This blog is a follow up to last month's OPERATION BE LESS FAT - THE FIRST STEP TO FAT LOSS . That is where I told you to track your macros to find your maintenance calories. Now that you are armed with that information, it's time for the next step.

This step is how to actually lose fat and it's where most of you royally screw up the process. In the zeal to lose fat, people want to throw everything at the wall at once. They want to cut their calories, ramp up their training, and throw in a ton of conditioning and cardio.

While the above measures have good intent, they are really counterproductive. The problem is the body wants to adapt. It doesn't want to starve. That's why you see older people who can get by eating two crackers and a bowl of soup for the day. Their bodies have learned to adapt.

This is why you don't fire all your bullets at once in your quest to get leaner. Believe me, I have made this mistake. At one point my maintenance calories were below 2,000. That's really low for someone of my size, muscle mass, and activity level. I had to work really hard and be very patient in order to bring my calories up, but that's another blog for another day. Just learn from my mistake rather than making it on your own.

Now that I have cautioned you on going too fast too soon, what are you to do? The nice thing is, you have three options to choose from. These are not listed in any particular order. Start with what you'd like to do the most. Or, what you dread least. Either way, you get the point.

OPTION 1 - Start training If you are training already, you can ramp it up to focus on fat loss. I had a lot of success with a 5/3/1 CONDITIONING TRAINING BLOCK Jim Wendler helped me out with. It doesn't have to be fancy. There are tons of programs out there on metabolic and circuit training. Don't worry about finding the perfect program. Just find one that fits your time constraints and equipment needs and give it your all.

OPTION 2 - Cut your calories This is a tricky one. You want to cut the minimum you can to elicit the desired effect. You'll read a lot of places you need to cut 500 calories a day to lose one pound a week. This makes lots of different assumptions and is not necessarily true. I can't just give a random number because some people might be starting with their maintenance calories at 3,000 a day whereas some might be at 1,500. I recommend shooting for around a 15% deficit for starters.

OPTION 3 - Start conditioning/cardio work If you're already doing it, ramp it up either in intensity or duration. Much like the restricting calories theory, don't get all extra right off the bat with two hours of conditioning/cardio work a day. Remember, you are looking for the minimum effort to elicit the desired response.

The reason I'm telling you all to look for the minimum amount of calories or work to lose fat is that you will inevitably get stuck. You'll hit a plateau and this way you'll have somewhere to go. If you start by cutting 1,000 calories a day, while weight training, and doing an hour of cardio a day, what will you do when you get stuck? Is it realistic to do more work? Not really unless you are on a reality show or your getting paid to train.

Meanwhile, if you are only cutting 400 calories a day and you get stuck, you don't have to immediately reduce calories. You can start doing conditioning. Or you could start weight training. If you're already weight training you can change up your program to be more metabolic. Hopefully, you get the point.

With last month's blog along with this one, you are pretty well armed to start your fat loss program. Now it's up to you to do the work. Be on the lookout for next month's installment where I will share a bunch of tips that have really helped me along the way.