How to lose fat and get stronger is confusing. Social media influencers steal your attention with bro science. Celebrity trainers pop off about whatever fad diet and exercise craze gets them attention. You’re left to sort through conflicting information that leaves you with more questions than answers. Maybe you try what they’re selling and realize it won’t get you anywhere or that what they push is crazy and unsustainable. It’s frustrating. Especially, because all you want is to know is how many days you need to train to lose fat and get stronger. You know it will make you look better, feel better, and have the strength, endurance, and energy to do whatever you want.
Throughout our collective 60 years of coaching experience, we’ve trained thousands of clients. Many of them had the same goals as you. I can confidently tell you that gaining strength and losing fat doesn’t need to be complicated or confusing.
I’ll cut through the confusion for you. Before we get into the specifics, know that there is no magical number of days or top-secret workout that you must do to get results. You just need to do the right amounts of sensible training.
Let’s get into it.
How Many Training Days Per Week to Gain Strength?
The truth is that it depends on how long you’ve been training, whether or not you’re following a good strength training program, and how well you’re executing the program.
It’s common for beginners, or those that have taken a long training break, to gain strength while only strength training two days per week. However, as folks get stronger and gain more lifting experience, they often have to increase to three or four days per week to keep getting stronger. That is if getting wickedly strong is their main goal.
People who generally want to get stronger, and are willing to play the long game, can keep building their strength while lifting two days per week. But, again, the training program and how well the person executes it matters a whole lot. A crappy program with inconsistent or poor execution won’t do enough to make you stronger. Hiring a good coach, or joining a good gym, who understands how to write a strength program and coaches you to do it right is invaluable if you truly want to get stronger.
How Many Training Days Per Week to Lose Fat?
I’m going to hit you with a heavy dose of truth that the fitness influencers and celebrity trainers won’t tell you.
Overall activity level and caloric intake matter most for fat loss. You need to keep your activity level in a good place throughout the week. That means doing things like getting yourself up and moving for walks and moving more around the house. It also means that you need to control your eating habits. The combination of good eating habits and increased activity levels creates a caloric deficit. That means you’re burning more calories than you take in. You can’t eat more than you need and lose fat.
That all said, training does contribute to fat loss. It does that in multiple ways. We’ll talk about three of them.
First, it increases your overall energy expenditure. Your body has to do more work, so it uses more energy. This is true of strength training and metabolic training. It also has to do with way more than just contracting your muscles, although that is a big factor. Increasing your breathing rate, pumping more blood, regulating your body temperature, and maintaining your posture are all aspects of exercise that cause your body to burn more calories.
Second, gaining muscle increases your metabolism. Muscle is expensive, and your body has to use a lot of energy to keep it. This increases your basal metabolic rate, or how many calories your body burns at rest. You burn more calories just by being alive and having more muscle mass.
Third, strength training and aerobic training each improve your insulin sensitivity. That makes it easier for your body to utilize carbohydrates for fuel. Better insulin sensitivity and better carb burning helps you perform better while storing less fat if your calories are in check.
So, How Many Training Days Do You Need to Lose Fat?
While there is no exact combination of training days for losing fat, doing 2-3 strength training workouts and 2-3 metabolic workouts (aerobic, HIIT, etc.) per week is a great wheelhouse. That means if you average two strength days per week and two metabolic training days per week, you set your body up with solid conditions for fat loss. However, remember that activity level and caloric intake matter most. If you’re doing two of each type of workout per week while continuing to eat too much and parking your hindquarters on the couch when you’re not at the gym, you won’t get the results you want.
Train Consistently, Move More, Eat Less
If you consistently do two strength workouts per week, two metabolic workouts per week, take it easy with food, and increase your activity level, you will gain strength and lose fat. It’s not magic. There’s not a secret. Fat loss is a product of consistency with food and movement.
Stop overthinking it.
Schedule a free intro below and we’ll help you build a plan that actually works for your life.
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