If you’re like most people, you’ve probably tried to lose weight. You’ve been on a diet, followed the rules and put in the effort. But as it turns out, weight loss is not always so simple.
One of the biggest reasons for weight loss failure is stubborn body fat. This can be body fat that seems impossible to lose, or that you have tried to lose but it just won’t budge. Losing weight is a journey, and it’s not an easy one.
This article will give you some weight loss tips on how to deal with stubborn body fat, along with some ways you can adjust your habits with dieting, exercise and activities that will help you to deal with body fat that is stopping you from losing more weight.
What is Stubborn Body Fat?
Weight Loss Tip #1: Mind Your Daily Caloric Intake
Weight Loss Tip #2: Strive For Balanced Meals
Weight Loss Tip #3: Increase Your Cardio to Increase Weight Loss
Weight Loss Tip #4: Gain Muscle Tissue
Weight Loss Tip #5: Find a Workout Buddy
Weight Loss Tip #6: Examine Your Hunger Habits
Weight Loss Tip #7: Improve Your Sleeping Habits
What Is Stubborn Body Fat?
What Weight Loss Tips Help Best?
Stubborn body fat is the kind of fat that hangs on for dear life, even after you’ve done everything in your power to lose weight. I know how frustrating this can be!
The reason why some people have more stubborn body fat than others is largely due to genetics. But there are other factors at play as well:
Caloric Intake: How many calories are you burning versus consuming in a day?
Balanced Meals: Is your diet consistently balanced between food groups? What we eat can play a large role in weight loss if we’re not feeding our body what it needs to work best.
Type of Workouts: How often are you working out? One of the best weight loss tips for burning stubborn body fat takes a look at the variety of exercises you’re giving your body.
Age: As we age, our bodies tend to store more fat around our midsection — aka “belly pooch” — which can make it harder to lose weight overall.
Gender: Women naturally have higher levels of estrogen and progesterone, which help build up fat cells around their hips and thighs — so they tend to have more stubborn body fat than men do. Men tend to store more fat around their abdomen instead of their hips or thighs — so they usually don’t have as much trouble losing weight overall compared with women.
Sleep: One of the most overlooked weight loss tips is getting good sleep. Without enough sleep, it’s a lot harder for your body to properly metabolize food and thus burn calories.
So how do you defeat stubborn body fat? These weight loss tips will shed light on the exact areas above you need to address if you’re dealing with stubborn body fat.
Weight Loss Tip #1: Mind Your Daily Caloric Intake
The key to weight loss through burning fat is to burn more calories than you consume. If you eat less than your body needs each day, then you will lose fat tissue each week. The best weight loss tips to begin with, is to increase your physical activity or reduce your food intake (typically between 300-500 calories per day). This means eating fewer calories, but making sure the ones you do eat are healthy choices.
Intermittent fasting can help you adjust your caloric intake and also help detoxify your body. Track your calories at least and go from there!
Weight Loss Tip #2: Strive For Balanced Meals
Make sure your diet is balanced. Strive for balanced meals (healthy carbs, fiber, protein, healthy fats, and a healthy carb in as many meals as possible) to optimize your weight loss.
Eat more healthy carbs. Carbs are often demonized in the world of dieting. But carbs are an essential part of a healthy diet. The trick is to eat the right kinds of carbs at the right times. Your body needs glucose (the sugar found in carbs) for energy, so eating high-quality carbohydrates throughout the day will help keep your energy levels high and prevent cravings or hunger pangs later on.
Choose whole grains over processed foods and sugars. Whole grains like oats, quinoa and brown rice provide long-lasting energy without causing a spike in blood sugar levels like refined carbohydrates do. They also contain fiber which fills you up so that you don’t feel hungry between meals (and therefore don’t overeat). Choose whole grain breads instead of white breads; brown rice instead of white rice; whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta; steel-cut oats instead of instant.
Make sure you’re eating healthy carbs instead of unhealthy carbs that will leave you feeling hungry again more quickly, increasing your caloric intake or leaving you hungry and underperforming.
You may not be eating enough protein. Protein is essential for healthy muscle growth and repair, so if you don’t get enough protein in your diet, it could put a damper on your weight-loss efforts and make it harder for your body to shed pounds. Protein also helps balance blood glucose levels after meals and reduces cravings by promoting satiety (feeling full).
Don’t eat too much red meat or processed foods, which contain high amounts of saturated fats which you don’t want too much of. In addition to eating enough protein, it is important that you get enough healthy fats in your diet as well. This includes monounsaturated fats like avocados and polyunsaturated fats like fish oil (EPA/DHA). These fats have been shown to increase metabolic rate while decreasing hunger hormones such as ghrelin and leptin, which means they will help you lose weight faster than other foods would.
Eat healthy fats instead for snacks. Healthy fats like nuts, seeds, avocado and olive oil will keep you fuller longer than those heavier carbs like breads or pastas because they take longer for your body to break them down into glucose (blood sugar).
Eat more fiber. Fiber helps you feel full and promotes healthy digestion. You can get fiber from fruits, vegetables and whole grains
You should avoid eating carb-heavy foods like breads and pasta at night because these foods will cause your blood sugar level to rise quickly, which can lead to cravings for more carbs later on in the evening.
Weight Loss Tip #3: Increase Your Cardio to Increase Weight Loss
The best weight loss tips to deal with stubborn body fat is by increasing your cardio exercise intensity or length so that you burn more calories each day and increase overall calorie expenditure. This allows your body to naturally shed excess pounds over time without resorting to extreme diets or other methods which can be harmful.
Increase your cardio intensity. To burn off stubborn body fat, increase the intensity at which you perform your cardio workouts and make sure that you’re working hard enough for long enough to be effective at burning calories rather than just going through the motions for an hour every day without getting much benefit from it other than feeling tired and sweaty afterwards!
Don’t have the time to lengthen your cardio workout time? Try high-intensity interval training (HIIT). This type of workout involves shorter but harder sessions with fewer breaks in between them. This type of exercise burns more calories than regular aerobic exercise because it raises your heart rate and forces the body to use oxygen more quickly and efficiently.
Weight Loss Tip #4: Gain Muscle Tissue to Increase Weight Loss
If you’re trying to lose stubborn body fat, you may want to consider adding more muscle tissue. This sounds counterintuitive, but gaining more muscle is actually one of the best ways to burn stubborn body fat.
Muscle tissue is more metabolically active than fat. To lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit (burn more calories than you take in). Your body has a few ways to accomplish this. One way is to increase your muscle mass so that you burn more calories at rest. This is why it’s important to add strength training into your routine.
It’s not just the extra calories burned during strength training that makes it effective for weight loss — it’s also the fact that muscle takes up less space than fat does. It is also more dense, so this means that if you gain muscle, you’ll likely lose inches even without losing any weight on the scale! Make sure that your exercise routine includes strength training elements like squats, deadlifts and pull ups.
Weight Loss Tip #5: Find a Workout Buddy
How to deal with stubborn body fat and lose weight? Get a workout buddy! This can be a personal trainer, friend, partner, or even a group/class. Having someone there that is counting on you helps keep you accountable for your workouts and dieting efforts! It also makes working out more fun!
I’m a huge fan of group training. What I love about it is that you’re surrounded by people who are just as invested in the work and are doing their best to push each other. The accountability factor is huge. If you’re not already working out with friends, consider joining a fitness studio. Or find a buddy who lives close to you and make it a regular thing to meet up for workouts, walks or whatever activity suits your fancy.
This will help you stay consistent with your workouts, a key weight loss tip. It’s easy to skip a workout when life gets busy, but consistency is key when it comes to these weight loss tips. Try setting reminders on your phone or calendar so that you don’t forget about it — and stay in touch with your accountability partners.
I also believe in having a personal trainer at least once or twice a month. These sessions should be focused on learning to safely lift weights with good form and constantly challenging your status quo so that you see results quickly.
But if you can’t spend the money for sessions with a personal trainer, consider getting a routine from a trainer (much more affordable), find your workout buddy, join a low-cost group class, or there are plenty of free tools available online that can help get you moving in the right direction.
Weight Loss Tip #6: Examine Your Hunger Habits
Examine the reasons you eat and if some of them are not hunger (social, bored, comfort) find replacement activities you can go to instead.
The most common reasons people overeat are boredom, stress, and social pressure. If you find yourself eating when you’re bored or stressed out, try replacing the bad habit with a good one. If you’re bored and want to eat, go for a walk or take up a new hobby. If you’re stressed out and want to eat, call up a friend or go for a drive.
If you find yourself eating because of social pressure (e.g., eating because everyone else is), tell them that you need to pass on the food for now, but thank them for thinking of you. Then find something else to do until everyone else has eaten enough so that it’s not such an issue anymore.
Eat dinner with your family instead of sitting in front of the TV while they’re eating. Or go for a walk after dinner instead of laying down on the couch watching TV. Eat slowly so that your brain has time to register that it’s full before you finish eating.
When you eat quickly, it’s harder for your brain to tell your stomach when it’s full, so you’ll keep eating until there’s no more room left in your stomach for food! Eating slowly can take longer than eating quickly, but it’s well worth the extra time because it will allow your brain time to send the signal to stop eating before you overeat on high-calorie foods like chips, cookies and candy bars that are easy to overeat on – because they’re small and hard to chew off large chunks at once with smaller bites per handful of food.
Weight Loss Tip #7: Improve Your Sleeping Habits
Try all these weight loss tips and you’re still facing stubborn body fat? There’s a good chance that you’re not getting enough sleep. Your body needs sleep in order to burn calories efficiently. Without enough sleep, it’s harder for your body to properly metabolize food and burn calories from fat stores. You could even develop insulin resistance from lack of sleep — which makes weight loss even harder!
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