Bye Bye, Body Fat! Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods

Welcome back, Partisans! I figured I’d get back into the health and fitness posting action with a fat loss “cheat sheet” that summarizes what I’ve found to be the five most effective fat loss methods available in my nearly 27 years in the health and fitness world. This will be a relatively short post (for me, at least LOL), but much of what I’ll get into here has been covered in vast detail in previous knowledge series that I’ve posted on American Partisan, so I’ll be linking to these previous posts of mine throughout this post, in case Partisan readers want a deeper dive into background/reference.

The most important thing to remember here is that losing body fat is SIMPLE!!! Complex diet and fat loss fads put out by the so-called “fitness industry” come and go (and trust me… I’ve seen a damn lot in my time), but the methods I’m about to detail below are timeless and don’t require any special purchases or anything exotic. Fake or added complexity of diets/eating lifestyles exists to disempower users and make them dependent on “specialized” products or processes. Well, I’m here to say: fuck all that nonsense! Stick to the simple and effective methods detailed below. All Partisans need to provide is the serious discipline that any sustained undertaking like fat loss requires in order to be successful.

That all being said, let’s do this!

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Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods, #1: Cut Fast-Burning Carbs!

My list of Top 5 Fat Loss Methods is not in any particular order, but I figured I’d place what I consider to be the most powerful method first: CUT CARBS! Just to be 100% clear, “fast-burning carbs (carbohydrates)” specifically refers to fast-burning sugars (click here to learn more about the types and pitfalls of fast-burning sugars), which is the type of carbohydrate prevalent in most Americans’ diets. Fast-burning carbs are present in all the foods we pretty much love: bread; grains/derivatives of all kinds; pasta; cereal; potatoes; corn/corn-based products; snack foods; candy; soda; etc.

The short of it all is that fast-burning carbs are very high in energy and require immediate use by the body due to their fast-burning nature. Ignoring for a moment the disease-promoting damage of eating fast-burning carbs (think: diabetes), most people don’t need anywhere near the amount of immediate energy provided by these foods; the body utilizes any energy it needs (usually, not much), and then shunts the rest of the energy into storage on the body itself, which we know as “love handles” and “big gut”. And, due to its normal metabolic processes (explained in detail here), the body actually stores fast-burning sugar as body fat more readily than it stores fat itself, weird as that may sound!

Again, cutting fast-burning carbs is, hands down, the absolutely most powerful thing anyone can do to cut fat, period. If Partisans seeking to lose fat did nothing but cut carbs, that would do a damn lot by itself! Cutting fast-burning carbs should be done via start-up willpower to make good food selections, and then followed up with effective substitutions and “hacking” the biochemistry behind cravings, as detailed below:

  • Willpower – willpower only (as in, simply not eating stuff you want or like; discussed here) – is generally unsustainable and shouldn’t be exclusively relied upon. Still, a person serious about making lifestyle changes does need sufficient start-up willpower (a type of discipline) to make good eating choices when they’re hungry. My American Partisan Nutritional Empowerment Guide details the way forward on good eating choices (in the form of substitutions and “biochemical hacks”) as a sustainable follow-up to tapping into willpower.
  • Effective Substitutions – this goes back to making good choices: replace low-quality, fast-burning carbs with either high-quality protein, healthy fats, or both, to satisfy your hunger. Once you’re done eating, your hunger-satisfied self won’t give a damn where the satisfaction came from! Another very effective substitution is to use liquid nutrition instead of solid foods (especially protein smoothies – recipe suggestion here).
  • Hacking into and Disabling the Brain’s Craving Biochemistry – This powerful way of reducing that most specific type of hunger, the craving, is another important way of losing fat which works by biochemically blunting the almost irrational drive to eat bad foods, usually sugar- or fat-based, and which I address and provide strategies for here.

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Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods, #2: Skip Breakfast Altogether!

Covered at length in a previous post, I personally take the nearly heretical position of advising people to simply NOT eat breakfast… at all! That’s right. Without getting into too much detail, eating breakfast – typically, a calorie-filled slop fest for most people – is completely unnecessary and even harmful, particularly to the waistline.

The short of it all is: after all pre-bedtime food is digested, the body goes into fat-burning mode sometime during the night due to absence of anymore food for energy. That’s exactly what we want! Yet, most people bring the beneficial and desirable nighttime fat-burning process to a screeching halt by introducing food into the body, and shitty food at that. Worse yet, most people aren’t even really hungry after they wake up for at least a few hours, but have been conditioned by the food industry to mindlessly believe that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Well, it ain’t. Furthermore, eating breakfast promotes an increased appetite as well, due to the metabolic effects of eating it. Not good.

The SIMPLE solution: skip breakfast and continue burning fat well into the day by delaying your first meal for as long as possible. You’ll be surprised how long you can go without food after wakeup, as well as how much less you eat overall in this fashion!

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Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods, #3: Sweat It Off!

Pretty straightforward. Needless to say, any vigorous exercise-type movement will cause you to burn more fat as well. But at any given time, toned muscles and the waistline are also obscured not just by fat, but also by water being retained by the body under the surface of the skin. The causes of water retention vary, but let’s just say that it’s always present, and it hides visually pleasing details, which makes it much like fat in appearance and feel.

The good thing is that, unlike fat which takes time to lose, water retained under the skin can be sweated out in POUNDS, all at once. In fact, this is where “making/cutting weight” for competitions plays a huge role – same concept.

So what do you do? Sweat your freakin’ ass off regularly through exercise, either for extended, low- to medium-intensity exercise or multiple short, high-intensity conditioning engagements:

  • Extended, low- to medium-intensity exercise – this refers to sustained cardiovascular exercise, such as: running; rucking; bicycling; etc. for some extended period of time (15 or more minutes)
  • Multiple short, high-intensity conditioning engagements (explained in detail here) – also known as “strength endurance”, conditioning refers to intense physical movement and induced breathlessness, and includes exercises like: heavy punching bag work; intense exercise circuits; sprinting; High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT); etc. Conditioning work also promotes improvements that make cells need more energy while resting – a good thing!

As the icing on the “sweaty cake”… layer up!!! Wearing multiple layers is yet another free and easily-achieved co-method to add fat-loss quality by causing you to sweat more; it always surprises me how fixated people are on looking pretty in the gym mirror while they just leave this powerful water loss tool on the table. Serious Partisans should layer up, and save the beautiful muscles underneath for the beach or the bedroom.

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Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods, #4: Lift Heavy Weights!

Another very overlooked “method” of losing body fat, unfortunately. In my informal observations over 27 years of lurking in gyms, I’ve noticed that most guys are lifting loads that are rather light,  especially relative to their body weight. For example, a 200 lb. lifter squatting or even bench pressing in the 200 lb. range… talk about underperforming! In addition to not being all they can be, “lifters” that under-lift are leaving strength gains and, relevant to our discussion, fat loss progress on the table.

How so? Because a muscle that can lift more weight is more metabolically active and requires more calories, even at rest. Ta-da! It’s really that simple. Thus, there are “hidden” penalties (plural) to not lifting heavy loads; to be clear, external loads should ideally be in the maximum intensity zone of 1 – 5 repetitions (as in, more reps can’t be performed due to the heaviness of the load). While there is a metabolic benefit to generally having a worked muscle, there is a FAR greater benefit to having a worked muscle that can contract at high intensities through heavy loading. Add up the metabolic improvements of ALL large muscles made to lift heavy weights, and you’ve got a virtual fat incinerator there, especially when combined with other fat loss methods listed in this post.

From all this, we can safely conclude that heavy load lifting during strength training (discussed here) equates not only to real strength and big muscles, but also to a tighter waistline!

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Conan’s Top Five SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE Fat Loss Methods, #5: Adopt a Sustainable Eating Lifestyle That Promotes Fat-Burning!

At the end of the day, any steps Partisans take in the realm health and fitness need to be sustainable. No sense in trying to lose body fat today, only to revert back to the same behaviors and habits tomorrow that put the fat there in the first place. As such, Partisans really should take the time to settle on a Good Eating Lifestyle (“GEL”, discussed at length here) that they are comfortable with, and that they can keep. As part of the GEL, it greatly helps to follow one of the established, proven eating lifestyles common to many discussions on healthy eating.

Three well-known and respected eating lifestyles that immediately come to mind (and that I myself have tried extensively, and will cover in a future post) are:

  • The Keto Diet – a very high-fat and moderate protein eating lifestyle that is also severely carb-restricted; this diet burns a lot of fat via its restriction of carbohydrates, as mentioned above in method #1. Very effective for fat loss, although it may not be sustainable over very long periods for some people. The Paleo Diet is a similar diet that almost completely shuns carbs, although unlike the Keto Diet, it does permit for more fruits and vegetables; the Paleo Diet offers similar fat loss benefits as the Keto Diet.
  • Intermittent Fasting – essentially, eating during appointed “windows” or time frames designated for consuming food, while also not eating during designated non-eating times, which is the majority of the day (or longer). Intermittent fasting is versatile and can range from eating during, say, a four-hour window in the evening until two hours before bedtime (just as an example), to not eating anything for days at a time (a more extreme example). Obviously, eating less by setting aside blocks of time to not eat is very much in line with effective fat loss efforts! Another benefit of fasting is the contraction of the stomach organ, which also decreases appetite.
  • One Meal a Day (OMAD)/The Warrior Diet – Really just a type of intermittent fasting, but limited to a single meal (vs. an “eating window”). OMAD/The Warrior Diet is the lifestyle through which I personally make my own “fat loss money”, and which I’ve been practicing for over 10 years now (since November 2011). Just what it says, OMAD consists of eating one meal a day, typically dinner. In my case, I wake up early and consume only water until dinnertime, which is around 12 – 13 hours after I wake up; this means my body is burning fat continuously as an energy source all the way until dinner. By the time dinner rolls around, my stomach is small and my waist is good n’ tight. Feels nice!

These three eating lifestyles are not the only ones out there, but are certainly time-tested, SIMPLE, and effective, based on my own experiences and observations. When combined with other Top Five Fat Loss Methods, they’re extremely powerful fat loss tools.

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So now, there are no more excuses or any long-ass shit to read through this time – you just got the quick lowdown on an important topic! Want to learn more? Come join me and NC Scout for the Partisan Fitness Course in North Carolina on July 9 – 10, 2022 and get set up FOR LIFE in fitness and health!

 

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About the Author: conan

Conan has been working out for over 25 years, with extensive experience in lifting weights; he has also been a personal fitness trainer for 22 years now. He has experience both doing and training people in various modes of fitness and exercise throughout those decades. He enjoys hunting, martial arts, shooting, and studying history and world cultures. He seeks to share his extensive knowledge of physical fitness, as well as his recent experiences in taking tactical training courses and transmitting acquired tactical skills to the people in his AO. Contact Conan at: [email protected].​

9 Comments

  1. mechmedic April 11, 2022 at 13:02

    Excellent information brother. I am going to start intermittent fasting this week to help aid in fat loss. Can’t work off a shitty diet. It is insane how attached people are to carbs.

    • conan April 11, 2022 at 13:11

      Hey MechMedic, what’s up bro??? Glad you found the information useful. I’m trying to cut to the chase and give the boil-down, with additional references if desired. But even with just this, Partisans can start cutting fat RIGHT NOW! What better time? Thanks for reading and posting!

  2. NY O April 11, 2022 at 14:43

    Please don’t say, NO Beer… Awesome and practical tips as usual!

    • conan April 11, 2022 at 15:37

      LOL, if you’re gonna do the poison, do clear hard alcohol – it’s clear cuz it’s pure, at least you got that going for you. Thanks bro, glad you liked it!

  3. Iron Will and Discipline April 11, 2022 at 16:06

    Eat Less Move Often works every time.
    After supper the kitchen is closed and snacks are for the weak.
    Carbs are for Fat Elvis and it didn’t end well for him.
    Fast processed synthetic Frankenfood is the diet for drooling dullard normies of the lame mediocre conformist hiveborg.
    Drinky drink and dopey dope time are long gone.
    Alert, aware, awake, situational awareness at all times in the Bolshevik Revolution Redux.

  4. ReluctantMillennial April 11, 2022 at 17:04

    Thanks for another great article, Conan. One question for you: as some one who hits the gym at 5:30 every morning, do you still recommend not eating until lunchtime (or later)? I’ve always consumed a protein shake after hitting the gym so as to provide my body with the amino acids for rebuilding the muscles broken down during my workout.

    • conan April 11, 2022 at 17:57

      Hi bro!! Good question. I’d say that if you want to build muscle, the one-meal deal might not be the best choice because of its restricted eating setup. If you’re trying to gain weight, I’d switch to a two-meal-a-day setup, one after the the workout, and one in the evening – and all quality inputs, in abundance. Or, at the very least, having a rich post-workout protein shake with a calorie boost is the way to go, to support growth and repair needs after a hard workout if you’ve trying to pack on muscle. I’ve had the best results from One Meal a Day NOT when I was trying to build muscle, but rather, when I was aiming to cut down or just stay lean (which is where I am now at 46 years old). I find that building muscle requires eating, and OMAD will probably fall short in that particular situation. I hope that helps, bro! Email me if you have more questions, I’ll be glad to assist. Thanks for reading and posting!

  5. Mas Casa April 11, 2022 at 19:00

    Good article, Conan. Thanks for the down and dirty. What, if anything would you change if walking/rucking every other day and doing squats, pushups, leg raises/flutter kicks on alternate days?

    • conan April 11, 2022 at 19:31

      Good to have you here again, Mas Casa! That looks like a comprehensive minimalist workout setup you have there, and I really dig it! Anyway, other than Method 4: Lift Heavy Weights, you could definitely hit the other 4 Top Fat Loss Methods easily enough, and tweak them for better results as possible. For example, you could increase your rucking pace or load by a measurable amount to induce more breathlessness and lose more water weight that way. Heavy rucking, especially up steeper hills, can also build a good amount of lower extremity and back musculature, which would satisfy Method #4: Lifting Heavy Weights. Also, even if you hit the gym for just ONE day a week to work some heavy loading exercises in an hour’s time, that would contribute as described. Otherwise, even if you didn’t lift heavy loads, but you’re working out regularly as you say, you should be able to lose quite a bit of fat using Methods 1-3 and Method 5 to achieve your fat loss goals. I hope that helps! Feel free to email me with any additional questions or concerns – I’m glad to help! Thanks for reading and posting once again – I appreciate your continued readership and thoughts!

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