23 Ways to Lose Weight and Gain or Maintain Muscle

Here’s 23 ways to lose weight and gain or maintain muscle. If you are doing them all, you are better than I am, but I’m not far off. If you are still needing to change, pick one and focus on that for a few weeks before picking another. Then repeat.

Habits are hard things to break, just like addictions. But once you have replaced a negative habit with a positive one you’re more likely to achieve that body you want.

You will look better, feel better and move better.

1. Do 3 metabolic resistance training sessions every week like we do at Bootcamp. If you’re training at home you can try the workout above I did a while back.
2. Do 2-3 interval training sessions such as hill sprints, flat sprints, band resisted sprints, bodyweight circuits, sled drags, skipping, boxing & kickboxing. Sports like surfing or court sports such as basketball, hockey and netball are great too.
3. Walk up to 6 days per week at a fast pace preferably before breakfast on an empty stomach.
4. Take one full day off each week to rest and recover.

5. Make sure your training is fun or you won’t do it. To ensure our training is fun at Bootcamp we use this guy ————>

6. Give 100% at every workout, unless you are knackered or injured. In that case just go as hard as you can without wearing yourself out. It’s ok to train through a cold as long as you dont destroy yourself or give the cold to someone else.
7. Give yourself a time frame to achieve your goal in. Whether it be 1 month, 3 months or 2 years it doesn’t matter. It just gives you something to focus on and help you get out of bed when it’s cold, raining or you’re just dog tired.
8. Keep checking in to see if you’re on track towards your goal. You should be accountable to someone other than yourself. At Bootcamp we do regular weigh-ins with whoever wants to do them. They aren’t compulsory, but the people that do it are among the most successful.
9. If you don’t reach your goal, don’t give up. Reassess and find out why you didn’t make it. Maybe you got sick and couldn’t exercise.
   Maybe you lost control of your eating habits.
   Maybe you had a baby and your priorities changed.
   Maybe you found you had an underlying health issue that needed addressing.
   In any case, make the necessary adjustments to your plan and keep pushing forward.Too many people go on a crash diet and lose a bunch of weight only to put it all back on again shortly after.

10. Don’t focus on your weight. Focus on your measurements and/or body fat percentage. Losing weight is not always good. If you lose muscle it’s very bad. If you lose fat it’s very good. Make sure its fat you are losing.

11. To ensure you are losing fat and not muscle, eat enough protein every day. If you got 3 serves of protein the size and thickness of your palm you should be about right. You can spread it out over more meals if you need to. The best proteins for fat loss are grass fed lean meats, wild caught fish, free range organic eggs and grass fed protein powder.
12. You need to eat some good fat every day too. Stuff like fish oil, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado and a small amount of nuts are the best sources of good fat.
13. Take 6-12 grams of fish oil and a multi vitamin every day.
14. Eat at least 5 serves of vegetables every day plus 0- 2 fruits. Why zero? If fat loss is your goal then you want to focus on your intake of protein, fat and vegetables as a priority. Fruit is sugar and can increases blood sugar which increases insulin levels which can lead to insulin resistance and can cause you to store fat. It will make you hungrier too. If you want to eat fruit choose green apples and berries first.
15. Eat every 2-4 hours. This works out to 4+ times per day. If you just can’t eat that often, don’t get hung up on it and just make sure you make your main meals the best they can be.

16. Eat protein with every meal and snack. It helps build and maintain muscle, it keeps you feeling full and it’s hard to convert to body fat.

17. Drink fluids that contain zero calories only. You probably don’t drink enough water anyway so increase that and supplement it with green tea. Other forms of tea and the occasional black coffee can be ok too, but if you’re stuck at a plateau, then this may be an area you should look at.
18. Plan your meals in advance and prepare as much food for the upcoming week as you can. This will make it way easier to eat well and can prevent you from picking up some fast food on the way home from work out of necessity.
19. Eat real food as much as possible, rather than inhaling something you bought in a box.

20. If you can pick it, dig it up or kill it, you can eat it.
    
    

21. Plan on eating cheat meals 10% of the time. If you know when you are going out for a special occasion or to dinner, you can plan your week of good eating around that. Even if you end up eating cheat meals 20% of the time you should still see good progress, but keep trying to get better for faster results and a healthier lifestyle.
22. Don’t over-annalyze and get caught up in the details. This can prevent you from starting. Just throw yourself in there and make changes along the way.
    You have a lifetime of bad habits to break or reshape so just do it. Try to get better each and every week and you will be the best you possible.

23.  Slow and steady wins the fat loss race. Consistent change and adaptation will ensure you keep losing weight, gaining muscle and getting fitter and healthier.