26 Lessons From 26 Years In Fitness (What ACTUALLY Works For Fat Loss)

I've been in fitness for most of my life. I've probably coached over a hundred people one-on-one over the years and I've learned even more from those experiences than my own. So, I'm going to share lessons to help you on your fat loss journey.

Hi, I'm Ivana.

In August 2000, I started working as a personal trainer in London, England where I was studying sports science at university.

Since then, I've also worked in gyms in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. And I've been coaching full-time online since the pandemic.

Consistency Is the Key to Long-Term Fat Loss

It's not sexy, but consistency with good habits will get you better fat loss results than any fad diet. I'm not a fan of 30-day challenges unless you have a plan for day 31 and then day 100, day 365. Those challenges won't have any lasting impact on your fat loss.

You've probably been on dozens of diets already and tried lots of different workout plans. To make it different this time, think to yourself, "Can I keep this up for 6 months? Will I be able to do this for a year?"

I've heard people say they were going to go on keto or carnivore or clean eating for a month to lose weight.

And then what? Go back to exactly what you were eating before? Because that means whatever weight you lose through that unnecessary restriction is coming right back.

The best fat loss plan for you is the one you can stick to for the long term.

If you only have 10 lb or so to lose, it's probably not far from what you're doing right now. You might just need minor tweaks or just not going off the rails every time there's a birthday, vacation, work dinner, or holiday.

If you have 40 lb or more to lose, you'll probably need to make more changes to your lifestyle. But you can do it gradually, a little bit at a time.

Why Fad Diets Do Not Create Lasting Fat Loss

I spent over a decade trying all sorts of diets thinking that there was some sort of magical solution out there. And there are people all over YouTube trying to convince you that their diet is the absolute best.

Intermittent fasting, carnivore, vegan, keto. If they help you lose fat, it's because through restriction, they naturally reduce the calories you're eating. That's it. No special magic, no hormonal or metabolic advantage.

The things that work best for fat loss can seem boring because you've been hearing them for years. Eat plenty of vegetables, fruit, fiber. Eat mostly lean protein, mainly whole foods, slightly less ultra-processed foods. But not eliminate those treat foods entirely, which I'm going to talk about a bit later because it's probably the most important lesson I've learned about diets.

Strength Training for Healthy Aging and Fat Loss

Now, I'm going to switch gears a bit here. Once you're in your 40s, strength training is a must. You need to stimulate your muscles to grow or they shrink over time and you get weaker. We've been hearing more and more people talk about weight training, especially for people over 40, for better, stronger aging, which is great.

I started weight training when I was 15 to get stronger for my karate competitions. So, I guess it was a bit ahead of my time with that one. Even when I trained for a 10K run, half marathon, and then the full marathon in 2012, I still kept my weight training up. These days, most elite marathon runners incorporate some form of strength training to prevent injuries and improve their running economy.

Do at least two strength training workouts a week to stay strong.

Why Cardio Exercise Still Matters

Cardio is also important. For a while in my 30s, I was in with the weights-only crowd and I convinced myself that weights were enough for fitness. But cardio develops vascular flexibility, mitochondrial density, and the ability to get oxygen into your tissues in a different way than weight training.

Heart disease is still the number one killer worldwide for both women and men, and as a bonus for fat loss, putting weights and cardio together gets the best body composition result comparing to doing just one or the other.

How to Know if Your Workout Is Effective

Sweating and soreness isn't necessarily a sign of a good workout, particularly with weight training. It's a different type of training, and it doesn't bring your body temperature up in the same way. I'm always cold, and it takes a lot for me to get sweaty, but as long as I push my muscles to where they need to go, I know I'll still get the result.

The same goes for muscle soreness.

It's also not a very good indicator of whether your workout is effective. You normally get sore if you apply a novel stimulus, something new.

So, every time you change your workout plan, which ideally is somewhere between 4 and 8 weeks, you'll feel more sore. But, you still get the benefit from repeating that workout. In fact, that's where the muscle growth actually happens. As you get stronger and push yourself harder, you build muscle.

Progressive Strength Training for Building Muscle

To build muscle, you need to strength train progressively. I know a lot of people, particularly women, enjoy those follow-along workouts on YouTube, where it's basically a group fitness class and you add some light weights. There's not much rest in between. Those can be great for beginners or to introduce you to weight training in a gradual way, but it's hard to get results after a year or so. You have to be really careful to make them progressive, increase the challenge as you get stronger.

You also need a certain amount of rest between sets to build muscle and strength, normally somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds, maybe 2 minutes for strength exercises.

Using compound exercises, where you're using multiple joints and muscles, is really helpful for muscle building. So, squats, lunges, rows, lat pull-downs, dips, bench press, deadlifts, and shoulder presses are all great compound exercises.

How Sleep Affects Fat Loss and Fitness

Sleep affects just about everything in your life. As a competitive karate athlete, I was always very aware of how lack of sleep affected me. I just couldn't train as hard or stay focused at university if I didn't sleep enough. And I found that my clients who don't sleep enough for various reasons often struggle to lose fat the most. If you're tired, you don't have as much energy to exercise or prepare healthy meals, your mind isn't as sharp, and you just don't feel motivated. You're thinking, "What's the point? I don't have the energy for this."

Try to get at least 7 hours every night, keep a cool dark room, turn off those screens at least an hour before bed, and have some sort of pre-bed ritual to wind down. Some people like meditation or just deep breathing, or maybe just putting on your serums and lotions and then closing the curtains while humming your favorite song.

Your Mindset About Aging Matters

Your attitude towards aging determines a lot of your outcomes. In my early 30s, I used to play beach volleyball with a large group of friends and acquaintances. One day, one of the girls in the group sat down exhausted against the post between matches and said, "It's so much harder since I turned 28." Then she started devouring a bag of chips while I drank from my bottle of water.

A few years ago, I was doing personal training for a woman in her 70s, and she told me, "I've been finding it a little bit harder to lose fat since around 70 or so." Pay attention to what you could do better, nutrition, exercise, daily movement, and don't lean into your age because it's only going up, but age is not just a number. There are definite changes and challenges that happen as we get older, hormonal adaptations and other physiological changes that occur with age. Joint wear and tear starts to add up, but being active actually improves the strength and quality of your tendons, joints, and ligaments.

How you age can look very different from the average person if you do the right things consistently. Do more than most people, and you'll get better results than most people. Masters athletes in their 70s and 80s are a great example of this. They do things that many people who are 20 or 30 years younger can't do.

Calorie Counting and Creating a Calorie Deficit

Calorie counting doesn't work for everyone. It's time-consuming and can feel annoying. Some people get so overly concerned about the numbers that they don't want to eat something if it puts them 12 calories over their daily intake. That's not a healthy approach.

I haven't done tracking for many years, really, but I've used calorie counting in the past for fitness competitions and then for a YouTube video a couple of years ago. Some of my clients like to use it long-term to help them stay consistent with their eating. It can keep you focused on a particular goal or make you aware of bad habits that you have with food.

But while calorie tracking isn't going to work for everyone, a calorie deficit is the only way that you can lose fat. Many people get confused because they think calorie counting or calorie tracking is the same as a calorie deficit. It's not. You can get into a calorie deficit without counting anything as long as you eat in a way that naturally reduces your calories and or you increase your physical activity level. There are a lot of different ways of getting into a calorie deficit.

Despite what you might have heard, a calorie deficit does work for everyone at any age, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, too. When calories are controlled in laboratory settings, everyone loses weight. It's the challenges of real life that make it more complicated to lose fat as we get older. If you're a perimenopausal woman who's experiencing symptoms, it all feels harder than ever before. Trust me, I know. But it's still possible for you to lose fat and build muscle if you have the right system and are able to follow it consistently.

Recently, our rescue cat, Dewey, was getting a little tubby. The vet said he was getting close to the edge of a healthy weight. So, what did we do? We split his can of food in half and only gave him half in the morning and half at night instead of a full can. Fewer calories in. Then, we made an effort to throw things for him so that he would run around more around the condo. More calories out. So, now Stewie is a bit leaner and more sprightly thanks to the calorie deficit we got him into against his will.

Fat Loss Versus Weight Loss

Fat loss is different from weight loss. You can lose weight by going on an extremely low-calorie diet, but you risk losing your precious muscle. And because you naturally lose muscle as you get older, if you don't do strength training to maintain it, just dieting down without physical activity isn't going to give you that athletic and toned look you're probably looking for.

Toned, by the way, just means a decent amount of muscle underneath and a low enough body fat percentage so that you can see it. And that's going to come mainly from nutrition. Build your muscle with weight training, lose the fat mainly with your nutrition. Cardio and physical activity, unless you're doing a lot of it, plays a less important role. Abs are built in the gym slightly, but revealed through what you do in the kitchen and at restaurants, bars, takeout places, food delivery. You get the idea.

Why Tracking Progress Supports Your Fat Loss Goals

Paying attention to your body becomes more important as we get older. You can get away with more in your 20s and 30s than you can later on. And the cumulative effects of bad behaviors become more noticeable as we get older. Losing fat does get harder as we get older, but not because of our metabolism, which contrary to popular belief, doesn't change that much until we get to our 60s. Our lives can be busier and more stressful. Our daily movement can go down if If don't have energy. Our sleep can get worse, so we're more tired. We don't have as much time and energy for our workouts or to prepare healthy meals. So, establishing good habits as early as you can will make life transitions easier, but it's never too late to make a change.

You can only manage what you measure. If you think you're gaining fat, don't ignore it. Many years ago, when I was still training clients in gyms, I used to weigh them weekly when they came in to keep them on track. It isn't something I do now for various reasons, but it was something the gym I worked at did. I had one client who liked being weighed if he had what he termed a good weekend and didn't want to be weighed when he had a bad weekend. He just didn't want to face the reality of his situation, but not weighing didn't make the problem go away. It didn't keep that weight from coming on.

If you want to lose fat, it's usually a good idea to weigh yourself or measure in some way. There'll be a small percentage of people who have a bad relationship with weighing. If that's you, don't do it. But studies show that people who weigh themselves regularly are more likely to lose weight and keep it off.

And it's not just your weight that's important. Use non-scale measures to track your progress. Check how your clothes fit. Take progress photos and progress videos. If you're losing fat and putting on some muscle, you might not see big changes in the scale, but you'll see that fat loss with your clothes or in the pictures. Measure your waist and hips. The waist-to-hip ratio is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Keep track of the weights you do at the gym so you know that you're improving and that you're actually training progressively. And measure your biceps if you're trying to grow them. If you don't measure, you won't know.

Find Physical Activity You Enjoy

Do physical activity you enjoy. Exercise shouldn't feel like torture. I have a hard time relating to people who don't like exercise at all because I love moving my body. I've done karate since I was 9 years old, weight training since I was 15, but I've worked with people who only took it up in their 50s and they feel better than ever. I started mountain biking a few years ago and now you can barely keep me off my bike in the warmer months. Find something you enjoy doing regularly. Tennis, pickleball, try that martial art you've heard about. Movement should bring joy to your life.

You don't stop moving because you get old. You get old because you stop moving. So keep moving.

How to Move Forward Without Perfectionism

Don't try to be perfect. As a karate athlete, I was very hard on myself if I missed a training session. I felt like I wasn't giving my best. When I started developing digestive issues, I would force myself to go to karate training anyway and sometimes I'd end up sitting and watching because I was in so much pain.

Don't beat yourself up for little mistakes.

Don't treat yourself like a failure just because you've tried to lose weight before many times and then regain that weight. What happened in the past is gone. Look ahead and keep doing your best. Keep learning and improving.

Healthy Eating Without Eliminating Treat Foods

The general food recommendations you've heard for most of your life still work. Eat more vegetables and fruit. Get enough lean protein to meet your needs. Eat lots of whole foods like dairy, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains and reduce ultra-processed foods, added sugars, and saturated fat.

The reason that more than 60% of people are now overweight or obese is not because of these nutrition recommendations, but because almost no one is actually following them.

And when it comes to what most people call junk food and I call treat foods, you don't need to eliminate treats completely to lose fat or to be healthy. Cake on a birthday, ice cream on a summer's day, tortilla chips and guacamole while you watch Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl halftime show. Those can all be enjoyable.

Alcohol has no real health benefits, but you can still occasionally enjoy it without hurting your health or your fat loss goals. Getting tipsy with your spouse on date night or a couple of beers with some friends on a patio can be an enjoyable part of life.

I'm a Czech-born Canadian and beer is part of our culture. When I visit my cousin, Lukáš and I have a beer or two after a long mountain bike ride.

My grandmother, my Babi, used to have the occasional beer or two when she was spending time with her friends in the senior residential home where she lived. She lived to be 95 and just passed away last year.

I have this balanced approach because I know that no single food will cause you to gain fat on its own. Not carbs, not fat, not sugar, not even ultra-processed foods. How healthy your nutrition plan is comes down to your pattern of eating, not a single meal or treat.

When I constantly struggled with the last 15 or 20 lbs, up and down, up and down for years, more than a decade really, it was because I was in that all or nothing mindset. If I wasn't perfect, I felt terrible, like a failure. That meant a cycle of restricting to only clean foods and then binging on chocolate and ice cream. Giving up the moral judgment of the clean eating movement was the best thing for my relationship with food.

Never feel guilty about eating a certain food. Treat foods that you love should be part of your plan, but probably less often and in smaller quantities. Food is meant to be enjoyed. It's part of our social fabric and culture. Don't ignore that when you're pursuing fat loss or health.

Protein and Fiber for Healthy Aging and Appetite Control

Protein and fiber are the most important nutrients for healthy aging and longevity. You need at least 0.7 g per pound of body weight per day of protein, 1.6 g per kilogram of body weight. Some people go up to 1 g per pound, which is probably fine, but remember that carbs and fat are important, too. It's all about balance.

In research, fiber consistently shows health benefits, and it reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity. Getting enough protein and fiber helps manage your appetite and reduces cravings, which is huge for fat loss.

Find a Strong Reason for Your Fat Loss Goal

You need a good reason for changing your lifestyle in any significant way. If I wanted to get leaner than I am now, the only reasons I could find would be to do another fitness competition or a fitness photo shoot. Otherwise, there's no need for me to be leaner than what I am.

If a 50-year-old woman who's 22% body fat comes to me and says she wants to lower her body fat percentage, my first question is, "Why?" That's very healthy and lean for a woman, and if she doesn't have a good reason, then she probably won't follow through on the things she needs to do to get there.

If someone is 50 years old, overweight by 50 lb, and recently found out they have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and prediabetes, that would be a strong reason for most people, but not for everyone. If you have a fat loss goal, you need to have a strong reason, or you won't do the things you have to do to get there.

The Health Benefits of Walking

Walking can have a huge impact on your health. It decreases stress, particularly when you're outside, it energizes your brain, it burns some calories, and improves your blood sugar and digestion when you do it after meals. If my digestive issues are playing up or my TMJ jaw disorder is aggravated, I can still walk. Walking is the easiest way to stay moving as you get older, and once you can't walk and you need a cane or a walker, it severely impacts your quality of life.

10,000 steps was a marketing campaign by a Japanese company in the 1960s, but it's not a bad goal to reach for. Significant reductions in all-cause mortality happen around the 7,000 to 8,000 step mark, but adding more after that can slightly add to fat loss.

Mobility and Stretching for Better Aging

Mobility and stretching will help you feel amazing as you age. You don't need to do yoga, you don't need to do full splits or full splits between chairs, although that's fun, but loosening up common tight areas like the hips from sitting all day, doing some rotation of the spine, and mobilizing my stiff neck, I mean, your stiff neck, can really help. It's easy to neglect, but just a few minutes a day can feel really good.

Build a Positive Fitness Identity

Don't get trapped in negative beliefs about yourself. You're not too old. You're plenty athletic enough to start weight training in your 50s or 60s. You're not stiff and inflexible, you just have to put more time and effort into your mobility and flexibility. To really succeed with fitness and fat loss, you want to start seeing yourself as a strong, confident, physical person. Then, you'll do the things that fit into that idea of yourself, the superhero of your life.

Protect Your Mental Health and Your Relationship With Food

Your mental health matters as much as your physical health. The stress that comes from worrying about every little thing is usually worse than the thing itself. I went down that road for years, afraid of every chemical in my food, my clothes, in the air. Then, I realized that everything is a chemical. Not everything natural is safe, and not everything made in a lab is unsafe. In fact, life-saving medications are made in labs by scientists. Thank you, science and scientists.

Wanting to eat healthier is great, but believing you can control all your health outcomes through what you eat isn't. There's even an eating disorder called orthorexia, which is an obsession with healthy eating and the associated restrictive behaviors. And it's pretty clear that there are a lot of fitness influencers who suffer from this.

Food has no moral value. Seeing foods as good and or bad is a negative way to approach food. That goes for eating treat foods once in a while. Sharing a special meal with family and friends adds value to your life. Food is not just fuel. Enjoy it.

Part of what I do is help my clients get fat loss results without excessive restriction. I help them find the balance that it took me decades to get to.

To work with me one-on-one, check out the special OFFER AT THE LINK HERE.

Ivana Chapman