Everything you always wanted to know about burning fat but you were too lazy to ask
Time to talk shop—in order to loose fat you need to burn it off—there is only one way to do that well—through combining diet and exercise. When I say exercise, I mean both cardio and weight training! No dieting no matter how well planned will be enough. You need muscle to burn fat. Period. End of conversation. So first and foremost start moving! Build that muscle! If you don’t have money to go to the gym, do calisthenics at home. Push ups, sit ups, chin ups, start building muscle. Fitter people burn fat faster, even at rest, people with more muscle burn more calories
Nathan (nateflex@yahoo.com) is your man about the gym, so please refer your weight training queries there. For this article we are going to cover how to burn fat – not the muscle you need to do it. Lift weights! Enough said.
Look at your body. Take a really critical, long look at your body. If you have the guts take a picture. You need to start paying better attention to it.
Cardio: do 45 mins of cardio 5 days a week at 70% of your max heart rate first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. If you have no carbs in your system, they need to burn your fat as fuel. That is a good thing. It is estimated that you continue to burn fat 300% more after you work out than normal – the harder you train, the more fat you will break down during and after exercise. There is no replacement for this. This is essential. You must do this part or it all falls apart!
You will burn fat fastest if you run, or do the stair climber or elliptical trainer. Biking is good, but uses only your legs (anything that integrates glutes and upper body will give you moiré bang) and rowing is good if you are coordinated. Swimming is a good option for those with knee/back problems, but you need to keep swimming the whole time-- no breaks. Drink water throughout and after the cardio session.
Try to work out at least twice a day. Easiest way to do that is an early morning cardio session and weights later. If you have enough energy take a walk/run/bike ride after your last meal too to keep the metabolism up.
Take caffeine before you start cardio and weight training. I cannot say enough about the positive benefits of this. It makes you peppier, stronger, raises your core temperature, which will burn more fat and also enables your body to better access to fat deposits.
Make sure you are eating frequently during the day—the I.V. drip method. If you provide your body with a steady drip of food you will keep your metabolism raring, avoid the starvation –lets store food—model and keep from over eating. Make your food fiberous-ly good and low glycemic if possible.
Do not snack at night. Period. Don’t do it. (this is more a do what I say not what I do issue—but I am trying) If your diet dictates a late night meal, make sure it is protein rich.
Keep your body moving. As much as possible. You need to walk instead of taking a car, take the stairs, wander around etc. keep the muscles moving to keep the fat burning.
Get enough sleep. Weary people don’t work out well; you need rest. 8 hours minimum. Try to get nine.
Drink water always.
Enjoy those two blessed cardio free days. Sleep in. Recovery is essential (I recommend glucosamine with chondrotin to keep the joints happy) Hell eat ice cream once a week. Just be good the rest of the time.
Make no excuses. This will take several months to do properly and up to a year to stick.
You can do this. Tell people about your new plan. Integrate it into your life. Make it public. This is a life style people. Welcome in!
Tell Kirsten how great she looks (a motivated trainer is essential).
Some links:
http://www.musclemedia.com
http://www.muscle-fitness.com
http://www.flexonline.com
Balancing your diet means striking a balance between protein, carbs and fats. Whereas fat used to be the enemy, it seems now that carbs are being vilified. When it comes to a body-building diet you need to take two things into consideration: the satiety index and the Glycemic index. The satiety index determines how long you will feel full after eating, and illustrates which carbs will keep your carbohydrate cravings down. Although scientists haven’t measured the SI index on most veggies, Muscle and Fitness estimates that most would be higher than 200 and well within reason.
Satiety Index
Potato 323
Porridge 209
Orange 202
Apple 197
Brown Pasta 188
All-bran cereal 151
White Rice 138
Corn Flakes 118
French Fries 116
White Bread 100
Ice Cream 96
Potato Chips 91
Mars Bar 70
Doughnut 68
Cake 65
Croissant 47
Source: s.h. Holt et al., “A Sateity Index of Common Foods.” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 49(9): 675-90, 1995.
So use the SI high foods only, but use them reasonably. You don’t need a whole lot of carbs at night.
Glycemic Index
Based on their potential to raise blood glucose, Muscle and Fitness advises you use low GI foods to help control blood sugar, and build muscle rather than fat.
Lentils 29
Beans, kidney 29
Beans Haricot, 31
Milk skim, 32
Black eyed peas 33
Milk whole, 34
Chick peas 36
Lima beans 36
Ice cream 36
Yogurt 36
Tomato soup 38
Apple Golden delicious 39
Baked Bean 40
Orange 40
Pasta whole wheat, 42
Grapes 45
OJ 46
Sweet potato 48
Oatmeal cooked 49
Pasta, enriched, 50
All Bran cereal 51
Peas (frozen) 51
Yam 51
Buckwheat 51
Sweet corn 59
Banana 62
Beets 64
Rice, Brown (steamed) 66
Bead white, 69
Potato, new red, 70
Rice white, 72
Bread, whole wheat, 72
Corn flakes 80
Honey 87
Carrots 92
Parsnips 97
Glucose 100
Diabetologia 23:477-84, 1982
This should be used as a guide alone, use it with the satiety index to determine which foods will get you more bang for your buck and eat slowly always, don’t over cook your food, and keep your food as close to its natural state, hot carbs are digested faster than cold, high fiber foods slower than low fiber, whole food slower than pureed and uncooked slower than cooked. Liquid calories are not registered as food, so keep your smoothy as your post-workout drink and avoid other sugary foods.
There are a few things we must discuss before we can let out the leaner sexier you. Primarily your diet sucks. Yes. Its true. If it didn’t suck you wouldn’t be here, you’d be elsewhere, maybe paying Quake, or de fragging your hard drive, or some other thing. So, here is the problem, you sit on your ass all day drinking pop, coding or designing and then realize that you are starved to death, eat a big dinner, chill out and watch the boob-tube. This is a sure fire way to let that inner bodybuilding beast remain dormant within you. Now we are going to cover the basics here and then I will give you a brief meal plan on the bottom of this entry, we will get into more specifics as time goes on.
Throw out crappy foods
Processed foods—tasty cookies, salty chips, even deceivingly heathly granola bars, cereals and juices are bad. (yes yes, all in moderation, but for now, consider them your enemy and throw them away, or if unopened, donate them to a hungry person you know)
The processed food in one of the main causes of obesity in North America. A good rule of thumb is eat only unrefined foods. Food closest to its natural state. Potatoes instead of chips/fries/tater-tots etc. Bread is a tricky area. Processed as it may be it still offers some nutritional goodliness. So, think Gylcometric Index. You can look up this online but eat only food with the lowest Gylcometric index, i.e., food that is absorbed slowly instead of quickly. With Bread, that is the whole wheat, rye, and whole wheat pita. Slow cooked, plain oatmeal is your new breakfast of champions. Try half a cup of dry oatmeal, add lots of water, pop in microwave, add half a banana and scoop protein powder. For now lets say no more pasta. We can discuss it more later.
No more fried foods, at all. No explanation needed. Don’t eat them
Avoid Juices and pops. Although juice has good vitamin goodness in it, it is too high sugar. Many body builders limit fruit intake as well, for the same reason. I don’t eat near enough veggies, so I continue to eat fruit.
Veggies-eat them. Lots of them. Like your momma always told you. You are safest eating dark green veggies, broccoli, romaine lettuce, spinach, Brussel sprouts etc. Carrots and Corn, my favorites are higher in sugar hence the tastiness, so try to limit them to raw carrots and corn on the cob, and eat them less frequently. Your side dish should be big serving of green veggies and either a baked potato, brown rice, or a baked yam.
Yes yams, next to tuna and skinless chicken, the yam is what you eat now. All the time. Lean to love the yam.
Dairy. Fat free. Only. Always. Plain fat free yogurt with vanilla protein powder is a favorite of mine. Skim milk. Light old cheddar (a tiny sprinkle).
Proteins. At least one gram a day for guys, half a gram for girls per pound of lean muscle. That’s lots kids. So jam it in. I eat egg whites. Drives poor D crazy. The egg white is your new best friend. Eat them as often as you can. They are cheep, whole food. If you hate eggs (though the white is good for you), eat fat free soy protein products. Tofu, tofu wieners, fake meats. There are a lot on the market now, just watch for too much salt in them. That brings us to chicken and tuna. The packed in water tuna and skinless chicken breast are what you eat at least twice a day. Yes you heard me. Fit in tuna and/or chicken 2 times a day. No pork for you. You can eat lean lean read meat, inside round in the leanest I think, but double check with your butcher, say twice a week. You need to slow cook that stuff so it isn’t hard as a rock, but it is good! Flavor it with herbs.
You need some of the good fat a day too. You can find good fat in olive oil or peanut butter. Say 1 tablespoon of peanut butter a day and a tiny splash of olive oil when cooking.
Water: drinking it right now? Start. If you aren’t heading to the bathroom every one and a half hours you aren’t drinking enough. If I was there with you I could pester you. But 12 big glasses a day ok?
Make sure you take a vitamin supplement.
Ok so those are the bare bones basics. Make sure you do at least one half hour of cardio first thing in the morning on a EMPTY stomach. Work out later and if you are tying to loose fat quickly, toss in a walk at night.
Caffeine. So you have to give up pop. Drink coffee. I am not talking a frappachino at Starbucks. Black coffee or coffee with skim milk. Black tea or tea with skim milk. Make sure you drink more water to compensate. Don’t want to drink coffee or tea? Take a caffeine pill. There are legal easy to swallow and you must ingest some kind of caffeine before you work out (cardio or weights) to get the thermogenics burning. We will talk supplements later.
Sample menu (Alan, you should try to dbl the food amounts listed here)
6 am
Black coffee, cardio, water do this 5 days a week. The other 2 sleep in! but no later than 9 am or you will screw you eating schedule up.
7 am
4 egg whites, 1 piece of dry brown toast, half a grape fruit, water
(take a nap if you need to)
10 am
¼ cup of oatmeal, mixed with scoop of protein powder, half banana, water
1 pm
½ chicken breast, ½ small yam, broccoli, water
4 pm,
protein smoothy (make at home with scoop of protein powder, frozen fruit and non fat yogurt) and water
or
1 ½ ounces of sliced turkey breast, I pita, 2 slices of tomato and onion, 1 tbl spoon fat free mayo and water
7 pm
½ can of tuna, mixed with brown rice, broccoli, and water
10 pm
2 egg whites (you can skip this if you are going to bed right away of aren’t hungry), and water
Ok so that is a sample diet. You can get the idea: a little bit of food in every 3-4 hours. Never get starving.
Are you still drinking water? Drink more now.
Pick one day of the week and have a cheat meal. Whatever it is you want. But limit it to one day a week.
When snaking, try to represent protein and carbs in your snack, such as ¾ cup non-fat cottage cheese and pineapple, or ½ can of white meat chicken, with shredded romaine in a pits or on whole wheat.
That’s it for now kids. Reads this over, and I will answer any questions via email, and next time, include more sample meals J