The 2lb Rule For Fat Loss

You have probably heard the saying that 2lb of fat is the maximum amount of fat you should lose per week. Today though many people want to see massive drops in weight which are influenced by weight loss groups and shows on telly. We have also seen a lot of our clients dropping big sums of weight initially.But can you and should you try to lose big sums of weight each week?

 

The amount of fat you can lose depends on many factors. Weight loss tends to be relative to body size and the main benefit/advantage of any type of  rapid weight loss in the first week is that a large drop on the scale is a motivational boost for many people even though most of this weight is water weight. So why is this 2lb rule recommended? 

 

The more body fat you carry, the more likely you’ll be to safely lose more than two pounds per week, but I honestly don’t think many people out there can lose more than 1% per week of actual body fat unless you are obese. Weight loss in my opinion is pretty meaningless unless you talk about fat loss. A few years back I used to get really excited if people were dropping large sums of weight initially. What I see in many cases is the people who drop big weight quickly put it back on if they don’t truly understand weight loss and fat loss.

 

 

I have heard of people on crazy diets eating 1000 calories or less per day. You will lose weight rapidly but this will only continue for as long as you can maintain that deficit – which won’t be long trust me!  You won’t be able to keep going on such little food and your metabolism slows down massively – meaning less weight loss on the scales which in turn means people will end up binge eating and piling all of the weight (plus some) back on. I want you to remember this – you WON’T last long by cutting calories this much and its also very unhealthy.

 

So what is the best approach? The approach we take is to focus on fat loss, sure there are people who need to lose weight but after the initial water loss at the beginning this weight loss MUST be fat loss if you really want to get healthier and look better. Im talking after the first week or two here – Our advice to people is lose weight slowly and patiently following a nutrition plan that contains correct amounts of proteins, fats and carbs combined with a programme that is designed to help you build lean muscle. The more lean muscle you build the faster your metabolism will be to help you burn even more fat while you are at rest.

 

 

For The Sports Model Photoshoot Body Look

A lady will always store more fat than a man due to hormones but thats not to say that a woman can’t get that shredded look like a sports model doing a photo shoot. You can but remember it is in my opinion too much to ask and too hard on your body to hold this look all year round. So instead a carb cycling phase where you are very strict and lowered calories for X amount of days then have a high carb refeed day. But this approach I would only advise at certain times of the year for those whose body fat is low enough for it to work. I will do a separate blog on this soon!

 

Don’t Go For The Quick Fix

In my view a medium to high protein, medium to high fat and low to medium carb approach works best 99% of the time for fat loss. You will improve your all round health as well as not going hungry and feel and look far better,

 

So if you were thinking of starting some radical diet STOP and ask yourself – “where will I be in 3/4 months time” ? Will it help you to lose 1-2 lbs of pure fat per week, while keeping all your hard-earned muscle? Or will you be like most people who use this quick fix approach and end up back at square one ?

 

If you need to lose 10lbs of pure fat it might take you 6 weeks but you didn’t gain 10lbs of fat in a few days, so why should anyone expect to lose this in a few days? The long term approach to fat loss will ensure you are constantly losing fat and getting in to better shape and not fighting a losing battle with the scales.