Ah yes, the infamous question. What exercise is best to burn calories? What workout burns the most fat? What’s the secret to losing weight?

Believe it or not, there is a secret exercise that will help you lose that stubborn fat. But before I tell you what it is, I want you to promise me right now that you will read this whole article. If you are here you clearly care about this topic, and if you don’t read this whole post you will be doing yourself a disservice. So PLEASE, take 5 minutes of your day. Don’t skip around. Let me help you.

The best exercie to help you lose weight are plate pushes. What is a plate push? How do you do it? When you are sitting down for a meal, be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and you’re feeling about 80% full, push your plate away. Push your plate away. Stop eating. You’re 80% full, and that’s enough.

We live in a world of the “clean plate club”. Eating until you are stuffed has become the norm. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that in order to see a difference in your body, you’ve got to break the norm. I promise you, start pushing your plate away and stop eating when you’re 80% full and you will lose body fat. Your weight will drop. It won’t all happen overnight. But gradually, steadily, over time if you stay consistent with the 80% rule and your plate pushes, you will lose weight.

So take a deep breath. Because your search for the best exercise to burn calories can come to an end. And the solution is pretty frkn’ simple. It should come as a relief that in order to get results you actually need to do less. Eat less. Push your plate away. Notice I didn’t say it would be easy. You might have to have a conversation with your significant other who feels offended you didn’t finish the delicious meal they cooked. But like I said, you can’t expect change if you don’t break this norm. The defition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If your loved one is supportive of you and your goals, they should understand.

Try this 80% full rule at every meal for the next 30 days. Become an elite plate pusher. You can do anything for 30 days.

There’s another point I want to make when it comes to burning calories through exercise. If you are counting your calories for weight loss and you are subtracting / eating back the amount of calories your smart watch tells you you burned in your workout, STOP.

Do not eat back the calories you burned in your workout.

Here’s why: you workout to train your body, and you eat for calories. Stop working out to burn calories. Workout for the benefits of exercise, and focus on calories with your nutrition. Another VERY IMPORTANT fact; whatever gadget you count on to tell you how many calories you burned in your workout, is usually grossly overestimating. That’s right. They cannot be relied on. You are likely burning 100+ calories less than what it tells you. So if you are eating back that inaccurate amount, you are not in a calorie deficit. This is why working out to burn calories creates an endless cycle of excessively working out and seeing no results. Because you are eating too many calories.

Don’t feel ashamed. Unfortunately there is lots wrong with the fitness industry and our smart gadgets that set you up for failure by telling you the crazy amount of calories you burned. Not to mention group fitness classes that advertise working out for “fat burn”. But now you are part of a lucky few that know the secret. Workout to workout, not to burn calories. Get your calories from your nutrition. Start using the 80% rule and doing your plate pushes.

One last note. If you have a calorie deficit for weight loss set by a professional coach, it is likely that they are using an equation to calculate your calorie deficit that already accounts for your activitiy level. For example, if there are two people who want to lose 20lbs and they have the same starting weight, but one person is a nurse on his feet all day and has been going to the gym already 3-4x/week while the other individual works a desk job and has no current workout routine, the nurse will have a slightly higher calorie deficit than his more sedentary counterpart.

It won’t be a drastic difference, but the point is your activitiy level should already be accounted for in the calorie defiict target you are prescribed. If you’re not sure, click the “work with me” tab on my page and I’ll get you where you need to be.

Thanks for reading this whole thing. You clearly want this. You can do it.