Laurens Fitness » Weight Loss

Healthy Fat Loss: 12 Hot Tips

Lauren — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:28:08 +0000

Weight loss is not an easy thing to achieve and many people struggle with it. The first thing that is important to understand, is the difference between weight loss, and fat loss. Healthy fat loss is what you are really aiming for, and when you have achieved this, it is more likely that you will keep the weight off for life. Just looking at the scales can be dangerous, and a lot of people mistake fat loss for muscle loss. Drastically dropping your calories will lead to weight loss, but a lot of it will be muscle. The result being a huge drop in your metabolism. This is undesirable on so many counts, but the worst part is that when you go off the diet, your body will be completely intolerant to the food you are eating, and you will most likely put all of the weight back on, and more. Here are 12 tips that may seem obvious to everyone, but if you apply them, you really will feel the fat slipping off you.

Eat More Protein: The consensus surrounding extra protein intake is that it is for people that want to build huge amounts of muscle. The fact is that if you start to increase your protein intake, you will have tremendous weight loss benefits. Protein is the hardest of all macro nutrients to break down, which means you stay fuller for longer, and you even have a small thermogenic effect, an increase in metabolism. Try to have some protein in every meal that you eat, and if you need to snack, opt for a high protein one such as nuts or cottage cheese. You may just feel like you need to start eating a lot of meat, but it is simply not true. Check out this post on natural protein sources to see exactly what kind of options you have, you will be surprised.

Eat More Veggies & Legumes: Vegetables are really low calorie, contain a lot of nutrients and will fill you up. If you have a big plate of veggies or add them to every meal, you will fill yourself up with less calories. Legumes have more calories, but they contain a lot of protein and very slow release carbs. We can’t drop our calorie intake too much, or we will start to lose muscle. Legumes are a great way to bulk up the meal without the risk of weight gain. Instead of having rice or pasta with a meal, add more vegetables or legumes.

Avoid Processed/ White Carbohydrates: A no carbohydrate diet is never a good idea. The fact is that we need carbohydrates to survive. Even more so if we are undertaking any sort of exercise. It is just stupid and dangerous to cut them out of your diet completely. You will lose weight, but it will all be water weight, and this kind of diet is not sustainable. Carbs fuel your body, and you do need them, you just have to be smart about where you get them from. Any processed carbohydrates, ‘white’ carbohydrates and obvious sugar sources need to be cut out. White bread, pasta and rice is really not going to give you much nutritional value. As a general rule, cut this out of your diet. Regarding other processed carbs in whole grain form, brown rice, whole grain bread, can be consumed, but only after exercise. You do this, you will seriously drop fat quickly. Legumes, veggies and fruit should be your main form of carbs, so eat a lot of them. Consume whole grain carbs after your workout to regenerate your body, and you will have success.

Do Weight Lifting: It is common to see people smashing the cardio when they are trying to lose weight. If you are not doing strength training, then you are missing out on an easy method to healthy fat loss. Weight training raises your metabolism permanently, more muscles equals a higher burning rate. it’s really simple, and a key that a lot of people miss, you will see instant results after starting a weight training program.

Eat A Good Breakfast: Breakfast is really the most important meal of the day. Eating wrong at breakfast is setting yourself up for a bad day, ignoring it all together is just plain stupid. I’m not going to elaborate here, check out this post on what to eat for breakfast. You will find some great recipes and reasons why you simply need to make breakfast your priority.

Eat Healthy Fats: If we followed what we see in the media, we shouldn’t be eating carbs and we shouldn’t be eating any fats. In that case you better go and stock up on celery. The fact is that you need fats in your diet, but you need the right fats. Healthy fats, fish oil, olive oil (not too much saturated fat) actually helps you slow down digestion and keeps your fuller for longer.

Be Organized: One thing a lot of people miss out on is the organization side of things. If you are organized, you will succeed following these rules. Try to set a diet, and follow it fora few weeks. Eat the same meals and the same foods over and over, until it becomes a habit. You can get a lot of variation from a list of foods. This might be a little boring for some, but especially at the start, it is really critical. It means you will never be out of food, and you know what you need to eat, and when you need to eat it.

Eat Enough: This has been mentioned already a few times in this post, but it is still extremely important. You drop your calories drastically, you will end up dropping your metabolism equally as drastically, and losing muscle mass. Obviously cutting out white carbohydrates will decrease your calorie intake, so try to substitute them with vegetable and legumes. You will find that you actually end up eating more, and dropping the fat very quickly.

Do Cardio Work Effectively: Cardio can help you lose weight, but it is not the magic bullet. As mentioned above, combined with strength training, it can provide effective weight loss. Depending on your fitness goals there are a few ways to go about it. The fact is that low intensity cardio is pretty underrated. A long walk is a great way to burn calories, without the intensity. This is great for people that already to a lot of weights, and simply can’t add extra intensity to their training regime. Burning more calories means higher intensity cardio. Interval training is by far the most effective way to burn calories, and will get your good results. Work out what fits best with your current regime, and stick to it.

Eat Frequently: Getting a few more meals into your body during the day is a really effective way to lose fat. Traditionally we eat three meals a day, and the time in between meals is too much. You get hungry, blood sugar drops, and you want to eat a whole lot more at your next meal than necessary. Eat 4-6 times a day, to ensure that you keep your metabolism and blood sugar up. You will avoid cravings and overeating. Try to have protein at every meal or snack, and you will really start to achieve healthy fat loss.

Don’t Drink Calories: Fruit Juice, non-diet sodas, sugared coffee, slurpees, sweetened cordials are all a big no. Don’t drink sugar, it goes against all the rules.

Have A Rest Day: We can’t be good all the time. 90% of the time is enough. Eat well, train well, and 10% of the time take a break. not only will the break revitalize you and keep your motivated, getting some ‘bad’ food in might help you lose weight . You tend to down regulate your metabolism if your are dieting, and one day off a week of calorie spiking can help spike it again, leading to more effective weight loss.

Follow these 12 tips and you will achieve healthy fat loss.

Stimulate Metabolism

Lauren — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:04:01 +0000

Although metabolism is not the be all end all of weight loss, it does play a large role. People are constantly looking for a way to stimulate metabolism. The fact is that there are a lot of supplements out there that can do just that for you. This is something that you want to try and avoid, especially at the start. If you need to make lifestyle changes, then make them way before you even let the thought of supplements come into your head. Following a few simple tips will ensure that you kick start your metabolism. Here is a recap from the article increase your metabolism, if you haven’t already implemented all of these steps, then do it. If you want a more detailed and fool proof plan to help you lose weight in 8 weeks, totally safe and with the knowledge and ability to keep it off for life, then read on after these tips.

Eat enough
Eat more frequently
Eat Breakfast
Eat more Protein
Eat more Fiber
Weight Train
Build Muscles
Work Your Legs
Do more Higher Intensity Cardio
Avoid Alcohol
Increase Incidental Physical Activity

8 Week Program To Kick-start Your Metabolism & Change Your Lifestyle Habits: The Metabolism Advantage

Revving up the body so that it optimizes nutrition and turns flab into lean body mass can be accomplished easily and quickly and at any age, even after the body’s metabolism has supposedly slowed down. That’s what sought-after fitness trainer and nutrition expert John Berardi demonstrates in this new book. Drawing on the best scientific research, including his own ongoing studies, Berardi has developed a supremely effective plan that enables his clients who include athletes, models, and ordinary men and women of different fitness levels to stoke their metabolic fires, burn more calories, build lean muscle, and improve their health, too! This unique three-pronged program includes:

Nutrition Plan, which provides recipes and meal plans that offer readers the foods that will teach their bodies to burn fat for fuel

BUY THE METABOLISM ADVANTAGE CHEAP AT AMAZON

Exercise Plan, which combines interval exercise and strength training to enable readers to burn more calories not only while they are working out but also after exercise

Supplement Plan, which identifies the essential compounds that kick the metabolism into high gear and improve general well-being.

Many books have been written on diets, exercise and various
combinations. This book written by John Berardi, PhD, is organized and
written so well that if you have the desire to improve your health, you
cannot fail. However, this program is quite complex and will require a
lot of discipline to succeed.

Being a physician who studied many aspects of diet and exercise, the
program makes perfect sense. Dr. Berardi gives an introduction into the
basic science of metabolism in a clear, concise method. He goes on to
discuss the advantage of diet, supplements, and exercise to fight the
battle of the bulge. Unlike “Body for Life” which engineers the dietary
program to include supplements by EAS, this book utilizes real food with
some supplementation. When to eat your meals in relation to exercise,
whether your workout is in the morning, afternoon or evening is possible
with the various plans outlined.

This book will show you the tools to carry out the methods and he
will inspire you by his methods of teaching.

In this book you will learn the following:

The 90% Rule of following this plan.

The 7 Rules of nutrition.
Why dieting makes you fat.
How you can eat more, and weigh less.
Why calorie counting does not work.
The 5 essential nutritional supplements.
Metabolism boosting exercises.

Step by step, the author will outline how you will accomplish your
goals. There is even a self assessment to determine how ready you are:

Are you ready to change?
Is your environment supportive of this change?
Is your social circle supportive of this change?

Recipes are included on how to prepare the healthiest meals.
Schedules on how to time your meals according to your lifestyle are
suggested.

There is additional support that the author provides on his website.
However, many of the features are by subscription. However, there are
a lot of accessible areas that include Blogs (i.e. Nutrition Team
Blogs, Product Support and Discussion, Goal Specific Discussion, Sports
Performance, Exercise Science) and Exericise demonstrations (through
Quicktime streaming). To get complete access to the website and a more
in depth experience to the Metabolism Advantage, you will have to pay
$97 (as of this writing).

This book has a solid foundation and will work if you have the
motivation. If you have a very busy lifestyle, it will take a great
deal of organization to make it work. However, what this book does is
transform your life through a change in lifestyle rather than a short
term goal of weight loss.

25 Ways To Be Unfat

Lauren — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:13:42 +0000

This is a guest post by Darrin Clement, who runs WorldFitnessNetwork. Visit http://worldfitnessnetwork.com to learn more about the art and science of developing lean muscle mass and an awesome physique.

Nobody wants to be a fatty. Whether you are now fat, on your way to being fat, or just want to get leaner, there are countless things to keep in mind.

With so many ways, I’ll overrule my usual verbose nature and dive in, somewhat tersely, with the 25 Ways To Be Unfat. Each of these could be its own article (or even its own book!). But I’m just giving you a sentence or two for starters. We’ll break these down into 5 categories: Overview, Attitude and Behavior, Eating, Lifting, and Cardio.

Since I focus worldfitnessnetwork.com on weight training and running, you might expect this article to be focused on weight lifting and running, right? Well, for sure, those are both part of the picture to be unfat. But eating habits are the most important factor for getting trim.

Final preamble: these are written for the person who wants to be lean, not super-lean. If you want to get into cover-model shape, there are more subtle techniques that come to play. But if you want to look good enough for the beach, these are for you!

1) 80% of the battle is what you eat – the cliché is true: you can’t out-train a bad diet. Eat smart and you’ll be lean.

2) 10% of the battle is resistance training – training with weights can help by burning some calories, increasing metabolism, and changing your body composition. Even for women. But many guys fall into the trap of building muscles that are still covered in fat. More on this later…

3) 10% of the battle is cardiovascular training - cardio (e.g. running) can help with calories but is only one-tenth as important as how you eat. And too much of the wrong running can burn muscle in addition to fat so you can’t over-rely on it.

All of these are mostly mental; if you learn the right techniques and then have the discipline to act on that education, even when you don’t feel like it, then you’ll win. Your attitudes and behaviors are key:

4) Don’t strive for perfection – getting your psychology about fitness right is most important; until you want to get ultra-lean, you are shooting for a 90% compliance; do the right thing 90% of the time and you’ll get lean.

5) Set goals – if you don’t set targets, it’s hard to know if you are making progress and it’s hard to know when you’ve “arrived” at your destination. Forget complicated goals – keep them simple by focusing on Measureable and Timebound. An example of a good goal for a woman: I will weight X pounds, at less than 20% bodyfat, by July 4.

6) Adjust your social life – avoid other fatties or soon-to-be fatties; who you surround yourself with influences who you become. If you’ve already had a junk-food meal this week, say no to the group going out for a Chinese lunch.

7) Keep a log – write down what you eat, when you exercise, what you did, etc. Think of it as your fitness diary. You can do this online or on paper, I don’t care. But keeping a log will keep you on track even on days when you are less motivated.

For even more ideas, and a free ebook on your first 3 months of getting in shape, visit http://worldfitnessnetwork.com .

Eating

Eat frequent small meals – eating smaller meals more frequently will prevent binging and keep hormonal responses more regulated.

9) Eat enough – most people having trouble getting to their target weight because they eat too much without realizing it; but some people eat too little and thus their metabolism shuts down, burning muscle and clinging to the fat for energy reserves.

10) Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, eating too many calories makes you fat (so too much fat is bad, and saturated fat isn’t great, but good fats like fish oils, nuts, olive oils, etc. are healthy).

11) Don’t combine starches and fats in same meal – fats are important for your diet but they slow down the processing of starches (simple carbs, sugars) and thus those starches are more likely to be stored as body fat.

12) Eat protein with every meal – regular protein consumption, combined with regular resistance training (see below) pretty much guarantees that you won’t lose muscle while losing fat.

13) Eat a veggie or fruit with every meal – most fruits/veggies are low calorie with high nutritional value so you will get nutrients, feel full, without blowing your day’s calorie limits.

14) Avoid foods that come in bags or boxes – usually bags and boxes mean more processing, thus fewer nutrients to you and more artificial ingredients to improve flavor; the cheapest calories come from bags and boxes.

15) Have a carbolicious meal once a week – once a week have a really fun meal that breaks all the rules – I call mine my “carbolicious meal”. But plan it ahead of time – don’t leave to chance or it will start to happen “by chance” more often!

16) One bite is enough: Don’t go cold-turkey on junk; just dramatically reduce portions. Craving a dessert? Just take one bite of a cookie to satisfy the craving. Save the rest for another day.

Lifting

17) Lift weights – especially important to remind women that lifting weights is critical; improves daily quality of life, prevents muscle loss while losing fat, and quite honestly just looks better to men! Don’t worry, you will NOT get “bulky” (think about how many men TRY to get bulky and fail – there’s no way you will get bulky doing common-sense weight training with heavy weights).

18) Lift heavy – male or female, you can lift a lot more than you think. It takes practice to lift heavy weights, but the results (compared to doing many reps of lighter weights) is that you’ll stimulate more natural hormones, you’ll burn more overall calories. Target as heavy a weight as you can for 8-12 reps for 2 sets per exercise if you are brand-new, 6 to 10 reps for 3 sets after a few months.

19) There is no such thing as “toning” – continuing the previous point, you will not get “toned” by lifting light weights for many reps. It won’t build muscle and it won’t burn fat. Getting lean involves two things: fat loss and having enough muscle underneath the fat once it’s gone. Even woman need to have muscle to look good.

20) Compound movements – do exercises that involve more than one joint. For example, squats, pull-ups, bench press, etc. Avoid single-joint exercises like leg extensions, biceps curls, etc. They hit fewer muscles and burn fewer calories (so your workouts either become ineffective or you have to take twice as long to get results).

21) Free weights rather than machines – study after study shows that free weights recruit more muscles (so more calories are burned) including stabilizer muscles. Machines burn fewer calories and have been show to NOT be safer. Don’t be fooled!

22) Stick to a routine long enough but not too long – when you get started, just about any routine will produce results. But all routines start to become less effective as your body gets more used to them. Every week you should be progressing (more weight, or more reps, or… etc.) When you aren’t progressing for two weeks in a row, switch your routine a bit and stick with that until it too (eventually) stops to get results.

Cardio

23) Get your heart racing 3 times a week – this is heart-healthy but also helps burn calories to get you lean. Ideally you want something that leaves you panting and lasts 30 to 40 minutes at least 3 times a week.

24) Pick something you like – there are infinite ways to get your heart up for a cardiovascular workout: running, biking, skating, rowing, calisthenics, log throwing, hopscotch, etc. Find something you like or you won’t stick with it. But don’t make it so “fun” that you aren’t working hard.

25) Move up the intensity ladder, down the duration ladder – for most overweight people, they think “treadmill” when they think cardio. Then they just walk for hours on the thing. That’s not ideal. Fine to start that way, but each week try to increase your speed and decrease your duration. Eventually you could get to the point where you are doing full-out sprints. 15 minutes of 50/50 sprints (1 minute sprinting as fast as you can, followed by 1 minute of walking) will burn more calories than walking on a treadmill for 2 hours. But you need to work up to that level of intensity.

Once you’ve incorporated these into your life, you’ll see pounds of fat dropping. It won’t happen all at once – not like you see on TV. But you’ll notice the difference. Once you are beach-ready, there are even more things to get you ultra-lean but we’ll save those for a future article.

For even more ideas, and a free ebook on your first 3 months of getting in shape, visit http://worldfitnessnetwork.com .

Diets That Work

Lauren — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:58:25 +0000

Weight loss is a tricky subject, mostly because patience is not something that a lot of us possess, including me. When we want something, we want it now. This is the case with our weight loss or fat loss goals as well. Losing weight, and a lot of it for that matter is very possible, but if you are on the search for diets that work, then at the end of the day you are surely going to fail.

First we are going to discuss a few diets that are around these days, what you need to look out for, and what to avoid like the plague. Then, we will discuss some very important nutrition rules, how you should be exercising, and as an added bonus…I will give you the holy grail of weight loss, just be aware that you may be a little disappointed.

Crash Diets And Fad Diets Are Bad News

Patience is a virtue. It applies to many parts of your life, and if you are looking to lose weight quickly, you are in for a nasty surprise. Weight loss can be reasonably rapid, but reasonably is the key word here. The fact is that there are no crash diets that work, and there are no fad diets that work.

Crash Diets

A crash diet is exactly as the name suggests. You basically drastically reduce your calorie intake and stop eating even close to enough food. Yep, you definitely will lose weight, in the short term, but you should be prepared for it to return with a vengeance. When you dramatically reduce your calorie intake, you are also dramatically reducing your metabolism, which is the rate that your body burns calories. This is the reason that people that tend to put all the weight back on and more. Once you have stopped your crash diet, you won’t be able to properly process the increase in calories, and you will quickly store them as fat.

Fad Diets

I don’t know about you but eating grapefruits all day and swallowing vinegar are not my idea of a healthy lunch. The fact is that there are a lot of fad diets out there, that basically are what we discussed above, crash diets. Making you drastically reduce your calories, achieving weight loss short term, but not changing your lifestyle, and more than likely resulting in excess fat gain later on. A few fad diets that you may have heard of, and you should definitely avoid: Grapefruit diet, Apple Cider Vinegar diet, Cabbage Soup diet, Acai Berry diet, Negative Calorie Diet…. Ah the list goes on. At the end of the day, you need to make healthy choices, basing your whole diet upon one thing, which is what most far diets are, will not result in healthy or long term weight loss. It takes a rounded approach, and sure, there is a small possibility that grapefruits possess some weight loss benefits, however, eating then in excess certainly won’t help you achieve your goals.

So, if you are looking for quick diets that work, then you need to rethink your approach a little. You can lose weight quickly, but you need to use your brain, and you will ensure that you keep it off forever.

The Holy Grail Of Weight Loss

So Lauren, what is it exactly that I need to do in order to lose fat fast? Well, firstly it depends on what exactly you define fast as, because it sure as hell is going to be different from my definition. The Holy Grail, the one thing you need to possess in order to achieve your goal of the ultimate physique, is…. common sense. Of course, throw in patience, discipline, and an ability to look towards a long-term goal and you have a sure fire solution.

Losing weight is as simple as it is complicated. Your nutrition is of utmost importance, but if you ignore the exercise part of it, then you will not get the results you want either. It takes a rounded approach, but it is very possible, and once you get the hang of a healthier lifestyle and start making better choices, you will find your body changing very quickly, and the weight will be falling off you.

Nutrition: Get It Right

Looking for diets that work isn’t going to help you long term. Taking a smart, rounded and sensible approach to weight loss will result in you reaching your goals, whatever they are. Nutrition is an essential part of the puzzle, probably the most important. Without good nutrition, any other work you are doing will be almost useless. Bad nutrition is without a doubt the biggest culprit of obesity, but thankfully, the easiest one to fix. Follow these nutrition rules and you are well on your way to a healthier and leaner you.

7 Nutrition Rules

1. Cut Out The Crap

To put it simply, cut out everything that you know is shit in your diet. You know you don’t need lollies, this kind of simple carbohydrate can be weight loss death. You know you don’t need fried fatty foods, loaded with saturated fats and with enough calories for the day. It’s the simple stuff you need to do first, and it does not get any simpler than this. Simple carbs, such as lollies, candy, sugar treats, soft drinks and fried fatty take away foods need to leave your diet in a hurry.

2. Eat Breakfast

Breakfast kick starts your day, gets your metabolism going, and gives you energy to do the activities you need. Yes, you need a deficit in calories in order to lose weight, no, you do not want to get that deficit by skipping breakfast. It will only make it worse. Check this post out to find out what to eat for breakfast, and why you so desperately need it.

3. Eat More Protein

Protein is a necessity, and unfortunately a lot of us are not getting enough. Check out this article on protein, it tells you how much you need and why you need it. If you are looking for protein diets that work, then you are on a slightly better track, however, it is better not to think of it as a diet, and just look at an increase in protein consumption. You will likely feel fuller for longer, and you won’t want to eat as much between meals, not to mention many other benefits such as muscle growth, recovery, and even a slight increase in metabolism.

4. Eat Vegetables With Each Meal

Vegetables are great because they fill up your stomach without adding too many calories in there. You also get a whole lot of great nutrients from them. Fill up your plate with veggies at most meals.

5. Drink More Water

Water constitutes around 60-70% of your body, you need it, and you probably need to drink more. Water is essential in the fat burning process, and in keeping your energy up during the day. Keep a water bottle with you at all times, not just during exercise.

6. Eat Carbs After Training And In The Morning

A lot of people out there are carb intolerant. Which means if you eat too many carbs, you probably will get fat. There is no need to be scared of carbs, and you certainly don’t need to avoid them completely. Just be smarter. Like I mentioned before, cut out the obviously bad carbs. Eat some carbs in the morning; whole grain bread or oats are great, as you are more tolerant then. Eat them after you workout. You need them to replace your energy and to help your protein uptake. Don’t cut carbs completely, just be a little smarter. Check out this post to learn more about carbs.

7. Eat More Often

Try to eat 5-6 times a day. Smaller and more frequent meals will mean you keep your metabolism up, your blood sugar stable, and you won’t be starving and want to overindulge. It is an easy trick that is imperative to appetite control and weight loss.

There are a lot more things you can do to improve your nutrition, but if you start with these, you will ensure that you are on your way to long-term fat loss and achieving your goal.

Don’t Ignore Exercise

It is true that you can exercise all you want, and not get the gains you want because of bad nutrition, but the same goes the other way too. Exercise is essential to weight loss, and a healthy lifestyle.

Strength Training For Weight Loss

Weight training is a really important part of the weight loss process. If you are changing your lifestyle, eating better, following the essential nutrition rules and starting to exercise, then you need to be including some weight training into it as well. Strength training is not just for big guys who want even bigger muscle. The fact is that it is a very good way to burn calories, as it is high intensity work. Building extra muscle will also work to increase your metabolism, which will aid weight loss. Just doing cardio work will help you burn the fat, but not shape up your body the way you want. You only need to work 3 times per week for about 45 minutes to get good results. Don’t ignore this type of exercise in your plans, as it is high important. Doing compound exercises is much more effective as it burns more calories and works more muscles at once. A compound exercise is one that works more joints than one at once, such as bench press or the squat. If you are a body builder, you will have a different philosophy, however if weight loss is your goal, stick to compound exercises and you will see results.

Cardio For Weight Loss

I won’t talk too much about the kind of cardio you need to lose weight as it is discussed in depth in this post about cardiovascular training. Basically, If you are very out of shape, and new to exercise, start with low intensity work for a decent amount of time. At least 30-45 minutes. Walking, jogging slowly, or using something like the elliptical trainer in the gym is great for initial fat loss, and combined with strength training is very effective. If you are a bit more advanced and are looking for that extra hit, try some high intensity interval work. Which is basically working hard for a period of time, and resting a bit, over and over. Some examples would be tough intervals on a bike, work hard for 2 mins and rest for one. Another example is doing repeat sprints at the local park. These are harder, but you can do it in less time, you will likely burn a lot more calories from it, but you need to assess you goals and where you are.

As you can see, in your search of quick diets that work, you will only come to find that common sense, a little bit of discipline and a healthy lifestyle is what you actually need to achieve you goal. Be smart, and you will keep the weight off for life.

Increase Your Metabolism: 11 Hot Tips To Get Your Furnace Burning

Lauren — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:13:08 +0000

Eat enough
It’s extremely common for people on diets to eat too little. You will lose weight to start, but your body is smarter than you. Way smarter. It will start thinking, “this crazy kid is simply not eating enough to survive, I’m going to drop his/her metabolism, so he/she doesn’t burn as much during the day and can survive off this ridiculously small amount he/she is eating”. Bottom line, starvation won’t work as a diet, your body will make sure you don’t burn too much and die. Cut down your calories a little, and exercise more. Also check out this post on cheat eating and how it can help you trick your metabolism.

Eat more frequently
Try to eat 5-6 small meals a day. Don’t let yourself get too hungry in between meals. By getting food into your body regularly, you keep your metabolism firing, and leave your body in a much better state to burn some energy for you. The best way to do this is to plan your meals a week or so in advance, until you are able to get into the habit of eating 5-6 times a day.

Eat Breakfast
This is a simple one, but is still not being done in a lot of cases. By getting something in early in the day, i.e. when you wake up, you are kick starting your body. Getting your metabolism going ASAP makes sense. You will burn more fuel if your metabolism is up and running early. Your body is most tolerant to glucose in the morning, so you can get a fair bit of carbs into you. In fact, get almost anything into you (OK not anything…), just eat something in the morning. You have been in starvation mode all night, and need some fuel in right away to get your body firing. Not only will this get your metabolism going, you will find that later in the day you aren’t as hungry and won’t make terrible food choices, or pig out as much. Instead of looking for diets that work, just start to eat in the morning.

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle....my personal nutrition plan.

Eat more Protein
This has lots more benefits than just metabolism. Protein is a muscle builder, you need it to grow. Lean protein is even better for that, more good stuff for fewer calories. Your body takes a bit more work to burn this stuff too, which is called the thermogenic effect. So, if you don’t get enough protein in, start eating. Check out Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Protein Powder.

Eat more Fiber
Same principle as above. Fiber is harder for your body to process, and you will get a small increase in metabolism through this effect. It’s also wonderful for your digestive system and keeps you regular.

Weight Train
Weight training is the ultimate exercise for firing up your metabolism. The more intense your exercise and the more muscles you get involved, the better metabolism increase you will get. Weight training is intense, you are pushing heavy weights around, and you will get a good post workout increase in metabolism and burn for much longer. Get on it. Check out the core performance by mark verstegen for a great workout.

Build Muscles
The more muscle mass you have the higher your metabolism will be. Simple.

Work Your Legs
Leg Weights are important for overall muscle balance, and do need to be done for many reasons other than speeding up your metabolism. However, it’s just another added benefit. Legs are often neglected; it’s the biceps that are overworked. Your legs have a big muscle mass, if you work this mass, you will burn more energy, and thus, increase your metabolism post workout. If you don’t care about how muscly your legs are, at least chuck a few leg exercises in there to get your body working harder during your weights session.

Do more Higher Intensity Cardio
Getting on the treadmill for 30 mins at a slow pace is OK. But there are better options. Doing some intense work will burn more calories, and leave you with a better post work out metabolism boost than a long slow cardio session. A 10 minute bike interval session would be much more beneficial than a slow 30 minutes session. It’s the post workout boost that is the key, as with weight training, the more intense you work, the longer and stronger your increase will be and the more you will burn whilst you aren’t even active. Check out this article from t-nation on which type exercise is best for energy burning and increasing your metabolism.

Avoid Alcohol
Alcohol is bad for your metabolism. It acts against it and will slow it down. Avoid drinking it too regularly and you will increase metabolism easily.

Increase Incidental Physical Activity
This is an important one. Being active will automatically give you a short term boost to your metabolism. Adding some extra things into the day that you hardly realize can add up. For example, make your bed in the morning, park your car a little further away than normal, take the stairs occasionally, get up from your desk frequently if possible. Just by simply being more active during the day, which is called incidental activity, you will get an increase in your metabolism.

If you are looking for more information on how to increase your metabolism, then check out this amazing book from Tom Venuto… Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.

Dieting: Why is it so hard?

Lauren — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:44:46 +0000

Leptin. Heard that word before? Leptin is the answer to your questions. Dieting is so hard because leptin is involved. We love leptin…it does wonderful things, but when you diet, it becomes your worst enemy.

What Is Leptin?

Leptin is a hormone that plays a key role in energy expenditure and intake. Sounds pretty important huh. Well it is. Leptin is your satiety hormone. Meaning, it tells you when you have eaten enough. It also is kind enough to raise your metabolism, something all dieters are striving for!

Sounds Good To Me…

Yeah, but its a little more complicated than that. Leptin levels revolve around a couple of things. Your level of body fat is one. People with higher levels of body fat generally have higher levels of leptin. Leptin is secreted from fat cells, so there is a direct correlation (obese people actually produce a lot of leptin but their receptors have had enough of it and dont recognise it…hence not ever feeling full).

The second thing is calorie intake. When you try to lose fat and restrict your calorie intake, your body lowers leptin levels. Regardless of your body fat level, if you lower your energy intake, your leptin production will slow down. Lowering leptin means your metabolism will drop. Also means you are not going to be satisfied and feel full.

In an ideal environment for the body, leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the idea that you have eaten enough. It keeps your metabolism high, and your body is primed for fat burning. As soon as you start dieting, leptin plummets. After only a week of dieting they can drop by 50%. You can see how this will greatly affect your ambition to lose weight. Your metabolism drops and you are always hungry. Your body does not want to burn fat. To make it even worse, when your metabolism drops, a couple of other nasty hormones get involved that really want to help your body STORE fat, and increase your appetite. Bit of a catch 22 isn’t it, you want to lose weight so you restrict your calories, but you also want to keep your leptin high and metabolism firing. Tough gig.

How Do I Stop This Crazy Cycle?

mmm looks good…so eat it!

Cheat. Eat some crap. Go on, do it. Your personal trainer might come at you with a stick but I have a very good explanation.

OK, so I mentioned above that leptin levels drop dramatically when you diet, causing all sorts of problems that you don’t want. Basically making it near impossible for you to lose the pounds. The good news is, this is reversed really really quickly. It takes less than a day for leptin to get back to normal levels. With a fair increase in calories, your body will increase your leptin levels, thus your metabolism will go up and appetite will be suppressed. Great I hear you say, but then I am eating more calories and will just reverse all the good work I already did. Well, not if you are strategic about it.
If you cheat on your diet once a week (when we know that leptin can be at its lowest after dieting), you give your leptin and your metabolism a boost, setting and priming your body up for fat loss once you resume your diet. You can eat what you want for a day, try not to binge…it’s just not a good habit. Up your energy intake that day, get your metabolism firing. When you go back to dieting, you will be in a much better state than if you had simply let your leptin levels and metabolism hit rock bottom. It’s almost impossible to lose weight at this stage.

The best thing to eat is stuff that is full of carbs. There is a relationship between leptin, carbs and insulin. There has been research suggesting that upping your energy intake alone won’t really help. If you stuff yourself full of protein and fats, it won’t raise your metabolism and up your leptin levels as effectively as carbs will. So on you cheat day, concentrate on carbs.

And…

There is another thing you should take from this carb business. If you should have carbs on your ‘cheat’ day, because they help stimulate leptin levels, then maybe you should still try to get them in on your diet days….There are so many diets out there that focus on limiting your cards. Yes, they do have the most energy in them, but you need them, and they help your body get into a state ready for fat loss. They can slow down the drop in leptin that is inevitable when dieting. Don’t ignore carbs all together in your diet, they play a very important role.

So, why is dieting so hard? Leptin. This hormone is your tool to weight loss. Be strategic, not stupid.

Weight Loss Blog: Why You Should Start One

Lauren — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:13:11 +0000

Pic: DeaPeaJay

If you are struggling for motivation, and a way to dedicate yourself to your weight loss cause, why not start a blog? Fellow blogger John, started his so he could get the support and guidance of people out there experiencing the same thing. There are lots of weight loss blogs popping up now, you can track your weight loss, discuss problems and general receive some extra support from right around the globe. Check out his article on 4 Reasons You Should Be Writing a Weight Loss Blog.

Fat Burning Zone Goes Bust

Lauren — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:12:43 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, I see the logic, you want to lose fat, you gotta burn it. However it really does amaze me that this myth is still ripe in the fitness industry. It scares me is that there is a lot of trainers who are still peddling this line to their clients.

Scientifically, it’s correct. There is a zone where you burn more fat. Here’s why. At a lower intensity, your body requires less quick energy (which comes from carbohydrate), and it can utilize slower burning energy (which comes from fats). The problem lies in the fact that weight loss is simply one thing. Energy in is less than Energy out. You have to expend more energy than you put in your body to lose weight. It’s an equation, and quite a simple one. Sure you will burn a higher percentage of fat if you work at a lower intensity, but you will burn a lot less calories than you would if you were working out at a higher intensity. If weight loss is your goal, total amount of fat lost will be lower with a low intensity workout. You have to exercise for a long time in your ‘fat burning zone’ to reach the same amount of calorie expenditure as a short high intensity session.

But how does my fat get burnt?

It is a little hard to understand, it seems so simple, want to lose fat, then you want to burn more of it. Try and think of it this way…your fat stores will be broken down and transformed into carbohydrates when your body needs fuel anyway, so it is irrelevant which type of calorie you are burning. Your fat calories will still get used. The key is to expend more calories. Working at a higher intensity will only cause you to use a lower percentage of fat; percentage is the key word here, what we are after it total. Because you are burning more energy in total, you will still use more fat calories. The bottom line is, if you have a limited time frame, a short high intensity workout will give you more benefits. Save some time and get better results.

Lack of Sleep Making You Fat?

Lauren — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:32:50 +0000

image: Roca Zhang

Are you hitting roadblocks in your weight loss and you don’t know why? Doing all the hard work and not getting the results?

A recent study in the American Journal of Endocrinology has determined that women who get less than 7 hours of sleep a night are more inclined to gain weight than other.

The Study

In 1986 (Yes this study was a long one) 68,183 women aged 39–65 years participating in the Nurses’ Health Study responded to a question about sleep duration. At the time of response they were free from disease. Originally they were asked to indicate the total hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. They were sent questionnaires every two years. The most recent questionnaire was in 2002, and the journal article was published late last year.

The Results

From the beginning of the study a clear relationship existed between sleep duration and weight gain. Those sleeping 5 hours or less weight 2.47kg more on average than those sleeping 7 hours. Those sleeping 6 hours were 1.24kg heavier. Remember, this is at the start of the study before any follow up had been done. Not only was there this difference at the start, but the study showed women sleeping less were more inclined to put on weight faster.

Over the 16 years of the study, 10.5% of women experienced a 15kg weight gain. Those sleeping 7-8 hours per night had the lowest risk. Women sleeping 6 hours were 12% more likely to have a 15kg weight gain, and those sleeping 5 hours or less were 32% more likely. It should be noted that calorie intake and activity levels were taken into account in this study and did not affect the percentages.

Why Does Sleep Deprivation Cause Weight Gain?

There are several reasons why a lack of sleep can lead to you gaining unnecessary pounds.

Hypothalamic- pituitary functions (a place where your hormones originate from) are strongly linked to circadian rhythms and sleep regulatory processes. These include hormones that influence eating, energy balance and metabolism. So basically a lack of sleep can mess around with some pretty important hormones for maintaining weight.
Short term sleep restriction lowers your level of the satiety producing hormone, leptin, which basically makes you feel full. A double whammy to that is that sleep restriction increases levels of the appetite producing hormone, ghrelin. Which makes you basically want to eat more.
A side effect of lack of sleep is fatigue. If you are tired you are less inclined to exercise and may reduce physical activity and energy expenditure. Therefore predisposing you to weight gain.
It has been suggested lack of sleep can affect your metabolic rate, but further research is needed to confirm this.

So… hit the sack and help your cause, and ask yourself, Are You Sleeping Enough?

Britney Spears’ Digital Diet

Lauren — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:37:27 +0000

OK so it’s a little off topic but I couldn’t resist. I stumbled across this when I was signing out of my hotmail account on ninemsn. Britney is a celebrity who is well known to have body image issues, and in the last few years we have watched her fluctuate up and down, along with the turbulence in her life. In her latest video, Piece of Me, there have been reports that she was ‘digitally slimmed-down’. She appears a lot skinnier in the video than she did in paparazzi reports earlier in the month. It would be nice if weight loss were that easy eh. Read the full article here.