INTRODUCTION
There are not many “sure things” in life. Almost every worthwhile endeavor comes with a certain degree of risk and no assurance of the outcome. In the case of chiseling your body into a lean machine, there’s always some trial, error and experimentation necessary, especially because each person’s genetics, body type and physiology are so unique. There can be great value in the trial and error process as a learning experience, but what if you could skip the unnecessary trial and error by placing your bets on “sure things” instead of guessing or gambling?
That would be great wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, in the health and fitness field, there appear to be fewer “sure things” than anywhere else!
Fitness experts are known for having opinions and theories that range from one extreme to another. Many competing fat loss programs represent polar opposites: high carb vs low carb being the most common example.
Scientists often end their papers with, “more research is needed” and they rarely stick their necks out and take a strong stand, unless the evidence is air-tight and rock-solid.
And then there are some questions where the answers are just not known yet.
But amidst all the chaos, confusion and conflicting advice of the nutrition and fitness world, there are a small handful of “SURE THINGS” and you’re about to learn them all…
These are things that most of the researchers and most of the fitness and dietetic professionals agree on.
Of course, we will never get 100% consensus on exercise or nutrition, because science is continuously unfolding and one decade’s “sure thing” has been known to become the next decades “myth busted.” Should we close our minds and accept our current “sure things” as final, we may be closing our minds to future discoveries and potential for advancement.
Even if we get a nearly unanimous vote, there’s almost always a lone dissenter out there somewhere, and people sometimes believe weird things, even in the face of science. People also often believe in their dietary approaches NOT for scientific reasons, but for environmental, spiritual or humanitarian reasons.
Nevertheless, if we use science as our guide, then the weight of the current evidence is heavy enough that we can say these are as close to SURE THINGS as we can get, and that you can’t go wrong by applying these principles in your own fat loss program immediately…
SURE THING #1: FOCUS ON THE CALORIC DEFICIT
One thing that virtually the entire scientific community agrees on is that the law of energy balance is always with us. In order to lose body fat, you must burn more calories than you consume.
This is known as having a “caloric deficit.”
Although there are a few people who still claim that “calories don’t count,” I will be as bold as to say that those people are mistaken.
PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY: There is a huge difference between saying “you don’t have to count calories” and “calories don’t count.”
Some diet programs are “ad libitum” in nature. This means they do not advise calorie counting; they simply tell you what to eat and what not to eat. You eat as you please, as long as you follow the food restrictions provided.
What they usually don’t tell you is that the eating restrictions are the equivalent of having built-in automatic calorie control. These programs do not refute the law of energy balance, they confirm it.
When a diet program claims, “Eat as much as you want and still lose weight”, you are hearing a Big Fat Lie. Incidentally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says it is illegal to make this claim in advertisements and they can sue you if you do.
Many people still deny the law of calorie balance in the face of scientific evidence.
For example, some of the old school low-carbers are notorious for disputing the calorie balance equation, in favor of believing in some type of “metabolic advantage” that comes from low carbs. I.e., “eat X grams of carbs or less, and you can eat as much as you want.”
I assure you, if you have a caloric maintenance level of 2000 calories a day and you eat 3000 calories a day of protein and fat (no carbs) you WILL gain fat!
Perhaps it will be harder to consume that many calories in the form of protein and fat as compared to sugar and protein and fat, but if you manage to pull off that gastronomic feat, you will gain weight nonetheless (and low carb writers might be surprised at how much food some people can shovel down their throats - even sans carbs!)
Fortunately, the low carb community today has some intelligent voices speaking out, saying that low carb does not mean “unlimited calories” and that low carb diets also require a caloric deficit; they may simply make it easier to achieve that deficit, automatically without counting calories.
While I am very much in favor of doing things “by the numbers,” programs that tend to make you “automatically” eat less without counting calories are not a bad thing at all (the spontaneous reduction in caloric intake often occurs due to an appetite-suppressive effect of certain diets, and or due to the selection of low calorie-density foods which are highly satiating).
That said, no combination of foods, elimination of foods, or arrangement of macronutrients will override the law of calorie balance. To lose fat, you have to eat less than you burn, period.
You have to be diligent about maintaining your deficit too, because:
(1) Energy balance is dynamic, and what is a deficit for you today, may not be a significant deficit six months from now
(2) If your maintenance calories are 2000, and your intake is 1500 one day (a deficit) and 2500 the next (a surplus), you have NOT achieved a caloric defict over the two day period - you are in energy balance. Conveniently, most people seem to have some kind of selective “amnesia” and they only remember the days they were in a deficit! Consistency over time is the key!
The sooner you accept that the cornerstone of fat loss is a caloric deficit, the sooner you’ll be able to think clearly about your nutritional choices and the better you’ll be able to judge everything you ever read, see and hear about nutrition, for the rest of your life.
By the way, did you know that there are two corollaries to the law of calorie balance, which almost no one teaches?
In my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program, I reveal these little-known calorie corollaries (chapter 6) and I teach the exact, scientific formulas for calculating your ideal calorie intake for burning the maximum amount of fat, without losing muscle or slowing down your metabolism.
You can learn more by visiting: Burn the Fat
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: Burn the Fat
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tips to Burn Fat Quickly
Alright if we want to burn fat then we are going to need to crank up our metabolism. We need to turn our bodies into fat burning machines. If you have a low metabolism then you will not burn fat efficiently. This is not a good thing. So what are some things that we can do to make sure this doesn't happen? Well here are a few tips to help speed up our metabolism and turn our bodies in fat burning machines.
Make sure you eat breakfast.
Too many people skip what many refer to as the most important meal of the day. You haven't eaten in quite awhile and need to fuel your body. More frequent meals will speed up your metabolism. Remember if you haven't eaten since 7 PM the night before and you don't eat till noon the next day you are putting 17 hours between meals. This in fact slows down your metabolism. So if you want to burn fat then eat breakfast.
Eat small meals more often.
Staying on the subject of food, you need to eat more often to burn fat. I am not saying you need to eat five large meals. What you need to eat is 5 -6 small meals. Take the same amount of food that you would eat during the day and break it up into smaller meals. It will actually go a long way to making sure that you are never starving. I don't know about you but I always eat more when I am starving.
Stay away from junk food.
I don't think this needs any explaining. The less garbage you put into your body the fewer calories and fat you need to burn. We could save ourselves a lot of grief if we would just exercise a little self discipline from time to time.
Walk wherever you can.
Walking is a great exercise. Walk to a restaurant, video store, walk the dog, walk around the block. Just get off your backside and go for a walk. Get out at lunch time and walk around rather than sit at your desk.
Exercise, exercise, exercise.
You cannot burn fat without exercise. It is an essential part of any fat loss or weight loss program. And part of any exercise program you do should involve strength training. It is good if you can do some for of weight lifting but if you prefer not to do that then at least do some bodyweight exercises. If you follow the previous link it will take you to a site that I have the will help get you started in the right direction if you are not sure what to do. The reason you want to do strength training is because it creates muscle. Muscle is a fat burning machine. You body requires more energy to sustain muscle therefore it burns more calories the more muscle you have.
Make sure you eat breakfast.
Too many people skip what many refer to as the most important meal of the day. You haven't eaten in quite awhile and need to fuel your body. More frequent meals will speed up your metabolism. Remember if you haven't eaten since 7 PM the night before and you don't eat till noon the next day you are putting 17 hours between meals. This in fact slows down your metabolism. So if you want to burn fat then eat breakfast.
Eat small meals more often.
Staying on the subject of food, you need to eat more often to burn fat. I am not saying you need to eat five large meals. What you need to eat is 5 -6 small meals. Take the same amount of food that you would eat during the day and break it up into smaller meals. It will actually go a long way to making sure that you are never starving. I don't know about you but I always eat more when I am starving.
Stay away from junk food.
I don't think this needs any explaining. The less garbage you put into your body the fewer calories and fat you need to burn. We could save ourselves a lot of grief if we would just exercise a little self discipline from time to time.
Walk wherever you can.
Walking is a great exercise. Walk to a restaurant, video store, walk the dog, walk around the block. Just get off your backside and go for a walk. Get out at lunch time and walk around rather than sit at your desk.
Exercise, exercise, exercise.
You cannot burn fat without exercise. It is an essential part of any fat loss or weight loss program. And part of any exercise program you do should involve strength training. It is good if you can do some for of weight lifting but if you prefer not to do that then at least do some bodyweight exercises. If you follow the previous link it will take you to a site that I have the will help get you started in the right direction if you are not sure what to do. The reason you want to do strength training is because it creates muscle. Muscle is a fat burning machine. You body requires more energy to sustain muscle therefore it burns more calories the more muscle you have.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Burn Fat Now
Have you stagnated in your fat loss? Are you at the gym a few times a week doing your cardio and feeling like you are eating the right things but still having no success in losing weight and burning fat?
If so don't you think it is time to change things up a little? What if you could make tremendous strides towards your goals in just one month?
Why is it that you seem to have no success? If you have been doing the same exercise program (cardio or weight training) with the same intensity at the same calorie level and you are seeing little if no results for a year or more then you have to ask yourself the question "Why would you expect anything to change this year?" If you continue to do the same things you will get the same results.
A fat burning program must be dynamic in nature. Nutrition programs must be constantly updated; calories must be recalculated. Calories may need to be increased at certain parts of your program and decreased during other parts of your fat loss program.
I know one thing that has always helped over the year whether I was younger and trying to pack on the muscle or older and trying to burn the fat is charting my progress. I am more visual by nature I guess. But it gave me specific goals to shoot for and encouraged me as I made progress toward those goals. I am a firm believer that you need to set goals to succeed. I think the same thing holds true in your diet program.
Specifically, when we are talking about burning fat you need to keep track of your body composition. By this I mean measuring your muscle and fat and creating a ratio between the two. You see we want to lose weight but we want to make sure we are losing fat and not losing muscle.
Busting through a weight loss plateau is not that difficult. In fact it is rather simple in theory. However, it takes a lot of discipline. If you are stuck then you either need to cut your calories or increase your activity level. I have always been a fan of increasing my activity level since I am not a big fan of cutting out food. You see, you can't cut your calorie intake too low because if you do your body will go into a defensive mode and try to store fat. This is obviously self defeating.
This may mean you need to increase your cardio that you do during the week. I am not a huge fan of cardio so I prefer to due cardio like exercises (like bodyweight exercises) that deliver the same effect. Maybe you could add one extra session for the week. If you have plateaued this should give you a kickstart. If it begins to work you can stay with it for awhile until you run into another wall. At that point you will have to make another alteration.
Like a said earlier, fat loss and weight loss require a dynamic program to be successful. The problem with a lot of fat burning programs is that they are too static. You have to eat a certain number of calories, workout for 3 days a week and do so for 45 minutes. You are not supposed to mess with the formula. Unfortunately, real life weight loss and fat loss doesn't happen this way.
You see your body is intelligent. It has the ability to adapt to the environment that it finds itself in. So in other words you body will adapt to your workout program. At some point in the future you will need to shake things up or you will plateau.
If you need a program that can help you bust through plateaus in your fat loss program then you may want to look into Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle. It has everything I have talked about as being necessary to succeed.
You can change your body starting today. Don't delay and find yourself wandering around the internet looking for answers six months from now. Check out the program. I think it may be just what you are looking for.
If so don't you think it is time to change things up a little? What if you could make tremendous strides towards your goals in just one month?
Why is it that you seem to have no success? If you have been doing the same exercise program (cardio or weight training) with the same intensity at the same calorie level and you are seeing little if no results for a year or more then you have to ask yourself the question "Why would you expect anything to change this year?" If you continue to do the same things you will get the same results.
A fat burning program must be dynamic in nature. Nutrition programs must be constantly updated; calories must be recalculated. Calories may need to be increased at certain parts of your program and decreased during other parts of your fat loss program.
I know one thing that has always helped over the year whether I was younger and trying to pack on the muscle or older and trying to burn the fat is charting my progress. I am more visual by nature I guess. But it gave me specific goals to shoot for and encouraged me as I made progress toward those goals. I am a firm believer that you need to set goals to succeed. I think the same thing holds true in your diet program.
Specifically, when we are talking about burning fat you need to keep track of your body composition. By this I mean measuring your muscle and fat and creating a ratio between the two. You see we want to lose weight but we want to make sure we are losing fat and not losing muscle.
Busting through a weight loss plateau is not that difficult. In fact it is rather simple in theory. However, it takes a lot of discipline. If you are stuck then you either need to cut your calories or increase your activity level. I have always been a fan of increasing my activity level since I am not a big fan of cutting out food. You see, you can't cut your calorie intake too low because if you do your body will go into a defensive mode and try to store fat. This is obviously self defeating.
This may mean you need to increase your cardio that you do during the week. I am not a huge fan of cardio so I prefer to due cardio like exercises (like bodyweight exercises) that deliver the same effect. Maybe you could add one extra session for the week. If you have plateaued this should give you a kickstart. If it begins to work you can stay with it for awhile until you run into another wall. At that point you will have to make another alteration.
Like a said earlier, fat loss and weight loss require a dynamic program to be successful. The problem with a lot of fat burning programs is that they are too static. You have to eat a certain number of calories, workout for 3 days a week and do so for 45 minutes. You are not supposed to mess with the formula. Unfortunately, real life weight loss and fat loss doesn't happen this way.
You see your body is intelligent. It has the ability to adapt to the environment that it finds itself in. So in other words you body will adapt to your workout program. At some point in the future you will need to shake things up or you will plateau.
If you need a program that can help you bust through plateaus in your fat loss program then you may want to look into Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle. It has everything I have talked about as being necessary to succeed.
You can change your body starting today. Don't delay and find yourself wandering around the internet looking for answers six months from now. Check out the program. I think it may be just what you are looking for.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Burning Fat Quickly - 5 Great Tips to Burn Those Extra Pounds
1. CIRCUIT TRAINING - Start of by lifting weights targeting each major muscle groups. Arms, shoulders, back, abs, and legs. Once you get those muscles good and tight choose at least one cardiovascular exercise to do such as jogging, running, treadmill, or anything that gets your heart going at a fast pace. By doing this you will increase your heart rate and metabolism rapidly, therefore you will burn fat quickly.
2. CARDIOVASCULAR UP AND DOWN HEART RATE- You do any cardiovascular exercise at a medium pace and then fast pace back to medium as many times as you can. You will raise and lower your heart rate which will result in burning fat quickly. Please be careful not to overdue it. If you are having trouble breathing stop. Be sure to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated throughout your exercises.
3. AEROBICS - This is a great way to burn fat while having some fun at the same time. It consist of step exercises which are usually done in a class form to the beat of up tempo music. Spinning consist of using a bicycle where you can ride up and down adding resistance to it, therefore making your legs work really hard. Remember that your legs are your biggest muscle group. If you can build up your legs you will burn more calories throughout the day. There also is Yoga and Pilates which consist of full range of motion with your body getting great stretches increasing your flexibility while improving your posture and toning your muscles. There also is jogging, running, and the treadmill.
4. SWIMMING - While swimming you exercise your entire body working every muscles. It also improves your strength, endurance, and flexibility all at once. Swimming also helps with breathing, blood circulation and toning your body. Constantly swimming can lower your resting heart rate, therefore you can burn calories easily and lose weight.
5. STEAM SAUNA - The sauna is really good for relaxation. When getting into the sauna its like all the pressures and troubles of the world just does not exist anymore. If you have troubles sleeping or suffer with panic attacks I highly recommend you to use a steam sauna. One trick to burning fat quickly with the sauna is going in and out of the sauna at least 3 to 5 times to speed up and lower your heart rate, therefore increasing your metabolism and ability to burn fat at a quick pace.
For complete diet and exercise information, tips, and products please visit BurnFatQuickly which will be key part to give you that extra boost on your quest to losing those pounds. You will not regret it one bit by checking out this site so you can get a head start over the pack with all your health needs met. I wish you the best of luck always and be sure to stay positive and focused on achieving your goals.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Balthazar
2. CARDIOVASCULAR UP AND DOWN HEART RATE- You do any cardiovascular exercise at a medium pace and then fast pace back to medium as many times as you can. You will raise and lower your heart rate which will result in burning fat quickly. Please be careful not to overdue it. If you are having trouble breathing stop. Be sure to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated throughout your exercises.
3. AEROBICS - This is a great way to burn fat while having some fun at the same time. It consist of step exercises which are usually done in a class form to the beat of up tempo music. Spinning consist of using a bicycle where you can ride up and down adding resistance to it, therefore making your legs work really hard. Remember that your legs are your biggest muscle group. If you can build up your legs you will burn more calories throughout the day. There also is Yoga and Pilates which consist of full range of motion with your body getting great stretches increasing your flexibility while improving your posture and toning your muscles. There also is jogging, running, and the treadmill.
4. SWIMMING - While swimming you exercise your entire body working every muscles. It also improves your strength, endurance, and flexibility all at once. Swimming also helps with breathing, blood circulation and toning your body. Constantly swimming can lower your resting heart rate, therefore you can burn calories easily and lose weight.
5. STEAM SAUNA - The sauna is really good for relaxation. When getting into the sauna its like all the pressures and troubles of the world just does not exist anymore. If you have troubles sleeping or suffer with panic attacks I highly recommend you to use a steam sauna. One trick to burning fat quickly with the sauna is going in and out of the sauna at least 3 to 5 times to speed up and lower your heart rate, therefore increasing your metabolism and ability to burn fat at a quick pace.
For complete diet and exercise information, tips, and products please visit BurnFatQuickly which will be key part to give you that extra boost on your quest to losing those pounds. You will not regret it one bit by checking out this site so you can get a head start over the pack with all your health needs met. I wish you the best of luck always and be sure to stay positive and focused on achieving your goals.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Balthazar
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