How to Lower Body Fat Percentage?

If your goal is to lower your body fat percentage, the first item on your list should be to follow a calorie deficit diet. If you’re doing everything else but not maintaining a calorie deficit, you will not be able to lose weight at all.

However, dieting alone will not enable you to lower your body fat percentage at the rate you want. There are certain other elements you need to add to the routine for steady weight loss.

What do you need to do to lower body fat percentage?

As mentioned earlier, start with a calorie deficit diet.

Next, incorporate a form of exercise or workout routine to your day such as running, yoga, or bodyweight exercises such as push-ups. A combination of the two (diet and exercise) will allow you to accelerate weight loss.

However, if you keep this up for a long time, your body will hit a weight-loss plateau. Once your body hits a weight-loss plateau, you need to adjust how you’re burning calories.

There are a few ways to come out of a weight-loss plateau:

Increase your calorie intake for a month before lowering it again.
Increase your calorie intake but also increase your workout intensity.
You can opt to take a break for a week from working out and dieting, and eat at maintenance calories.
Finally, rest more regularly than you did to enable the muscle fibers to recover better.

Should you do resistance training?

When the goal is to lower body fat percentage, resistance training is extremely useful.

In fact, it is believed that the optimal method to lose weight or lower body fat is to combine resistance training and cardio. This combination allows you to burn more calories while strengthening and toning your muscles at the same time.

Now, since you’re on a calorie deficit, you won’t be able to add muscle mass as that requires you to be on a calorie surplus diet. Nevertheless, you will witness muscle definition and strength improvement as you lose weight and cut fat.

Why is resistance training important during weight loss?

Resistance training isn’t only for toning your muscles, it plays a significant role in improving your overall fitness level and allows you to become stronger and improve mobility.

You don’t need to lift heavy weights to incorporate resistance training into your routine. You can focus on lighter weights with higher reps as well, even that helps with weight loss.

On the other hand, you need to focus on hypertrophy if you’re trying to add some muscles as well. In such a situation, it’s ideal to add certain compound lifts with moderately heavy weights to your routine.

Bottom line

If you follow the above, beginning with a calorie deficit diet, you will be able to lower your body fat percentage. However, don’t only focus on weight loss, as the goal should always be to become fitter and healthier.

Hence, it’s okay to slow the weight loss and balance it with improving fitness levels as well. The fitter you are, the better your metabolism is, and you’ll be able to burn more calories in the longer run.

It’s imperative to allow your body to become its best self when you embark upon your fitness journey.