The original was posted here just over a year ago so might be alittle outdasted to what i know now...i thought that it was over here too but i don;t think it is:
http://steelmuscle.freeforums.org/the-d ... -t107.html
Fat Loss, everyone's Achilles Heel. Most of us go into a sense of denial, and only then try and address the situation. And the worse thing is, the longer you take to act, the more you're going to have to lose. This article will go into how we can attain fat (apart from too much food and no exercise), how we can train to make our exercise programs as efficient at fat burning as we can and most important of all, how to devise a nutrition plan that is easy and enjoyable to follow.
Measuring Body Composition
There are numerous ways that you can evaluate body composition. There is the Body Mass Index (BMI), basic scale reading, body fat percentage reading and the easy method of noting how our clothes fit and how you look in the mirror. preferred method is to go by body fat percentage. main reason behind this is because you can be "skinny fat" like a runner where your muscle mass and weight is so low that even though you might have little to moderate to fat on your body, the small amount of muscle mass causes your body fat to be higher percentage wise, so therefore a muscle building program would be in order.
Where possible, take your weight on a scale that also provides a water percentage reading as well as a body fat reading. This can allow you to break everything down into kilograms or pounds. All you need to do is simply multiply your total weight by the percentage of body fat and water. Below is one of calculations from about 2 months ago
Body Weight – 74.2kgs
Body Fat % - 11.6%
Water % - 61.8%
From these numbers we can actually work out how we fare in actual kilograms to really determine what’s going on. Hopefully you can follow the calculations below.
To determine your body fat in kgs, simply multiply your body weight by your body fat %.
74.2 x .116 = 8.61kgs of fat
To determine your water weight in kgs, simply multiply your bodyweight by your water %.
74.2 x .618 = 45.81kgs of water (this also includes organs, bones etc)
From here we can now determine our ever important muscle weight.
8.61 (body fat) + 45.81 (water) = 54.47
74.2 (body weight) – 54.47 (fat + water weight) = 19.73kgs of muscle
Every time you measure you should break it down like this because a loss of muscle is the last thing we want, even with a loss of body fat.
Metabolism
The most important aspect of fat loss is your metabolism. The bulk of calories burnt come from your resting metabolic rate so that’s what we need to increase and the metabolism increase from a single session can last up to 36 hours so 1 workout every 2nd day can have you burning fat constantly. Your metabolism is basically a bunch of organs and glands (thyroid, pancreas, stomach, small and large intestines and the colon) that are responsible for regulating how your body burns food for fuel and how it converts that food into energy. Having a slow metabolism means that you can eat only a little amount of food and still gain weight and if you do have a slow metabolism, there's a good chance that one of more of the systems above is out of balance or simply not functioning properly.
The best ways to increase your metabolism is to eat smaller meals more regularly which will provide the body with a steady stream and volume of nutrients and to exercise intensely (sprinting, resistance etc) which will burn up any excess calories that you have consumed as well as build muscle at a more efficient rate. Simply by adding 3 pounds of muscle (without fat gain) can result in a 7% metabolism increase which underlines the importance of anaerobic training over aerobic training for fat loss.
For those with a normal to fast metabolism, a good detriment to see for non workout meal timing is perceived body temperature. When you're hot after eating, you're expanding diet induced thermogenesis which means your metabolic rate is elevated because your body is processing the ingested food. People who can eat and not gain fat are like furnaces and simply burn off more than they take in. If your goal is to gain muscle mass and you’re in 24 hour mass mode you should be hot all the time. If you’re in a temperature controlled environment and you're not feeling warm, you need to eat again. This ensures that you’re always in an overfed state even if hunger says otherwise. After a couple of weeks of this you will get to know how different foods effect you and this will aid you in the planning each meal.
Insulin
If you've read any book on dieting in the 5 - 10 years you will be familiar with insulin and its effect on the body. Insulin aids with muscle growth and repair but can also store excess blood sugar as adipose tissue when you eat too much sugar and bad foods. Frequent eating of processed and refined foods causes continual insulin secretion and leads to insulin insensitivity where the body can no longer control insulin release from the pancreas.
An important positive function of insulin is its ability to take blood sugar and convert it into muscle and liver glycogen for use later during activity but if you are movement deficient (not enough) and you eat the aforementioned foods, your blood sugar rises and insulin is secreted from the pancreas to reduce blood sugar to its normal level, with the excess sugar being converted to glycogen in the muscles and sent back for storage in the liver and muscles. This is where the problem lies because when your liver and muscles are already full you get a spillover effect so you then store the insulin as triglycerides or fatty acids (body fat). As your bad eating and lack or exercise continues, it spills over time and time again causing fat gain.
Insulin resistance is when your cell receptors are unable to accept glucose as energy which leads to more blood sugar rises and fat gain. The cell receptors generally shut down as they are getting pounded by excess insulin and high blood sugar levels and the pancreas must release more insulin to get the job done and eventually ceases to operate functionally and can actually release insulin when it’s not needed.
To keep blood sugar and insulin systems functioning at peak efficiency and to stay lean and healthy, focus on increasing movement rather than decreasing calories, avoid rapid weight fluctuations, drink lots of water, eat plenty Essential Fatty Acids 9EFA’s), avoid excessive alcohol as well as avoiding refined foods.
A Little More on Body Fat
For the body to reduce body fat it needs to know it can safely get by with such low body fat and for most people there is a certain point during fat loss where the body wants to maintain its, current body fat level. This is usually where you can't seem to shake off stubborn fatty spots such as hips, thighs and no matter what you do. This is your body telling you that it doesn't want to go any lower body fat wise and if you keep trying to lose body fat than muscle will be lost and therefore fat gain will increase.
On the other hand though, if you’ve been down to low body fat % before but have blown out a little, it will be easier to get back there as the body will "remember" that it can function at that level. If you have dieted down by being extremely strict with your food and you usually hover around 15% body fat, as soon as your diet and / or exercise slips, the body will try to go back to 15% body fat as quick as it can as it feels comfortable there. This is the prime reasons why diets don't work but long term nutrition plans and lifestyle changes do.
Spot Reduction
I think we all know by now that you can't reduce fat in specific areas and that if you lose body fat, than you'll lose it from all over the body although you can lose quickly from some spots before others although you will have no control of the order that the body will draw fat from for energy. In general it's easier to lose upper body fat as the body will use this before middle and lower body fat as its covering vital organ's that we need to survive and in most cases, lower body fat won't start to decrease until nearly, if not all upper body fat is oxidised.
Females need to note that their bodies are different than males in body fat respects. Female body’s resist going below 13% body fat because it holds extra fatty tissue for a fetus and maintains energy reserves to stabilise hormonal production. Below are age related body fat % readings for both males and females.
Recommended Body Fat %
Age up to 30 30 – 50 50+
Females 14 – 21% 15 – 23% 16 – 25%
Males 9 – 15% 11 – 17% 12 – 19%
You Can't Out Train a Bad Diet
This is rule number 1. A great percentage of those looking to drop wt will either:
a) drop calories dramatically,
b) increase activity dramatically, or
c) both
Whichever of these options you opt for, it will not yield sustainable benefits. If you drop your calories too much, than your activity intensity and / or duration will suffer as you would not have fuelled the body enough for exercise. If you increase activity without increasing calories, than you’ll get the same result. Both together, well you get the picture.
From experience with clients, most don't eat enough. They eat too little (and usually exercise too little) and too infrequently, which decreases metabolism (refer to part 1) which we talked about earlier. As well as frequency and portioning, meal timing is also an important element. All meals should be just about equal in portion size as well as being equally spaced. Here is what happens when you only have 3 meals a day:
7 a.m. – You have big breakfast which triggers insulin release (refer to part 1) which stores excess carbs as body fat with the rest increasing blood sugar to fuel activity and prevent fat burning for a few hours. If you miss breakfast, you start burning muscle immediately
10 a.m. – blood sugar level is low and starvation mechanism kicks in and you burn muscle for energy while conserving fat
12 a.m. – same as breaky
3 p.m. – same as 10
7 p.m. – because you've missed another you have big dinner which triggers another insulin surge, blunting fat burning and storing more fat
9:30 p.m. – starvation mechanism kicks in again and you either burn muscle or you binge which feeds your fat cells. If you don't eat than you'll waste muscle from now until you have breakfast.
This underlines the importance of smaller and more frequent meals.
For some it may seem a lot to eat but with the right foods such as solid protein, fruit, vegetables and salad, the total food volume may be high but the calorie total will not. This is what you should strive to do, eat as much as you can but by keeping within your calorie limit. It is also worth noting that the more fat you are, the more efficient your body is at storing carbs and fats which will also dictate the volume and timing of their consumption.
Post Workout Nutrition
The most neglected meal is the post workout meal. Everything should be based around breakfast and your post workout meal/s, than fill in the gaps. A "pre and / or post workout window plan" should be developed which is to be followed before and / or after every training session. This is a period where your body will be the most receptive to food. Unfortunately it can also be abused because of this very reason. Some think that because they will use whatever foods they eat, it is a time to consume cheat foods. This is all well and good and is the best time to have them but your recovery is compromised. I usually tell client's that if they know that they are going for tea or a party where they might veer off their nutrition plan, try and do a pretty intensive workout beforehand so that metabolism ramps up and some of the excess calories can be used or stored in the muscles and not as fat.
What I stress to them though is that, don't have it REPLACE their post workout meal but rather have it on top of it. So you might workout at 4:00pm, have post workout shake immediately upon finishing at 5:00pm, have post workout solid meal at 5:45pm than get ready and go out at 6:30 without guilt. In opinion it's better to overeat to support muscle growth than to under eat and waste it but only sparingly.
A post workout window plan might be as follows:
- 60mins (pre workout): Apple and 1 Tin of Tuna (the contents of this meal is optional but you still want some slow digesting carbs and protein)
0mins: Workout x 60mins
+ 60mins: Post Workout Protein Shake and 1 Bowl of Cerial with Skim Milk
+ 90mins: 100g Chicken, 2 x Slices of Multi Grain Bread, 1 Cup of Steamed Vegetables
This window should be placed before and after every workout you do providing they are resistance training workouts. If they are cardio only workouts than depending on the intensity of it, calories may need to be adjusted.
It is important to note that fat should be minimised at this time as it will only slow digestion so the window cannot be taken full advantage of.
Breakfast
As Grand Ma says, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that is true. While sleeping, your body has been deprived of nutrients for at least 7 - 10 hours. If you did this while you were awake you'd most probably pass out if you tried to do anything remotely intensive which is why fasted morning workouts aren’t the greatest either. The body recovers and muscle growth occurs while you are resting so by the time you rise the next day, everything you consumed has been utilised, hopefully for the best (muscle growth etc). Similar to the post workout meal, the body is also highly receptive to food at this time and should set you up for the entire day raising your metabolism and kick starting your body for a new day.
It should be the biggest meal of the day (in respective to your total calorie intake) also as it will all be utilised with no spill over so it is the best time to consume a high carb type meal such as cerial, toast with some fruit juice or just a plain old fruit salad. However some protein is required at this time to keep amino acid supply to the muscles for preservation. The more fat you are then less carbs should be consumed here for optimal benefits.
Fat Loss Plateau
As discussed in the previous installment, fat loss plateaus will arise when the body gets to a point it's not comfortable with. The best way to deal with this is to purposefully maintain where you are so that the body can get comfortable at its new weight and shape. Once it is, you can continue to lose body fat again and repeat the process whenever you reach a plateau again.
There will also come a point where you will not be able to just continue to decrease calories to keep muscle preserved and metabolism high. The best way is to drop calories a little and then increase activity a little at the same time or more so than dramatically increase activity and / or decrease calories.
Carbohydrates
For fat loss, a smart carb approach is where all simple carbs are consumed during your post workout meal and the rest are from oatmeal, vegetables and maybe some fruit at breakfast. The rest of the day, eat lots of protein, vegetables, salad and healthy fats. The body can store 300 – 400 grams of glycogen in the muscle cells at one time and then uses 100 grams per session, 100 grams for basic functions and 100 grams for muscle growth so you can still consume a moderate amount of carbs and you should, especially when training intensively.
Protein
Whatever training plan you are following, protein should be included at every meal and is of greater importance within a total fat loss plan. Protein, especially solid sources, has a high “thermic effect" which means that your body has to “work hardâ€
The Definitive Guide to Fat Loss and Abs
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Re: The Definitive Guide to Fat Loss and Abs
thnx. great
Re: The Definitive Guide to Fat Loss and Abs
Nice to see your still alive 