54 tips to lose fat

Welcome back!

This week some quick but useful tips to help you lose fat (you’ll notice a lot are food based – remember you can’t out train a bad diet!!)

  1. Be clear on your fat loss goal:  Know the amount of fat you want to lose. You’re your time frame. Tell others to invoke accountability. Write in all down in an exercise book or a journal. Be clear.
  2. Have a pair of skinny jeans ready for ‘success’ day. Or a jacket o blouse or bathing costume – whatever. Just have this on display where you can see it every day. It’ll help keep you on track.
  3. Take your ‘before’ pictures. Stick them in a book with your weekly measurements next to your clear goals. (Waist, upper arm, mid-thigh, belly, chest)
    No don’t keep these ones, keep the SKINNY ones where you can see them!!
  4. Don’t weigh yourself every day.  Weigh yourself the same day at the same time every week. Take your measurements at the same time. Write them down in your book. (Don’t have a fat loss journal – get one – any old exercise book will do.) The best 2 ways to judge your progress is how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror. Muscle weighs more than fat so you have your weight go up yet be losing fat. Be wary. “
  5. Understand that it’s not all or nothing; if you fall off the fat loss wagon, dust yourself off, don’t beat yourself up and get right back into it!! This is a journey of inches not miles…
  6. Be honest. With yourself— The only person that you fool by sneaking food or eating ‘off reservation’ is yourself.
  7. Eat breakfast.  Simply put those that ate a protein heavy breakfast ate less during the day, had more energy and less body fat. It can be eggs & bacon, a protein smoothies, nuts & yoghurt – so long as it is protein plus unprocessed carbs you’re be on the right track.
  8. Drink tea. Lots of research suggests that drinking tea (any tea EXCEPT herbal teas) stimulates your metabolism, works on body weight re-partitioning and lowers your body fat – especially belly fat.
  9. Drink more water.  2 glasses before a meal helps you feel fuller and interacts with fibre from vegetables to bulk them up. Water also helps shift fat by helping your kidneys & liver to function properly. 8 Glasses a day is good rule to follow.
  10. Get at least 8 of these bad boys into each day!

    Drop the store juice and sodas: Change to low or no-calorie drinks. Home- made iced tea, Coke Zero, diabetic sodas – all are good alternatives.

  11. Eat more veggies. Calorie sparse, nutrient dense they fill you up, without loading you up with too many calories.  Avoid the high fat/high calorie dressings.
  12. Eat eggs.  Every day.  Forget the cholesterol BS – eggs don’t raise bad cholesterol and are nature’s perfect fast food.
  13. Get enough fibre.  Think of fibre like a sponge; it absorbs water and makes you feel full. Focus on fibre, not carbs.
  14. Eat more fruits: No one ever gained weight from eating more fruit even the so called “high sugar” fruits, like bananas, melons and others.
  15. Eat more protein.  Lean protein helps satiate you, and increases your metabolism, through the thermic effect of food.
  16. Eat protein at every meal & snack.  This maximises the effects of #10
  17. Eat less Grains. Increasingly it seems that grains and grain based foods are not good for us and predispose us to fat gain and a number of debilitating diseases like arthritis. Try to cut down on them. Besides most grain based foods are highly processed and that’s definitely not good for you.
  18. Start meals with soup or a salad.  Either will help you feel full more quickly so your
    Prefer Chicken? Either is right!!

    calories at the meal will be less. E sensible with your soup and dressing choices.

  19. Steak & Salad Rules. Best way to get your veges & lean protein have a steak & salad meal at least once a day.
  20. Add cayenne pepper to your meals.  A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that when compared to placebo, capsaicin (the active ingredient in cayenne) increased fat burning. Spice up your meals!!
  21. Watch your portions.  Each meal try for a palm sized portion of protein and 2 fists of non-processed carbs. Don’t Supersize.
  22. Bake, don’t fry. Slow cook in the oven or quick stir fry on the stove top. Both are healthier than pan frying.
  23. Switch to smaller plates; visually your plate looks fuller and you’ll eat less.
  24. Use a Barbeque or a grill.  Less fat, more flavour. Marinade your meat overnight to cut down on the potential of carcinogens from naked flame cooking. Don’t cook or eat well done.
  25. Keep it out of your house – or at least out of sight!!

    Keep your house crap free. Chips and Cookies and cakes and banana bread and …you can’t eat them if they’re not in the house. For those of us with families – have less of these in the house and keep them out of sight – in the garage or back shed. Studies show that the food we see more of we eat more of.

  26. Have a big bowl of fresh fruit in plain sight. See above
  27. Don’t grocery shop when you’re hungry.  Recipe for disaster. Have a meal or grab a  handful of nuts first then go shopping for food otherwise you’ll fill the trolley with all the self-control eroding processed foods you’ve been conditioned to love & want.
  28. Become a nutrition label guru: If you have to eat packaged foods check the labels and put back those with heavy sugars, Trans fats or HFCS.
  29. Decrease/eliminate processed carbs wherever possible.  They do nothing for you outside of creating a favourable environment for gaining fat
  30. Eating out? Swap side dishes with steamed veggies.  Restaurants will often allow you to switch the fries or chips with steamed veggies; all you have to do is ask.
  31. Order dressing on the side, dip the fork in dressing, and then in the salad. 
    Ready for what?? Not ready to support health or fat loss…

    This saves a ton more dressing than if one was to order it on the side, then poor the entire cup on the salad anyhow.  Less calories equals less weight.

  32. Skip buffets.  These are a trap to overeating. Don’t.
  33. Skip the Designer Coffees.  Great way to get up to an extra 500 calories in one hit. Have black coffee or a tea instead.
  34. Don’t socialise around the food tables at parties; Grab some food and move away from the table otherwise you’re more likely to pick, and eat mindlessly even though you’re not really hungry.
  35. Try to eat slower.  It takes approximately 15-20 minutes for your stomach to sense it’s full.  Eat too fast and you’ll shovel in more than you need to.
  36. Stay away from the alcohol— I‘ve written on this before – just drink sensibly – 1 or 2 a night is okay but any alcohol will put a dent into your fat loss efforts. Remember your body stops burning fat to deal with alcohol first. Plus having alcohol lowers your inhibition so you overeat other calories too – kebabs at 3 AM anyone??
  37. Take a brown bag lunch. Do this as often as possible – not only will you control what you eat but you’ll save money.
  38. Keep some healthy snacks on hand — like nuts — in your bag, your briefcase or your glove box so you’re prepared at all times. Swap them out regularly so they are always fresh
  39. If you’re working this hard today – carbs aren’t going to be a problem…

    Match your carb intake to your energy output. You need fewer carbs on the days you aren’t working out hard than the days when you are. Up the protein on non-workout days to support recovery and satiety.

  40. Have fish oil – several grams a day.  Omega-3s have more benefits than possible to list in this short blog – but one is more Omega-3 = less body fat!
  41. Wake up and exercise; not only do you burn more fat but you’re more likely to exercise in the AM than at night after a day in real world.
  42. Lift weights. Heavy weights.  Build more muscle, burn more calories.
  43. Do complex exercises like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, chin-ups, shoulder presses and push-ups.  The more muscles you involve in each exercise the more benefit you’ll get. Leave the triceps’ kickbacks to the folk who aren’t serious about getting leaner and stronger.
  44. Cut down rest time between sets.  Just because you’re lifting heavy does not mean that you take a 10 minute break between sets. Rest long enough for your breathing to ease and then do the next set. Repeat. This keeps your metabolism surging and those calories burning…
  45. Do intervals.  HIIT = Faster fat loss. Study after study continues to show intervals are more effective for fat loss (and in less time) than traditional cardio. Ditch the treadmill and the marathon runs – get down get dirty get lean!!
  46. Sprint twice a week. Sprinters have lower fat and more muscle.  Just look at the
    A sprinter. ‘Nuff said…

    body of a sprinter vs. the body of a marathoner.

  47. If you have a dog, take it for a walk—Aim to do this every day. Set it as a routine.
  48. Buy a pedometer and aim for at least 10,000 steps each day.
  49. At work set a timer. Most of us work at a desk so set a 30 minute timer like ‘Cool Timer’ and get up for a stretch every 30 minutes. Go for a brisk walk after lunch, but sit less and move more.
  50. Try not to use internal email. Whenever possible get up and walk to a co-workers desk.
  51. Eat standing up.  In tandem with the above have your snack or lunch at work standing up – you’ll burn more calories. Want quicker meetings? Have them standing up with no chairs in the room.
  52. A classic – Use the stairs, skip the escalator and the lift.  Tried and true every bit of additional movement helps you lose fat. Doing this by itself won’t have a huge impact but as a part of the overall effort to move more it helps.
  53. Even at work – move more sit less…

    Another classic – Fidget. In Australia the Gut Buster program has this as one of its mainstays – fidgeting. Move more and more often. Get thinner.

  54. Change who you hang out with.  If your friends are all overweight, don’t show an interest in getting leaner, eat pizza or other fast foods a few times or more a week then you need to change who you’re hanging with. Research has shown conclusively that the people we hang out with can either assist or undermine our efforts to lose fat and get healthier.

Be well – see you next week.

4 Ways to Speed Up a “Slow” Metabolism

Welcome back!

How my friend wants to go back to looking like…

I was talking a friend of mine the other day who is trying, to lose weight. (Long term readers will know that I consider this ‘wrong thinking’ we should be focussed on losing fat, not weight…)

The amount of weight in question is only 7 kilos (about 15lbs) so my friend is not obese yet she has been struggling with this same 7 kilos for years now…losing most if not all of them only to have them come back often with extra  ‘friends’…I’m sure that this sounds familar to many of you – it was certainly my experience in the past.(For my story and why this happens to so many of us sign up for the free report at the top right of this page)

You know the situation Lose 5kg.  Gain 4. Lose that 4.  Gain 6. And so on.

From our chat it was obvious that this pattern had been repeating over & over since her early 20’s. Having 3 kids in her late 20’s may have made it a bit worse, but nonetheless this weight has become a decade long issue. Her husband, a big athletic ex-kickboxer has also been fighting the same fight since he hit his late 30’s. This is not just a female or male only issue – we all want to look and feel healthy and the older we get the harder it becomes to get into and then stay in shape.

This is because our metabolism becomes de-conditioned. It is just not a matter of it slowing down – it actually becomes less efficient in a whole lot of areas all of which impact our health & well being.

This how we want see ourselves – lean & fit…

Now my friend & her husband are example so this. They get in shape about once a year through an all out campaign of huge exercise increase and dietary restriction. They drop weight (though not necessarily fat) look slimmer for a period of time and then the slow (or not so slow) weight regain happens and they end up being the same size as before if not larger. Even worse it takes more & more effort to get into shape each year and once there they are staying ‘slim’ for shorter & shorter periods of time.

Accepting a future of becoming ‘comfortably chubby’ is on the cards as far as they are concerned…My friend is concerned about this and wanted to know how she can speed up a slowing metabolism.

So how do you speed up a “de-conditioned” metabolism?

The bigger you are the faster your metabolism will be – this is simple fact. However if you took 2 people the same size and weight – the one with the lower body fat would have the faster metabolism and the easier time of it when it came to losing fat and getting healthier.

Why? Well because muscle – lean tissue – does increase metabolism more than fat, so less fat and more lean tissue keeps your metabolism running faster. A faster metabolism burns more calories and this means decreased fat.

Build muscle. The more muscle you have the faster you metabolism, the lower your body

Lift weigths, move more – get your metabolism reconditioned…

fat and the better you look naked – pretty good reasons to strive to get more lean tissue onto your frame don’t you think!!??

Muscle is more metabolically active at rest and when moving. Now some folk will tell you not to get too excited about this because for every 1 lb (500 grams) of muscle, research shows its only about a 9-15 calorie/day increase in metabolism. But as you know losing fat and looking better and being healthier is a game of synergy  and incremental gains What you eat, when you eat, how often you eat; when & how you work out, how much sleep you get, your stress level, your DN – all of these things work synergystically for or against your fat loss. So in the scheme of things burning an extra 9 or so calories a day at rest is not exciting BUT fat loss is a game of increments not huge differences!! It all adds up – so while 1 lb of muscle doesn’t offer a huge calorie benefit, adding on more muscle than that does.  Plus working out to gain that muscle has a ton of other health related benefits – including better calorie burn! If you work out properly you can be burining extra calories for hours afterwards.

Eat More.Unprocessed carbs and protein that it. It sounds contradictory but the other way

Eat more often & eat more protein with unprocessed foods…

to speed metabolism is to eat more. I have spoken about the Thermic Effect if Food (TEF) here: Metabolism-what-it-is-how-you-can-make-it-work-for-you-part-6

When you eat, especially if you eat protein and fibrous vegetables & fruits, your body has to use energy to digest & process your meal so your overall metabolism increases.  Protein, of course, does more to boost metabolism than either carbs (even unprocessed ones) or fats because it takes more energy to break it down & process it.  So make sure each meal includes a little protein — fish, eggs, chicken, turkey – skip the nuts, beans or soy their protein is not complete (they have to be eaten with foods containing a complete amino acid profile – ie flesh based protein) are less bio-available and does not have a) the same thermogenic affect and b) confer fewer health benefits.

Eat breakfast.  Eating a good solid breakfast after what is effectively at least an 8 hour

A family favourite at our place….

fast gets the metabolism rolling in quick order. Again though it is protein and fibrous carbs that do the trick. That oatmeal, boxed muesli or buttered toast are marginally better than skipping breakfast entirely but only just.and is likely to be causing a lot of other less desirable health effects. (Mmm – insulin spikes for breakfast just what I need to stay fat!!)

The best breakfast to rev up your metabolism is eggs with spinach, mushroom, onions and capsicum as an omelette, along with some cheese, some fruit and a small handful of nuts. (Colby cheese and pear is one of Nature’s great duos – right up there with tomato and onion, bacon & eggs, cauliflower and cheese sauce..)

There’s now some solid data suggesting eating eggs in the morning boosts weight loss above and beyond choosing toast, cereal or a bagel.

Do HIIT for your workoutsI’ve said it before (Interval-training-the-1-not-so-secret-fat-loss-tool) – long, slow cardio sessions do next  to nothing in terms of creating a post

When you’re fit enough sprints are a great HIIT workout…

exercise calorie burn (EPOC) when the workout is done.  On the other hand, shorter, harder intensity exercise bouts cause a much longer increase in metabolism, even hours after your workout is finished.  In fact, a number of studies show s much as a 14+ hour increase in metabolism after a high intensity bout of exercise.  This boost burned an additional 190 calories!  Again it is a game of increments so this will add up.

There you have it — 4 simple strategies to boost a slowing metabolism. If you’d like to know more about speeding up and reconditioning your metabolism go here and read the series.  How-you-can-fix-a-broken-metabolism-part-1

PS My firend & her husband have adopted the above and in addition have gone ‘paleo’. They’ve never looked or felt better. I’ll write about Paleo soon.

See you next week – be well.