Wolff Fitness Training
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The 4 Most Important Tips for Fat Loss
from Someone Who Lost More Than 150
Pounds
By: Richard Wolff – Wolff Fitness Training
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4 Tips For Simplified Weight Loss
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Many trainers or websites give you their “lose weight quick” spiel with enthusiasm and vigor like it’s the
greatest thing since sliced bread. What they won’t tell you is that once you complete their quick fix
program, your weight will probably yo-yo back up and you’ll go running back to them (or another trainer)
for another solution. Having been an obese individual who lost A LOT weight and kept it off, I know those
methods don’t work. Below are four tips that I’ve learned throughout this transformation that you should
start using immediately if you’re looking to lose a substantial amount of weight.
1.) Learn How Much You Should Be Eating – Calories in/Calories Out
Doesn’t Work
Many People want to make it complicated with a whole line about eating an exact number of calories with
an exact number coming from protein/carbs/fat. You’re on myfitnesspal measuring every gram of food.
While some people may need that, the truth is the majority of people will benefit from a simple
mnemonic device.
Your hand is proportionate to you body. If you’re a bit bigger, your hand will be a bit bigger and vice versa in the
opposite direction. This makes it the best tool to measure your food and keeps counting to a minimum.
A serving of protein = 1
palm
A serving of vegetables =
1 fist
A serving of carbs = 1
cupped hand
A serving of fats = 1 thumb
When you look at the graphic above you won’t find a low carb, low fat, high protein weight loss scheme.
What you do see is a balanced meal; a serving of protein (go lean here), about a cup of vegetables, a half a
cup of starchy carbs/fruit (rice, potato), and about a tablespoon of fats.
For Men: Have two servings of each; For Women: Have one serving of each
Some folks may look at that chart and say, “Well that’s fine but I count calories so I’m even more exact
with how much I’m eating”. That sounds great but Calories in/Calories Out Does Not Work. This theory is
simple. All YOU have to do is eat less and move more and if it doesn’t work, then it’s your fault (even
though the information you’re provided may be faulty). While weight loss does come down to energy
balance, it’s nearly impossible to measure how many calories come in and how many calories go out.
On the calories in side of things, you have to rely on food labels, weight loss handbooks, websites, and
estimations of how many calories. The problem is, they can be off by about +/- 25% due to incorrect
labeling, lab error, and or the quality of the food. This doesn’t even take the thermic effect of food into
consideration (how much energy does your body use to burn through the food). For example, an unripe
banana helps you expend 10 more calories than a ripened banana just through the increased cost of
digestion.
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Imagine trying to account for that with everything you eat.
When looking at calories out, things become even harder. I want you to go for a 20 minute jog. Now tell
me how many calories you burned without estimation. Unless you have some technology measuring the
amount of carbon dioxide you’ve expelled then you will not know. It’s all an estimation. Again, these
estimations can be off by 25% or more.
Now take into account your hormone levels while you’re exercising, the type of exercise you do, and the
state of your metabolism (which can shift up or shift down depending on your eating and exercising
trends). Forget about it. This is getting to be impossible.
2.) Muscle Is Very Important For Fat Loss – Increase Your Work Capacity
You’ve probably heard that muscle weighs more than fat or muscle burns more calories than fat. Let me
debunk this saying. Muscle DOES NOT weigh more than fat. 1lb of muscle = 1lb of fat.
Muscle takes up much less space than fat. So if you lose 1lb of fat and
put on 1lb of muscle, you’ll looker leaner but the scale will not change.
This is why it’s more important to focus on fat loss than weight loss.
Now muscle does burn more calories than fat at rest but it is very
minimal. You’re probably closer to 6 more calories per day vs the 50100 that’s going around on the internet.
My personal favorite part of having more muscle comes from the
ability to increase your work capacity.
To understand this, I’d like to introduce to you the TDEE or your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. The
largest part of your TDEE is made up from your Basal Metabolic Rate or
energy expelled while at rest. This accounts for 70% of calories burned.
Next up is your Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT. This would
be the calories burned just from walking to your car, cleaning dishes, or
through the work you do if you have a laborious job. This accounts for
15% of calories burned in a day.
TEF is the thermic effect of food. If you eat the right foods you can
increase the amount of calories burned through digestion alone. This
accounts for 10% of calories burned. Finally you have exercise activity
thermogenesis which accounts for 5% of calories burned.
The two categories you have most control over are your NEAT and EAT.
While your calories burned from intentional exercise is minimal, it’s even
smaller if you don’t work out. If you’re not hitting some kind of intentional
exercise routine 3-5 times a week this is where you should start. Whether
you’re focusing on aerobic or resistance training, keep yourself moving
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during this time. Don’t do a set of 10 reps followed by a 5 minute cell phone break. Take advantage of this
hour that you’ve set aside to better yourself for a life full of health.
Finally, your activity from non-exercise is a major source of health. The idea is simple. You have 24 hours
in a day. Subtract 8 hours for sleep and you’re left with 16 hours. Subtract 1 hour for your typical gym visit
and you’re left with 15 hours in the day. That’s a lot of time that you could be moving and increasing your
calorie burn. Get up and do some chores. Go for a walk after breakfast, lunch or dinner. Do these small
things and you’ll find a big change in the way you feel as well as the amount of energy you expend.
By adding muscle, you’ll be able to increase the time you spend in both non exercise activity as well as
intentional exercise. It will be slow in the beginning but the gains are exponential. Once you get the
training moving, you’ll put on more muscle which will allow you to train more hence putting on more
muscle. The more you move, the more energy you’ll expend, the closer to your ideal body you’ll get.
Just a quick note about NEAT. I recommend wearing a Fitbit or some sort of step tracking tool to track
your movement throughout the day. Take it off during intentional exercise that way you can keep
record of your NEAT.
3.) You Need To Be Held Accountable
Let’s face it. Without some sort of tool (or
person) to hold you accountable, it’s easy to
forget what happened yesterday. This
doesn’t need to be hard. It’s just something
to keep you on track.
The weekly chart to the left is what I use
while trying to hit new, intensive goals. It
allows me to look back throughout the
weeks (keep all the previous weeks on
I know - I'm counting calories here... This is for more those who are
paper)
to see how I’ve done. As of writing
more advanced on my program.
this, I’m three weeks into my cut, am 100%
on gym attendance, 100% on alcohol adherence, and 96% to meal adherence.
Some people choose to use apps on their phone, like MyFitnessPal or their Fitbit app. While they’re good
for looking at progress on a daily basis, they don’t give you the ability to look back easily enough at what
you’ve done. They rob you to feeling of pride over what you’ve accomplished. Print out this baby and
throw it up on your fridge. Fill it in daily and revel in the success you’re having (There’s a copy of it on the
last page for you to print out and fill in).
A more expensive route is hiring a personal trainer. You get so much more of the accountability factor
from them. This includes having our workouts programmed by someone who does it for a living, a partner
in your endeavor, and someone that can guide you to your goal every step of the way. Big bonus to the
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trainer if they use technology to track some of the things above while you’re not working with them one
on one.
Either way, it’s crucial to find ways to hold yourself accountable and celebrate the successes you see from
doing so.
4.) You Need to Have a Little (a lot of) Patience
This piece of advice could be the most important of them all. You’re body does not have the ability to
change over the course of a night, week, or month. You’ll see some minor changes, maybe even some
visible changes but to really see things start rolling, you’ll be working at it for three months or more.
Let’s put it this way. Did you get to where you are in a month? It was probably more like a year or two (or
10).
Now it may not take you that long to get
back to where you we’re but it could. And
you need to be ready for that.
You’ll see some results quick. Especially if
you’re untrained or never dieted. Those
results wear off quick and you’ll be left to
wondering why the fat doesn’t fall off
faster. Think of the biggest loser. Every
year, the contestants lose 10+ pounds on
the first week. What happens the 2nd
week? They’re down to 2% weight loss a
week (and that’s with being on a weight loss program 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the length of the
contest; I’m betting you don’t have that luxury).
This isn’t just to keep your mental self in check. Being impatient will inevitably stress you out. Besides the
fact this causes eating disorders, you’ll hinder your fat burning processes. See, when you’re stressed, your
hormones (especially cortisol) in your body become all messed up. Without going into too much detail,
cortisol, when not operating in its regular body cycle, causes hunger dysfunction and increases the fat
stored under the skin (bad fat).
So knowing this, you need to chill out and let the fat loss process take its course.
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4 Tips For Simplified Weight Loss
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4 Tips For Simplified Weight Loss
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Connect With Rich
I’d love to hear from you and help you out throughout your journey. You can find me through the
following pages:
Personal Facebook Page
http://www.facebook.com/wolff.richard
Wolff Fitness Training Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/Wolffitnesstraining
Wolff Fitness Training Instagram
Wolff Fitness Training
https://www.instagram.com/wolff_fitness/
4 Tips For Simplified Weight Loss
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