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Upgrade browserWelcome to the Fat-Loss Plan and congratulations on starting your journey towards your fitness goals. With the following training guides we will give you everything you need to 'Be The Best You'.
First things first
The 12 week fat loss, ‘cutting’, plan will consist of 4 gym sessions a week, push session, pull session, leg session and a full body hiit session. These can be completed in any gym or adapted to be done at home (just need a resistance band)
It’s important to remember with fat loss its 80% nutrition and 20% training. You cannot out train a bad diet. The key to this plan is to still enjoy the foods you like but ensuring we are in a calorie deficit consistently. This means consuming less than we burn. This is known as flexible dieting.
Firstly you will need to find out your Total energy expenditure, the simplest way to do this is by using the calorie calculator on our website. For fat loss we want to be roughly 500 calories below this. The bigger the deficit the faster the fat loss.
With all compound lifts we will be working at 80% of your “one rep max (RM)” this is the maximum weight you can lift safely for that exercise. For all of the isolation movements use the warm up set to get an understanding of the weight you will be using, if you can do 16 reps comfortably you will need to increase the weight so that it will be much harder to get to 8/10 reps.
Remember to use your PR scale if you are working at 8 out 10 or harder in terms of effort then its likely you are using the correct weight. With both the arm exercises do 4 set of 12/16 reps.
Its important that when doing any exercise it performed correctly and safely, also there maybe times in the gym when you don’t have access the equipment you need so the table below will so you how to make an exercise easy for yourself or harder. They will also give you different exercises if you are unable to do the ones set.
With all compound lifts we will be working at 80% of your “one rep max (RM)” this is the maximum weight you can lift safely for that exercise. For all of the isolation movements use the warm up set to get an understanding of the weight you will be using, if you can do 16 reps comfortably you will need to increase the weight so that it will be much harder to get to 8/10 reps.
Remember to use your PR scale if you are working at 8 out 10 or harder in terms of effort then its likely you are using the correct weight. With both the arm exercises do 4 set 12/16 reps
Its important that when doing any exercise it performed correctly and safely, also there maybe times in the gym when you don’t have access the equipment you need so the table below will so you how to make an exercise easy for yourself or harder. They will also give you different exercises if you are unable to do the ones set.
With all compound lifts we will be working at 80% of your “one rep max (RM)” this is the maximum weight you can lift safely for that exercise. For all of the isolation movements use the warm up set to get an understanding of the weight you will be using, if you can do 16 reps comfortably you will need to increase the weight so that it will be much harder to get to 8/10 reps.
Remember to use your PR scale if you are working at 8 out 10 or harder in terms of effort then its likely you are using the correct weight. With both the arm exercises do 4 set 12/16 reps
Its important that when doing any exercise it performed correctly and safely, also there maybe times in the gym when you don’t have access the equipment you need so the table below will so you how to make an exercise easy for yourself or harder. They will also give you different exercises if you are unable to do the ones set.
Full body HIIT Session will consist of 8 exercises performed for 45 seconds each with 15 second rest in between. You will complete 3 rounds of these exercises in the session. Equipment required for this session includes: Plate, high step and a medicine ball. Follow the exercises in the table below and remember to use the suggestion regression/progression to work at the level you desire.
NEAT is such an important part of fat loss. This is everything we do that isn't exercise that will burn calories, whether it's talking, walking or even housework.
It’s important that we maintain small daily habit that will improve our NEAT, for example taking the stairs, walking too short distances, or maintaining a daily step goal.
To explain this in more detail: we first have our BMR (basal metabolic rate) this is the calories we burn at rest, doing absolutely nothing, this is the minimum calories we take.
Then we have NEAT, say if you’re already an active person this will already be high there for we have a higher calorie allowance than someone who is very inactive, then we would have EAT (Exercise activity thermogenesis) this is calories we burn in training.
The main point being, with 4 good training days and small changes to create a high daily NEAT we have already made changes that will help create a calorie deficit before we’ve even looked at nutrition.
Long story short… MOVE MORE!
This is simply consuming less calories than we use in a day. This is probably the most important part of fat loss, as it’s quite simply the only way to achieve it. So we’ve spoke about training and activity levels to help us create a deficit but next its important to tailer in our nutrition as well.
Firstly we need to calculate how to create a deficit, this is calculating our total daily calorie expenditure and then create a calorie deficit that suits you. Obviously the bigger the deficit the faster the fat loss. By using the calorie calculator on our website you will be able to work out your BMR – calories burnt at rest. Once you have this number you will need to adapt it to how active you are.
The calculation being:
Once you have calculated your daily calorie expenditure you can create a deficit, as an example I would recommend a 500 calories deficit a day, but never take your deficit below your BMR calories.
Flexible dieting is the belief that there is no miracles for fat loss, no good or bad foods. Just macro rations and calorie deficit. (If it fits your macros and calorie goal)
The main reason we believe so strongly in flexible dieting is because you can still factor in the foods you love while hitting a macro and calorie goal, if you overly restrict yourself and completely cut out everything you like, I guarantee you will quit after a few days and end up bingeing. If you love cookies, for example, don’t completely cut them out of your diet, maybe cut back or restrict calories in other areas to be able to enjoy the treats you love. Therefore it doesn’t feel like a diet and it much more sustainable and long lasting.
Although quality is important, the quantity is so much more important during fat loss. Especially if you are starting out from scratch, it's important to make small changes over a longer period of time, like cutting back portion sizes, rather than making big changes all at once. It’s all about small daily changes that create long lasting habits, that lead to sustainable fat loss.
The main thing you must start doing is tracking EVERYTHING you consume on My Fitness Pal, even liquids! There you will gage what your normal daily eating routine is and then from there you can set a macro goal (from our macro calculator) and calorie goal (from our calorie calculator) and with reason eat whatever you like as long as still in that goal.
'Macros' or Macronutrients - these are fats (1g = 9kcal), proteins (1g = 4kcals) and carbohydrates (1g = 4kcals)
Tracking macros goes beyond just calorie counting, depending on your goal, you can adjust the ratios of macronutrients you consume to aid weight loss and muscle growth. Your perfect macro split varies from person to person depending on height, weight, activity levels, age and your goal. You can work out your macro split on the macro calculator on our website.
Its so important to accurately track food and drink consumption to ensure your are hitting your macro split. This includes weighting out your food and measuring your portions. (The more you do this the easier it gets, the first week of tracking is always the hardest).
The importance of upping protein for fat loss:
The majority of people we have worked with will need to up there protein levels, so it’s a good start to look for some meals higher in protein. Also being vegan / vegetarian it’s so important to still consume a high protein diet even without animal produce, from foods such as lentils, beans, peas, soy, quinoa or whole grain products.
Remember the most important part of this programme is the nutrition, if you miss a training session due to illness or low energy its not the end of the world. As long as we can consistently follow a calorie deficit, we can still see results.
It's important to make small lifestyle habits not a drastic change, this will allow us to maintain sustainable fat loss rather than it rocketing back on.