Nutrition and Fat Loss
Nutrition and Fat Loss go hand in hand. The old saying "you are what you eat" couldn't be more true!
Let's take a closer look at food.
The majority of the food you eat is made up of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Your body uses the fat in your food for a variety of biological functions, some of the important ones being lubrication of your joints, long term energy suppy, and organ building... on that note, did you know that the human brain is made up largely of fat? Yep, human beings literally are FATHEADS.
The proteins in your food are the building blocks of new cells and tissues. That's why weightlifters and bodybuilders eat a lot of protein... they are making sure they give their body all the materials it needs to build new muscle.
Carbohydrates are the primary energy supply. They are converted into chemicals like glycogen and are used to power your muscles and body as you go about your day.
Calories
The amount of energy in the food you eat is rated in calories. The more calories, the more energy. On average a human being of normal body weight needs about 2000 calories a day to fuel the body without gaining or losing weight. However, this is just a rough approximation because you might need more or less depending on your muscular build, height, and level of daily exercise.
The rule of thumb, as far as not gaining weight is:
Calories Eaten = Calories Burned
If you burn more calories than you eat, you will start to lose weight. And if you eat more calories than you burn, well... your body will store those extra calories for later use - you gain body fat. For a great guide on how to "calorie-shift" your meals and trick your metabolism into burning the calories instead of storing them as fat check here.
Rule #1 of Fat Loss
You may be tempted at this point to just say "Ok, well, I just won't eat any calories then. That's guaranteed to make me lose fat!"
Not really.
You see, the human body is a marvelous machine. Over millions of years, it has learned how to survive through all sorts of negative conditions - starvation being one of them.
When you don't eat enough, your body says to itself, "Hmm... we aren't getting any food. There must not be any food for our owner to eat. We better slow down and not burn as many calories until we can find food again." The body prepares itself for long periods without food so you don't starve to death, and starts using less calories and shuts down non-essential functions.
This sets you up for failure, because when you do eat your body isn't going to burn all the calories you just consumed. You just ate more calories than you will burn... see where this is going? Yep, all those extra calories are going to go straight to body fat.
This leads to Rule #1: NEVER SKIP MEALS
If you want to achieve fat loss, you have to eat. Be sure to eat breakfast too. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for fat loss... it kickstarts your metabolism and gives you energy for the day. Breakfast keeps you from getting tired and hungry later in the day as well, and prevents you from potentially overeating. Ideally, I recommend that you get a list of foods that encourage your body to burn fat by triggering the release of certain metabolic enzymes. You can find more information on these foods in the recommended guide.
Remember: Eat, and eat breakfast
Rule #2 of Fat Loss
Stay away from sugars. Sugar really IS the devil when it comes to losing fat and improving your health. Sugar is the worst thing you can eat if you want to slim down and be healthy. Everyone talks about eating "low-fat"... forget low-fat. Low-fat doesn't matter. Fats can be healthy for you. And in fact your body NEEDS a certain amount of fat each day. Sugar is never healthy, it always throws your metabolism into chaos! Your goal should be zero-sugar.
Here's why any sugar you eat is making you fat (and sick): When you eat sugar, your body doesn't have to use any time or energy converting it into fuel... the sugar goes straight into your bloodstream. Your body sees a sudden rush of sugar-fuel and reacts accordingly - it dumps a ton of enzymes into your blood and begins to try to use the sugar as much as possible. These enzymes ALSO begin converting the sugar into body fat.
THEN...
Suddenly the rush of sugar is gone from your blood... it's been used up and stored as fat. But the enzymes are still in your blood and they are interfering with the sugars you need just to stay awake. You start to feel sleepy, and your brain says "hmm no sugar in the blood, we need to eat food." You get hungry and want to eat. Then you eat food with more sugar in it... and the cycle repeats itself. Layer after layer of fat is deposited on your body.
Sugar leads to a vicious cycle that your body is unequipped to deal with... and over time all the constant fluctuations take a toll on your health. Diabetes is just one disease that can be caused by years of this sugar cycle.
So, if you are going for fat loss: Stay Away From Sugars! This includes any foods that your body converts into sugar such as alcohol. The guide has more information on these foods and how to eat these foods without doing too much damage to your metabolism.
Rule #3 of Fat Loss
Eat at the appropriate times. Earlier I said you must eat breakfast and other meals. Yes, you should never skip meals. However you must make sure to eat your meals when you have at least a few hours of activity ahead of you. You should never, ever eat before you go to bed. As you sleep, your body slows down and uses less calories. If you eat before you sleep, your body will see all those calories flowing around your bloodstream, and will realize it cannot use them all...so it will store them for later and make body fat!
If you have to eat less than 3 hours before bedtime, make it a snack. Otherwise I'd skip it if you want to maximize fat loss.
Rule #4 of Fat Loss
Try to limit portion size whenever possible. If you normally eat 3 slices of pizza at a sitting, eat only 2. You should never eat until you feel bloated and "stuffed". Eat slowly and carefully, drink water while you eat, and pay attention to your stomach. Leave the table when you feel comfortable and not hungry anymore. Eating just a bit less, for even one meal a day, can have huge effects as time goes by. For instance, if you can skip that 300 calorie pizza slice... and you do that every day for a week... you just prevented yourself from eating 2100 calories that week. And since there are about 4000 calories in a pound of body fat, you can see how this can affect your fat loss! That's 2 pounds of body fat a month, and you can still eat pizza!
4 easy rules to follow to achieve long-term fat loss. All you had to do was make sure to eat (whaaat?)...replace sugars with sugar free...don't eat before you sleep, and cut down on your portion sizes a tiny bit. Pretty easy, and the best thing is IT'S SUSTAINABLE. You can do this forever without going crazy. Who said you had to eat rice-cakes and grapes all day!? Pretty easy, but I recommend you check out the guide for a deeper analysis of nutrition and how you can set your body into a fat-burning mode The Fat loss 4 idiots diet has 10 simple rules to weight loss:
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