I’m going to take this opportunity to do a little recap of the past 9 blog posts to summarize and to give a short read for those not willing, or able to read the entire series. If you’re serious about transforming your physique, I urge you to read the entire series as it is the understanding of the fat loss process that will ensure the greatest results.
An introduction to the Burn Fat Faster Blog and its Author, me! In this post I urged readers to take an honest look at their weight loss efforts & to ask themselves 2 important questions:
"Do you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight?
Do you know how many calories you're eating daily?"
Do you know how many calories you're eating daily?"
The mathematics of fat loss. In this post I gave readers the formula to determine their caloric intake & how to track their caloric intake through http://www.everydayhealth.com/
"A) Basic Calorie Needs = Body weight x 11
+
B) Metabolic Rate = A x Activity Level*
+
C Maintenance Caloric Needs
+
B) Metabolic Rate = A x Activity Level*
+
C Maintenance Caloric Needs
ACTIVITY LEVEL*
Mostly Sedentary 30%
Active 40%
Very Active 50%
* 30-40 yrs old subtract 5%
* 40+ yrs old subtract 10%"
A brief look at how activity level & exercise affect caloric needs. Here I urged readers to track their caloric expenditure from normal day to day activities & formal exercise.
An explanation of how to use caloric intake vs. expenditure to determine diet set up & guidelines. In this post I gave some specific recommendations for how to adjust caloric intake & expenditure to create fat loss.
"EATING MORE THAN MAINTENANCE: Eat less. This is pretty simple; start by cutting your daily calorie intake by 500 calories & track your weight for 1-2 weeks. If still not losing, cut an additional 500 calories per day.
EATING LESS THAN MAINTENANCE: This is a bit more complicated; you’re either overestimating your activity level, underestimating your food intake, or your metabolism needs a tune up. If your goal is weight gain, this becomes easy; eat more!"
The much anticipated discussion of how so-called “forbidden” foods on a diet can actually HELP with fat loss. No recap on this one, go read the article!
Exploring the connection between food intake, Leptin & your metabolism. Here I provided readers with some specifics on how to initiate a “refeed” in order to restore Leptin levels & therefore fat burning.
"The bottom line is that you must create a caloric deficit in order to lose weight, and a caloric deficit (depending on severity & duration) will slow the metabolic rate. Therefore in order to continue losing weight, strategic refeeds must be implemented to keep Leptin levels high and to keep the dieter sane.
An easy rule is that the longer and more severe a dieting stint, the longer & more intense the refeed should be. For those of you who don’t exercise at all, raising the carbs by 100 grams will likely work to restore Leptin levels. If you’re exercising consistently and intensely, upwards of 1000 gram carb refeeds* may be required. Take these guidelines and experiment."
Here I shared some of my favourite and most effective tactics for fat loss magic. Again, too many specifics to recap here just go read the damn article. ;)
Here I showed readers how it is possible to burn fat & build muscle, within the same day, but not at the exact same minute. This is body recomposition at its finest with an extra look at fuel sources & their importance to exercise & fat burning. The bottom line is summed up nicely in the final sentence:
"… take a walk before breakfast, and go move heavy things after dinner!"
A look at why adding more exercise to your fat loss regime may ultimately backfire if you tread into the territories of overtraining. In this post I briefly explained overtraining and why more is not always better. Also in this post I discussed the very important issue of the individual physiologic limit of fat burning and how this relates to overtraining.
"31 calories per pound of fat is all you can expect to safely lose in a day. I know, seems like it’s a futile endeavor. However, consider how many pounds of fat you may be carrying. A very modest 20 pounds of fat can release 620 calories of fat to be burned. Most readers of this blog have significantly more fat than this, and could therefore burn many more fat calories each day.
The relevance of this number, the physiologic limit of your fat burning potential, is that your caloric deficit should not exceed this number. Put another way, whether you create this caloric deficit though diet, exercise or ideally a combination of both, should not exceed your limit. Theoretically, you could exceed this limit once in a while and no, your muscles won’t just dissolve overnight.
However, exceed this limit for the long term and you risk not only stalling your fat loss but also losing muscle mass. Even if you don’t think the amount of muscle you carry is important (ladies, I’m looking at you) consider that muscle loss heading into old age is a primary determinant of how independent that person will be able to be. This is equally an issue of physique and beauty as it is of health & longevity.
If your progress in training is stalling, eat more. Simple. Start small, 250 calories or so and see how this affects your training. Lethargy, depression, moodiness & muscle soreness than doesn’t go away by the next workout are all signs of overtraining. In this case it’s better to err on the side being conservative."
It is still my hope that you will go read the previously mentioned blog posts, even re-read them if possible. However, this recap should suffice to bring everyone up to speed, and to reinforce the concepts explained in the previous nine blog posts.
So that’s it for this week. Be sure to come back next week for more dynamite fat loss content including the previously promised look at the effect of exercise on insulin, your body’s potential for fat burning & muscle building. This will be a MUST READ for diabetics, and those who may be pre-diabetic, as well as for anyone who truly wants to Burn Fat Faster!
Matty
No comments:
Post a Comment