Most people will do these two things first trying to drop "weight"!

You want to drop body fat so I’d guess the majority if not all will make these two changes;

1. Increase the volume of training - usually add in a lot more cardio based workouts!

2. Drastically reduce total calories, and again the one that gets cut the most will be Carbohydrates!

It’s obvious when we do both of the above it is going to create an energy deficit. You may have done this yourself, or maybe know someone who has done this - what will happen is a very aggressive reduction in calories a new enthusiasm for training more frequently, which will or may yield some early results!

You will lose weight, although likelihood is this will not be all fat and you will sacrifice some lean tissue, (more than what you need to), too much cardio based training and too few calories is not a good combination to maintain lean tissue - essentially this will become a false dawn!

Longterm you will not be able to sustain this and you’ll plateau, this “stalling” will inevitably cause you to become emotionally frustrated and that will make you feel you need to cut calories even further or train even harder, or both! With this your room to manoeuvre is now smaller and you’re at a complete loss as to what is going on.

Create a deficit you can sustain, 10% - 15% (closer to 10% in my opinion) is a perfect place to start and isn’t too harsh - the aim is to make small and steady changes and have the patience to see what changes happen - the majority give up way too early and simply don’t have the patience to see it through.

A couple of points to consider going forward if your aim is to drop body fat, slow and steady will have greater longterm gains, maintain as much lean tissue as you can, drop fat not “weight”!

Be patient.

Ian