NUTRITON RULES FATING FOR FAT LOSS

Here's everything you need to know about eating for fat loss

 

If losing body fat is your main aim, what you do in the kitchen is as important to your chances of success as what you do in the gym.

   It doesn't matter how hard or effectively you train if you're are not as disciplined when sticking to the nutrition plans detailed in this blog. Each one is designed to give you the nutrients you need at the right time so you have the energy to train hard and recover well.

   The good news is that eating for fat loss isn't complicated, as long as you are disciplined stick to a number of key rules. Each meal plan has been built around these considerations, so following them exactly will result in reduced body fat and increase muscle mass. Here are the seven fundamental rules behind the plan.

 

1 GREEN IS GOOD

Vegetables should be the foundation of your diet and every time you sit down to eat half your plate should be covered in a variety of veg, which contains crucial fiber and lots of other healthy elements. Vegetables do contain carbs, but far less than bread, pasta or potatoes - you'd have to eat half a kilo of asparagus to get the same amount of carbs as in a single whole-meal pita bread. For more about carbs click here

 

2 FOCUS ON PROTEIN

Protein is one of the most important components of this nutrition plan. When you eat a high-protein diet, you're generally less hungry, so you eat less and lose weight as a result. It's difficult to eat too much protein but not to get too little, so stick to the serving suggestions in the plans.

 

3 DON'T FEAR FAT

Fat does not make you fat. In fact, you need to consume good-quality fats if you want to burn body fat because this macronutrient has a role in energy expenditure, vitamin storage and making the hormone testosterone, which also increases muscle mass. There's no need to avoid the fats in red meat, avocado and nuts, but you shouldn't eat hydrogenated and trans fats - those found in cakes, biscuits and other processed foods - because these will derail your  
fat-loss mission. Plus they're really bad for you.

"It may seem strange to eat steak and broccoli first thing, but this will get your metabolism firing to burn body fat"

 

4 START THE DAY SMART

Think of breakfast like any other meal : you need a blend of protein, fats and veg. It may seem strange to eat steak and broccoli first thing, but such a breakfast will start the supply of quality nutrients to your muscles and get your metabolism firing to burn body fat.

 

5 CALORIES DON'T COUNT

Still locked into the old-school 'calories in, calories out' rule for fat loss? Here's a quick question: which will make you fat, 2,000 calories from ice cream or 2,000 calories of chicken and veg? Be honest - you know the answer to this already. The intake of the correct macronutrients is ultimately more significant than mere calorie counting. That said, you can't just scoff thousands of calories worth of healthy food - 5,000 calories from steak is still a lot of calories. The aim is to hit the correct macronutrient numbers to build muscle and burn fat without eating any extra unnecessary calories. So stick to the portion sizes in the meal plans.

 

6 FREE RAGE IS KEY

Free range animals have a more varied diet and obtain a lot more exercise, which allows the development of more muscle, which in turn means they contain more zinc, vitamin B, A and K, amino acids, iron, selenium, phosphorus and zinc. Farm-raised salmon have also been found to contain up to eight times the level of carcinogens as the wild sort, thanks to cramped conditions and poor-quality feed, while grass-fed beef tends to have much more conjugated linoleic acid and omega 3s than the kind fed on grain and beef tallow. In fact, free gange meat and fish is so nutritionally dissimilar to cage-reared that it's basically different food.

 

7 FAT REAL FOOD

If you follow the meal plans in this blog you'll follow this by default, but it's a useful rule to remember at all times. Aim to eat only food that grows out of the ground or that once had a face. Alternatively, think like a hunter-gatherer. Ask yourself if a given food would have existed 5,000 years ago. If not, you probably shouldn't eat it. Avoid things containing preservatives that you can't spell or ingredients you wouldn't keep in the kitchen. And eat things that will not eventually, so that you know they're fresh.

TRAINING FOR FAT LOSS BASICS PART TWO

Discover the best way to exercise if you want to burn fat

DEBT PAID

During intense periods of exercise your lungs can't take in enough oxygen to provide your body with what it needs. This has the effect of creating an 'oxygen debt' within your body.

  Just like any debt, this deficit needs to be repaid. Your body does this by increasing the amount of oxygen it consumes in the hours after your exercise session has finished. This phenomenon is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC "Simply picking up a heavy bar once and then walking away isn't the right approach to take" and this period of increased oxygen intake also increases the rate at which you burn calories (for a more detailed explanation of how EPOC works to burn fat, see the box, right).

  Another benefit of any form of high-intensity exercise is that it causes lactic acid to accumulate in your muscle cells. While this build-up is responsible for the unpleasant feelings of 'muscle burn', elevated levels of this compound - which is a by-product of glucose metabolism ' are thought to lead to an increase in the release of fat-torching growth hormones in the hours following your workout.

 

REST ASSURED  

But while lifting weights is one of the best ways to burn fat, simply picking up a heavy bar once and then walking away isn't the right approach to take. Yes, doing so will eventually make you stronger, but it will have very little effect on your body-fat levels.

  You need to lift weights in a specific way to elicit the desired fat-burning response. For this program that means you need to approach your three weekly weight training sessions in the same manner as you do the Cardio session. That means working hard for a set period and then taking a short rest before lifting again.

  Never giving your body quite enough time to recover is critical to whether your efforts to burn fat will be successful or not. This technique, which really pushes you out of your comfort zone, is known as 'accumulated fatigue' and results in the maximum number of muscle fibers being broken down. It's also responsible for elevating lactic acids in your muscles and forcing your heart and lungs to work really hard. These factors combine to increase lean muscle mass and reduce fat stores to give you a better body.

"Never giving your body quite enough time to recover is critical to whether your efforts to burn fat will be successful"

  
 That's why the workouts on this blog are based around two giant sets of four moves. Taking very little rest between each individual exercise keeps your heart rate high and does the maximum amount of damage for you stick rigidly to the rest periods detailed in each workout table (see p24 for more on workout tables) . The longer you rest between the exercises, the less effective the workout will be and the less likely you are to get the incredible results you want.

 

THE LAST WORD

Even if you do everything right in the gym and perform the workouts perfectly, you'll still fall short of making positive changes to the way you look if you don't stick to this program's eating plan. It may be an old fitness cliché, but like all clichés it's based on more than a little truth : you can't out-train a bad diet.

  Turn to the next artical now to understand how the six-week nutrition plan works and gain all the information you need to succeed.

TRAINING FOR FAT LOSS BASICS PART ONE

Discover the best way to exercise if you want to burn fat

Your body wants you to be fat. Not obese or overweight, but not so lean that your six-pack is on show either. It isn't that it's incredibly modest, but from an evolutionary perspective excess body fat is what kept your ancestors alive. When food was scarce their fat stores gave them the energy to survive and, more importantly, breed. It's how you're here today, reading this blog.

   But just because your body wants to maintain a decent level of body fat to ensure your survival should times turn tough, it doesn't mean you can't significantly reduce the amount you carry by following the right training and nutrition plan.

DO IT RIGHT TO BURN FAT

However, it you thought the best way to burn away your excess body fat was to go for regular long-distance runs at a steady pace, it's time to think again.

  For years people have mistakenly believed steady-state Cardio endurance exercise is the most effective method to lose weight. In fact, regularly performing such long, show sessions-whether of running, rowing, cycling or swimming - isn't the right way to get thinner. This is especially true if such training is complemented by a nutrition plan based around carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes and bread.

OPPOSITE EFFECT

In some cases too much Cardio training can actually  lead to an increase in body fat because running for hours on end places a great deal of the stress hormone cortisol instructs your body to store more of the energy you consume as fat and also has a nasty side effect of breaking down muscle tissue.

   Long, slow sessions do not keep your body in the mythical 'fat-burning zone', where body fat is prioritized over other energy stores to fuel your efforts. Still need convincing? Just look at amateur marathon runners. The majority doesn't have rippling muscles, lean waists or six-packs.

GET INTENSE "TORCHING BODY FAT AND TRAINING"

The best method of torching body fat is to combine weight training “The best method of torching body fat is to combine weight training with high-intensity sessions of running, rowing or cycling” with high-intensity Cardio sessions, during which you run, row or cycle at intense levels for short periods.

   Both these methods have a similar effect on your body. They cause a spike in testosterone - the male sex hormone responsible for a host of functions ranging from increased libido to higher muscle and lower body-fat levels. Levels of human growth hormone are also heightened after weight-training workouts, which instructs your body to burn fat and build new muscle tissue.

  Weight training and high-intensity Cardio also significant work your cardiovascular system. Increasing the rate at which your heart and lungs have to work to pump blood, oxygen and other nutrients around your body has a positive effect on reducing body-fat levels.

  Don't forget to follow these tips.