Tip 4 of 101 Tips to lose fat and get lean: be consistent!
Rome wasn’t built in a day and no one ever dropped a lot of body fat (and kept it off) without patience, perseverance and consistency.
The most successful fat loss programmes are those that you can live with and integrate into your daily life. With 70% of our fat loss focused personal training clients I tend to advise lower carbohydrate diets for instance, but never (unless in the most unusual and short term of cases) something as unmanageable as the crazy zero carbohydrate Atkins diet. It’s a symptom of our modern world that we want instant gratification for our efforts but the human body can’t and won’t change overnight. A measly 1lb of fat loss every week may not seem like much after 4 weeks (4lbs), but what about after 6 months?! 26lbs of fat loss is a great achievement, and even more so when you have done it properly and at a pace that doesn’t shock your body into down regulating important hormones such as thyroid and leptin that are vital for a healthy metabolism.
Yes, we can and often do have clients drop significantly more body fat than 1lb a week, but that is when they are surrounded by the support network that we provide giving them all the tools, both mental and physical, to skyrocket their fat loss to amazing proportions. Just look at our personal training client, Wesley Doyle – the fitness editor at Men’s Health, in the Jan/Feb 2009 Men’s Health magazine if you want proof!
