There are many factors people over look when trying to lose fat. Here are my top ten tips to help you get heading in the right direction.

1. Create a calorie deficit – This is when you use up more energy than you are consuming.

2. Exercise over starvation – Burn off your fat through exercise rather than starving yourself with an extremely low calorie diet. Your body’s response to being starved is to slow down your metabolism which is the last thing you want when trying to burn fat.

3. Aim for steady weight loss – Don’t try to lose too much weight too fast, if you are losing weight quickly it is likely that a lot of the weight is going to be muscle. One to one and a half pounds a week is a good amount.

4. Avoid Processed foods – Try to avoid processed food as much as possible, even the low fat healthy options. There are high in refined sugars, not good for fat loss. The more natural the better.

5. Increase you protein intake – Your body needs protein to maintain and repair muscles. The more lean muscle you have the more calories your body uses.

6. Train cardio three to four times a week – build up to 45 minutes per session or if you prefer use interval training to shorten your time spent on your cardio.

7. Resistance training – Start training with weights three times a week. Why would you want to train with weights when you are trying to lose weight? Well muscle burns calories very efficiently, the more muscle you have the more calories you burn, even when you are not exercising.

8. Hydrate yourself! - Every function in your body depends on water, including the fat burning process. Also dehydration affects your body’s performance. As a rough guide try and drink eight to ten cup a day.

9. Monitor your progress – take regular measurements of your weight and body fat, then from that work out your lean mass and your fat mass. From this you can ensure that you are losing fat not muscle.

10. Set yourself goals and targets – set long term and short term goals. Set yourself date for milestones. Also set yourself targets in your workouts, try to beat personal bests, etc. This will make your workouts more fun and keep you motivated.

Apply these ten points and you will be heading in the right direction for success.

Author's Bio: 

Jonathon Allmark is a fitness author and enthusiast. Visit www.fatlossandmusclebuilding.com/blog for more tips, tricks and advice about fat loss and muscle building.