5 Tips To Help You Lose 25 Pounds (Or More) Of Body-fat

What's up it's Brian from GaniFit and in this blog what we are going to talk about are 5 tips that you can implement over the next couple of months to take the first steps in transforming your body and achieving the fat loss results you desire.

Before we jump into this blog, I wanted to give you a little background on myself and my story.  I am someone who has dropped 25 pounds of fat and completely changed my eating habits, which in turn changed my life.  

I literally used to eat at McDonalds 4-5 days per week.  I would rarely, if ever drink water and it seems like I would have 2-3 cavities in my teeth every time I would go to the dentist.  I was headed down a dark road and would've kept going if I didn't implement just a few healthier habits into my eating routine.

I would guess that if I would have never changed my habits that right now I would probably be 100 pounds heavier than I currently am.

So where are you right now?  Do you want to just drop a few pounds of fat or do you wish to lose a substantial amount?  Whatever it is, these 5 tips I am going to share with you here today will drastically help you accomplish your goal.

Drink water

By far the biggest change I made in my life to this day is by switching out drinking pop with drinking water.  Not only is pop empty calories, but it was the biggest contributor to how many cavities I have.

It has also been shown to cause diabetes because of the high sugar content in pop.

If you are like I used to be and drink pop on a daily basis, with every meal, then you know that switching to water can be extremely hard.  

So what I suggest here is starting off slow.  At first just switch out one glass of pop with one glass of water and keep improving from there.

Currently I drink 2 bottles of water within the first 10 minutes of waking up.  If you would've asked me 5 years ago if I would be doing this, I wouldn't even be able to picture it!

You can literally transform your entire life just by implementing water into your diet, but just because it is such a game changer, that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to help you lose weight.  Just think of implementing water into your diet as a tool in your toolbelt.

Intermittent fasting

I want to start off by saying that intermittent fasting is another great tool, but it isn't some magic way to just get lean and shredded.  You can intermittent fast and still gain weight if you are going overboard on what you eat during your eating window.

That being said, what I like about intermittent fasting is that it gives you a way to only have a set amount of time to eat.

This means you are less likely to eat all day and snack on food that you shouldn't be snacking on (if its outside of your eating window).

I personally like the way it trains my mind to not always seek the instant gratification of eating food right when I wake up.

If you would like to read some of the benefits of intermittent fasting click here.

Walk at least 3 days per week for 30 minutes (or more)

Walking is something that I have found to not only be a great way to get some relaxing cardio and burn a few extra calories, but its also very fun.  Maybe you are someone who hates to get onto the treadmill and run, or maybe you are currently unable to run in the first place.  Walking is a great way to not only burn a little bit of fat, but calm the mind and enjoy the nature or city that you live in.

I started walking about 3 years ago, and its something that I still do today.  I actually look forward to a walk.  And if I am feeling stressed I will find any excuse to get out and go for a walk on a nice day.

Even just walking for 30 minutes a day for 3 days per week you will start to notice a difference in your life!

Implement protein rich foods

This tip is one that I just recently picked up but I know that it is very true.  By eating protein rich foods you will feel fuller most of the time.  This is actually what I am currently doing to lean bulk and it has helped me tremendously. 

Now if you are someone who is over weight I highly recommend getting foods such as chicken breast or tuna, which have very low calories and high protein.  These food can also fill up your entire plate and still be far  less than 1,000 calories.

Right now one of my favorite meals that's simple, easy, and cheap to make is literally just a bowl of brown rice and a can of tuna.  For me this can fill me up for hours.  

If you pair this tip with intermittent fasting, and drinking water, losing weight will be effortless.

Take cheat days

This may sound weird to you but I am being completely serious.  Literally take cheat days.  

Cheat days will keep you sane while you are on your fat loss journey.  They give you a way to reward yourself for eating healthy and practicing the rest of the habits we talked about above, and help you to allow yourself to eat out at places with the people you care about.

This is the hardest part about losing fat is when you are always being tempted to eat the things those around you are eating.  

But if you allow yourself to take a cheat day or cheat meal every once and a while you are able to have fun, and stick to your diet.  (I personally take s cheat day every week or two.)

Bonus: Don't restrict calories to an unhealthy limit

One of the biggest mistakes I have made was a couple years ago when I was trying to get shredded and I restricted myself to 1,200 calories per day. 

Sure I was dropping fat, but this caloric deficit was far below my maintenance calories.  This caused me to lose months of muscle gain, and once I came to my senses, it made me gain the fat back because my body was used to the low calories at this point.

Restricting calories to an extreme is usually a bad idea and just ends in losing your progress.

Closing thoughts

I hope these 5 tips of how to lose your first 25 pounds of fat have been beneficial to you.  I would love to hear which tip you are going to implement today (I recommend the tip on drinking water).

Make the best of today,

Brian

The Pro's And Con's Of Cheat Days (How You Can Make Your Diet Enjoyable).

In today's blog I want to share with you the good and bad of taking cheat days.  This is all from what I have experienced over the past couple of years and what might influence you to either start taking cheat days or stop taking cheat days depending on your current circumstances.

I have been taking cheat days every week or so since I have read Tim Ferriss's book the "4 Hour Body".   This book is pretty much what got me into taking cheat days in the first place.  Although there is controversy whether cheat days are good or bad for you, I wanted to write to share with you a pretty neutral position so you can decide what is best for you in the long run.

Basically the determining factor is going to be your willpower.  However even if you have strong willpower you may still crave junk food every once and a while (just less often than others might crave junk food)


The Good.

1) Cheat days keep you sane throughout your journey.

This is probably the biggest reason I would recommend starting to take cheat days.  If you don't already know, most people that start a diet eventually end up right where they started.  Being right back at square one can be discouraging, and often cause you to give up.

You can have all the knowledge in the world, but with no plan or applied knowledge, it is useless.

If you start a diet and it says you can NEVER eat a certain food ever again, how likely are you going to be to stick to that diet?

Even if you can stick to it for a month, you will most likely jump back to eating the "bad food" again or even more.

In other words you are going insane without that food.

Now if I tell you, "stick to your diet for 7 days and after that 7 days you can eat whatever you want on the eighth day" how much more likely are you going to be sticking to your diet?

Chances are high you will follow through.  Not only will it keep you sane, but it will keep you accountable and you will actually get a reward for your effort of eating healthy for those 7 days!

2) Makes the journey more enjoyable.

No diet or healthy journey is fun when you are never able to eat certain foods.  Just imagine you go to an ice cream shop with your family or freinds and everyone else is eating creamy, smooth ice cream in a waffle cone.

Most likely you are going to be hating every second of it if you don't allow yourself to ever eat ice cream.

Now I'm not saying to just eat ice cream everyday, but what if you had one day a week where you could.  You are in the same scenario except now you can have the ice cream.  

How much more enjoyable will this scenario be now that you are able to enjoy the ice cream and spend some memorable time with your family or friends?

3) Doesn't really effect fat gain.

This is kind of a touchy subject here.  At first when I tried cheat days this sounded counter intuitive.  

I though to myself "how could eating an enormous surplus of calories not effect fat gain"  I though it would all be BS.

But I tried it anyway and tested it out.  Sure enough my waist didn't ever get any bigger from taking cheat days.

The best way I can describe this is to think of it this way.  If all you eat is junk 6 out of 7 days and eat a salad on the seventh day how much of a difference will this make on you losing fat?

Not much right becuase its one salad or one day of salads when 90% of the time you were eating junk.

Basically the same principle is applied but in reverse for cheat days.  (You aren't going to gain fat for eating 10% junk food and 90% health food).


The Bad.

1) Overeating / going overboard.

This is a problem I find myself falling into too often on cheat days.  Most cheat days I end up eating more than I should and just eating to eat as much junk food as I can in one day. 

Although it is fun for me to do, there have been times where I would eat so much where I would be throwing up all night because of how much I ate.

This doesn't happen as much anymore, but I still do usually over eat past being full.

2) The way you feel the next morning.

I would almost describe this bad side effect to feel how I expect a hangover would feel.

Usually after I take a cheat day the next morning feels harder than it should.  

I often wake up feeling substantially less energy than I usually do as well as having a TON of mucuss in my throat and a bad taste in my mouth for the first few hours of my day.

It's not a pleasant feeling but it goes away pretty fast.

Closing thoughts.

After reading this I hope you gained some clarity on whether or not you want to start implementing cheat days into your life.

Just like anything in life there is a good and a bad side to cheat days, but its about what works or doesn't work for you. 

For some people (including myself) cheat days can work really well becuase they give more than they take.  For others it may take more than it gives.

I would love to hear what you are going to do moving ahead in your journey, as well as what your thoughts are on this subject / what you have experienced with taking cheat days.

Make the best of today,

Brian