03 Mar How To Lose Stubborn Fat For Good
If you google “how to lose stubborn fat for good”, the answers that come up are all about eating healthy and doing the best exercises.
That’s at the time of writing this article. Hopefully SEO will help me out and mine will appear somewhere on that first page soon.
The reason being is that the key to losing stubborn fat for good is NOT exercise or diet.
This article I want to explain the number one thing you need to focus on to lose stubborn fat for good.
How to Lose Stubborn Fat For Good
Before anything else.. food, exercise, calories and steps, you need to change your beliefs.
Yes that’s the key, to lose stubborn fat for good, you need to change your beliefs about food and exercise.
Unless you’re willing to change your beliefs, whatever results you get won’t be sustainable.
It’s unlikely you’ll even get results because you won’t be able to stick out anything long enough.
Fat loss, especially stubborn fat loss, takes a very long time. I can’t emphasise that enough.
There’s no other way. You’re either in it for the long haul or not at all.
Yes you can go down the surgery route. But this is a quick fix.
You can gain the fat back if you don’t learn how to change your beliefs and become the person who has a body with a lower amount of body fat.
Your beliefs are what’s in your way.
They’re the reason you keep going back to quick fix diets that you know don’t work.
Your beliefs are the reason you can’t stick to things for long enough to achieve meaningful progress.
They’re why you run out of motivation.
The reason you fall for your excuses, like not having enough time, comes down to your limiting beliefs.
They’re why you end up “sabotaging” yourself.
Change your beliefs and you’ll change your body.
When you change your beliefs about how to lose stubborn fat for good, you’ll become the person who does the things you need to do to lose fat and keep it off.
The person who you admire, who has the flat stomach and body of your dreams, they have very different beliefs to you.
They don’t believe carbs make them fat.
They know spot reducing fat doesn’t work.
Motivation doesn’t get them going.
They aren’t fixated on weighing a certain number on the scale.
Restricting food groups to lose fat isn’t on their agenda. In fact they see food for what it is, not as fattening or “bad”.
Abs are not the only muscle they train.
They don’t try to be the smallest.
Most importantly they believe they can do it.
This sounds so simple but if you’ve failed time and time again, then you might have some limiting beliefs telling you that it will never work for you.
Even if they’re subconscious- if you believe that, you’ll get that.
Likely, you need to do the opposite of what you think you need to do in order to lose your stubborn fat.
You want to aim to become the strongest not the smallest.
Weight training, then steps, should be the priority over cardio.
You need to eat to fuel your workouts, not to try to restrict yourself.
Building as much muscle as possible should be your focus.
It sounds like it’s a different goal to have, but if you prioritise building muscle, you’ll make it easier to lose your stubborn fat.
You also need to get your expectations in order around how long it’ll take.
If you’ve spent years not respecting your body- yoyo dieting, over-eating, under-eating, doing no exercise, hardly eating protein or nutrients, then you can’t expect to get your dream body in a few weeks.
It’s going to take years.
As I said, you can accept this and learn to enjoy the process (which is possible if you set things up right).
Or, you can continue to look for short cuts which WILL NOT help you lose stubborn fat for good.
Why does losing stubborn fat take so long?
The truth is, most of you are not in a position to lose stubborn fat without first gaining muscle and building your calories up more.
You can’t cut from nothing.
Eating 1200-1500 calories a day as your baseline is barely enough to cut from to stimulate fat loss.
Most of you need at least 1200 calories a day just to function. Try to cut from that and you’ll just end up with health issues.
If that’s you, then you need to reverse diet and spend at least a year at your new maintenance before cutting again (and this time from a higher calorie amount). You can see my article on setting up a reverse diet here.
To lose stubborn fat for good you have to have calories to cut from because stubborn fat is stubborn for a reason.
It’s the fat cells your body will use last for energy meaning you have to get rid of the less stubborn fat cells first.
So it takes time!! It’s likely that you’ll need to cut calories a few times to keep stimulating fat loss.
That means building calories up more in multiple bulk cycles.
You also need to make sure you have that muscle on you.
If you want a tight and toned stomach, not just a soft one with your hip bones sticking out, then you need to have muscle underneath the fat you want to lose.
Most of you underestimate the amount of muscle you already have.
If you need to build muscle as well as lose body fat, then a deficit to start with isn’t appropriate for you.
You’d actually be much better off recomping first. That means building muscle and losing fat at the same time.
See where you end up after you have gone though at least a year of that. You can find out more about body recomposition here.
The process to lose stubborn belly fat won’t be linear.
It’s not a single method approach and it’s not as simple as just “calorie deficit”.
That’s not to say it’s impossible or you shouldn’t go for it.
Yes, you will need a calorie deficit at some points, but it won’t be the entire time.
Set yourself up with realistic expectations for how long it’s going to take.
You need to be in it with an expectation it’s going to take a few years.
Otherwise you’ll give up too soon and not get anywhere.
Finally…
Don’t give up! It’s worth all the effort for your health and longevity.
Plus if you do things right, it can be a process that integrates into your life.
Well, it kinda needs to be otherwise you won’t be able to maintain your results.
But you don’t have to miss out on life whilst creating your dream body.
If you’d like help losing your stubborn fat with a tailored method to suit your body and lifestyle, you can apply for 1:1 coaching by reaching out here.