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Extreme Training: Real Fat Loss 5
July 9th, 2010categories: Diet and Nutrition, Extreme Training, Mental Muscle
Heavy Duty
Time to Move Things to the Next Level.
By now you should have a pretty good idea where you are with your eating habits. You should have made some decisions concerning the number of calories to cut from your diet on a daily basis as well as identify the weak points in your diet. If not, review the prior articles in this series.
In particular you should be aware of the Times during the Day when you have a difficult time sticking with your diet plan.
Armed with this information, it is time to Fine Tune your Fat Loss Plan.
Establish your baseline calorie intake amount. In other words, what number of calories do you have to eat in order to maintain the same weight? Maintaining your food journal is essential in this process. Keep in mind that fat loss is not an exact science and everybody responds differently to changes in diet. For example, some people gain a fair amount of water weight when they eat high salt foods. We are trying to get beyond these nuances and dial in the average number of calories you need to consume to stay at the same weight.
Once this is done, it is simply a matter of reducing the number of calories you take in to start to lose weight. However, our objective here is to lose fat, not muscle. This is where things get tricky.
First, you want to spread the calories you eat evenly across the day into five or six small meals.
There is a fair amount of information which suggests that eating smaller meals five or six times a day is beneficial for fat loss. Beware that there also advocates who say that eating one large meal a day is also the way to go. The problem is less one of science and more of psychology. What will you actually do? Eating one meal a day is hard to do.
That being said, it is easier to eat three meals a day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then add a snack during your weak times, or after a workout. This snack needs to be planned. For example. Breakfast at 8:00. Snack at 10:30. Lunch at 12:00. Snack at 3:00. Dinner at 6:00. Snack after workout at 8:00.
You can experiment by moving the number of calories involved in each meal to see if that makes it easier or harder to stick to your plan. For example, a larger snack at 10:30 may lead to a desire for a smaller lunch. Keep track of how you feel in your Diet Journal and see if you can come up with a plan that is actually easy to follow.
You can also experiment with the types of foods you eat at certain times and their effects. Fruit may make you hungry in the afternoon, but hit the spot in the morning. Rather than concern yourself with the types of calories – carbs, fats, or protein – at this point you are trying to find what works, in other words, what you will actually eat at the planned time.
Keep in mind that everybody is different. What works for one person may not work for another. That is why people have difficulty with intricate diets that tell you exactly what to eat and when. You may not want to eat a can of tuna for a snack, but are happy with a yogurt.
Second, you should make Healthy Substitutions as Possible. Eating before you get too hungry is a good tactic to employ in all cases. Often junk food is consumed because it is easy and accessible. If you have junk food in your house, throw it away. Eliminate the temptation from as many areas of your life as possible and eventually making the right choices will become easy. For example, Cheese Sticks make a nice snack. Something that makes you crave more and more of it, like chips or cookies, is not a good choice.
The reason why Junk Food is Bad, from our simple perspective here, is that it often leads to overeating. It is difficult to eat one potato chip. Once you eat one, you crave more. So, in a sense, the use of the term “junk food” here applies to foods that lead you to eat more than you should in order to maintain your daily caloric intake.
Remember, we are not focusing on what mix of carbs, protein and fat to eat. What matters at this stage is the number of calories you consume. If you want to eat something that others call “junk”, that’s OK as long as it doesn’t push you over your daily calorie targets.
Along the way you will discover that higher fat snacks, like cheese, tend to be more satisfying than salty carb snacks, like chips or pretzels. Of course, eating a balanced diet is important, but first we want to get the total number of calories under control. In other words, we are only focusing on one thing at a time. Eat less calories.
So, if you are really fond of a “junkie” snack, build it into your diet plan. Over time, your tastes, or nutritional requirements may change and you will find that the snack you used to crave just isn’t worth the calories.
Third, Reduce your Calories Slowly. In the last article we discussed reducing your caloric intake by 250 calories a day. See, Extreme Training: Real Fat Loss 4. That is not a very large amount, but over time, is very effective. In particular, your body does not sense that you are on a diet and does not shift into survival mode and try to spare every calorie by lowering your metabolism.
Most diets that are too calorie restrictive lead to a lowered metabolism and an even harder time loosing fat. Not to mention that many people become frustrated and quit the diet now that their metabolism is lowered which leads to Increased Fat Gain.
In this case, slow but steady works. And, if you keep maintaining your food journal, and start recording your measurements with a tape measure (you can record weight, but that is really a secondary concern at this time), you will see on a week by week basis, whether you have properly identified your baseline caloric needs and whether your reductions are causing the desired effect.
If nothing changes, it is time to take a closer look at your diet and perhaps slowly reduce some of the calories you consume until you reach the desired effect. Be patient! This process takes time and your body has many of its own tricks to play, as we will discuss later.
For now, work towards finding the baseline and making small reductions in calories.
Fourth, It is important that you Maintain your Current Fitness Activity Level During this Process. We are trying to make small adjustments in a way which provides us with information we can use in the future. Once your diet is dialed in we will turn to the important exercise component.
But for now, work on eating evenly spaced meals, making a slight reduction in calories, and recording everything you do as suggested above.
Once we have the daily caloric intake dialed in, it becomes mush easier to design and implement or make improvements to your training routine. Next installment of this series we will make the shift towards integrating your training in a way that helps Accelerate the Fat Loss Process.
If you found this article interesting or have any thoughts about this topic, please leave a comment below.
For now, Enjoy your Training and your Life!
Extreme Training: Real Fat Loss 2
June 18th, 2010categories: Diet and Nutrition, Extreme Training, Mental Muscle
What is this?
In order to get where you are going you need to know where you are.
What is this?
In the last article, Extreme Training: Real Fat Loss 1 we talked about 3 critical rules of fat loss: 1. Quick Fix Diets Don’t Work. 2. Exercise alone will not Eradicate Excess Fat. and 3. A Reduction in Body-fat Requires a Mixture of Diet and Exercise.
Now we take a look at the first step required to make a Lasting Impact on your Body-Fat Percentage.
Keep a Food Diary.
You need to keep track of Everything you Eat and Drink. Record what you eat and when you eat it. A small notebook can do the trick. Start this habit now!
Many people are surprised by the number of things that they eat during the day that they really don’t pay attention to. A chunk of cheese here, a candy bar (one of those miniature ones) there, a soda, a fruit smoothie (that can contain as much as 1,000 calories). The list goes on.
What you are looking for is Patterns. Is there a time of day when you seem to turn into an eating machine. Are there other stretches during the day where you go without eating anything for hours at a stretch.
What about Water? How Much Water do you drink during the day, verses coffee, diet or regular soda?
Once you have a sense of what your eating and drinking patterns are it becomes much easier to make adjustments.
But, in order for this to work you need to be honest - only you, or perhaps your trainer, will see the journal. You need to write everything down. It’s simple. Eat something, pull out your notebook and write down what it was and when you ate it. Got it?
After a week of keeping your journal you should be able to see patterns. Remember, observing these patterns is critical to being able to change things. In order to change it is far easier to know where to start. When it comes to diet, a small change can lead to big results. For example, eating 200 calories of snack food (approximately two medium size cookies) over the course of 17 days can easily lead to a Fat Gain of One Pound. Over the course of a year, those two daily extra cookies in your diet can lead to a Fat Gain of 21 Pounds! Do you know what 21 Pounds of Fat looks Like?
The point being, do not miss anything in your food diary – no matter how small or insignificant it may appear. Why? Because everything adds up.
Now, the good news is that once you have an accurate picture of your eating habits you can start to Target it on Specific Things to Change. For example, if you get hungry at 5:00, just before dinner and eat chips, and crackers and cheese and nuts and then a few pretzels (often whatever is around) you could try eating a yogurt at 4:00 and see if that helps you avoid the pre-dinner feeding frenzy.
It comes down to Numbers. If you can spread out what you eat over the day and cut down on a few things here and there – a cookie, a muffin, potato chips with dip because it is there, you can start to take control of what calories actually go into your body and when.
Will this make a difference? Absolutely. The first thing this does is help to make you aware that everything you eat has a consequence. Then, you will start to get a sense of where extra calories in your diet are coming from and can target them for action. If all you did was eliminate 200 calories of carbs and fat from your diet a day, that could either (depending on where you were in terms of your base-line calorie expenditure [more on this in the following article]) that could mean a Fat Loss of 1 Pound every 17 days or the Prevention of Gaining a Pound of Fat in that same period.
It all adds up. And, as you can learn from keeping a food journal, more of what you Eat is in your Control than you Might Imagine.
And, we are talking about making small changes which over time add up to big results. As a final example. once you find your calorie balance point – something we will discuss in the next article – a reduction of 100 calories a day will lead to a 10 pound fat loss over a year. Losing 10 Pounds of Fat a Year is a Tremendous Accomplishment. Especially when you consider that the reduction was so small it did require a radical form of diet (meaning it was not really very hard to do). And, if you don’t think a 10 Pound fat loss is a big deal, consider that in three years that number has grown to 30 pounds.
Of course, some people want to lose fat at a faster rate. With a higher level of commitment is can be done. It is possible to expect a fat loss rate of 1 Pound per Week. But for that to be a true fat loss amount requires hard work and focus. And all of that Work and Focus is based on understanding exactly what you did (or do) to get to where you are now. Once you know where you are, in terms of eating and drinking, you can create an Intelligent Plan for Fat Loss that is based on your levels of Commitment, Self Discipline, and Training Program.
No tricks, no secrets, and no magic formulas. The Process is Actually Simple.
In the next Article we will discuss how to use the information you have gathered in your food diary to design a Custom Fat Loss Plan.
If you found this Article helpful or have thoughts on this topic, please leave your comments below.
Until next time, keep track of what you eat and drink and get ready to make some Permanent Changes in your Body Fat Levels.
Have fun in your training and your life!
Extreme Training: Real Fat Loss 1
June 17th, 2010categories: Diet and Nutrition, Extreme Training, Mental Muscle
Weight and Speed
Weight and Speed
Losing Fat is Easy!
Maintaining your Target Body Fat Percentage or Size is another story.
This article will begin a series which is dedicated to helping you reach your ideal body fat level and stay there. We will start off with 3 things that you must know before you can reasonably expect to reach your fat level goals.
1. Quick Fix Diets don’t Work. The best you can expect from a quick fix diet is short-term weight loss, and most of that loss will be water and muscle, not fat. Think about it.
You got in the shape you are by doing, or not doing, the things that you do on a Consistent Basis. You do not get Fat by Accident. You look the way you do (and feel the way you do) because of your lifestyle. How you live. How you eat.
It is unfortunate that our bodies are so efficient at storing fat and yet so stubborn when it comes to letting the fat go. But for most people, that’s the way it is. In other words, it’s easy to gain fat, and not so easy to lose it. The amount of money that is spent by people desperate to shed unwanted fat pounds on fad diets, programs and food-systems tells us three things.
One, an awfully large number of people are unhappy with their Fat Levels.
Two, these same people are willing to try almost anything to get rid of the unwanted fat pounds.
Three, the diets don’t work and often make the problem worse. This leads to increased Desperation and Impulse Purchases of the latest and greatest fat loss schemes.
To make matters worse, most people that believe they are “successful” with their diets have merely succeeded in creating a Smaller Version of Themselves. In other words, their body fat percentages remain the same or even increase and what they lost was mostly muscle mass.
2. Exercise alone will not Eradicate Excess Fat.
How many skinny runners have you seen with a spare tire ? How can this happen? Again, the body is very efficient at storing fat and extremely stubborn at giving it up. It is possible to eliminate all of your extra body fat if you run far and fast enough (100 miles a week at a 7:00 pace should do it for most people). But you will also lose a tremendous amount of Muscle Mass. And look like a Stick. For some that is OK.
The newest fad in the fat loss world is an exercise program which promises to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Essentially, this system claims that you can get larger and smaller at the same time. Really.
Now, it is possible to Build Muscle and Loss Fat at the same time. But it really doesn’t happen at the same time and it requires a serious and ongoing commitment to Optimize your Diet. Which brings us to Rule 3.
3. A Reduction in Body-Fat Requires a Mixture of Diet and Exercise. In other words, you need to change your life-style or you will end up back where you started, no matter what you do. This should be obvious, but given the amount of money spent on Quick Diet Fixes it is anything but obvious.
If you understand that losing excess fat and then Maintaining a Lean Body requires a lifestyle change, you are firmly on the path to achieving your goals!
The next installment of this Series will help you begin the process to Design the Program you need to Achieve Your Fat Loss Goals.
If you found this article helpful (or painful) leave your comments below.
Enjoy your training and Enjoy your Life!
