Comprehensive approach to fat burning: what you should do and what you shouldn't?

Author: Pavel Shaikin - master trainer in fitness (FPA).
2017-07-29

The danger of information from most sources is total misinformation aimed at capturing your attention with "selling" information, or simply out of ignorance. It's no surprise that for half of people, losing fat to a normal percentage becomes a very difficult process, and keeping it off for 1-3 years is almost impossible for about 90%, including those who managed to lose weight relatively easily.

Let’s clarify a few points regarding weight loss! You must know the enemies in the form of misinformation by sight to protect yourself from these foolishness and the waste of time, often at the expense of energy, health, and money. Therefore, we will discuss the main myths of the fitness industry, some of which are still supported by various fitness "gurus" – trainers, amateur bloggers, or former athletes.

If you're serious about achieving results, what you really need to focus on is, firstly, a simultaneous and comprehensive approach to burning fat deposits, and secondly, information from reputable randomized scientific sources or real professionals in the fitness industry who rely on scientific literature.

4 Conditions for Successful Weight Loss

1. Nutrition.

The main condition is balanced and rational nutrition. It should be balanced in terms of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (PFC), and rational in accordance with goals and overall daily caloric intake. When losing weight, you should have a slight calorie deficit (200-500 kcal) from your daily intake. That is, if you expend 2200 calories, then you should consume 2000-1700 kcal, but not go below your basal metabolic rate. In practice, most people do not need to count calories; empirical experience is necessary to find the golden mean that allows for fat loss and to identify and calculate your calorie floor.

For healthy eating, you need a sufficient amount of all nutrients, including PFC, vitamins, minerals, water, and fiber. A deficiency of any nutrient will lead to health issues. Food should be tasty and bring pleasure. Any extreme diets in the name of weight loss, especially popular ones, pose unreasonable risks to health, leading to subsequent weight gain after the diet ends within a few months.

2. Training.

Exercise should include both aerobic and anaerobic (resistance) workouts. Aerobic training strengthens the cardiovascular system and health, while resistance training boosts your metabolism, increases long-term caloric expenditure, and improves health and body shape. It is important to emphasize that anaerobic training (with weights) should be performed with isotonic contraction, where the pressure on the muscle remains constant throughout the set. This condition encourages fat burning. It's worth noting that performing more than 15 repetitions makes little sense, as beyond that, muscle fibers become overly acidic under heavy weight (muscle cells and mitochondria die), while light weights won’t provide the necessary stress (the production of fat-burning hormones like growth hormone and testosterone).

The training load and exercises should be tailored to each individual based on characteristics of the musculoskeletal system, fitness level, age, and more. The load should be balanced across antagonist muscles, and this balance should be adjusted based on posture. A good training program should consider all the fundamental laws of training for the individual if you want to achieve optimal long-term progress, good health, and preserve energy for life outside the gym.

3. Recovery.

After daily activities, a nightly sleep of at least 8 hours is crucial. Additional activities that relieve stress and tension include massages, contrast showers, short naps during the day, meditation, and other therapeutic recovery methods. With poor recovery, fat burning is unlikely to occur, as there will be constant catabolism and accumulation of fat deposits with a slowdown in metabolism. Adequate nutrition and carbohydrates are very important for good recovery and fat burning.

4. Routine.

This relates to workout schedules, sleep, and nutrition. The training of muscle groups should be performed during supercompensation, which takes different amounts of time for different muscles and individuals, depending on a mass of factors that change throughout training. The frequency of workouts for fat burning should be 3-4 strength training sessions per week, along with 2-3 aerobic sessions. The frequency of muscle group training differs and depends on physical condition, age, and recovery capabilities. For beginners with less than 3 months of continuous training experience, this is typically twice a week for larger muscle groups and three times a week for smaller muscle groups.

Sleep should occur at the same time each night. Nutrition should consist of at least 4-5 meals a day, preferably at regular times, with varying carbohydrate ratios depending on activity levels after meals.

Myths about Weight Loss

1. The more I sweat, the more fat I burn. In reality, there is no connection between fluid loss and fat burning. Aerobic exercise while wrapped up or wearing warm clothing burns just as much fat as if you weren't sweating at all – which is very limited, since weight loss comes primarily from dehydration and loss of mineral content.

2. I can feel the fat burning in these areas! Localized fat burning is impossible because fat layers are separate tissues from muscle; they won’t disappear simply due to exercise. Fat is released under the influence of certain hormones that enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body, finding appropriate receptors. After that, the fat cell breaks down fat and releases it into the bloodstream, which ends up in the muscle, undergoing a series of reactions to be oxidized for energy. There is no other way to lose fat!

3. Fat-burning workouts. Without conditions of balanced and rational nutrition, there are no effective fat-burning workouts! Fat burns not because you are working hard but because you consume fewer calories than you expend daily.

4. I need to lose 10 kg. If you aim to lose 10 kg – fine, but when reducing fat, you should consider body fat percentage, not just body weight. It’s important to understand there is lean body mass and fat weight. Lean mass includes the weight of bones, muscles, connective tissue, water, while fat tissue contains visceral and subcutaneous fat. During weight loss, it’s common to lose lean body mass, which is highly valuable for health. Lean mass influences your metabolic rate and calorie expenditure because the more muscle you have, the more calories and fat you burn. Once your muscle percentage decreases, your metabolism slows down, leading to gradual accumulation of fat mass. Many popular diets with very low caloric intake are based on this phenomenon, and once the diet ends, the weight returns, but the lean mass does not.

5. I want to lose weight quickly. Losing weight quickly is impossible, despite what others may say to mislead you. Normal fat loss, excluding water and lean muscle mass, equals 200-500 g per week. For people with severe obesity, fat loss may be increased during certain periods, but 200-500 g is already a considerable amount!

If you want to lose weight quickly, achieve definition, and become toned, you will likely be disappointed. Genetically gifted individuals may achieve all this more easily, but it still requires a significant amount of time – several months.

6. Losing weight is very difficult. Half of the people do not experience significant problems with this, but most of them face challenges in the future when it comes to maintaining their weight! A reasonable, comprehensive approach helps avoid mistakes that can lead to fat accumulation and are harmful to health.

7. It is enough to do aerobic exercises to lose weight. This approach will decrease lean body mass without resistance exercises, and as a result, the fat will return even more than it was before because muscles feed off our fat. This approach is also not long-term in terms of fat loss speed, as metabolism only speeds up for a short period without anaerobic training.

8. Strength training is not for women! It's more accurate to say that this is resistance training, and resistance can vary! It can even be lighter than exercises using your body weight. Try doing push-ups from your knees for 15 reps. Now try the same movement but with dumbbell presses while lying on a bench with 2 kg weights. Feel the difference? Resistance training should be tailored based on goals, gender, age, individual characteristics, and health conditions. With the right approach, resistance exercises are much safer than other types of sports, including group programs!

9. Aerobic training is not for men! Without a solid foundation like a well-developed cardio-respiratory system, there can be no effective strength training! Aerobic capacity is an indicator of overall health and recovery.

10. Fat-burning workouts must be hard! We already mentioned that there are no actual fat-burning workouts; there is only healthy and rational nutrition. The intensity of workouts should be individually adjusted based on numerous factors, and for beginners, workouts are usually moderate at the first stage. With intense workouts, you won’t necessarily lose more fat in the long term after a few months because a limited amount of fat is burned, and afterward, metabolism slows down, leading to fatigue and overtraining, which certainly does not contribute to fat loss and health.

11. I need to do crunches for definition! As we understood, fat won’t disappear from there, and your waist might even get larger. Definition lies beneath a layer of fat, which may not be lost, usually due to dietary, training, and recovery mistakes.

12. I need to run to lose weight! Remember individual characteristics? Running is an aerobic exercise that places impact stress on the joints and spine. For people with obesity, running is not recommended; there is too much strain on the joints. Additionally, a certain intensity is required, in this case, heart rate (HR). Typically, running during obesity raises HR significantly, which can lead to health and heart problems.

13. Massage and weight-loss cream. The physiology of the body is such that no amount of rubbing, breaking down fat, heating, or improving microcirculation will eliminate fat. Fat needs to be broken down through a specific ratio of hormones and oxidized by working muscles, under the condition of a slight calorie deficit. Only that way!

14. After resistance training, I need a cardio workout to burn fat! This is based on the theory that after expending glycogen in muscles due to strength training, it efficiently burns energy from fat deposits. In fact, this approach increases catabolic hormones, slowing down fat-burning processes in the long term and hindering immune function, leading to overtraining. The total training time should not exceed 60 minutes. After a full workout, a cool-down with a low heart rate and rest is necessary.

Now you can avoid these pitfalls and myths. You understand the importance of a comprehensive approach to reducing body fat, considering every link in a single chain. More specific recommendations for a comprehensive approach are challenging to provide due to numerous variable factors, and the approach must be individualized for each body – this is one of the primary training laws. Train wisely!

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