Bodybuilder Erin Stern is determined to help you shed unwanted fat for the summer. In a recent YouTube video, Stern walked fans through her five tips for accelerating fat loss to help you achieve your physique goals.
As a two-time Figure Olympia champion (2010, 2012), Erin Stern reached the top of the sport thanks to her firm understanding of nutrition and exercise. She has applied her knowledge successfully as an IFBB Pro League talent. In addition to her decorated tenure as a Figure contender, Stern has made waves in the Bikini category, having won the 2022 Republic of Texas Pro.
From mastering the mind-muscle connection to her detailed training and dieting principles for toning the body, Stern knows how to craft an effective fitness plan. If achieving fat loss is on your agenda, Stern has a handful of pointers that will steer you in the right direction.
Erin Stern’s 5 Effective Tips for Burning Fat
- Inefficient exercises
- Think Big
- Volume
- Intensity
- Bonus
Before detailing each of her five tips, Stern explained why caloric deficits play a consequential role in fat loss.
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“When it comes to fat loss, the number one key is to be in a caloric deficit and this simply means that you’re eating less calories than what you burn but we can in fact keep our calories relatively high if we’re able to boost our metabolic rate, boost our energy output. There is a term for this called G-flux and this is something that I love to do rather than decreasing my caloric intake by too much.”
Inefficient exercises
According to Stern, ‘inefficient exercises’ like burpees, kettlebell swings, battle ropes, and plyometrics are going to give you the ‘best bang for your buck.’
“I want you to think in terms of inefficient exercises. So think inefficiency. All this means is that these are exercises that are going to require you to stabilize a lot more, to use explosive power, to use more muscles, and a lot of inefficient exercises will be burpees, kettlebell swings, battle ropes, plyometrics, and chances are if you think of these exercises, they are the ones you inherently do not like. But I’m telling you, they are the ones that are going to be most effective and are going to give you your best bang for your buck.”
Think Big
Instead of isolation movements, Stern says to ‘think big’ with compound exercises, using inverted rows or pulldowns as examples.
“Number two. Think big. What I mean by this is if you have a dedicated arm day, for example, you may be doing some biceps curls, you may be doing triceps pushdowns, these are your single joint or isolation movements. Wherever possible, swap these out for big exercises or compound movements.
These are your multi-joint exercises so for example instead of your biceps curls, you might do an inverted row or you might do a pulldown with a close grip, leaning back just a little bit so you’re hitting your biceps but you’re also hitting the back as well. Adding in some of these larger muscles is going to equate to a much higher calorie burn.”
Volume
Next, Stern took a closer look at how volume can affect fat loss while you’re working out at the gym.
“You’re getting active recovery of that muscle. For example, if you’re doing a dumbbell bench press, your back is resting while you’re doing the bench press then you switch over to do dumbbell rows, your chest is resting while your back is doing the work.”
By focusing on volume, Stern says you keep the heart rate up which helps with fat loss efforts.
But guess what’s still going? That heart rate and you’re keeping your heart rate up. This is a great way to cut your workout time almost in half and get a greater volume and increase your work capacity. Get some cardio benefits while you’re lifting.”
Intensity
She adds that proper intensity boosts calorie burn and helps build muscle.
“Think intensity. Now, intensity is going to help in a few different ways. It’s going to really boost calorie burn and it’s going to help build muscle. It’s going to help build that fast twitch muscle, specifically, which is something that we tend to lose.”
Stern says this tip is crucially important as we tend to lose the fibers needed to lift heavy weights as we age.
“That is the fire muscle fiber type, the quick muscles that help you lift heavy. These are the muscle fiber types that we typically lose as we get older. If you’re able to train with intensity, especially at the beginning of the workout, this is exactly where you want this to be,” said Stern.
Bonus
Lastly, Stern advocated for regular activity throughout the day, quality sleep, and proper protein intake.
“Three things that are really going to help accelerate your fat loss results. Number one walking and activity throughout the day. So, I’m not really a fan of slow steady state cardio. That’s just because the body is amazingly adaptive right? So if you start with 15 minutes of cardio this week, next week you might need 18-20 minutes to get the same results.”
“Make sure sleep is good. If it’s not, don’t be afraid to take a day off. Lastly, protein. Protein is really just the building block of every cell in the body. It is responsible for so much, it can help with satiety, it can boost metabolism, it has a mild diuretic effect. As we get older we are typically less able to digest and assimilate protein.”
We all recognize the physical advantages of working out, but what about the psychological impact of a good sweat session? Erin Stern has openly shared that exercising can provide the same positive effects as attending a therapy session.
From muscle building to fat loss goals, Erin Stern always provides her fans with useful advice for bettering their lives. Feel free to incorporate her five tips for fat loss into your next couple of workouts.
RELATED: Erin Stern Explains How To Perform Bulgarian Split Squats, Offers Core and Glute-Focused Variations
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