What is the best method to burn fat?

Do you want to burn fat as quickly as possible in a responsible way, but you don’t know how to go about it? Please read how to do it here!

Do you want a lower fat percentage? Should you do more cardio or strength training? And what are the best nutritional tips? You can read the answers in this article.

Theory: how do you burn fat mass?

Burning fat is straightforward in theory. You do this by losing weight. In other words, by eating less than you need. Your body uses energy through food and drinks or stores that energy. Are you eating as much as you need? Then you maintain your weight. We also call this the energy balance.

Would you like to calculate how many calories you need quickly? Our app will tell you approximately how many calories your body needs within 5 minutes.

In summary, the theory of fat loss is if you consume less energy than you need, you will lose weight.

Many people are familiar with this theory, but it is more complicated. Learning a new eating and lifestyle habit is not something you can do in a week (unfortunately). Behavior change is exceptionally challenging, especially in our obesogenic environment, where almost every weight loss attempt fails if you follow people for several years.

In practice, 80% fall back into old patterns.

The idea is often that you will lose weight quickly with a simple diet or nutrition plan and then easily maintain this new weight. But that’s different from how it works. Over 80% of people who have followed a diet fall back into old patterns and regain weight. This often results in the so-called yo-yo effect.

But luckily, there are tools.

If you want to continue the desired behavior of eating healthier in the long term, your motivation and a good plan are essential. Perseverance or discipline seems very important, but that is a myth. You want to make it as easy as possible for yourself. Use the field as little as possible.

Top athletes are not successful because they have a lot of discipline. But they make it as easy as possible for themselves by planning and organizing the environment as efficiently as possible.

In short, you want as few barriers and temptations as possible so that you can always persevere. Choose something that suits you for the rest of your life. 

You make it easy for yourself by taking small steps and developing a good plan. We also call this the power of the small steps. Below, we give you an overview of the best tips to convert into small changes.

What does work? Eight tips to burn fat easily

Change eating habits

First of all, start by gradually adjusting your diet. Track your diet at least two weekdays and one weekend day. Then, you look for areas for improvement. When do you eat too many calories? And how does this happen? Check out this handy checklist and see which habits you can change.

Make an if-then plan for this. Choose a maximum of one to two eating habits that you will change in your first month.

Please don’t overdo it on the weekend.

If you want to lose weight, you should not eat one day less or a few days. But do you want to achieve a negative energy balance over the weeks structurally? As you can see in the image below, a weekend where you eat a lot more can save you a week. So don’t be too hard on yourself during the week or go too far on the weekend.

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Eating ultra-processed food is associated with developing obesity. This is evident from various epidemiological studies. What are ultra-processed foods, and why do these products have such a significant impact on our weight?

Ultra-processed foods generally contain a lot of sugar, fat, and salt. On the other hand, they are often poor in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Ultra-processed food includes soft drinks, pizza, cookies, pastries, snacks, and ready-made meals.

Research shows that people who only eat processed food quickly eat more than 500 kcal daily compared to non-processed food. This resulted in an average difference of 1.5 kilos after just eight days. In short, choose unprocessed products such as vegetables, rice & salad over hamburgers or cola as much as possible.

Keep track of your weight.

Another helpful tip is to weigh yourself every week. Doing this lets you know if you are on the right track. This is unnecessary every day, but research shows that subjects who weigh themselves regularly lose weight more quickly than those who do not. The idea is that it keeps you focused on the way to your goal.

Track your behavior

You can monitor your weight by weighing yourself. You can also do this with your behavior. This is even more important. Keep track of how your habits that you want to change are doing. There are dozens of apps for this. But this can also be done by printing this form. Hang this on your refrigerator.

Then, keep track of how things are going each day. This way, you can recognize what your pitfalls are. For example, is it more difficult on a busy day? Then, you can come up with a plan B.

Start with strength training.

When losing weight, you want to retain as much muscle as possible. We know from research that strength training protects your muscle mass compared to a group that does not do strength training. In short, save your muscles and do a session at least twice weekly in the gym or at home.

Take extra steps

Take an extra walk every day. Take your bike instead of the car. And walk up and down the stairs more often. Extra exercise helps put you in a healthy mindset, which can work very well. In addition, it is good for your mind to get outside and walk.

Exercise can also help you deal better with temptations. For example, research has been done on overweight people who went for a 15-minute walk. It subsequently turned out that the group that went for a walk felt less urge to eat chocolate than the group that did not go for a walk.

Cardio is different from the magic solution.

Cardio in the form of sports is often seen as the best method for losing weight. It helps but doesn’t make a big difference. You can stand on a cross trainer for hours, but if you eat more calories afterward, you will still return to square one. So, see sports, walking, and strength training as part of self-care. I want to take good care of my body and mind, not as a miracle cure for losing weight.

For example, I remember the bike rides where I ate an extra pizza later.

The positive point is that support has been found that when inactive people exercise more, they can better coordinate their energy intake with their energy consumption. This effect mainly occurred with moderately intensive exercise, such as walking, cycling, or light cardio.

It still needs to be determined what precisely the explanations are for this. But this may partly have to do with the fact that you can better deal with temptations, and your body is more sensitive to noticing whether you have eaten enough. 

Make sure that you do not eat the extra calories you burn.

Change your environment

The best tip I can give you is to change your environment to lose weight quickly. Take a critical look at your home situation. Use an environmental scanner and assess where there are too many products with calories. Remove these temptations and put them away, preferably in a box far up in the attic. We know from research that the further away a product is, the less you eat it.

Eat high in protein.

Proteins help maintain muscle mass during weight loss. Don’t exercise but want to lose weight? Then, eat 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Do you do strength training and train for muscle mass? Then, you want to eat more proteins during your weight loss journey. Then, aim for 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

Buying all kinds of expensive tools

Don’t look for a quick fix, a new diet, or a new expensive watch every time. We also call this the shiny object syndrome. Every time, something new comes for a reward or apparent solution.

You often see that you are ignoring the underlying cause. You don’t need a diet book or particular slow juicer, but investing in coaching or knowledge about emotional eating is much better. A simple example is where we sometimes unconsciously lie to ourselves by purchasing all kinds of products that do not address the core of the problem.

Don’t focus on supplements.

Supplements (unfortunately) do not help with weight loss. No accessories make a clear difference if you want to lose weight. Many supplement companies sell fat burners or products with similar terms. There needs to be clear evidence of its effect. The money you put into a jar or pill would be better spent on knowledge or coaching.

Are supplements completely unnecessary? No, because accessories are often more suitable for strength athletes to quickly get a lot of protein or creatine for strength athletes.

Need help with losing weight? In a healthy way that you can easily maintain? Oh yes, and with lasting results? This is the all-in-1 method for effective fat loss in a way that suits you best. Here, you will find a complete step-by-step plan that guarantees results, proven nutrition, exercise, behavioral change advice, and many more tools to lose weight.

Most frequently asked questions about burning fat.

How fast can I burn fat?

How quickly I advise you to lose weight depends on your starting weight and situation.

But the general rule is that I advise you not to lose more than one kilogram weekly. This is partly because you also lose muscle mass when you lose weight. To lose half a kilo per week, you will have to eat about 3,500 fewer calories than you need each week. Keep control over your energy intake by tracking your nutrition in an app and drawing up a nutrition plan that works for you.

Someone with a relatively high fat percentage, such as being severely overweight or obese, may choose to lose weight more quickly in the first period. On the other hand, there are better ideas than this for a bodybuilder because it is challenging to maintain all the muscle mass.

How much fat can I burn?

In theory, to burn 1 kilogram of fat, you need to burn 7700 kilocalories. But if you are losing weight, this does not mean that all the calories you burn come from fat mass. If you lose weight too quickly, your body may use more muscle proteins and glycogen as an energy source. That is why half a kilo of weight loss per week does not necessarily mean half a kilo of pure fat loss.

You can assume you need several weeks to lose one kilo of fat.

How do I burn my belly fat?

Unfortunately, you can’t burn fat in one place. So, losing your belly, specifically the fat on your arms, is impossible. In this article, we explain why local fat burning does not work.

How quickly can I burn belly fat?

You cannot burn belly fat directly. As you may have read, there is no such thing as burning local fat. This means you cannot make concrete statements about how quickly you will burn your belly fat. This varies per person and depends on your starting situation.

Burn visceral fat

Visceral fat is the fat surrounding our organs and is often called unhealthy fat. Research shows that if subjects exercise and exercise more, they burn more visceral fat than those who only dieted without exercising more. So exercise more if you want to lose fat, even if this is mainly for aesthetic reasons!

Learn to get a grip on your unhealthy eating habits.

More exercise and exercise is not a panacea. If you compensate for those burned calories by eating more, you will ultimately lose little or no weight. If you suspect you suffer from this compensation effect, critically examine your eating habits.

Recognize patterns in your eating behavior. Do you snack too much during the day? Tackle that unhealthy habit and create an if-then plan for yourself. We explain how to do this in this article about behavioral change.

Would you like help with this from our team of professionals? In our books and coaching, we help you draw up a plan to lose weight healthily. Do you want to get started with strength training? 

Conclusion

Eating less and exercising more is the most effective method to burn fat. You must adopt a long-term vision that you can maintain for the rest of your life. Rapid dieting is not the best and healthiest solution; it’s about learning healthy behavior you feel comfortable with. You will succeed most with a long-term strategy with sustainable lifestyle changes.