Losing weight comes down to following a specific set of strategies consistently. Here are the most important things for fat loss.

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Some of the most common questions I get regarding how to successfully lose weight and keep it off for good are well-intentioned, but missing the most important things for fat loss success:

• “What’s the best diet for weight loss?”
• “What should I eat to help me lose weight?”
• “Is this HIIT workout the best way to lose weight?”
• “What’s the fastest way to lose weight?”

All of them come from a good place. Honestly.

But, they miss the forest through the trees, so to speak.

Today, we’re going to talk about the most important things for fat loss that you need to know in order to end this cycle of yo-yo dieting once and for all.

In the end, you’ll likely see that it’s not nearly as complicated as you’ve been led to believe.

And once you understand these pillars and how they stack in the overall hierarchy of weight loss, you’ll be well on your way to finally breaking through to long-lasting progress.

Let’s get into it.

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The Order of Importance for Fat Loss

Let’s keep this as simple as possible and try to clear up the misinformation and confusion around the fat loss process. 

If you consistently nail the following pillars, you’ll be on your way to developing the body composition that you’re after. Sure, there are some other strategies that you can eventually employ to take things from lean to “super duper make heads turn at the beach” type of body transformations.

But, make no mistake, those advanced strategies will not work unless you handle these important things for fat loss first.

It goes like this …

I. Calorie Deficit

There is simply no way around this one. All diets start and end with how you manipulate the calorie equation.

Any time you’ve ever lost weight, you’ve managed to be in a calorie deficit. Whether you counted calories or tracked your macros or if you went on to use a collection of other methods, if the scale dropped consistently, you were in a calorie deficit.

That’s the science. And that science is undefeated.

So before you jump into any question about what you should or shouldn’t be eating, understand that this doesn’t matter unless your total calories are in check.

Period.

Check out the dude that lost a ton of weight eating nothing but Twinkies. It proves that calories in versus calories out is the overarching principle behind weight loss.

No. This is not an invite to eat Twinkies or any other overly-processed, nutrient-poor, calorie-dense food as the majority of your diet.

You can and will feel better, look better and get better weight loss results by making sure the majority of your diet is made up of the traditional “healthy” options.

But, now you’ve been freed from the chains of over-restriction on your diet options. In other words, you now have the freedom to include some traditional “unhealthy” foods, as well. As long as … that calorie deficit is still in check.

Since we know how much you should eat, let’s now focus on what you should be eating in order to assist this first and most important pillar of the process.

II. Protein

When we talk about weight loss, what we really mean is a catch-all for fat loss. Losing fat is the goal.

Anyone can drop a few pounds of scale weight. And doing so would eventually lead to a not very awesome physique.

To get that lean and toned look, the six pack abs or the ripped and shredded look, you must lose fat. Which means you must prioritize the preservation of muscle to keep your curves once you’ve removed the layers of fat.

That’s where protein comes in.

Protein is the next piece of the importance puzzle and you must eat enough of it to ensure you retain that hard-earned muscle.

Not bulky muscles. Curvaceous muscle.

How much protein? More than you are probably eating right now, yet likely less than what those silly magazines would have you believe.

You can see meaningful progress with as little as about 100 grams of protein per day. But if you’re looking for the best bang for your buck, you’ll want to drive a little higher.

Take your bodyweight in pounds and multiple by 0.7 to 1.2.

That’s how much protein (in grams) you should be eating. Aim for the higher range if you’d like. More protein will help boost metabolism and improve satiety.

What about carbs and fats?

Great question. Answer: It doesn’t matter.

Once the first two pillars of calorie deficits and protein are met, it doesn’t matter how many carbs or fats you eat every day.

You can mix it up. Or you can opt for a higher carb. Alternatively, you could eat higher fat. Doesn’t matter.

Handle the calories. Smash the protein. The knock yourself out with the carbs and fats.

III. Food Choices

Hopefully, you now know the importance of protein in helping you reach that weight loss goal.

Now we can finally talk about all of the other foods that will make up your diet.

Of course, in reality, you could get by with chugging a bunch of protein shakes and making up the rest of your calories with candy bars.

Again, as long as you nail the calories and hit your protein, you’ll lose weight. But, you might not feel great. You might not perform all that well. You might not end up looking all that awesome if you’re not prioritizing nutrient balance.

Oftentimes, dieters swing way too far from one side of the argument to the other. They read a sentence like “hit your calories and protein and the rest of your macronutrient makeup doesn’t matter that much” and assume that means … “if it fits your macros, bro!”

They go all in on junk food in the sake of the old bro approach of pop tarts, cereal and protein powder for the gainz. Meanwhile, they haven’t touched a vegetable in months.

Then there’s the other side that eats nothing but kale salads and they’re too afraid to even look at a cookie out of fear of gaining unwanted weight.

The solution lies in a marriage of both.

I want you to focus the majority of your diet on whole, nutritious, “healthy” foods. Vegetables. Fruits. Whole grains. Starchy vegetables. These foods should make up about 80 percent of your diet.

With the remaining calorie budget, you have room to enjoy the pop tarts, cereal and even that cookie.

This is how you create balance in your diet.

It’s how you avoid total restriction. Doing so makes the diet a tad more enjoyable. If the diet is enjoyable, it’ll be more sustainable. And if the diet is sustainable, you’ll be able to see it through until the end.

IV. Rest and Recovery

One of the more overlooked pieces to the fat loss puzzle is the amount of rest you’re taking.

You do not burn fat during your workouts. You do not burn fat while running around being super busy all day and grinding through the late night hours in your side hustle.

Your metabolism actually kicks into gear overnight, when you are sleeping.

Getting a consistent amount of quality sleep could be the one thing holding you back from hitting those goals.

Aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Every. Night.

Even weekdays when you’ve got a million responsibilities and emails and family tasks. And then yes, even on weekends when you’ve got social obligations and boozy brunches and late night shenanigans.

V. Exercise

Didn’t realize this one would be so far down the list, did ya?

Exercise is incredibly important for long-term overall health. It’s the closest thing to the Fountain of Youth that we have. But, to be honest, it is not the most important pillar for weight loss.

You could nail the calorie deficit and sit on your ass and still lose weight.

But, just like avoiding protein or missing out on nutrient dense foods, when you hit a calorie deficit with minimal to no exercise, you won’t look, feel or perform all that well.

On the flip side, there’s the common theory that you need to be punishing your body with endless bouts of cardio or nonstop HIIT classes five days per week. This is just unnecessary.

You need to rethink how you’re treating your relationship with movement.

Too often you’ve likely bought into the narrative that weight loss meant exercising. And usually that weight loss driven exercise approach was powered by cardio.

“No pain, no gain.”

It was all about the sweat and chasing some soreness after a workout as markers for the session’s efficacy.

Instead, working out should be much more efficient in nature.

• Hit some strength training 2-3 times per week
• Add in a little bit of sprinting from time to time
• If you’d like to include a HIIT session, keep it short but intense
• And the majority of your movement every week should be in the form of low impact activity, like walking

That’s it.

Those are the bare minimums for establishing and maintaining a fantastic body transformation.

VI. Meal Timing

I don’t care when you eat.

I don’t care how many times you eat throughout the day.

Somewhere in the search for the perfect diet and exercise program, the fitness influencers got a hold of a concept for spacing out your meals at perfect intervals and eating at the right times throughout your day to maximize your fat loss journey.

This is mostly bullshit.

Do not overthink this stuff.

Your job is to eat when it works for your schedule and makes the most sense for you.

You can skip breakfast and you’ll be okay. Promise.

If you really like breakfast and want that to be the biggest meal of the day, that’s fine, too.

You don’t have to eat six times a day. In fact, you can eat as few as one meal per day, if that makes sense for you. Likewise, if you’d like to eat 12 times throughout your day, knock yourself out.

This does not matter.

Just make sure you are handling all of the above points and this will all work itself out.

VII. Consistency

It doesn’t matter how awesome your exercise regimen is if you don’t follow through on it consistently.

You won’t see the results you crave if you continually give into your cravings and can’t stick to your calorie deficit consistently, either.

Consistency is the underlying key to all of this.

Your job is to take the information from the previous points and build a lifestyle approach that works for you.

Because if it doesn’t work to meet your specific needs, schedule, tastes and goals, you’ll have a hard time sticking to it. And if you don’t stick to it, even after you’ve lost the weight, you’ll up right back at the starting point again.

Stop searching for the perfect meal plan from the celebrity influencer. Avoid googling the best workout program that the fitness magazine will sell you.

Perfect is never the goal. Consistency is the goal.

The perfect program is no good if you don’t do it.

Build a plan that you can execute consistently and you’ll see the results come.

VIII. Patience

Most of the reasons why you’ve failed to make the dieting thing stick is because you’ve lacked patience.

You’ve been conditioned to think that you can earn six pack abs in as little as eight weeks. Or that your lean and toned beach bikini-ready body is doable in about three months.

This is not the case.

Fat loss takes a long time.

I want you to set goals for yourself. Meaningful and attainable goals. But, then whatever timeframes you’ve determined for yourself, I want you to take that time and double it.

So if you think you can lose 20 pounds in about six to eight months, double that to about a year.

That’s a more realistic scenario.

When you realize just how much time this will take, you can embrace the journey more.

You’ll realize that you shouldn’t hit the panic button every time the weight randomly spikes up or when you ate one more cookie at the holiday party than you planned.

As a result, you’ll be much more likely to stick with the process. To trust the process. And when you do that, it’ll make the consistency thing even more manageable to follow.

Putting it all together: How to manage the most important things for fat loss

This is it.

All of the other weight loss solutions you see marketed on social media, in ads, and on your favorite TV news morning show are all minutiae compared to these pillars of progress.

Supplements? Yeah, sure they can help make things a tad easier, but only once you hit the points above consistently.

HIIT workouts and Sprinting? Sure, they can help make that calorie deficit a bit easier to manage, but they are not some magical fat burning solution.

Detoxes and Fasting? Both are tools in the toolbox, neither one can make up for the first rule of weight loss: calorie deficits. You can absolutely overeat despite those detoxes and fasting protocols if you aren’t careful.

When you are ready to start your weight loss journey, it’s these pillars that you should always go back to. If you’ve lost sight of that, use this article and list as a refresher course to guide you back safely to the actual science and facts.

If you truly embrace these guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to a long lasting body transformation. And you’ll avoid the chronic cycle of yo-yo dieting for good.

Let me help you learn the most important things for fat loss … 

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Important things for fat loss” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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