Fat Loss is a Habit

Success leaves clues. People who are successful at losing body fat and keeping it off long-term aren't doing it with some magic pill or eating secret foods that only the super lean have access to. They are, however, guilty of one thing that us mere mortals aren't. They build lifelong nutrition habits that keep them at lower levels of body fat year round.

I'm not talking about bodybuilders or fitness models who sport unmaintainable levels of low body fat for a specific shoot or competition. I'm talking about your friend or work colleague who is always looking fit and strong, year long. These people have cracked the code. The code that people who are carrying more body fat than they'd like to can't seem to crack. I'll attempt to sum it up in one sentence; fat loss is a habit.

If you're looking to lose body fat, you need to accept a few things. Let's call them rules:

1. You won't be at your goal level of body fat after a week of good eating and training. Or 2 weeks. Or a month. Or 3 months.

2. You will have "set backs". We all do. Even the super lean do.

3. Don't treat them as "set backs".

4. Avoid the "all or nothing" trap.

5. You will need to put effort into your food.

6. Think about health first and focus on building sound nutrition and exercise habits.

7. Use before and after photos week by week to track progress, not scales.

If you accept and follow these rules, you will have a high chance of being successful in your fat loss journey. Let's expand on the above points and see why I've chosen these things as rules for fat loss.

BE PATIENT WITH YOUR FAT LOSS

The fact of the matter is, it didn't take you a week to gain your excess body fat, so why do you get upset and give up on your health when after a week or 2 you're not shredded and ready to star in an action movie? It simply doesn't make sense. It doesn't happen this way.

You have to be patient. The fat loss journey is sometimes longer than we would like, but it will get there. Sure, some people lose fat quicker than others, but so what? You will get there. Trust the process and trust that eating good, clean and natural food will eventually give you the body you want, you just need to wait.

YOU WILL HAVE SET BACKS, BUT DON'T LOOK AT THEM THAT WAY

There will be times, no matter who you are and how focused you are on shedding fat, that you will have a set back. You will choose the cake over the apple at a friends house, you will go out for a couple of drinks with someone you haven't seen for a while, and you will have a crappy day and come home and eat a creamy pasta rather than the planned meat and veg.

What if I told you that NONE of the above are bad? Sure, if you had these foods everyday they might work negatively towards your fat loss goal, but if you decided to have a piece of cake once per week and a glass of wine or a beer on a Saturday night, this is highly unlikely to have any resounding effect on your goal at all.

The key to getting through these moments is to not look at them as set backs. The term set backs implies that you've gone backwards, taken a backward step. It implies that you've hurt your progress. This simply isn't true. Change your mindset towards these types of foods. Instead of looking at them as set backs or cheat meals, look at them simply as part of your meal plan. If you do this, then you won't feel guilty about eating them occasionally because it's part of the plan to do so if you choose. The worst thing you can do is punish yourself after eating something less than optimal. Never relate anything to do with food as "bad". It's just fuel.

A good way to implement this mindset is to limit certain types of food to special occasions only. Birthdays special to you, anniversaries, achievements, Christmas, certain sporting events, the list goes on. If you really broke this down, it may be somewhere between 20-30 times a year where you stray from your normal days eating. That still leaves over 300 days a year of perfect food. I think I know which way your progress will travel doing things this way...

AVOID THE ALL OR NOTHING TRAP

This is probably the most common thing about diets and fat loss you'll ever hear about. Someone gets a burst of motivation, starts a super restrictive meal plan and lasts 2 weeks. In that time, they skipped dinner with friends in fear of eating something not on their meal plan, they didn't have a piece of cake at their own birthday party, and they've been watching their family eat dessert while they miserably force feed themselves carrot sticks. 2 weeks later, they quit. They go right back to the unhealthy habits they displayed before.

The problem? They went all or nothing. They shunned their values (friends and family time) and what was important to them and were forcing themselves to avoid situations where they could fail, but they failed anyway.

I call this "putting the blinkers on". People get so obsessed with eating clean all the time that they put the proverbial blinkers on and block out the world. It's them and their meal plan, nothing can stop them! Except themselves... Why, if you have one "bad" meal or weekend, would you then just stop trying to improve your health altogether? Just accept that you had the binge, and move on. If Saturday night was a cake and wine night, it doesn't mean Sunday mornings breakfast is Coco-Pops because "ah well, I've already ruined the weekend". Just simply get right back to the plan. Easy.

This point ties in with the previous one in that you should expect and embrace times in which you will eat food not a part of your normal days eating. Take the blinkers off, whilst keeping your goal in mind, and enjoy what life has to offer you. You can lose fat AND enjoy times with your friends and family eating delicious food.

YOU WILL NEED TO PUT EFFORT INTO YOUR FOOD

A short but very important point here. People think that when you are trying to improve your health and lose body fat, you have to eat nothing but dry, chalky chicken breast and steamed broccoli. Of course, if this IS all you ate, you'd certainly shed some fat, but the reality is it's boring and you'll end up hating chickens.

There's absolutely no need at all to eat boring, tasteless food when you are eating healthy. Look online for recipes to try, get creative when baking meat or cooking veggies. Add spices, herbs, seasonings, make your own sauces, the possibilities are endless. Things don't need to be boring, but you will need to try.

FOCUS ON HEALTH AND BUILDING SOUND NUTRITIONAL AND EXERCISE HABITS

Listen up, because this could be the most important point of them all.

HEALTH COMES FIRST.

When you decide to start eating clean to lose fat, you absolutely 100% must think about health first before body composition. Yes, they can go hand in hand, but if you're losing fat by starving yourself and becoming deficient in vital nutrients, then you're just doing more harm than good long term.

Don't excessively exercise for hours on end thinking you are burning more calories and getting "skinny". Again, this isn't healthy for body or mind. Your body needs recovery, and you need to focus on living your life rather than being in a hamster wheel 24/7.

The underpinning message in this article is habits. The leanest, most athletic people have excellent habits. Processes that they go through everyday that ensures success. These can include meal prep, ensuring they have packed food ready to take to work so they don't have to order out, having water with them at all times, planning when they will stray from the nutrition plan, and a repeatable, sustainable training program written by a professional that will keep them interested, motivated and injury free. Fat loss is a habit, not a short term challenge.

If you take your focus away from how much you weigh everyday to how you're feeling and what training goals you have for the day, you can rest easy knowing that your daily habits and systems are steering you towards success.

It's your healthy, repeatable habits and processes that will bring long term fat loss. Lifestyle change is and will always be the key.

PRO TIP: AVOID THE SCALES, TAKE PICTURES INSTEAD

The scales have been the long time enemy of men and women all over the world wanting to lose fat. They are tricksters. They are liars. They leave out important details of the story to make you believe their side of it so that you give up.

The thing with scales is they tell you how much you WEIGH, not how much body fat you are currently carrying. This can be very misleading. If you started a fat loss plan and you weighed 90kg to start off with, and after 4 weeks of consistent, healthy habits you were 89kg, how would you feel? Defeated, deflated, and unmotivated to carry on. But what if you'd take a "before" picture, and then on the 4 week mark you'd taken an "after" picture and you noticed significant changes in you appearance, plus you just felt better and more fit in general? Would the minimal weight loss mean as much anymore? I didn't think so...

Avoid the scales, and use before and after photos instead. If you can, get a professional to measure your body fat and lean mass percentage and get it rechecked every 6-8 weeks to keep track and make appropriate changes to your food and training in order to keep progressing the way you want to.

I hope that you can take away some valuable information from this article and that you are ready to tackle your health and fat loss goals with a more clear idea of what it takes, and how you will go about it.

Remember, fat loss is a habit.