or even higher.

Finally, we’ve been talking a lot about weight and even went through the importance of weighing yourself consistently.