Top 4 Factors Of Fat Loss

When you're trying to lose body fat, there are a number of factors you need to take into account. No two people should have the exact same fat loss program because no two people are exactly alike. They are both going to have different lean body masses, different physiological systems, different food preferences, different exercise habits and so on.

If these variations are not accounted for and they're just put on a random fat loss program, chances are, results will not be as great.

That said, there are five common factors that should be looked at and always kept in mind if fat loss is to be a success.

Here, in order of importance, are the top components that determine your fat loss approach.

•1. Total Calorie Intake

Before starting any diet program, you need to assess how many calories you should be eating. Regardless of the variation you choose to use, be it low-carb, moderate carb, or an isometric type of plan, if that calorie intake is not right for your body, you aren't losing weight.

In an ideal world, you want to be creating a deficit of between 250-500 calories per day. This means subtracting this number from how many calories you maintain your weight on, thus seeing a ½ to one pound weight loss each week.

•2. Total Protein Intake

Next up, you need to get your protein intake set. This again, must be common amongst all the different diets out there. If you aren't getting enough protein in your diet, you're putting yourself at a serious risk for muscle mass loss, which then slows the metabolism, making it harder for you to further lose weight - not a good situation.

The guidelines for a dieting individual, who is exercising, should be set to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. If you don't know how much lean body mass you have, multiple your body weight by 1 gram of protein if you have more than 30 pounds to lose and 1.2 grams of protein if you have 10-20 pounds to lose. This should take into account adjustments for the additional fat mass added to your total body weight.

•3. Total Training Time

Two people who are on significantly different exercise programs - such as one who is working out an hour and a half five times a week compared with another who manages to make it to the gym 2 times a week, will demand highly different diets.

The first person is going to need more total calories over all in order to account for this additional activity they are doing.

Problems occur when people get into the ‘more is better' approach with exercise though and try to combine a highly active lifestyle with too few calories. Do not make this mistake.

•4. Past Dieting History

Another thing you should always consider before putting yourself on a new fat loss diet is what your past dieting history is like. If you've been on diet after diet after diet for the last few years, you may already have a slowed metabolism because of this. A good idea would be to first take a diet break for a few weeks and eat a more maintenance type of level. This will help to ‘reset' your metabolism so to speak so that when you do start dieting again, you're able to eat more total calories each day and still see fat loss happening.

So, before going on any fat loss diet, look at these factors. If you neglect to account for this and just approach fat loss randomly, going on whatever diet appears to strike your fancy, you aren't going to get near the success as you would if you had taken a more thorough look at what the different diets have to offer.