Training and eating for body fat reduction revolves around the caloric deficit and the upregulated metabolism. We want to give the body every reason to burn stored fat. We definitely want a lot of that GDA, or step equivalents. For fat loss, I recommend a minimum of 15k steps per day, in addition to training output.
This is a great place to talk about the recently repopularized practice of fasting. Whether you use terms like intermittent fasting, time-restricted feeding, or compressed eating window, there can be a place for such behavior in a bodcompopp program.
However, long term fasting is really not great for Lifetime Athletes. It’s linked to hormonal disruption and loss of lean body mass. Prolonged fasting for several days, weeks, even months is best left for truly obese, unhealthy individuals under close medical management.
Those other terms, though, like intermittent fasting, are just cutesy ways of saying “not eating.” Think about it. Why do we always have to reinvent the frigging wheel? Just don’t eat. That’s it. So if a person is really targeting fat reduction, I’ll tell them to do 3 simple things. Eat only two meals per day with no snacks. Compress your eating window to no more than 8 hours (two meals in that time period), and train with a purpose.
The training side of this equation might surprise you. You want to perform a blend of brief intense exercise like explosive lifts, circuits, and sprints and low-intensity/moderate duration cardio (aerobic exercise). This combination will far outperform any other approach. Let’s look at each.
Those high intensity sprints and lifts have a significant metabolic effect. You certainly have to warm up well and practice safety with exercise selection and program design. But the rev, and the afterburn (known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or EPOC) is substantial. This, again, is due to hormonal signaling. Your body will say “this clown keeps making me be strong and fast…hmmm…I guess I need to get rid of this excess fat but keep the muscle.” So true. Intelligent program design is critical, and it must be individualized, but 3-4 brief exposures per week are great when cutting fat is the primary goal.
The brevity of high intensity can’t be overstated. We’re trying to send a message to the system, not smash it into the oblivion of exhaustion and injury. More is definitely not better. Just a few sprints, HIT rounds, or major lifts in a workout is ideal. When doing this type of strength, speed, and power training, we also include agility work as part of warmup and cooldown.
The elephant in the room is probably the cardio component. Again, mo is not bettah. 30-45 minutes of Zone 1-2 output (RPE 6-7), in modes that work for the athlete (not everyone can or should get all this as running for example), done 5-7 days per week is excellent. This promotes cardiorespiratory fitness and health while it adds to the daily caloric expenditure.
But if a highly motivated athlete says, “I’ll bump this up to 60-90 minutes and throw in a bunch of Z3-4 intervals,” they might get fitter but they usually don’t get less fat. The reason is that long, hard, grinding cardio sends a signal to the body to “get rid of some muscle because this clown always chooses moderate output but hold onto some fat because he/she keeps making us go to depletion levels.” It takes some convincing with some folks but when they achieve buy-in…they win. Or actually lose…fat! Big Time.
A lot of what we’ve just talked about alludes to what I call METABOLIC MULTITASKING. Think about all the studies in psychology and organizational productivity that show multitasking to be an inefficient, ineffective behavior. Well, the same thing happens in your metabolism. While losing fat, building muscle, smashing PR’s, and maximizing recovery might happen simultaneously in some cases (usually only in the presence of performance enhancing drugs, and lots of them), most of the time such an approach fails miserably. The metabolism likes to do one thing at a time. The one big thing. Right now. Consistent and clear messaging. Measurable results. I’ve had a lot of athletes that tried to juggle all the balls. When I backed them off hard training for a while, helped them optimize body composition and health, then rebuilt training appropriately, they went to all new levels. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.