What's up, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj, seannal.com, realscienceathletics.com.
In this video today, I want to challenge the commonly-held idea that fat loss is a, quote-unquote,
"slow and gradual process" and just offer a different perspective here that I think
you might find helpful.
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Is fat loss really a, quote-unquote, "slow process"?
I've referred to it that way in the past myself.
I get that it's a matter of perspective, but lately, my thought on it is that it isn't
that fat loss happens slowly.
It's just that people have a skewed idea as to what realistically constitutes a fast or
slow process.
Now, fast and slow are subjective terms, and so there technically isn't one right or wrong
answer here, but I would say that if you really break it all down and you put the fat-burning
process into context within your overall life as whole, then with the right program in place,
you actually can lose body fat and improve your overall physique relatively quickly.
Fat loss isn't necessarily a slow process.
Most people are just too impatient, and they expect too much too quickly.
Now, weekly fat loss rates will vary depending on the person.
It depends how much body fat you're carrying right now and how large of a calorie deficit
you're comfortable using, but assuming you have a proper plan in place and you're staying
reasonably consistent with it, most people in most situations should be able to drop
at least one pound per week on average up to about two pounds.
Some people who are significantly overweight can often lose fat even faster than that,
at least in the initial stages of their program, but let's go with somewhere between one to
two pounds per week for the average person who's looking to lean down and lose their
excess fat.
That's not a slow rate of progress.
That's actually a pretty significant change over a relatively short period of time.
That means in one month, you can lose somewhere between 4-8 pounds, in two months, 8-16 pounds
in three months, 12-24 pounds.
In my view, any process where you can see results that significant in just three months
should not be viewed as a slow process because three months is not a long time in the overall
picture.
For a lot of people, depending on how much fat they're carrying and how lean they're
trying to get, that might be all they need in order to reach their fat loss goal.
If you can go from A to B with a particular goal in three months, then I really don't
think there's anything to complain about there from a time perspective.
Now, if you're carrying more fat or you're trying to get leaner, then, yeah, maybe three
months isn't enough.
Maybe you need six months.
Even still, when you consider how long it took you to gradually put that excess weight
on and you consider how quickly one month goes by, and then you fit that into the context
of your life as a whole, I mean, if you live an average lifespan of, say, 80 years, six
months represents less than half a 1% of your entire life.
That's a pretty small fraction.
Even if you don't necessarily reach your ultimate goal after six months, the bottom line is
that you'll still have made very significant progress by that time.
There will probably be ups and downs along the way.
No one's perfectly consistent with their program, so maybe there are some setbacks that pop
up and that slow you down here and there, but if you average, say, 1.5 pounds, that's
still 36 pounds you'll have dropped by that point, which will make a huge difference to
how you look and feel.
Even at one pound per week, so 24 pounds after six months, that's still very good progress,
not to mention that fat loss isn't the only benefit that you'll be seeing along the way.
You'll likely also gain some muscle if you're doing things right, you'll be getting physically
stronger, your health will improve, your cardiovascular fitness will improve, your mood, your confidence.
There's a whole package of benefits that you'll be getting all throughout that process within
a relatively short period.
If six months isn't long enough to get you all the way to point B, maybe you're significantly
overweight and you need to drop quite a bit of fat, okay, so maybe it takes a year.
Even one year is not a long time in the grand scheme to get from point A to point B with
a significant goal, such as transforming your entire body and your lifestyle and your mindset.
There are other life goals people work on that take a lot longer than that.
Someone could work for three or five or 10 years-plus trying to create a successful business,
for example, and still never succeed at it.
That's the other thing when it comes to fitness, which is that the end result is essentially
a built-in guarantee as long as you're on the right program and you stick with it.
It's not the same as some other goals like starting a business where you can literally
work your ass off for years on end with no guarantee that your efforts are even going
to pay off, whereas with a proper training and nutrition strategy in place, it's just
a matter of following the steps and being consistent, and you will achieve the results.
A lot of other areas in life are much more up in the air where there's no set timeline
for when you're going to see the results you're after or any guarantee that you'll even get
that final result at all, so not only is fat loss a relatively fast process in the overall
scheme, but you also have the added benefit of knowing upfront that you basically can't
fail as long as you put in the effort and you stay consistent.
Bottom line here, rather than thinking of fat loss as this slow, arduous process, instead,
try changing your perspective a bit on what it actually means for something to be slow
or fast in the first place.
I'm not encouraging you to rush things.
Again, one to two pounds a week on average is probably what you should expect, and if
you're going much faster than that, then it probably isn't going to be sustainable, and
you're likely going to eventually burn out and have to slow down.
But if you have it in your mind that three months or six months or even one year is this
massive time frame that you're going to have to slowly grind through in order to reach
your goals, you'll be a lot more likely to feel demotivated or maybe never even get started
at all, whereas on the other hand, if you really put things into context, consider how
fast one week or one month goes by, wave that off against your life as a whole, remember
that there are other life goals that take a lot longer than that, and keep in mind that
your results are a built-in guarantee with virtually no chance of failure if you just
implement the program, then it becomes a lot more manageable in your mind, and you'll be
a lot more likely to actually stick with it all the way through.
If you did find this piece of advice helpful and you want to learn exactly how to map out
a complete step-by-step cutting plan in order to truly guarantee yourself that final end
result, then make sure to take my physique quiz over at quiz.seannal.com because that'll
remove all the guesswork for you and make sure you're on the optimal training and nutrition
program for you based on your specific goals, body type, and experience level.
You can click up here for that or use the link in the description box below.
On the supplementation side of things, you can also visit realscienceathletics.com to
check out my science-based no-BS formulas to help fully streamline your results and
get the very most out of your fitness plan.
The link for that is also in the description.
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Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you on the next one.