How to lose lockdown fat when gyms re-open

NOT long now until gyms reopen on Wednesday. In this article, I want to talk about the calorie deficit in more detail. A calorie deficit is the only way to lose fat. But you may be thinking going into a bigger deficit will enable fat loss quicker. Right you are, however, this is something called the ‘hot cold empathy gap’ where we think something is a good idea in our minds. However, as we put it into practice, it turns out very differently and not as we thought.

Remember that last New Year’s Resolution, thinking in your mind ‘Yes I am going to do this, I am not going to give up!’ But then in reality it was a lot harder to maintain than in your mind.

The reason we must put ourselves into a sensible calorie deficit is to firstly notice fat loss but also so we will not go hungry/starve ourselves as well as removing any of the foods that we enjoy on a daily basis. As well as this, we do not want to alter our gym performance as well as any sports-based performance you may play. Because remember, if we affect our performance fewer calories will be burnt daily and that isn’t what we want!

Some of us may have built muscle first and are now looking to lose fat, so that is just another reason to ensure we chose a sensible deficit to make sure we preserve as much of that muscle as we can when looking to lose fat.

Just on this subject, I’d like to clear up the whole notion of this goal I hear a lot being thrown around of getting ‘toned’.

Let’s just wipe the slate clean with this one… firstly there is no such thing as getting ‘toned’. You quite simply build the muscle and then move into a calorie deficit to lose the fat to reveal the muscle you have built.

The way to think overall when choosing your deficit selection is that a deficit that is sensible will always be more beneficial than a deficit that is too big that you then don’t end up sticking to!

The more days you stay in a calorie deficit, then the quicker you will achieve your goal of fat loss. However, as we know life does get in the way.

This is all fine and part of being a human being. My advice when anything happens to make you stray off course is just jump back up to your maintenance calories and then when ready, come back to your calorie deficit to resume progress towards your goal.

Yes, it may take a little while longer to reach your goal but doing it this way will help us sustain our diet instead of maybe without these breaks giving up and the chance of binging!

I’d advise going into around a 15-20 per cent deficit to begin with and then being your own best scientist and see how you get on from there.

I hope everyone hasn’t found it too hard during lockdown but we are now into the final stretch of it. With gyms reopening this week, if anyone needs any advice on anything you know where to find me – Snap Fitness in Ashton Gate, Bristol.