Tag Archives: muscle

Muscle Growth, Preservation, Insulin & Leucine

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome back!

I believe that as a species we humans were designed to be lean, fit, muscular and healthy. We were not designed to be fat, overweight, beset with diabetes, whole body inflammation, heart disease and the rest of the gamut of modern lifestyle diseases. Our genetic promise is being steadily eroded by lack of exercise and a diet high in ‘fractured’ / denatured / highly processed foods that predisposes us to chronic diseases…

And no I am not about to start ranting about the need to return to eating & living like our pre-agricultural forebears. (Although a lot of the anti-grain information does bear at least some consideration if you want to pursue optimal health…) Even those folk who exercise regularly have trouble reaching and then maintaining a state of lean muscular health.

With all of the information available, with the explosion in personal trainers, DVDs for home and gyms why is this case?

Certainly a major part of the issue is the fact that despite the huge amount of information out there and the writings of people like Craig Ballantyne, Pauls Rigby and John Romanello people still chooses ineffective types of exercise.

I have written at length here about the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), of mixing low rep high weight training with medium rep medium training – but done circuit style. I have sung the praises of sprinting and Tabata protocols and kettle bells… Once you begin to work out in HIIT fashion using whatever modality you choose you can and do shift your body shape amazingly fast.

I think a major part of the problem from an exercise perspective, is the overuse of ‘Trash’ exercise – and most traditional cardio falls into this category. Too much focus on cardio (especially the ‘normal’ treadmill, exercise bike etc) with little strength or mobility work is, I am convinced the reason why so many folk try so hard yet see so little change in their physique.

Doing long sessions of cardio just does not work except to perhaps help you convince yourself that you are doing all you can and the fat that is not shifting is due to genetics or you being ‘big boned’ or…when simply you are indulging in a form of exercise that was prescribed back in the 1970’s when the scientific study of exercise performance was in its infancy. It still has a lot to learn but this exercise science is now at least a robust adolescent yet we persist in following outmoded and discredited exercise protocols.

I’ve already written extensively about the benefits of HIIT & Metabolic Conditioning exercise protocols, so here I will look at what you need in terms of nutrition to achieve optimal muscle building for leanness, fitness, and health.

Nutrition for Fitness

The commonly held belief is that if you want to build muscle, you need to eat lots & lots of protein and stacks of carbs because after all aren’t carbs our bodies preferred fuel? Yes & No. However, the evidence that has emerged over the past several years shows us it’s not that simple.

In the upcoming ‘Lose 20 in 30’ program I talk about research that shows that your body has a mechanism that allows it to build muscle even when deprived of food. Basically it is tied to a number of survival mechanisms which you can turn on by lifting heavy weights for lots of low rep sets – your body becomes convinced that it is under threat from the weights and so shifts gear to preserve if not actively build muscle even in a state of calorie deficit.

An important part of this mechanism is that some types of amino acids can act as signallers to certain muscle cell genes and turn them ‘on’ to grow muscle tissue. See, it turns out, that amino acids and protein are not just present in our bodies to act as the building blocks for tissues and muscle. Even during times of food deprivation, as long as these amino acids are circulating through your blood stream, you can preserve and even build muscle.

I have said many times before that we eat too little lean protein and too many processed carbs. The ratio between your protein intake and carbs is important for muscle preservation and growth – and it becomes even more important the older we grow. Time & again research from all over the world

has shown that high-carbohydrate diets fail to build muscle. Even in younger people. In study after study it is always the high-protein, low processed-carbohydrate diet that proves the most effective both for muscle building, metabolism boosting and fat loss.

So in order to live up to our ‘genetic promise’ of being lean, fit & muscular; there are two primary nutrition factors we need to pay attention to:

  1. A high-protein, low processed -carbohydrate diet
  2. And a diet high in amino acids – especially one called leucine

One Amino above them all…

Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) are truly the building blocks of our bodies and, as we have seen, also serve as gene signallers as well as a number of other functions.

Amino Acids are split into essential and non-essential. The difference being that essential amino acids cannot be made in the body (like Vitamin C) and needs to come from our food. Non-essential amino acids CAN be made by the body.

The amino acids regarded as essential for humans are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine, methionine, leucine, lysine, and histidine. (Histidine was added in the last decade expanding the traditional 8 essential BCAAs to 9)

Leucine is a very powerful muscle preserver & builder. It serves multiple functions in your body the most important of which (for today’s blog) is that it acts as the signalling mechanism for the mTOR (Mammalian Target of Rapamycin) mechanism. No need to reach for your BioMed dictionary – simply put this mechanism is the one which causes protein to be created and builds your muscle.

However, as is so often the case, in order to get its full benefits, you need to take in far more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA).

Don’t forget the RDA is based on the minimum amount of a vitamin or mineral or other nutrient that a body would need to stay alive. It is not based on the amount needed for optimal health.

It turns out that we need what the RDA advocates would view as massive amounts of this amino acid.

Outside of BCAAs supplements, Whey protein, and quality cheeses (again because of their high whey content) have the highest concentrations of leucine and a number of other BCAAs.

Getting leucine into your diet is easy. However it is also a BCAA that is used very much for energy, recovery and repair which for most of us leaves very little over for use as a muscle building agent. This is why we need large quantities of it to get enough into our bloodstream in excess of the repair & recovery needs so that it can signal the genes to grow more muscle. We need more than maintenance quantities.

Okay I hear you say, we’ll simply take a supplement. Like so many other chemicals which our bodies use there can be side effects. Leucine from food sources has zero potential for causing side effects, but using a leucine only free form amino acid supplement can be counterproductive.

Too much of leucine by itself can cause insulin resistance ( and we know that this means slower metabolisms and increased storage) by impairing your body’s glycemic control.

Now as much as I believe in supplements (especially Fish / Krill Oil and Vitamin D) in general macronutrients act in concert with one another and too much of one affects the interplay of others. Really wherever possible it is best to eat whole foods – we appear to be programmed to benefit most from whole food nutrition.

So how much leucine from food instead of supplements, do you need to consume to get results?

Maintenance doses of leucine range from 1-3 grams per day, in order to move beyond this it has been estimated that leucine requirement should be about 8g – 16g daily. Given that per 100 grams, Whey has 8 grams of leucine, cheddar cheese about 4 grams, egg yolks 1.4 grams, beef about 2grams, chicken 1.4 grams and salmon 1.6 – there seems to be a lot of food needed to be eaten.

So in order to get your 8 gram leucine to preserve & grow muscle you would need to eat the following amounts of food:

  • a pound and a half of chicken (750grams)
  • three pounds of pork (1.5 kg)
  • over a pound of almonds (500 grams & over 3000 calories)
  • over a pound and a half of raw eggs (16 eggs)
  • half a pound of raw cheddar cheese (250grams)

And only 3oz (about 100gr) of high-quality whey.

So once again it is a no-brainer – adding a good quality whey protein to your diet will help you preserve & grow muscle even if you are cutting overall calories.

Carb Quality is important as well…

In order to get to our genetic promise we need to be careful about where we get our carbs from. You can get your carbs from cakes, cookies, sodas, foods containing high fructose corn syrup, from breads and pasta, or from vegetables, legumes & fruits. The source of the carbs you eat makes a major difference to your metabolism, leanness & overall health.

It only takes 1 meal of high GI carbs to reduce the sensitivity of your insulin receptors. Follow it up with a second and your body will use this next load of carbs, especially if they are simple carbs even less effectively and so on…

It is no secret that I am pro-carb and anti processed carbs. Processed carbs are denatured / fractured foods and just not good for you on a regular basis. Low-glycemic fibrous carbohydrates are best for your body. Best for insulin sensitivity, best for increasing metabolism (see my previous posts). Nuts and seeds especially walnuts and almonds contain not just carbs but healthy fats, lots of fibre and even some protein.

I personally believe (and there is an increasing amount of research to bear this out) that grains are rarely ideal sources of carbs. I love good bread as much as the next person and I certainly view Oats a great breakfast food but vegetables & fruits are the way to go for the carbs you need.

Fructose containing foods are at the bottom of the list. No, not fibrous fruit like Apples, pears or Kiwi fruits – but processed carbs & foods especially those containing High Fructose Corn syrup. HFCS is widely viewed as the main culprit in the ever increasing waistline of the Western world.

Whilst fructose is low on the glycemic index, it’s vital to realise that it is metabolised differently from other sugars and can directly – and adversely – affect insulin and leptin signalling. Both of which are near the top of the list in terms of controlling fat storage and metabolism.  Your liver detects insulin activity, which helps your body determine how to metabolise your food. Insulin spikes caused by sugars in your blood stream are detected by your liver and it takes steps to regulate this. Because fructose rarely ever appears on its own in nature when it hits your liver with only a certain amount it can process and lacking an insulin spike the waste products of this metabolism accumulate in your liver. Too much of this and the liver itself develops insulin resistance.

But it gets worse – these by-products are then released and your body converts them to triglycerides whilst lowering HDL (the good cholesterol). All of this gives you a cocktail of insulin resistance, high blood lipids and likely hypertension and heart disease.

I’d even go so far as to say that if a food contains HFCS it is bad for you.

Want to lose Muscle? Get Insulin Resistant…

Insulin is a prime mover hormone – one of the most important, and amongst the most anabolic.

Insulin helps signals your body to move glucose from outside your cells into them, it affects your hunger levels on its own and through interaction with both ghrelin & leptin.

The insulin cascade is also a vital part of the mTOR signalling (other hormones do as well like testosterone, but the effect is greater with insulin as a part of the process) – if your body is insulin resistant this muscle preserving & building signal just does not get out and your muscles waste.

So use HIIT, eat more protein, include whey and cheese to get your leucine and lastly avoid the processed carbs. This is as close to a magic bullet for fat loss as there is.

Be well.

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 8

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome back!

So what causes downwards trends in your Metabolic Rate:

Children’s per body weight kilo metabolic rate is about 200% that of adults. Because they have a much higher proportion of their body composition made up metabolically active tissue (heart, lungs, kidneys, brain etc) in comparison to adults, are undergoing the demands of growth and simply having a more active lifestyle kids have a much higher metabolism than grownups.

It’s not just their activity level that makes children’s metabolism run so much higher than an adults…

However as growth finalises getting and we get older the proportion of metabolic active organs to our body composition drops. This alone means that our RMR decreases. Your RMR drops round about 25% between the ages of 6 and 18 as your adult proportions are reached and growth slows and eventually halts.

After age 18 your RMR decreases at least 2-3% for each decade that follows. (Many researchers put this figure even higher if you live the typical Western lifestyle.) By the time you have hit 40 your RMR is usually more than 40% less than it was as a child.

So this drop in RMR is coupled with an increasing loss of fat-free lean body mass as we take on adult, ‘real life’ responsibilities and  move less, exercise less, eat metabolism slowing foods and eat more than our slowing RMR demands. Usually we eat more ‘on the go’, less regularly and the wrong foods with a lower TEF – so this compounds the RMR dropping effect.

So as we age we experience a lower RMR, lower TEF, and less TEA – these all combine to create a less lean, fatter, less metabolically active environment for our bodies. Even worse because these changes are gradual our bodies accept them and then strive to maintain them via a state of homeostasis.

Face it – by the time we are in our 40’s, if not before, most of us are well on the way to a future of not moving well, having larger fat stores than is good for our health and in fact be starting to experience firsthand some of the myriad health issues that our Western lifestyle is rife with.

So does Metabolism slow down or do we?

The answer is both.

Unfortunately the exception – not the rule!! (but most of us could if we wanted it badly enough…)

As we age we certainly move slower as the ability to contract our muscles lessens and undertake less physical activity.

The slowing of your metabolism is real. Our cells have miniature ‘furnaces’ in them called mitochondria. These mitochondria burn the fuel supplied to them and as we get older they become less & less efficient at burning fuel and recent research suggests that their numbers also decline as we age. This leads to a slower metabolic rate not just at rest but also for all activity.

Next we have a delightful process called sarcopenia, which is a fancy name for muscle wasting. Once past the age of 50 our ability to retain muscle tissue in the face of poor nutrition and lack of exercise diminishes rapidly. Again since muscle burns more energy than fat, this means the metabolism slows down. This means it is harder to burn off a cupcake when you are in your twenties than it is in your sixties!!

Lastly being overweight slows metabolism because overweight people burn fat even less efficiently. Add these together as the years go by, and it is little wonder that we get fatter, less lean and that the inches start to get more & more numerous around your waist.

Take Away: Your Metabolism slows as you age – especially if you follow the typical Western lifestyle & diet.

Part 9 next week!! Don’t forget to browse the blog backlog – lots of good info hiding there!!

54 tips to lose fat

Posted on by
3

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.

The 4 Fat Loss Principles You Must Know to Drop Fat Fast…

Posted on by
1

Welcome back!!

In the spirit of last week’s list of 5, here are 4 principles that you have to apply if you are going to see fast fat loss results…

Principle the First – You gotta keep your metabolism humming along…
Cutting calories like most folk do when they decide to lose weight (ie Fat) results in a dive in the various processes that make up your moverall metabolic rate.

You eat less so you lose out on the thermic effect of food. Eating lessbecause most folk

Keep your metabolism humming – but don’t do crap like this!!

severley cut their calories back means you have less energy and so you move less and exercising becomes difficult.

Your basal metabolic rate drops off as you body enters into good ole starvation mode.

These things then combine to deliver a thump to your hormones.

Leptin (the ‘okay we’re full stop eating’ hormone) levels fall off a clif in as little as a week of moderate calorie reduction.

So you fix this by cycling your calories or even easier if you are going low carb then you must make sure that you a ‘Cheat day’ – the trick here though is to eat with some sense –

Eaten intelligently even pizza can help you lose fat…

don’t gorge and overfeed, just allow yourself to have some processed carbs one day a week if you are on a serious drop fat fast diet. ne day of ‘spiking’ your carb intake will reset your leptin levels to pretty much normal so you can cut calories for ht efollowing week and then reset again with a ‘cheat day’ and so on…

This strategy works best if you workout hard the day before your cheat day. here is a program from renowned training Expert Craig Ballantyne that you can use:

Do a minium of 3 rounds and try for 5 if possible.

Rest 15 seconds between exercises and 1 minute at the end of the circuit.

Do as many repetitions as possible in the given time.

Make sure to do a bodyweight warm-up of squats, lunges, and
pushups before this circuit (2 sets of 8-12 reps each).

1) Lunge Jumps – 20 seconds
2) Pullup or Bodyweight Row – 30 seconds
3) Spiderman Pushup – 30 seconds
4) KB Swing – 30 seconds
5) Walking Prisoner Lunge – 30 seconds
6) Cross-Body Mountain Climber – 30 seconds
7) KB Goblet Squat – 30 seconds

Lunges – work!!

By doing this you deplete your body’s store of glycogen and when you cheat the next day these stores get refilled so the extra carbs not only reset your leptin they don’t 9unless you are foolish) create a calorie overwhelm that results in fat loss. In fact doing this can help predispose your body to burn fat as preferred fuel…

Principle the Second – You gotta cut calories a lot if you want fast fat loss…

You’ve read it here before a pound of fat is 3500 calories (closer to 7200 for a kilo) and the only way that you get your body to shift those pounds / kilos is for you to eat less so your body burns more…

Of course there is more to it than just eating less – what you eat, how often and and so on all has an effect but the base line info to grab onto here is that you have to create a strong energy deficit for fat loss to occur.

Which would you rather be carrying around…

Dropping 5 kilos (about 11 pounds) of fat equates to a energy deficit of around 38,000 calories..

if you’re hooked on thinking in terms of weight loss rather than fat loss then you need to understand that a pure fat loss of 5 kilos probably means a total weight loss of 7.5 to 10 kilos becuase of fluid loss that comes along with dropping weight.

Principle the Third:  You gotta use both DIET & Exercise to achieve your fat loss.

  I’ve said it before – you can’t out train a bad diet and you can’t lose fat unless you get a number of things working together.

Forstly – take as many of the processed, then the the starchy processed carbs out of your diet as possible. Replace these with loads more vegetables, lean protein and fruit.

Step up your exercise and use HIIT protcols to get your metabolism revved up. Lift heavy weights at leat once a week to keep your muscle mass intact 9if not increase it!0 and then use cheat days to keep your homones on your side.

Is there more to it than this? Yep – but just do the above and you’ll get results better than 80% of the folk who try to lose ‘weight’…

Principle the Fourth:  You gotta keep the muscle you’ve already got… 

I mentioned this above but it is worth locking down on its own.

Muscle is more metabolically active than fat. The more you have the faster your basal

Lift heavy once or twice a week to hold onto fat burning muscle mass…

(resting) metabolism is and the more calories that you burn at rest. Likewise when you exercise if you have muscle your body will burn more calories more quickly than if you were fatter with less muscle.

Most people lose muscle when they diet becuase once your body goes into starvation mode it tries to protect fat stores and turns to breaking down muscle to supplement your energy needs. But you can stp this. Dead. How? Lift heavy weights. It has been shown in a number of studies that lifting heavy weights once or twice a week makes your body preserve if not add to) your muscle mass and gets it to burn more fat – even if you are in starvation mode due to calorie cuts.

Well there you have it – 4 principles to follow for rapid fat loss.

See you next week.