How to Lose Stubborn Fat

For you to lose the stubborn fat, lose the last 10lbs or lose your “problem” area you need a vast desire, backed up with concrete permanent lifestyle changes. Often when we are almost there, we start to coast and get less strict in our nutritional and exercise program. However, you need to do the opposite. It is now that you have to step everything up. The last bit of weight loss requires you to push harder, be stricter and be more conscientious. It also requires a little patience.

here is only one way to get your stubborn area to look great: the right combination of proper diet, cardiovascular exercise, and weight training. In women, often the upper body fat stores have to be almost depleted before the lower body really becomes active.

The best way to change the size of your body is through caloric deficit (diet and cardiovascular exercise). The best way to change the shape of your body is through resistance training. If you want slimmer thighs, flat abs or skinny legs, take note:

2. LOSE STUBBORN FAT: EXERCISE

Research suggests that while dieting leads to a greater reduction in visceral fat (fat around the organs), exercise has a greater effect on subcutaneous fat  (fat below the skin). Subcutaneous fat has the greatest impact on the way you look. Furthermore, the greater the exercise frequency, the greater the loss of subcutaneous fat. Translated this means that shorter sessions (e.g. 30 mins) 6x a week, are more effective than longer sessions (e.g. 60 min) 3x a week. If you really want to step it up, incorporate 2 exercise sessions into your day, for example with each workout 30 minutes long.

You should only be worrying about “stubborn fat”, if the rest of your body is looking good, you are slim and there are only one or two areas that you are unhappy with. If you still have a lot of weight to lose you shouldn’t be losing sleep over fat thighs or flabby abs – yet.

If you haven’t been working out but you’re in good shape and have now decided that you want to get rid of some flabby bits, then you’ll probably lose fat in your “problem area” without too much difficulty by simply reducing your calories and exercising. However, if you have been losing weight for some time through diet and exercise and are nearly there, you are going to have to step things up A LOT and change a few things (and NOT optimistically stay the course). If you exercise regularly, increase your workout session by about 15 minutes AND change your workout routine. Changing the type of exercise you do, the duration, frequency and/ or the intensity gives your metabolism an extra boost and helps to burn extra calories. Your workouts should be at least 30  minutes in duration (unless you are doing interval training).

If you are really committed and have already been working out more than 5 days a week, you can add another session to your day. Try not to workout for much longer than 60 minutes, since the risk of injury increases considerably. Also, the weight loss benefits are greater if you add a second workout to your day, as opposed to having one long workout.

 When you start a workout routine, the weights and exercise are challenging and you lose weight. However, after a time, your body cleverly adapts to make the stress (i.e. exercise) you are exerting on your body less demanding and your workout becomes less productive (you lose less weight or none at all). Combine four groups of exercise into your weekly workout program:

• Aerobics (cardiovascular exercise of moderate intensity and long duration)

• Interval training. By mixing intense bursts with slower periods, intervals torch calories faster than exercising at a steady  pace. A study found that after only two weeks of interval training, women burned 36% more fat!

•  Cross-training (combining several exercises to work various parts of the body)

• Resistance training

This will help you inject a variety and variability that will help overcome any weight loss plateau and start shifting the last few pounds of body fat in those stubborn areas.

3. LOSE STUBBORN FAT: DIET

You need to get strict with your diet, which doesn’t simply mean reducing your caloric intake further.

• Recalculate your calorie requirements. Remember that having lost weight, you require fewer calories.

• Small frequent meals.

• Eliminate all processed food (simple carbohydrates).

• High-quality protein and carbohydrates.

• Low-glycaemic nutrition (complex carbohydrates and protein).

• Good supplementation.

• Lots of water.

MACRONUTRIENT RATIOS: CARBOHYDRATES, PROTEIN, FATS

Total calories determine HOW MUCH weight a person gains or loses. Macronutrient ratios influence WHAT a person gains or loses.

What does this mean? Macronutrient ratios are important if you are going to lose fat and retain/ gain muscle tissue and not just lose weight (i.e. both fat and muscle loss). The difference: thin shapeless legs (lose fat and muscle) and shapely slim legs (lose fat and retain muscle). You can use this macronutrient calculator.

Protein plays an important role in maintaining muscle mass, especially during weight loss, when some muscle is inevitably lost. Make sure you include protein with all your meals. Watch your fat intake, but don’t restrict it too much, as the body requires some fat for you to feel satiated and thus to avoid cravings. Carbs are a much discussed and vilified macronutrient, but mostly because of the overabundance of refined and processed carbohydrates (e.g. foods high in sugar). Complex carbohydrates such as vegetables in combination with healthy fats and lean protein makes the ideal meal or snack.

ANALYZE YOUR DIET

• If you have been on a weight loss plan, it may be that you have become a little relaxed with your program. Try keeping a food diary for a week, writing down what you plan to eat for the day and ticking it off as you go along. This should make you more conscious of what you’re eating and help you regain some control.

• If you have successfully been losing weight through low calorie dieting and now reached a weight loss plateau, you may have triggered your starvation protection mechanism. Make sure that you haven’t lowered your calorie intake too much.

• Often, when someone loses enough body fat, so that they are only complaining of one or two “stubborn” areas of fat, they are actually suffering with the effects of an excessively restrictive diet. This is what makes the last bit of fat harder to lose, not because the fat cells in the thigh/butt/tricep/ab area are more stubborn, but because you are not burning as many calories as before. This means you need to add some variety to your plan.

• Often, when someone loses enough body fat, so that they are only complaining of one or two “stubborn” areas of fat, they are actually suffering with the effects of an excessively restrictive diet. This is what makes the last bit of fat harder to lose, not because the fat cells in the thigh/butt/tricep/ab area are more stubborn, but because you are not burning as many calories as before. This means you need to add some variety to your plan.

4. BELIEVE!

Our beliefs really do affect how we behave. If you believe “I can never get slim thighs” or “I can never lose my final 10lbs”, chances are that you wont lose it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Behavior is determined in part by your perception and the meaning you ascribe to the situations you are in, rather than by the situations themselves. Once you convince yourself that a situation really has a certain meaning, regardless of whether it actually does, you will take very real actions in consequence.

“We behave in a way that makes our belief a reality.”

However, if you think with absolute certainty “In one month I would have lost my last 10 pounds” you will work to make that belief a reality. This is a very real and there is much study on this topic of sociology. Now, you can understand it, turn it to your advantage and make it work for you, or you can ignore it and let it control you. This does not apply just to weight loss, but all aspects of your life. Spend some time analyzing your beliefs and perceptions – it will be worth your while.

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