In this 4-part Fat Loss 101 series, you'll be given the most basic and fundamental rules to lose weight. No complicated science. No alien jargon. Just basic and straight-to-the-point practical strategies and techniques in the most effective way possible for helping you achieve maximum fat loss in minimum time.
Many of you would like to lose a few extra pounds. You might have an extra 10, 15, or 20 pounds to lose for special occasions coming up like a wedding, job interview, going to the beach, etc. Maybe you just want to look good shirtless.
For you ladies, looking good in a bikini might be your goal right now. In this series, I'll attempt to lay out the most important facts you need to know to shed fat off your body.
But why is it so hard to drop those pounds in the first place? Often I see many people struggling to lose fat and I just wonder why they're having so much trouble since fat loss is a straightforward process.
Well, it's not really hard at all, if you know what you're doing and what you have to do first. You just have to know the fundamentals, but in this age of information overload, chances are you've gotten bad information in the past. If you're applying and using bad weight loss information, you're not going to see results, no matter how hard you try. That's because you're not even on the right track if you're using fat loss dieting strategies that don't work.
To lose fat successfully, you have to do the right things, the right way. Understand the concepts first, then take action with the concepts into a proper training and dieting regimen for maximum fat loss. This is the first underlying fundamental you must sink your head into first to align yourself with the fat loss process. Knowledge first, then action.
A side note: take some time to read this article by nutritionist and supplement industry expert Will Brink, "The Big Picture of Permanent Weight Loss" and you'll get a much clearer idea of how the weight loss process really works.
The first 2 parts (including this one) of this series will focus on the nutrition factors to weight loss success. Some of your most common questions will be answered,
- what do I have to eat to lose weight?
- how many calories do I have to eat?
- what are the best fat loss supplements?
- will dieting be enough to lose weight?
- what exercises do I have to do?
The third part of this series focuses on exercise. Not just any exercise but exercise that's geared towards maximum fat loss. Many people seem to be confused on the best types of exercise and exercise modalities for losing fat so that section will clarify all the misconceptions about proper fat loss workouts.
Finally, the fourth part of the Fat Loss 101 series will be a 5-step action guide where I will walk you step by step how to put the fat loss principles you've learned into a full fat loss program that will help you lose lots of weight. And I'll conclude with a short resources section to further enhance your fat loss education. No more guesses. You'll finally learn how to lose fat the correct way for fast results.
Dieting Sucks!
Now before I introduce the first nutrition concept, I want to briefly talk about why traditional dieting sucks. The typical scenario is to cut more than 1,000 calories from what you're used to eating, or eat below 1,400 calories. You may be guilty of this right now or in the past.
Starvation diets are not the best way to lose fat despite the calories in and calories out rule you're so familiar with. Not all calories are created equal. Yes, eating less calories will help you lose weight but starving yourself and barely eating anything is a totally different story.
When you drop calories too low, your body switches to starvation mode, which is a protective mechanism in your body, developed through thousands of years of physical evolution, that decreases metabolism and your fat burning capabilities. When starvation mode kicks in, your body ultimately slows down the rate at which you burn calories. Your body tries to hold on as much fat as possible. It increases fat storing enzymes! You store fat instead of burning it off.
Your body will also start burning your precious muscle mass instead since it's a readily available source of energy. And muscle is responsible for maintaining a high metabolism; one extra pound of muscle burns an extra 40-50 calories a day.
Over time, your appetite goes up and without any surprises, you quit the dieting, with less muscle as metabolism drops. You'll feel sluggish and weak. The temptation to eat will be too tough for you to starve yourself any further. The result might be 10 lbs lost on a 2 months starving diet, but most of the pounds lost was muscle mass. You're trying to lose fat, not muscle.
There is a clear difference between fat loss and muscle loss. Both fat and muscle factors into your total weight. So if the goal is weight loss, you're really aiming for fat loss. Once you're off the starvation diet, you go back to eating what you normally eat but you end up gaining weight, with the same amount of calories you previously ate before you dieted!
And once you go back to starvation diets, you'll lose even more muscle over fat, your metabolism slows even more, and the spiral continues...until you do it right. This is yo-yo dieting. Yo-yo dieting sucks. It doesn't work.
What's wrong with traditional dieting?
Yo-yo dieting is insanity. By starving yourself and losing muscle rather than fat, you're just repeating what didn't work and doing it over and over again instead of finding a more balanced solution. That's what insanity is. Repeating something that didn't work in the past over and over again and expecting different results each time.
So if the past diets you were on were failures, why would you even repeat them?
Take a past, present, and future perspective to fat loss. If the diets and exercising you did in the past never worked and you never saw results for your efforts, then don't repeat the same mistakes. Chalk it up as lessons to learn instead. It's time to find the correct ways to lose fat (which is what this series is for), and then put it all to action and start expecting and seeing results in the future.
The 32 year old Housewife: Fat Loss, not Weight Loss
Let's take a 32 year old housewife named Jane as an example of someone who's struggled to lose weight. At a current weight of 150 lbs after having her second baby, she wants to get back to her former 130 lbs self when she was 22 years old. She goes on this celery and water diet she found from Cosmos mag that has her eating only 1,200 calories a day and doing an hour of very slow cardio 4 times a week.
Two months later, she still looks the same despite dropping 10 lbs. Her waist and thigh sizes hasn't gone down much and that's because she became a smaller version of her fat self.
The fat is still there. The majority of the 10 lbs lost was muscle, not fat. Now at 140 lbs with less muscle, her metabolism is much slower than when she started at 150 lbs. And then she wonders why she's gained the weight back after going off the diet, despite eating the same number of calories.
If she tries to go on the same starvation celery and water diet again, she'll lose even more muscle, her metabolism (see "Learn how to boost your metabolism to maximize fat loss") takes another dip, and she will gain more weight if she goes off the diet the second time around.
Remember, you're trying to lose fat, not muscular weight.
This is the bottom line,
The less you eat, the more fat you'll eventually gain!
This is the brutal irony of dieting. With Fat Loss 101, you'll learn how to lose fat the right way. So instead of temporarily dieting, you're going to focus on taking a more comprehensive approach to weight loss, represented by this equation below,
Exercise + Nutrition + Recovery = Fitness Goals
The equation can be adapted specific fitness goals. A fitness goal can be anything: run faster, build muscle and strength, improve strength muscular endurance, jump higher/farther, swim longer, etc. In your case, it's finding out how to lose fat and general weight loss,
Exercise + Nutrition + Recovery = Fat Loss
Each factor of the equation can then be divided into sub-principle factors for fat loss success,
Exercise Variety and Modalities + Macronutrient Balance + Calorie Deficit + Supplementation + Sleep = Fat Loss
You'll be using a variety of different exercises and formats for exercise. This includes weight training, distance work like running, sprinting, and biking, bodyweight exercises, and general conditioning workouts. You'll be eating a balanced diet (with carbs, proteins, and fats...no fad diets here) that has you eating more than you're used to when dieting. Starvation diets are out. And you'll need lots of sleep for recovery to really see results.
As you see from these equations, synergy is the key here. Each principle of each factor of the main fat loss equation has to be taken into consideration and applied to your fat loss program for real long term results.
You see the dieting and calorie deficit aspects from the fat loss equation but you also see the exercise component. Exercise is the other often neglected part of weight loss so we'll refocus our efforts on exercise (specifically a combination of strength training/resistance training and high intensity cardiovascular conditioning) and put a new perspective on effective workouts for fat loss.
Now let's move onto the next part of Fat Loss 101 where you'll learn about the principles of nutrition centered on metabolism management and calorie deficits.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
Pink Sherbet Photography
DuesXFlorida
Focaum
How the heck does this guy drop below 4% bodyfat without drugs or supplements?
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder who regularly competes at 4% bodyfat and below. The fact is, there are probably very few people who truly understand fat loss better than Tom does, simply because he doesn't just research it or write about it - he lives it! (and has the ripped abs to prove it!)
What Tom reveals in his best-seller e-book, Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle, is essential knowledge if you want to get really, really lean, and until you understand these principles, you can't even hope to get lean enough to see your abs - which is what we all want right? Find out how it's done by visiting Tom's website at:
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