Tag Archives: metabolism

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 6

Posted on by
Reply

HI & Welocme back!!

Today we’ll take a quick look at other factors that affect your RMR.

Your RMR isn’t just affected by your TEA & TEF (Thermic Effect of Activity & Thermic Effect of Food) – there are a large number of factors that often work in combination.

Some of these are:

  • Body size – Because of their size adult bodies have more metabolic active tissue and a

    higher RMR than a child. This does not hold true for obese folk as they have a lower RMR in general than lean folk. So to raise your RMR – get leaner

  • Age – Our metabolism slows with age, due to loss muscle tissue along with hormonal and neurological changes. Not a lot we can do about getting older but keep an eye out for the ‘Counterclockwise’ program (coming later in 2011) which is a 100 day program aimed at reducing your biological markers of age.
  • Growth – Babies, infants, children and teenagers all have a much higher energy demand per unit of body weight than adults. This is due to the energy demands of growth, the energy needed to maintain their body temperature when little, and the fact that (apart perhaps from teenagers) they are so physically active.
  • Gender – In general – men have faster metabolisms than women because they tend to be larger, have more muscle tissue and have proportionately less body fat.
  • Genetic predisposition – Your metabolic rate can also be partly decided by your genes.
  • Amount of lean muscle tissue – Muscle burns more calories than fat – even at rest.  The higher your proportion of muscle tissue to fat the better for your metabolism.
  • Amount of body fat – Fat cells are metabolically less active than muscle cells (and most other tissues in your body) and burn far fewer calories. It’s simple: the more fat you have the slower your metabolism.
  • Hormonal and nervous systems – Your RMR is controlled by the nervous and hormonal systems; and any hormonal imbalances (Insulin resistance, or increased Cortisol due to excessive stress, decreased Leptin or raised Ghrelin for example) influences how quickly or slowly your body burns calories / kilojoules. You can affect your hormones through carb manipulation, other dietary ‘tricks’, sleep and exercise. – See the accompanying Lose 20 in 30 Hormone Primer
  • Dietary deficiencies – If, for example, your diet is low in iodine this reduces thyroid function, which in turn slows your metabolism. (The Lose 20 in 30 Nutrition program makes it damn near impossible to be deficient!)

  • Environmental temperature – By cooling or heating our immediate environment we can increase out RMR by causing the body to work harder to maintain our normal body temperature. Being too hot or too cold both burns calories / kilojoules.

  • Infection or illness – In most cases our RMR increases when we are ill because our body has to work harder to build new tissues and to create an immune response. Not recommended for fat loss.
  • Crash dieting, starving or fasting – Eating too few calories / kilojoules encourages our body to slow its metabolism to conserve energy; this means that your RMR can drop by up to 15 per cent if the change is sudden. Not recommended.
  • Loss of lean weight due to sudden calorie restriction. This often happens when people go on a strict restricted calorie diet, forcing the body into what is known as “negative nitrogen balance.” This means that more protein is lost than is replaced through your diet and is a sign of more catabolism than is normal. This nitrogen imbalance causes a gradual loss in lean weight and lowers the RMR. On the upcoming Lose 20 in 30 program we avoid this by using a combination of calorie sparse, but nutrient dense foods – with a heavy emphasis on ingesting sufficient quantities of good protein along with an exercise regime that creates the need for your body to maintain its current muscle level if not increase it. This in turn forces your body to take more & more energy from your fat stores. (see the soon to be released Lose 20 in 30 Workout Program for details)
  • Drugs – A number of drugs, legal, illegal, prescription and non-prescription can be used to increase your RMR. Caffeine is a good example of a legal drug that affects metabolism. Body builders used to use a ‘stack’ of caffeine, ephedrine and aspirin (in a specific ratio which I am NOT going to divulge) to really burn fat as well as some anti-asthma (no NOT Puffers) medications. These had obvious side-effects but they worked by amping up the RMR – something you can do but through effort not pill popping!!

Take Away: So if we manipulate our TEF & TEA wisely & strategically, we can increase our RMR and BMR which leads to a faster overall metabolism, a shift away from fat storage and a healthier, leaner body.

Don’t foregt to Tweet or FB us!!

Part seven next week….

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 5

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome back –  last time we looked at the thermic effect of food – how the foods you eat can increase or slow down your metabolism. This time we’re looking at TEA – the Thermic Effect of Activity.

Factors Affecting TEA

It is easy to have an effect on your TEA  – move more, sit less, and exercise 6 days a week using HIIT & metabolic conditioning protocols (like those found in upcoming the Lose 20 in 30 Exercise program).

Weighted vest training is a great example of MetCon training!!

Take the stairs, park further away, spend some of each day at work standing up – just add more activity to your day on top of conscious, challenging exercise.

Long traditional cardio is NOT the best way to increase your TEA – you need to use an interval style approach to max out your TEA. The best way to recondition your metabolism is to use a mix of resistance training, interval training and a training style called Metabolic Conditioning. (MetCon)

Ensuring that you work out using strategies that elicit a high metabolic cost, uses high EPOC inducing exercises will increase your RMR and reset your metabolic set point over a short period of time (you’ll see changes in under 30 days!). Again – the use of high intensity intervals, metabolic conditioning, and resistance training are the best forms of exercise to achieve a faster metabolism and a leaner body. (see my other post on HIIT)

The more active we are, the harder we work our bodies & increase the demands on our muscles, the more energy we need for fuel and more importantly the more energy we need for recovery. Regular, challenging exercise increases lean muscle mass and ‘teaches’ the body to burn kilojoules at a faster rate, even when at rest. In this way we can alter what the body currently has as its homeostatic set point for a new one. Remember your body likes things to stay the same so if you add regular exercise this becomes the ‘norm’ and your body adjusts to cater for and adapt to this.

By improving / increasing your TEF & TEA you can in turn raise your RMR. As we have seen – this is important because your RMR accounts for the majority of your calorie / kilojoule burn & use. The higher it is, the more you burn and the leaner you become…

Exercise is the other metabolic affecting variable that we can manipulate, but it needs to be done strategically using the right exercise protocols & techniques.

Metabolic Energy Pathways

There are three different metabolic pathways that the body can use in order to tap into its energy stores.

Looks complicated but using this to your advantage isn’t!!

Without going in-depth to biochemistry, the three energy pathways are:

  1. ATP/PC – This is your quickest and most powerful energy source.  It is instantly available and requires no oxygen. ATP itself is the raw fuel for exercise as it is the chemical that drives muscular action. However our bodies only store enough for between 6 & 10 seconds – after that it has to start manufacturing more ATP.
  2. Anaerobic Glycolysis – This is the next quickest energy source and is the way your body creates ATP without oxygen.  It is also the process that creates the ‘burn’ in your muscles. This energy system is good for 2 -3 minutes of activity and enables you to continue a relatively high level of activity but it does create a high level of muscle fatigue. This makes it difficult to continue using this metabolic pathway beyond the initial couple of minutes.
  3. Aerobic– This last system is the slowest to act and is good for fuelling a moderate activity level. However it can sustain this level of activity virtually for as long as there is fuel available to use. The aerobic system is the process your body uses to produce ATP but with oxygen.

Following high intensity activity, the aerobic system is required for recovery and to re-establish balance within the body, removing the metabolic by-products, re-synthesising metabolic compounds such as creatine phosphate and providing energy for the repair of exercise induced tissue damage. (She’s definately got her TEF & TEA working for her!!)

In a simple way, our normal energy system is primarily the aerobic system, with the ATP-PC and Glycolitic systems acting as reserves.  They provide extra power when needed, but are a very limited resource in comparison.

When we talk about metabolic conditioning exercise we are talking about a strategic exercise protocol that works all three of these energy pathways. (See the Lose 20 in 30 Exercise manual coming soon!)

That’s it for this week – next time we’ll look at other factors that affect your resting metabolic rate – some will surprise you!!

Be well!!

Tweet us or like us on Face Book!!

Metabolism – What it is & How you can make it work for you Part 4

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome back!!

Today – Factors affecting the Thermic Effect of Food

Harnessing the Power of TEF
TEF can be affected in four ways

  1. Overeating
  2. The composition up of the foods we eat
  3. When we eat
  4. The number of times that we eat
  5. Exercise

Overeating:

Your TEF can be raised by simply overeating as the body has to use more energy to digest a larger amount of food. This means that even if you ate 3500 calories (the number in a pound of fat) you still would not put on that pound as your body would use some of the calories as TEF. How strong the TEF effect on the 3500

calories would be depends upon what they made out of. If it was high GI, high processed carbs or fat your store more as fat than if it was made up of protein and low GI unprocessed carbs. Bottomline is that you would still put on fat, so overeating is not recommended.

NB There is no such thing as a ‘negative calorie’ food. Even celery requires less energy to burn that it contributes to your calorific intake.

The composition of the foods we eat:

As we have seen the different macronutrients all have a different thermic effect when we eat them. In order to maximise our fat burn and to increase our metabolism we should be eating protein with every meal, keeping fats generally low, avoid processed carbohydrates and eat un- / low processed, low GI, Low GI load carbs. The up coming Lose 20 in 30 Fuel manual explains all of this in greater detail.

It is important to note though that research has shown that that just upping your protein intake whilst severely reducing your overall calories does not produce enough of an increase in your TEF to offset the overall metabolic reduction such calorie restriction cause. Research has also shown that adding spices such as chilli and curry to your food increases your metabolism overall, but particularly your TEF.

When we eat:

Our TEF is higher (average 16%) in the morning than in the evening (average 11%) according to the American Journal of Nutrition. The variance is not huge but we should harness this to work for us. Every little bit helps when it comes to altering our metabolic set point.

You should also try to eat the majority of your carbs in the morning as your body is coming off the enforced ‘fast’ we call sleep. Carbs early gets your metabolism moving and research shows that carbs eaten earlier in the day are less likely to be stored as fat.

The number of times we eat:

Eating more often increases our TEF. But research has shown that the number of meals consumed has to be consistent from day to day for this to have maximum metabolic effect.

Research from Queens University has shown that eating in an irregular daily meal pattern (three meals one day, four the next, then two, then six then…) results in a significantly lower TEF than that found in folk who eating to a regular meal pattern. The TEF is even more enhanced in those who eat six meals per day. (Again don’t think of plates of food, but rather 3 main meals and three ‘snacks or top ups)

Food calories that are in excess of our body’s immediate needs tend to be shunted towards fat storage and are far less likely used for either energy, muscle growth / tissue repair or storage as glycogen. This is why eating 5 or 6 times a day not only increases your metabolism by the thermic effect of food but it also means that meal sizes are smaller and there is less chance of an ‘on the spot’ overload of calories.

Exercise:

Yep exercise. People who regularly perform exercise that is has a high metabolic cost actually have a higher TEF that that of sedentary people. This remains true even if you compare two groups of people that have similar fat free masses. Even more interesting this increase in TEF is not age dependent which means that the natural age related decrease in metabolism can be positively affected by challenging exercise.

Challenging exercise has also been shown to increase the TEF of carbs when they are ingested in the 45

minute post-exercise fuelling window. This means that not only is your insulin sensitivity heightened after exercise, but you burn more energy to digest the carbs and they are less likely to go into fat storage.

This means that you can give your TEF a ‘nudge’ every time you exercise and that you increase the efficiency of your post-workout fuelling.

So in summary we can affect the TEF in several ways:

  • Eat more protein and eat it at every meal
  • Eat hot spicy foods for example foods containing chilli, horseradish and mustard.
  • Eat more carbs in the AM than PM
  • Eat less fat
  • Eat a consistent number of meals each day – 5 or 6 is best
  • Exercise more

Maximising your TEF is important but it is only one part of the overall metabolic picture.

Take Away: Eat more in the AM than PM, eat often, and become familiar with the ‘burn’ rates of your food so you can maximise the TEF of your Fuel.

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 3

Posted on by
1

How can you fix a Broken Metabolism? Part 3

Welcome back !! Remember if you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are that your metabolism is slowing down and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

In the last post we looked at the effect diet can have on our hormones and how this in turn affects our metabolism in terms of fat storage or fat loss. We saw how certain eating

patterns and foods can trigger fat storage and the anti-starvation hormones which in turn blunt our metabolism and decrease lean tissue.

Today we look at the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

Thermic Effect of Food

  • Macronutrient ‘Burn rates’
  • Food timing
  • Meal Frequency

Just eating burns calories. Every bite, chew& swallow, each step of digestion, transport & storage in the processing of food creates what is called the “Thermic Effect of Food.” (TEF). And certain foods require more energy, more metabolic involvement to be processed.

TEF accounts for as much as 10% of our daily calorie expenditure so if we can optimise it we will recondition our metabolism that much faster and for the long term.

Protein for example has a thermic effect  or burn rate as high as 30% while the burn rate for fat is as low as 2 or 3%. In fact dietary fat is so easily processed that it creates little thermic effect on the body at all. The quickest way I know to put on loads of body fat is to eat simple carbs with fat and no protein or fibre…

Carbohydrate has a burn rate that falls between the two and depends upon the type of carbohydrate being eaten. Complex, lower GI carbs require more processing and therefore create a stronger thermic effect than high GI carbs and simple sugars & starches.

If you eat an equal number of calories of protein, of fat and of carbohydrates, the calories in the fat are more likely to end up on your waist as fewer of them are burned off by the thermic effect. If you are eating the right foods you are not only re-conditioning your

metabolism but you are burning more calories.

Even better, studies show that the leaner you get the more your TEF increases, and for people who exercise their TEF is even higher. It is almost unfair – the leaner you are the more calories you burn from just eating, whereas the fatter you are the less calories eating consumes…just another reason why reconditioning your metabolism is so important.

You can take major steps in re-conditioning and re-igniting your metabolism by eating foods that are nutrient dense, fibrous and require more effort from your body to process. Likewise you can bring it to a screaming halt by eating too many of the wrong, easy to process foods.

This leads again to an earlier point – not all calories are equal. A calorie is no more than a convenient measure of energy, but calories from different sources require different amounts of energy for our bodies to process them.

So if you eat protein your metabolic rate will rise approximately 30% which means that for every calorie you eat from a protein source your body will burn 30% of one of its’ own calories. For every 100 calories of protein your body will burn 30 calories just to process it.

This is like getting a 30% off discount in calorie intake without the calorie crash scenario. So 100 calories of protein is really a ‘net’ 70 calories – you get 30 for ‘free’

If you eat 100 calories of Carbs your body will burn 10 – 20 calories (on average) to process them. This means that if you eat 500 calories, 10% of them will be burned off by the thermic effect, leaving only 450.

If you eat 100 calories of fat, then your body will burn only 5 calories of its own for processing.

A gram of fat contains more than twice as many calories as a gram of protein or carbohydrate. So a gram of fat not only gives you more calories, but a smaller percentage of them will be burned off by the thermic effect.

While the vitamins and antioxidants in vegetables & fruit are great for you, the fibre is where the rubber really meets the road as far as your metabolism goes. Your body expends a lot more calories digesting fibre and protein than it does simply digesting carbohydrates.

This does not mean that you should only eat protein in your quest to lose body fat, nor should you be blind to the beneficial effects of some types of fat on your metabolism & overall health. What it does mean is that you need to know how to combine protein, complex carbs and ‘good’ fats so that they work optimally to re-condition your metabolism.

Don’t forget our next post will look at the ways that you can use exercise to recondition

your metabolism.

Exercise

  • Weight bearing – Being Lean = Higher metabolism
  • Cardio – work long or work hard can’t do both
  • Metabolic Circuits – HIIT, drive metabolism up and keep it up for up to 30 hours after
  • NEPA – non-exercise physical activity move more!!

Don’t forget to find us on Face Book at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Body-Shape-Shifters/114105291987499

 

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 2

Posted on by
5

Welcome Back!!

Remember – if you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are your metabolism is slowing and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

No sign of a broken metabolism here…

Today in part 2 of how to fix a broken metabolism we look at the Affect of Diet on Hormones:

The Affect of Diet on Hormones:

  • Fat Storage
  • Fat Sparing
  • Fat Burning

The main hormones in question are:

  • Cortisol – the stress & belly fat storing hormone
  • Leptin – the anti-starvation hormone,
  • Ghrelin – the ‘I’m hungry‘ hormone
  • Insulin – The blood sugar controller

In the last post we looked at the effect various foods can have on our metabolism – either raising it or blunting it. Now we need to look at the effect of diet on our hormones. Hormones are responsible for just about every physiological / chemical process that starts or stops in our bodies.

How we react to stress, how happy we are, how quickly a bruise disappears, a cut heals, a fingernail grows, how much lean tissue we create, how much fat we store (& where), gain or burn for fuel, how & what is repaired – our hormones control all of this and more besides.

No excess fat here – this is a peak metabolism…

To lose a pound of fat we have to shed / use / forego 3500 calories. That is the mathematical fact and in the past most fat loss programs looked at cutting calories as the main way to lose fat. What they did not take into account was the type of calories (see http://bodyshapeshiftersonline.com/?p=100) or the unintended consequences of calorie restriction on our body’s hormonal systems.

Our bodies equate a sudden & sustained drop in calories (especially those from carbohydrates) as a famine situation and they have a sophisticated defence system to stop us starving. If our body thinks we are starving then these hormonal systems kick in and fat loss becomes that much harder.

In many ways successful fat loss has more to do with our body’s hormonal environment than any other factor. As important as exercise and metabolic training is, as important as sleep and the right fuel is – the battle to lose fat is won or lost largely on the hormonal side. And this side of the equation is incredibly complex. Because of this complexity the discussion on hormones & their manipulation here will be necessarily lacking in depth and detail.

Unlike poking out your tongue, whistling, lifting your arm, rolling your eyes or breathing more deeply we cannot consciously control our hormones or their actions. But we can manipulate them in a gross sense through diet, sleep and exercise. Further if we know what certain hormones do and what triggers their actions we can at least alter our internal environment enough to make these hormones work with us rather against us as we work on losing body fat.

Cortisol:

Cortisol is not a villain – it is essential to our health and performs many beneficial functions. Cortisol is released in response to physical, emotional & mental stress. If this stress is constant it signals your body that it’s under attack and your body responds by

The best way to stop the negative effects of Cortisol – get plenty of sleep!!

increasing the amount of cortisol in circulation. Through cortisol, our bodies by increase our belly fat reserves. This location not only offers protection to our organs but also positions this fuel source for easy availability for sudden energy needs.

Too much cortisol has the following effects:

  • Increased belly fat storage
  • Increased sugar cravings
  • Lowered immune system
  • Slower healing
  • Increased lean tissue breakdown
  • Decreased Liver function
  • Impaired cognitive performance
  • Suppressed thyroid function
  • Blood sugar imbalances such as hyperglycaemia
  • Decreased bone density
  • Higher blood pressure
  • Higher LDL (the ‘bad’ cholesterol)
  • Lower HDL (the ‘good’ cholesterol)

So how do we manipulate our cortisol levels?

Firstly by getting more sleep. Cortisol levels can increase by up to 30% just from missing some sleep. Getting at least 8 hours a night is a solid way to reduce Cortisol.

Secondly by lifting heavy weights. Although Cortisol is released in response to stress and weight lifting is a physical stress – lifting heavy weights also increases the release of Human Growth Hormone. HGH has many actions but one of which is to reduce cortisol levels. (HGH levels also increase with sleep – another reason to use sleep to blunt cortisol) By heavy weight lifting that increases HGH release

Thirdly by eating frequently. It takes only 14 days to kick in fully but by eating ‘mini-meals’ no more than 3 hours apart, during the day has been shown to reduce Cortisol levels by up to 17%.

Lastly decrease your intake of simple starches (breads, pastas, processed junk) and sugars. In a vicious circle increased sugar intake increases the release of cortisol which in turn increase the craving for sugar which…

Leptin

Sharply lowering carbs creates lower leptin levels in the body. Falling leptin levels triggers signals to the brain suggesting that a famine is imminent and that the body needs to slow the metabolism, hold onto fat and try to maintain the current state of homeostasis in terms of body composition. Low leptin levels are the surest way to hold onto body fat.

Fortunately it is relatively easy to fix – add more carbs back into your diet, and eat 5 – 6 times a day. Whilst it takes a week for leptin levels to drop, they can be replaced with only a day of carb loading. This is the thinking behind carb cycling diets.

Ghrelin

Ghrelin is the hormone which controls cravings – heightened levels of it mean that your appetite is elevated. Ghrelin reacts in concert with Leptin so long carbs, sustained low calorie intake and low leptin levels means that ghrelin levels rise and you are hungry. The fix for ghrelin is the same for leptin – add in more carbs and if leptin rises ghrelin will fall and appetite drops off as well.

Insulin

Insulin is most associated in people’s minds with diabetes and fat storage – two things no-one wants. However a bit like Cortisol Insulin is not a villain – it is the main hormone responsible for helping your body recover properly after exercise. Insulin increases blood

Insulin resistance is a result mainly of a poor Western diet…

transport to and from your muscle cells so the “waste products” of exercise, like carbon dioxide, can be removed; helps reduce elevated cortisol levels that are formed during intense exercise, which helps reduce stress on your body and ensures that the muscles get sufficient nutrients for repair.

Insulin is both a storage and a transport hormone. It transports glucose from the blood into the muscles (&liver) to replenish glycogen stores. When these are full it then changes to a storage medium and moves the excess glucose into your body’s fat cells.

So if your glycogen stores (muscle & liver sites) are full and you eat enough simple carbs to cause a blood sugar spike then insulin spikes as well and stores the excess glucose in

Here’s one way to help overcome insulin resistance – move heavy weights…

the fat cells. Creating a ‘spike’ in blood sugar causes the body to ‘over react’ and release a surge of insulin. This causes a sudden drop in blood sugar creating tiredness and increased fat storage.

Unfortunately high insulin levels triggers a halt in fat burning when there is glucose present in the blood stream. Basically Insulin activates the shift from fat to glucose burning.

We can manipulate Insulin by:

  • Eating 5-6 times a day (seeing a pattern here?) which keeps blood sugar levels & therefore insulin levels more stable.
  • Eating complex carbs and avoiding simple carbs, sugars & starches which quickly metabolise into blood sugar.
  • Cut out processed foods as much as possible – including Bread, Biscuits, Cakes
  • Basically up your vegetable and fruit intake, cut out the grain based foods…
  • Increasing the amounts of healthy fats in our diet.

Don’t forget our next post will look at the ways that you can use the burn rate of different macronutrient types, meal timings & meal frequency to recondition your metabolism.

So we can manipulate our hormones by eating 5 -6 times a day, avoiding / reducing simple carb intake, getting enough sleep and exercising with heavy weights.

Next time we’ll look at the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

Thermic Effect of Food

  • Macronutrient ‘Burn rates’
  • Food timing
  • Meal Frequency

Don’t forget our next post will look at the ways that you can use just eating food itself to recondition your metabolism.

Be well!!

How you can fix a Broken Metabolism Part 1

Posted on by
5

How can you fix a Broken Metabolism? Part 1

If you are more than 20lbs (10 KG) overweight the chances are your metabolism is slowing and may even, in terms of fat loss, be broken.

The next 4 Blog posts will look at the four main areas that not only affect fat loss but which we can influence to achieve a leaner, fitter body in the most efficient manner.

Let’s be clear everything we do, every process that takes place in our bodies, is an output of our metabolism. There are some areas where we can effect changes to it and the area we are most interested in is the area of fat loss.

Great way to recondition your metabolism…

Here is a quick overview of the various factors you need to strategically combine to recondition a flagging metabolism so that it is more efficient at creating fat loss…

  • Food types that:

o   Boost Metabolism

o   Blunt Metabolism

  • The Hormonal Affects of Food:

o   Fat Storage

o   Fat Sparing

o   Fat Burning

  • The Thermic Effect of Food:

o   Macronutrient ‘Burn rates’

o   Food timing

o   Meal Frequency

  • Exercise:

o   Weight bearing – lean = Higher metabolism

o   Cardio – work long or work hard can’t do both

o   Metabolic Circuits – HIIT, drive metabolism up and keep it up for up to 30 hours after

o   NEPA – non-exercise physical activity move more!!

Any attempt to shed body fat and to become leaner & fitter is at least 80% diet. But the diet

This’ll rev up your metabolism…

part of the equation is not as simple as the old fashioned ‘just cut calories’ approach. This is not only outmoded but leads to poor results. As we saw in an earlier post ( http://bodyshapeshiftersonline.com/?p=100)  a calorie is NOT just a calorie except as a way of measuring energy.

We now know that certain foods can increase our metabolism, these are Metabolic Fuels.

Metabolic Fuels tend to be low in sugar, lightly or un-processed and closer to nature than many of the foods you eat at the moment. These are nutrient dense foods that promote feelings of fullness, provide metabolism supporting vitamins & minerals and amino acids. They increase our metabolism by requiring more energy to process (see the upcoming part 3 for TEF), by providing essential vitamins, mineral, fatty acids and proteins for body repair & growth and by keeping blood sugar levels (see Part 2 – hormones) steady.

Metabolic Fuels:

  • Any lean type of lean protein – including whey protein powder
  • Eggs.
  • High fibre complex carbs like Oatmeal
  • Fibre rich vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, cabbage, and brussel sprouts.
  • Dark green leafy vegetables like Kale, spinach.
  • Tomatoes.
  • Blueberries and other whole fruits.
  • Cherries.
  • Beans – any type
  • Nuts – especially Walnuts
  • Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids from fish oil
  • Healthy Fats like Olive Oil, Coconut oil
  • Greek style Yogurt.
  • Green tea.
  • Ice water. It costs your body around 9 calories to warm up ice water to body temperature – 25 calories per glass instead of 16.
  • Dark Chocolate: Lots of antioxidants at the 70% or higher cocoa level. Just don’t eat the whole block you only need a square or 2.
This does as well….

Spicy Metabolic Fuels:

Chillies, curries, and other spices – many of these contain a substance called capsaicin. Capsaicin can fire up your metabolism (some studies have shown a 50 percent increase in metabolism for 3 hours after eating capsaicin), act as an anti-oxidant and assist in stabilising blood sugar.

Here are some of my favourite metabolic & flavour enhancing spices:

  • Cayenne pepper
  • Chilli powder
  • Black pepper
  • Turmeric
  • Cinnamon
  • Ginger
    • Garlic Coriander / Cilantro

 

This is not a complete list by any means but the rule of thumb here is the closer to nature a food is, the more beneficial it is for reconditioning your metabolism.

On the other side our culture is full of highly processed denatured, nutrient sparse foods that blunt & slow our metabolism.

These foods lack fibre, are quick to be processed by our bodies, convert easily to sugar and often need vitamins & minerals added back to them to give them some nutritional value after processing.

Food Like:

  • Sugars – fructose, sucrose, dextrose, maltodextrin, to name but a few varieties
  • White Flour & white flour products like white bread, cookies, & biscuits
  • White Rice, rice crackers
  • Noodles
  • Semolina
  • Most pastas
  • Soda Pops
  • Cakes & Baked Goods
  • Commercial Fruit Juices
  • Most commercial yoghurts – especially low fat varieties (this usually means high sugar!!)
  • Virtually any packaged product that screams ‘Low fat’

The rule of thumb here is if it contains ‘white carbs’ (think flour, sugar & rice) it is best

Years of a broken metabolism at work…

avoided or at least eaten sparingly. If it promises to be ‘low fat’ – check out the sugar content because high sugar is worse than saturated fat for your metabolism. If your Grandmother would not easily recognise it as food think twice.

Mum was right lots of leafy vegetables and fruit along with lean protein is the best way to eat.

Foods can also elicit a hormonal response from our bodies based upon calorie numbers and the quantities and types of macronutrient present. These responses can be either fat burning or fat storing.

Simply put look to move towarss food swith the fewest number of ingredients on the label. Generally fewer ingredieints means less processed and less processed means more nutrition and less calories…

Next time we’ll look at the Hormonal Affects of Food

  • The Hormonal Affects of Food:

o   Fat Storage

o   Fat Sparing

o   Fat Burning

I hope you found the information above of interest. We’ll be backnext week to look at Hormones & Fuel.

The Surprising Truth about Saturated Fats & their place in a Healthy Lifestyle.

Posted on by
4

The misconceptions and outright lies about saturated fat and your health.

Hi Welcome Back!!

As you know I believe that there is a mountain of evidence (growing larger daily) that shows that processed carbs are the underlying cause of obesity and that a simple way to drop body fat and shift your shape is to cut them out of your diet.

Surprisingly research says you should too...

A few people have written in and asked ‘What about saturated fat? Doesn’t it cause hear t attacks and obesity?’

Here is the first of several posts on the truth about saturated fat. What I have to tell you will surprise you. It may even make you angry.

For decades we’ve been told that saturated fat will clog up our arteries and kill us. Most health professionals will tell you that fat is bad for you, that it raises the bad cholesterol (LDL), causes obesity and is a major contributing factor to heart disease & stroke. The media also pushes this line and rolls out dietician and nutritionist one after the other who agree.

The trouble is that no-one has ever proved it.

You read that right – NO-ONE HAS EVER PROVED IT!

There is better proof for these than the Lipid hypothesis

What has become Politically Correct Nutrition is based on the assumption that we should reduce our intake of fats, particularly saturated fats from animal sources. Fats from animal sources also contain cholesterol, which is presented as the other main cause of heart disease and is seen as an evil part of the a ‘civilized’ diet.

I’m here to tell you that this is a false perception. And a deadly one.

Simply put saturated fat is a normal, natural part of the human diet and has been literally from the time the first Neanderthal took a bite of animal…

Fats are essential to our health – without them you would sicken & die.

Why?

Well fats from animal and vegetable sources:
• Act as a concentrated source of energy in the diet;
• They provide essential parts of the building blocks for cell membranes
• They provide a wide variety of hormones and hormone-like substances.
• They act as carries for all of the fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E,& K
• They assist with mineral absorption
• They are an essential part of the processes involved in converting carotenes into Vitamin A
• Fats slow down absorption of food if part of a meal so it takes longer for us to feel hunger again.
• Fats are a part of what keeps our skin in condition
• Fats are involved in…
You get the picture – fats are essential to our health.

The cause of this demonization of saturated fats is a thing called the ‘Lipid Hypothesis’. (fat theory).

Now according to this fat theory there is a direct relationship between the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in someone’s diet and their incidence of coronary heart disease. This was proposed by a medical researcher in the 1953 whose name was Ancel Keys who believed that there was a connection between fat intake and mortality from heart attacks in 6 countries: Japan, Italy, England, Australia, Canada, and the USA.

His research has called the anti-fat tune for over 40 years...

What he reported was that the US had the highest heart attack rate and the highest fat intake whilst Japan had the lowest fat intake and the lowest rate of heart attacks. The other countries neatly fitted into the 2 extremes, again based on reported fat intake and heart attack incidence. Keys called this a ‘remarkable’ relationship and went public with the idea that eating fat causes heart attacks. He was quite a natural publicist and was soon on the cover of TIME gravely warning that people were ‘eating themselves to death’.

In 1970 he then said that new research had shown that it was not all fat, but rather the amount of animal fat eaten could be used as an accurate predictor of someone’s likelihood of suffering a heart attack. He also noted that there was a strong link between cholesterol and heart disease. His hypothesis was that the saturated fat derived from animals raised cholesterol and this lead to heart disease. Most Doctors and even the Heart Foundation believe this to this day – 40 years after the theory was proposed.

Thing is there are major flaws & problems with Keys & his research.
In numerous subsequent studies over the last 40 years his data and conclusions have been brought into question. For example the data he used to draw his conclusions came from only six countries – which represent only a small portion of the countries where data was available on fat consumption versus heart disease death rate.

When subsequent researches have gone back and used data from the same era, but from a greater range of countries, even with a bias towards the ‘western diet;’ they found that there was no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths.

Read that again – NO LINK!!

So Keys’ conclusions were actually false.

Next is the fact that even in the 1950’s it was recognised that there were a number of factors that caused heart disease but Keys chose to consider only one potential factor – fat intake. He gave no consideration of other factors such as smoking rates, stress factors, sugar intake, exercise frequency etc etc.

Guess Keys forgot about these & heart disease...

It is unfortunate that his faulty research was coupled with a flair for promotion and the beginnings of the food processing industry because this confluence of factors has seen Keys study cited for over 5 decades as proof of the “fact” that saturated fat is bad for you.

There ain’t much in the way of facts here…

Since that time, numerous other studies have been conducted trying to link saturated fat intake to heart disease. The majority of these studies have failed to correlate ANY risk at all from saturated fat. A couple of them made feeble attempts at linking saturated fat to heart disease, however, it was later shown that in those studies, the data was flawed as well.

This is actually good for you...

I’ll be back with the Whys & Wherefores of the good things about saturated fats and how eating them can actually be better than good for your health…

I’d love to hear from you – so Tweet this, Face Book like this or leave a comment!

A quick Food Change That Will Lower Body Fat.

Posted on by
2

Hi – Welcome back!!

Here is a quick food change that will lower your body fat:

It’s really quite simple – choose and eat more vegetables and fibrous fruits as your main carbohydrate sources and ditch the starchy foods.

Why?

Pizza sliced

Well every Carb you eat, no matter what type gets broken down to glucose (blood sugar).

So a slice of white bread, cup of rice, a pear , an apple a piece of broccoli or that iceberg lettuce all end up being processed by your body to end up as its’ preferred fuel source – glucose.

If this is the case then why is the type of carb we eat so important and how can it affect our body fat??

It’s really quite simple – different types of carbs are metabolised at different rates by your body. A couple of posts a go I referred to the Thermic Effect of Food and how different food types are processed at different rates by our bodies.

Processing food goes further than just macronutrient type though – different sub-types of macronutrients are processed at different rates. So with carbs some are processed more quickly than others.

This difference processing rate affects how quickly glucose is produced and even how much.
High Glycemic Index Carbs (ie those carbs that are closest to glucose already) are processed more quickly than Low GI carbs (the ones furthest away from glucose). The other way to look at these is processed versus lightly or un-processed carbs.

Processed carbs tend to be high GI and are processed rapidly whilst low GI carbs are digested more slowly.

So why does this matter? Well the quicker a carb is processed the quicker glucose is created and ‘dumped’ into the blood stream. This is handy for quick energy boosts. The slower carbs are digested, the slower glucose is released into the blood stream which leads to a more sustained the energy release.

Therefore complex carbohydrates should be your main choice for energy because they offer more of a sustained energy supply. Simple carbohydrates create a quick boost of energy followed by a rapid decline, almost like a “crash.”

Complex carbohydrates mainly come from those lightly or unprocessed foods which are high in fibre. Foods like nuts, broccoli, peas, and green beans.

Sidebar: Fruit is often called a simple carb – not true for all fruits. Those fruits with a significant amount of fibre are actually digested slowly. So yes grapes will be processed quickly but apples or kiwi fruit will not. On the other hand most types of breads are ‘quick carbs’ their lack of fibre means quick digestion, quick glucose release…

There are three reasons to switch from a diet full of starchy carbohydrates like bread, pasta, and rice to a diet with more fibrous, leafy ones like vegetables. First is the metabolism raising effect of eating more fibrous carbs – we’ve already mentioned the Thermic Effect of Food.

Fibrous vegetables

Add more of these to your diet...

Secondly is that by switching away from starchy, processed carbs we will see a drop in the number of calories ingested without (more likely an increase!) a drop in nutrients. Starchy carbohydrates like bread and pasta are more calorie dense than fibrous, leafy ones like vegetables.

The third reason to eat this way is the fact that sudden ‘spurts’ of glucose into the blood stream causes insulin to be released.

Insulin’s role in this case is to ensure that the glucose is shunted into storage as glycogen in the liver & the muscles. If the storage in these areas is full the glucose is stored in fat cells. Quick spurts of blood sugar are more likely to create this insulin response than slower sustained glucose release.

So what we want is to eat more of the foods that make us feel & stay full, that raise our metabolic rate, and at the same time giving us the nutrients that we need. Many processed starchy carbs are nutritional wastelands, quick to digest and do not promote feelings of fullness. Unprocessed carbs like fruit & vegetables are nutrient dense, fibre rich and calorie low – unless they are deep fried or drowned in margarine or butter..

I believe that for effective and permanent fat loss to occur it is important to choose foods that offer high fibre, high volume, high nutrient content, low calories and a sustained glucose release. Eating this way, you do not feel empty and because you are feeling full you tend to avoid developing the cravings that make staying on a change of diet so hard.

Look I know that you are thinking: ‘I can’t live without Bread / rice / pasta / biscuits etc’ Nor should you. But if you want to drop some fat and get your metabolism firing better you need to moderate the amount of High GI, starchy processed carbs that you eat. The sensible middle path to take here is to eat true multigrain breads, swap the white rice for brown and durum pasta for a more fibrous variety.

If you put your mind to it this is surprisingly easy and the Bread etc becomes not only less important on a daily basis but more enjoyable when eaten less often.

I’ll be back in a couiple of days – in the meantime why not leave a comment, Tweet us or visit our Face Book Fan Page???

The 30 day ‘Rip off the Fat with the Best Foods for Fat Loss’ diet…

Posted on by
1

Welcome back!!

This week an extremely ‘doable’ 30 day fat loss via food plan… Read it, do it and you can expect dramatic and EASY Fat Loss…

Regular readers know that you can’t out train a bad diet. In your quest to lose body fat and to re-condition your metabolism food has to come first.

I’m far from the first to say and I certainly won’t be the last – and anyway you already know

Even over 70 you can look this good!!

this. It might be deep down, it be hidden but you KNOW this…

So food is first – here are some simple but effective guidelines for your nutrition. Follow these and you’ll rip off the body fat in no time (well about 30 days actually)

As a definite plus if you adopt these guidelines for the long term than you’ll likely live longer with more energy, more health and a lot more enjoyment…

Okay – the Guidelines:  Eat lots of these foods…

In order to maximise fat loss and improve overall health you need to eat:

  • Foods that are nutrient dense and calorie sparse
  • To improve the absorption of these nutrients in your gut
  • Food in a macronutrient format that improves your body composition
  • Enough good quality foods to meet as many of your micro- & macro- nutrient needs as possible from your food
  • Using sensible timing & spacing to control both cravings and hormone release

You should NOT eat:

  • Foods that harm you – and you know what they are!!
  • Foods that are calorie dense and nutrient sparse
  • Foods that say now with added vitamins!
  • Foods that contain what I’ll call antinutrients – like most grains and processed grain products
  • Foods that contain trans fats, HFCS and lots of sugar in any form.

Look there are (last time I looked 12+ months ago over 2.5 Million diets & programs out

Cops may lov’em but the trans fat keep you fat…

there. Some are good (anything by Berardi of Precision Nutrition fame or Rousseau of Warp Speed Fat for example), a few great, many crap and more than a few that deliver short term results only…

Even simplistic programs like the Slow-Carb-Diet from Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Body is one that you can use long term and it does get results.

Thing is, even on the better touted diets, most of them work for so long as you are compliant. When compliance stops so does the results and fat gain usually occurs.

Here are my thoughts on using food for fat loss…

What follows is a 30 day full on program. Follow it as written and you’ll lose fat and gain energy and likely without any hunger pangs or uncontrollable cravings. It’s really that easy and this is an easy program to follow…

You might not get to look like Thor, but you will drop fat…

The program is designed around food. So if all you do is the foods I mention in the way I mention then you will lose fat.

So – are you ready to start losing some fat? If so then this is the absolute ‘no deviation allowed’ ever rule for ALL of your meals – eat your food in the following sequence:

Lean Protein first, then good Fats then Vegetables – preferably low starch ones. Lastly if you have some room left – some Fruit – berries, cherries, apples or pears preferred…

Again eat you’re your food in that order for the next 30 days.(or longer) and you’ll get your fat loss well under way…

But how does this work you ask? This is the ‘guts’ of fat loss and improving your health – buckle up!!

I recommend that you eat this way – eat your protein until you are about three quarters full, make sure that you’ve had your healthy fats and then eat veges until you are full and have had enough.

Why lie this? Getting in the amount of protein that I’m recommending will be tough – read on…

Protein.At every meal for the next 30 days eat your Protein first. And it should be solid, chewable protein – no shakes, no meal replacement powders – just good old fashioned solid protein. Why solid? Chewing your food helps to trigger satiety and this in turn a) stopsyou over eating and b) actually reduces the chance of any cravings popping up.

Don’t get me wrong I think that whey powders are a great source of protein and very

Yum…Protein!!

convenient but this program is manipulating a lot of variables (i.e. satiety triggers etc.) so the shakes are out for 30 days.

You’ll see a lot of writers these days extolling the virtues of only eating grass fed beef and wild salmon, free range eggs and chicken etc etc. and there is something to what many of them say – especially if you are in the US or Canada – about the potential health risks inherent in ‘normal’ foods, farmed the normal way. In Australia & New Zealand the use of drugs in livestock and so forth is a lot less.

It is true however that grain feed beef has a high Omega 6 to omega 3 ratio and this is a ratio that needs redressing (see Fats section below for the reasons why) But we don’t all live in a world of financial plenty…

There is the issue of cost. I know that your health is priceless, but the reality is that if you are an adult with adult responsibilities then you may not be able to afford those ‘wild’ sources of protein.

Guess what – so what.

Just eat the protein that you can afford (a quick note here along

Forget grass fed versus grain fed eat eat you can afford…

with shakes – no soy, no tofu no TVP or Quorn etc. – real flesh based protein only) and you’ll get results. Add some supplements (buying & using the few that I’ll suggest further on will still be cheaper than going the organic / grass fed / free range / wild only route) Again of you can afford it, fine go the organic route if not then leave the optimum protein sources out of your musings – if you can afford grass feed beef or free range eggs – great have them! If not, then eat the beef you can get – just try to make it as lean as possible, and the eggs you can afford.

No matter what though – eat your protein first.

How much protein? Try to eat about a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight or more. This will not be easy – a 100 gram steak contains about 21 grams of protein. So when I say 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight I don’t mean 1 gram of steak (or Chicken / veal / lamb / pork / salmon etc) I mean I gram of protein. If you weighed 200 pounds then to get your 200 grams of protein from steak you will need to eat about 100 grams (2 pounds) of steak.

Beginning to see why you won’t have to worry too much about hunger…

So in order to get this amount of protein into you each day you need to be a bit strategic and break your protein intake up over each of your daily meals – I find that if you are willing to do some prep time 4 or 5 meals a day makes this easy, but if you’re not then aim for 3 or 4.

Regardless of how often you eat you have to make the protein and the amount of protein specific to you a priority.

Sounds like you have to count calories & grams etc doesn’t it? I hate counting and I bet that you do too, so do it this way:

Figure out what you daily protein target is (for me at 205 pound it is 205 grams) and then plan your protein requirements using the tables below.

For example to get my 205 grams I’d need to eat – over my 5 meals – about 41 grams of protein a meal. So if I have 2 hamburger patties, a decent sized steak then I’m already be half way there. Add in a chicken breast, a can of tuna and a couple of eggs and I‘ve hit my protein target.

NB: 1 Ounce = approx 28grams so 4 oz of steak would weigh 112 grams

Beef

  • Hamburger patty, 4 oz – 28 grams protein
  • Steak, 6 oz – 42 grams
  • Most cuts of beef – 7 grams of protein per ounce

Chicken

  • Chicken breast, 3.5 oz – 30 grams protein
  • Chicken thigh – 10 grams (for average size)
    Lots & lots of way to cook & serve protein…
  • Drumstick – 11 grams
  • Wing – 6 grams
  • Chicken meat, cooked, 4 oz – 35 grams

Fish

  • Most fish fillets or steaks are about 22 grams of protein for 3 ½ oz (100 grams) of cooked fish, or 6 grams per ounce
  • Tuna, 6 oz can – 40 grams of protein

Pork

  • Pork chop, average – 22 grams protein
  • Pork loin or tenderloin, 4 oz – 29 grams
  • Ham, 3 oz serving – 19 grams
  • Ground pork, 1 oz raw – 5 grams; 3 oz cooked – 22 grams
  • Bacon, 1 slice – 3 grams

Eggs and Dairy (avoid yoghurt – too much sugar even in Greek styles and watch the amount of cheese you eat – remember we want to drop fat and eat lean protein!)

  • Egg, large – 6 grams protein
  • Milk, 1 cup – 8 grams
  • Cottage cheese, ½ cup – 15 grams
  • Soft cheeses (Mozzarella, Brie, Camembert) – 6 grams per oz
  • Medium cheeses (Cheddar, Swiss) – 7 or 8 grams per oz
  • Hard cheeses (Parmesan) – 10 grams per oz
One of the best sources of protein…

Fat. For the next 30 days eat healthy fats second at every meal. By fats I mean healthy quality fats, not manufactured ‘franken-fats’ like trans fats.

As I’ve written before eating good fats is essential for fat loss and health. Given the anti-fat blitz of the last few decades this seems counterintuitive but the facts are the facts – processed carbs sugars make you fat, not fat itself. Even the worst of the saturated fats has little effect on fat storage unless it is eaten with processed carbs…

The idea is to try to cook in fats like coconut or macadamia, use olive oil where & when you can, cut out the commercial vegetable oils (really seed oils) like canola, corn or peanut and the like… This way you’ll begin to limit your Omega 6 intake and increase your omega 3’s (more on this below) you’ll not only be helping your body burn more fat but you’ll be reducing one of the main causes of inflammation in the body with all of the attendant horrors like arthritis, heart disease and so forth.

There are many types of saturated fats (our body’s makes omega 9 for example) but we need to get omegas 3 & 6 from our diet. Both are needed for our health but the ratio of 6 to 3 is the problem.

For the US of A consumption patterns over the last 40 years look like this:

Among 18 – 44 year olds in the United States, saturated fat consumption was in at 30 grams per day in 1970, and 27.8 grams per day in 2005.

Omega-6 fatty acid intake, however, was 9 grams per day in 1970, and almost doubled to 17 grams by 2005. Some reports have it even higher now in 2012.

High intakes of omega-6 fatty acids have been linked to cellular inflammation — one of the main factors behind a substantial number of degenerative diseases.

This is why I think everyone should prioritise good healthy fats like this: first increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, add in some monounsaturated fats, then use healthier saturated fats (like coconut, macadamia and cacao), and leave omega-6 fatty acids (especially from cooking oils) and less healthy saturated fats (like that in soft cheeses, pork, and chicken skin) last.

Although omega-6 fatty acids are essential to our health, they are so prevalent in so many foods that you would have to try extremely hard (and eat a significantly and dangerously limited diet) to not easily meet your daily requirement.

Healthy fats…

I want to finish this section on fat by making sure the main points are clear:

  • Omega-6 fatty acids are NOT intrinsically unhealthy – we need to consume a certain amount every day for optimal health.
  • Many very healthy foods are good sources of omega-6 fatty acids, so I am not advocating total avoidance of foods that contain omega-6 fatty acids.
  • However, our western diet contains consistently higher amounts of omega 6 and this pushes our intake of this particular fat too high. There is a very real need for this intake to be reduced because in this case, more is certainly NOT better.

Increasing your omega 3 intake is important to your health and is best done through eating deep sea oily fish (salmon or sardines for example) avocadoes, or taking a quality fish oil or krill supplement. You need to redress the 6 to 3 imbalance (some say it is as high as 20:1) as soon as possible.

The detailed benefits of omega 3 intake will be the subject of another post but for the moment take it as a given you need lots more 3 than 6 in your diet and the sooner the better.

The way to achieve this is to limit your 6 intake as much as possible and then to increase /

Don’t get ahead of yourself…

top up your 3 levels.

So eat your protein and then top up your Omega 3, by having some high quality fish oil with every meal. Aim to be having 2-3 grams of combined DHA/EPA per meal. (again – a fish oil capsule is usually 1 gram but it only contains about 450mg of 3’s so you need to take a few capsules – 5 or 6 at least)

But how much Omega 3 do I need?

Frankly I believe that everyone should be having 4-6 grams a day because of the many beneficial effects of Omega 3s’. Omega 3’s fight inflammation, help regulate insulin response, are used in a host of body repair mechanisms, are used in hormone production are important for brain health and even, it is not suggested are associated with maintaining telomere length – one of the most sought after anti-aging effects. Your body needs these…

Other writers suggest the following:

 

Abs so lower need of Omega 3’s

If you can see your abs, you have no sore joints (except after a heavy session in the gym) and have no arthritic signs then you’ll be okay with 2-3 grams a day.

If your joints ache, you have a touch or more ) of arthritis, your abs haven’t been seen for a while – then you’ll need to be having 4-8 grams total EPA/DHA per day.

If you get back to the visible abs level then you can reduce this to 3-4 grams.

Again try to divide your daily intake roughly equally across your meals.

Remember though the focus is on food so the supplements I’ll suggest will be few.

To top up the fat content of your meals try adding a tablespoon of one of these healthy fats: Butter – not dairy soft, not a blend just good old butter; ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil or best of all the rendered fats from an animal source. Yep good old lard – nothing makes cooking taste better. In fact all of these good fats when used for cooking add flavour that is second to none.

Of course if your meal is heavily weighted towards salmon, sardines, anchovies or lean

Deep sea fish are great for protein & omega 3’s

beef / pork / lamb then you can skip the added tablespoon (still use the above sources for cooking though!)

Cook your meat with the fat on, leave the skin on your chicken – these fats are not the enemy. Feel free to remove the skin or the fat after cooking if you must ( I still do with pork – just can’t eat it I’m afraid!)

For Cooking: Cook in coconut oil (low to high heat), Macadamia oil (high heat), olive oil (low temperatures) or use red palm oil (all temps) or use lard or butter.

Any other so-called vegetable oils other than those mentioned above should be banned from your table, kitchen & pantry for good – your good and the wellbeing of your family.

FAT SUMMARY:

  • The best way to get good fats into your diet is through lean protein sources such as beef, & lamb or through marine sources like oily fish – salmon sardines etc.
  • Next is to use the right oils to cook with (see above)
  • Butter & Ghee
  • A Fish Oil or Krill supplement
  • Avocado

Vegetables.  Eat these third at every meal for the next 30 days. Yep last but for fruit ( that only if you are still hungry)

You should be about 80% full after your protein & fats so now fill up the remaining 20% with veges.

Some folk will say avoid starchy vegetables like potato – ignore this have some if you want just don’t fry them because this makes them lethal in terms of adding fat.

The best path to follow is to eat as many colours of vegetables as you can every day and at every meal.

The red of capsicum, the yellow of squash, the white of cauliflower, the green of rocket, the orange of carrots – there is a lot of colour to try & fit in!!

Just finish each meal by eating a variety of vegetables until you are no longer hungry. The colour idea is important as this will ensure that you get the widest range of micronutrients

Colourful eating is key…

possible.

You can do by having a stir-fry, steamed veggies, raw veggies, a big salad, a casserole, or roasted in the oven. Have whatever makes you happy.

Use spices and olive oil and a touch of vinegar or soy for flavour.

Remember variety is the key – don’t get stuck with the same 2 or 3 vegetables – you’ll get bored and you won’t get as much nutrition as you could.

Still hungry? – then have some fruit but aim for berries or apples or pears.

What about bread you ask?

Ancestrally, we didn’t eat any processed carbs, or even a carb heavy diet, and when / if we did we didn’t eat a lot of it.

None of these…

It is only in modern times that processed carbs have become a staple of out diet.

The longer you go without processed carbs the quicker your body changes its composition and the sooner you get over any carb addiction. You’re trying to lose fat and rebalance your body.

Grain based foods are all processed and all are increasingly indicated as being related to causing various inflammatory diseases (not to mention that good old white bread spikes your blood sugar as fast & as high as table sugar…)

So no grains, no cereals and no legumes for the 30 days and you’ll lose your desire for them long before then). While legumes are a “lessor evil” when compared to grains and gluten, the anti-nutrient content (lignans, lectin, saponins) plus the carb content rules them out. All cereals and all grains out means no quinoa, no oats, no brown rice, even if those grains are also lower on the scale of anti-nutrients.

If you’re fat and need to lose some you’ve probably got at least a touch of an insulin

What you’re after – less fat, more lean…

resistance problem and some the need for some metabolic reconditioning.

Drink tea green is good hot or cold), coffee, diet sodas and lots of water. That’s it no fruit juices, no vege juices, no Coca-Cola, no chocolate shakes – just sensible low calorie beverages.

Eat the way that I‘ve suggested above and prepare to be amazed as your body changes and you feel better, stronger and leaner. The nutrient density of a meal like this is incredible.

Here is the main guideline again.

Make every meal a healthy sequence of Protein, Good Fats, and Veggies in that order.

Add in Omega 3 supplements, a multivitamin (to ensure that you get all of your micronutrients) & Vitamin D3 (if you’re not getting much sun). Anything else is surplus, and purely elective.

Try to eat only when you’re hungry but make sure you get your protein target hit every day!!

Exercise: Move more. Lift heavy weights 2- 4 times a week, for never more than an hour

Get outside & move more…

at a time. Walk often. Stand more, sit less. Do some sprints every now and again. Remember HIIT. Jump rope, ride a bike – have fun!!

Get outdoors more often for Sun and fresh air and just for not being indoors so much!

Chase down 8 or 9 or even 10 hours of sleep a night. Sleep helps you lose fat. Lack of sleep helps make & keep you fat!

Do this for 30 days and be amazed.

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.