This is a tricky post both to write and read. 

And it’s not for everyone. 

With summer coming up, and the inevitable rushes to lose fat for it, I thought I’d write a little about it. 

I find it hard to write about fat loss because it then plays on my mind for a while, but below is all the lessons I’ve learnt over the years and I want to pass them on. 

It might break a few hearts, hopes and dreams, but they were probably just a figment of a wish rather than having the reality of the situation explained that can then be dealt with. 

Firstly, I suppose I have to confess to what being a lifelong fat guy is.

Basically anyone who has grown fat cells can be classed as a fat guy.

And this applies to everyone, as we all have fat cells!
Skinny, lean, fat, obese.
Boys, girls, whatever.
We all have fat cells.

The difference is the amount.

Some have more, some have less.

So, largely speaking, the advice is the similar but what it feels like and how to manage it as someone who has more cells can be frustrating when comparing to someone who has fewer.

THAT is what I want to aim this article towards.

As a qualifier, my fat levels have fluctuated throughout the years, and thats what this following picture is about – I’ve had one period of being extremely lean (circa 2013) but it was a pretty miserable experience.

Since then, I’ve relaxed a lot, learnt lessons, manage a fairly leaner frame, and life has been much happier.

Anyways, I wanted to just go through a few things that I’ve found to be true when it comes to those of us who began our training life fat – ie, having more fat cells than we’d like.

And why most of the fitness advice out there doesn’t seem like it works for us. 

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KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER

There are three key points I’m going to start with:

Firstly, your body should not be an measure of your self-worth. 

Yes, we could all be healthier for the sake of our health, but our personalities are what people gravitate towards. 

Be kind, be generous, be loving, be useful, as it is far more important to how you should view yourself than anything else. 

So don’t think that you’re gonna be happy if you’re leaner than you are – this is how body dysmorphia starts. 

Better to focus your personality around being a better person to others, and then just keeping an eye on your health.

It’s like alcohol – if you’re not happy before the alcohol, you’re highly unlikely to be happier with it.

Secondly, most advice about fat loss (and getting shredded) is done by people who have never been truly obese with low muscle mass. 

Sure, mass building with some fat gain makes people look big BUT it’s a lie to say they’re obese. 

Thats the ranty point out the way – I don’t want to delve any further than this. 

Thirdly, and I feel this is probs most important to understand as it may help people understand the struggles in their own journey; 

THERE IS AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE TO STORING FAT – THE YOUNGER YOU ARE WHEN YOU GET FAT CELLS, THE HIGHER YOUR CHANCES WERE AT SURVIVING INTO AND THROUGH ADULTHOOD! 

Read it again. 

This is because if you have the fat, then you have ready to use energy when there may be times of no food – the lean will malnourish and die first. 

Now, armed with this little nugget, hopefully everything to come will start to make sense. 

And it opens up the reality of why it’s hard to drop fat – FAT LOSS IS NOT WHAT THE BODY WANTS TO DO AT ALL. 

So, with this in mind, I’m going to approach this topic from an anthropological lens, dealing with the wild human and about what we can do to try and sort it. 

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THE FACTS

There are some brutal facts in here but knowing them may help in understanding the reality of the situation. 

I know these to be true because I grew up fat – medically obese – and have always struggled to keep my fat levels down. 

I’ve had times of leanness and lower levels of fat but its a struggle to drop it, requires lots of effort and patience, and the turning off of seeing other peoples advice (again, the influencers who’ve never been obese). 

Take my eye off the ball, like I have over the winter months, and it creeps back on – I’m up about 3.5inches on my waist. 

So here’s some points I want to make, in the best order I can get them because they all kind of link and can circle back to different bits in different order, but can also be standalone. 

Just read through and try and understand – I’ve written it as simply as I can: 

– Creation of fat cells is hard and requires continual calorie surplus. 
When you’re younger, your caloric requirements are lower, therefore foods are higher calories relative to you. 
As you get older, the same is true. 
And this is more so the more inactive you are. 
In the “wild”, where food is hard to get hold of, we require the use of calories to obtain it. And the calories that we take in are only just more than we burn on average. 
In the modern world, we can expend no calories to obtain a vast amount. 
This is why its easy to get fat these days. 

– You can’t lose fat cells but you can shrink their size.
This sucks once you learn it.
This is due to the fact that fat cells, once created, never go away – they can either fill or empty.
THIS is why “fat regain”can come back really easy when off a diet.
You don’t regain fat, you refill the cells.
The only way to get rid of fat cells is by liposuction – actual surgery to cut them out.
Anthropologically speaking, losing fat cells would be of no advantage.

– Your starting position is going to massively influence your ending position. 
The fatter you are, the less likely you are to ever get, and easily hold, a six pack. 
The larger you are at the start, the higher your chance of putting the fat back on – remember, anthropologically, you are at the advantage! THIS IS WHAT YOUR BODY WANTS TO DO!
Its why when people stop dieting and return to their previous eating pattern, the fat comes back. 
When I’ve lost fat in the past and gotten lean, my skin jiggles and flops about when I do things like running because the cells are still there, just deflated.

– Losing “weight” and losing “fat” are not the same thing
Again, something thats well known out there
You can lose fat but your scale weight might not change for many different reasons.
If you lose weight, theres no guaruntee that is was from fat at all, and could just be water and/or muscle. 
If you’re going to measure your body in some way, measure your waistline and take pictures. Anything else can be wildly inaccurate.

– Counting calories is tedious and hard to do long term especially when you’re doing it long term.
Best off having a simple few rules to follow.
Mine are:
1-eat enough protein,
2- eat lots of veg/salad,
3- only eat starchy carbs in the meal after training. 

– Actual fatloss is going to be much harder than most people say, especially the “smaller” you get. 
Like I said, the fat cells don’t disappear, so keeping them deflated is a must.
But don’t be in too much of a deficit because your body will want to shut down to preserve your fat, so eat just a little under maintenance. 
This whole thing is like trying to balance a ball on a knife edge – theres a balance to strike but tilt too far over and it’ll fall off. 
This is why a few days off can undo the past week of work. 
IT SUCKS!
I make no bones about it but it’s the truth. 
Best off just getting head down again and crack on. 

– This is the controversial but strength training alone WILL NOT CUT IT! 
And nor will this walking 10k steps BS!
Most of us haven’t got the time to include this in our day!
Adding cardio work is going to be your best friend. 
It’s going to help keep the calorie balance in favour of fat reduction. 
My advice is resistance based cardio because it’ll kill two birds with one stone – think high speed, high rep, low resistance exercises done rapidly. 
This will help build muscle AND keep your heart rate elevated for a long enough period of time. 
PLUS it will also help you to avoid needing a severe calorie deficit.
This will not turn you into a bodybuilder physique but it will help to at least get everything moving in the right direction. 
Eg, doing burpees for 30mins will get you a better mix of Strength and Cardio than doing either separately. 

– Keep your training consistent
The long and short is to not miss too many days BUT do take days off if you need to!
Losing fat is exhausting to the body so it will make you tired/lethargic as it shuts down your body functions to help preserve calories where it can.
It starts to prioritise creating the hormones to get you up and moving in search of food, as everything else is of secondary biological importance. 

– This is how wild animals live
They have hormones that fire, telling them to go get food, they expend calories hunting until they get food, eat the food, then do nothing until the hormones fire to go get food again.
The longer they go without the food, the more they feel hungry and motivated to get food.
Us humans have the advantage that we dont need to expend the energy to get food, and the food we get can be incredibly calorically dense.
This is why humans live our natural lives, and why actively trying to starve ourselves (which is what a diet is for) is completely unnatural for our brain and hormones, and why its so difficult.
And animals that can keep catching large abundances of food can grow fat cells, and then use them to survive times of famine AND have the extra energy to access when hunting. 

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A PLAN

I hope those facts haven’t crushed your spirit – they did to me until I realised that they were facts.
Armed with that knowledge, I found that I could go ahead and work with it, rather than against.

Largely speaking, the advice is the same for the fat and the fatless, its the nuances that require mentioning, so there are a few tactical one-liners to take away:

– Create a calorie deficit via exercise and a little bit diet, rather than a huge drop in diet. 

– A strength program is great and will help BUT a large portion of training should go to cardiovascular training – better to combine both into each session where possible (ignore all the debate about which goes first or second, getting it done is more important)
(I happen to like doing cardio first).

And, the biggie: 

– You will need to keep an eye on your lifestyle for the rest of life if you want to avoid big swings in results – a week off everything is usually leads to a bigger step back than someone who hasn’t been fat.
Lifelong lean-ies dont understand this, I’ve found.
How much you want to do is obviously up to you, but you will want to maintain your lifestyle a little more carefully than most would have you believe.

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THE MOST IMPORTANT NUGGET TO TAKE AWAY

This is a lot of advice, and a rather long post. 

But the most important thing to take away from it is this:

DO NOT MISS OUT ON LIFE BY BEING MISERABLE BECAUSE YOU”VE ATTACHED YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS TO HOW FAT YOU ARE. 

Yes its nice being healthier but it takes work, and its work that can be done in the background of life, not being the forefront of every waking moment.

Set yourself up with a little system of training and dieting that feels automatic to follow and let it do its thing – DM me if you would like more info and/or help. 

AND, like I said before, you should focus on being a better person and make that your identity. 

Good food and life is just as important so make the most of it.

If you want to focus on your body, then focus on it becoming stronger, faster, more powerful, not necessarily just the body composition. 

Funnily enough, great warriors of the past weren’t the best cos they had six-packs.

They were the best because of their skills and strength and power and deeds, etc. 

And they allowed themselves indulgences – so I will from time to time!

Besides, best advice is to wear armour on the battlefield cos without it you’ll become a pin cushion quickly!
So don’t worry about how you look when it comes to LARP.
Worry about what you can do!

If anyone would like any more info or help, then DM me.

I’m here to help out for free – none of this “1:1 interview calls to see if we gel” BS.

Just here to help.

In the meantime, keep training well and enjoying life!

The Battling Season is coming!

Catch you all soon!

Matt