Lets first debunk the 10,000 steps theory. It mainly showed up on T.V. as celebrity Dr. were telling this was a grand method to meet physical requirements and improve fitness. This might be good if you are very well over weight and have been completely inactive. Yet, I have worked as a porter in a hospital and there are still plenty of people doing well over 10k worth of steps and still not getting any fitter as the years progress. Why is that?

The main reason 10,000 steps does not work is based on a basic law in fitness which is progressive overload. So for someone who is completely inactive and unfit this may be sufficient. Over time as the body adapts, gets lean enough to manage 10k step (which doesn’t require much) or stronger to manage the steps. The body will stop adapting because there is no pressure for improvement.

When a person is overweight it is like carrying a weighted vest, its a lot of work, as you get fitter that weight is reduced and the only way to get more fit is to increase difficulty not reduce it. So the 10k steps will overtime reduces its potency as a physical activity. 10k steps is not a universal strategy for everyone as much as it was mentioned as if it was a key to maintaining and growing in health and fitness.

Now, don’t get me wrong 10k steps will help yet its not a magic formula to the struggles people have with weight maintenance.

Lets get to the real meat and potatoes of how fat loss works.

• Caloric deficit

Proven time and time again that a reduction in the amount of energy we use vs. what we consume plays a huge role in the release of fat. If your eating 4,000 calories and the body demands only 3,000. You will gain weight. This is both scientific and personal experience.

Anytime I want to put on mass, I eat till I feel like puking some days, its not exactly healthy nor should it ever be done long term. Yet this is what is required and what works. Guess what I do when I want to release fat, and reduce weight? Simply the opposite, I create a deficit.

Of course there are strategies, to reduce calories consumed without starving yourself. I have always stated there’s a difference between caloric deficit and starvation, never ever do you starve yourself to lose weight.

• Understanding macros

Macros are your protein, Carbs, and Fats. Here is the catch though, every diet has a different range of macros, keto is high fat up to 70%-90% fat intake, body building standard is 40/40/20. The real point is the choice of diet is based on activity, whether its bodybuilding, endurance, power or just everyday living would determine the diet. What’s more important is understanding your metabolic rate and keeping your caloric total under your metabolic rate, so your macros of all three (Fats, carbs, proteins) remain in a deficit.

• Boost your metabolic rate (Why exercise is a powerful ally)

This is were workouts come in. When we workout we can boost our basal metabolic rate up to 90% this is of course based on athletic individuals who dedicate their time mainly to fitness. (this doesn’t mean someone not athletic cannot push to personal athletic levels.)

When I first started training I was not remotely close to the level of fitness I am today, yet I trained athletically, working out twice a day, once in the morning and later again in the evening. You don’t need to be athletic to train athletically.

When you calculate your macros and rate the level of physical activity as athletic you boost your macros up 90%, being athletic is a huge multiplier. This allows you to eat nearly double your basal metabolic rate. This means you can get away with eating more, and having little splurges and slip ups not impact your efforts, while simultaneously, making being in a deficit much easier.

Exercises also builds muscle and muscle, for just having it, boost natural non-active metabolism while at rest. Its about 6 calories per pound of muscle. That’s 2,190 calories per year. Oh whoop dee doo, 2,190 calories can be attained in 1.5-2 meals easily. That’s like saying getting $2,190 dollars at the end of the year is trash because I can spend that in a day.

There as catch to muscle as well, the cost to grow more muscle is far more calorically expensive, to form a pound of new muscle cost nearly 2,500Kcal – 3,000Kcal burned.

Having more muscles also allows for more storage of glucose, this means you can hold more sugar and carbs before it gets converted into fat. This also means you have more energy storage to do more work before you exhaust yourself, more work meaning more caloric burn during workouts.

Workout outs also help transport fats to the mitochondria to be used as energy, while also improving heart health and cardiovascular health which, in a cycle, helps you get better workouts, again increasing caloric burn during activity.

• Consistency

Then of course there is consistency. Much like personal finance you can’t spend within budget one day and splurge over budget every other day and think you will get ahead financially. Just as you can’t workout hard one day, and eat clean for one day and get ahead of fat loss, fitness and muscle gains. It has to be a daily venture, and over the years fitness, strength and human performance moves ahead, metabolic rate moves ahead to a point where it just seems automatic and easy.

Last one but not least (as there are lots of principles)

• Experience

The trials and challenges you have through the fitness journey, there will be a million slip ups, sometimes yoyoing, sometimes progress is fast and your hopes are high, and sometimes the progress is slow and moral is low, yet as you battle through this you learn the rhythms, you learn to cope, you learn the strategies, and you develop the skills.

The most amazing part after this is that you are now in control of your health and fitness, and at a whim, you know you can enjoy splurging on Christmas having fun and sharing in the foods with family and still come back after crushing it. No need for new years resolutions, for weight loss in some new year ideal in the future, it’s just something you do.

Let’s go right back to the beginning of this post.

This 10,000 steps thing is a gimmick, in fitness there is a lot of gimmicks and people trying to find a one step fix it all solution, a pill, a technique, a special plan, a miracle food.

Fact is its a lot of work and experience and its never a one thing fix all. It’s how you train, specific adaptation to desired goal, you’re not gonna train like an Olympic dive team if you want to run a marathon. Your diet must matches what your goals are, as your not going to diet like a body builder eating 1,000 calories over basal to put on mass when your trying to lose fat.

In this process it’s a matter of learning new things adapting it to your lifestyle, be willing for it to not to work so well somedays, go get new information, try a new thing, occasionally run into an expert who might give you a new thing to try, it might accelerate it, it might not, decide to discard or keep it then repeat again, find more information. At the end of the road, you will have complete mastery over this fitness, muscle gain and fat loss thing for good. Then you can determine to maintain it or how ever far you want to take it.

Lucky Nghi

The Badass Buddha

This would normally be in the sub only post but this is too useful to the public for immediate use to put behind a wall.