The Theory of Fat Loss

People love to talk about ‘losing weight’- and a large percentage of folks just want to ‘look good’. There are obviously more reasons and benefits as to why people should lose weight - but today, I want to focus on simplifying the theory of fat loss.

If you’re looking for a chiseled physique - the right question we should be asking is ‘how can we lose body fat?’

Simplifying Fat Loss, Fat Maintenance & Fat Gain

I’ve made a few infographics to help illustrate how fat loss, fat maintenance and fat gain works!

Factors that affect fat loss

There are many factors that we have to take into account when dealing with fat loss:

• Nutrition

• Physical Activity

• Stress

• Sleep

• Work

• Social Life / Relationships

• Personal Time (Creativity Outlet, Time to Chill)

Think of each of these factors having a scale of their own. They are all interlinked and when there is a change in one, there will inevitably be a chain effect that affects other factors either positively or negatively.

For example, if it was an extremely busy day at work, and you had to work overtime. Chances are you would not have been able to have a good dinner (Nutrition DOWN) or get in anytime to exercise (Physical activity DOWN). Given that stress levels are high, you’re less likely be able to meet friends (Social Life DOWN) and you may end up spending a whole lots of time thinking of work, causing you not to be able to sleep (Sleep DOWN). In this circumstances, there is a high chance that fat percentage levels would shoot up!

This is a similar concept to my previous blog post on ‘Life Pillars’ as well - check it out here!

Conclusion

Understand that fat loss takes determination, consistency and patience! It doesn’t happen overnight. Humans are primed for instant gratification (more so than ever, thanks to things like social media).

Lots of things may happen over a 12 week period if you switch up your diet and lifestyle drastically, but the one thing we should take note of is sustainability. ‘Will you be able to keep this lifestyle up consistently for the rest of your life?’ Probably not. With things like social events, birthdays, holidays (you name it) lined up - it’s not feasible for us to decline every single gathering, or deprive ourselves of the foods we love.

If you’re looking for a sustainable way to diet, check out my previous blog post on The Pareto Principle: 80/20 rule for more insights!

I’ll be writing more posts concerning fat loss in the future - so stay tuned for more!