With nutrition and training covered it’s time to optimise your general day to day activity and supplementation.

Many factors affect your day to day activity level. Consider these; Are you a student, working in an office environment or a farmer who’s always on the move? Are you driving, walking or cycling to and from work? Do you sit at a desk all day or do you have the luxury of a sit-stand desk? The activity level between jobs varies a huge amount so to not consider these aspects is where many can fail in their fat loss journey and not understand why. With occupational activity levels varying up to 2000 kcal between some occupations, monitoring this activity level to some degree will be hugely beneficial in achieving fat loss.

So far this Summer we’ve been spoilt with the weather (touches wood*) aloe vera and after-sun sales are up and the days of snow blocking estate roads are long forgotten. Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm in Ireland and we usually don’t get sufficient sunlight which results in Vitamin D deficiencies. Research has identified how important the maintenance of adequate Vitamin D levels is for overall health. Supplementing with Vitamin D3 as opposed to Vitamin D will prove more beneficial as D3 has a higher rate of absorption. Vitamin D3 has a range of benefits including improved bone health, improved immune and nerve function, reduced inflammation and some research even indicates increases in strength.

In the standard ‘Western’ diet the Omega 3: Omega 6 ratio is unbalanced due to elevated consumption of Omega 6 rich foods like red meat, dairy and processed foods, and a generally low intake of oily fish and nuts. Acti Omega encourages an optimal Omega 3: Omega 6 ratio which reduces inflammation in the body, lowering the risk of illness or injury. The difficulty of getting adequate Omega 3 from nuts also during a fat loss phase is that nuts are calorie dense and easy to overeat. Acti Omega supplementation is an excellent option if you’re in a fat loss phase and not consuming 3+ servings of oily fish per week.

Step tracking has been shown to be very conducive for increasing fat loss. The maintenance of an elevated activity level along with increased motivation from hitting a target each day are components of its use. To track steps there are many methods including watches, pedometers and phone apps. None will be 100% accurate, but a general idea of your output is all that is needed. If you have an iPhone the ‘Health’ app is perfect, otherwise download ‘Moves’ for android and just keep the phone in your pocket for it to track your daily steps.

To start, aim to hit between 8,000-10,000 steps per day. If fat loss stagnates at some point further down the line you can then simply increase your target step output instead of decreasing your food intake, another benefit of step tracking which is very simple to implement and greatly underutilised.