The best weight loss strategies on how to keep fat off is very simple, yet so few people are doing it. Why? Because instead of implementing a long term strategy, they are instead moving from one short term accelerator to another.

Losing weight in the short term is not that hard. Think about it. How many times have you dropped some weight just to gain it all back after a couple of months? We’ve all done it. So then we either go back to the plan that originally lost us weight, challenge ourselves to do it again, lose weight, then find ourselves gain it all back – once again! Ahhhh … how to keep  fat off long term?

Lets divide up the million weight loss strategies into 2 categories:

1. Short Term Accelerators
2. Long Term Strategies

The #1 Reason Why Most Weight Loss Strategies Fail, is Because They’re Short Term Accelerators and Not Long Term Strategies.

Short Term Accelerators

A short term accelerator is something helps you lose weight in the short term.  They are things like “boot camps”, “detoxes”, “challenges”, etc.  You’ll challenge yourself to do something abnormal to your daily routine to help you lose weight quick.  After all, when you have decided it’s time to lose weight – you want the weight gone NOW!  So you’ll start waking up at 4am and do an intense workout at the gym as part of a boot camp.  Maybe you make it a month and lose 30lbs.  Awesome!  But there is no chance you’re going to keep that up.  After the boot camp ends, nothing in your life has changed from before you joined the boot camp, therefore, you will gain the weight right back.

Long Term Strategies

A long term strategy is something you enjoy, you can easily integrate into your daily routine, and it’s something that you actually do long term.

What constitutes a long term strategy vs a short term accelerator differs for everyone.  I know people who can wake up each morning and do 100 situps, 50 pushups, and go to the gym for a 45 minute cardio session each morning.  If that’s you, and you can do that every day, year after year, then that would be a long term strategy.  But that’s not for me.  I know because I’m one of those guys who keeps my gym membership only because it’s too embarrassing to cancel.  Working out every morning is a challenge; and a challenge is a short term accelerator.

If you take just 1 thing from reading this article, I want you to take this: understand which weight loss strategies are short term accelerators and which weight loss strategies are actual long term strategies.  Implement a long term strategy first.  Only after you have successfully implemented a long term strategy should you consider throwing in a short term accelerator to help boost rapid fat loss.

For me personally, my long term strategy on how to keep fat off is intermittent fasting and replacing at least 1 meal a day with a healthy superfood smoothie.  All intermittent fasting is for me – is that I only consume calories between noon – 6pm.  Therefore, from 6pm – noon the next day (18 hours), I am fasting and not consuming any calories.  An additional benefit to intermittent fasting is that is has anti-aging benefits (research link).  My noon meal is then a 24oz superfood smoothie with protein, which is about 500 calories.  I’ll typically try to find a superfood smoothie recipe that contains certain ingredients that have been shown to target fat loss.  If you want to see these ingredients and smoothie recipes that use these ingredients, click here: link.

So how to keep the fat off?  Stop with the short term accelerators and implement a long term strategy instead.