How Do I Begin A Fat Loss Plan?. Let Me Count The Ways!
Most people are unsure about how to begin a fat loss program. They have many questions about food choices, meal composition and exercise.
Getting yourself in good physical condition will require willpower and dedication and the desire to get results. It is not easy to lose body fat. It took a long time to accumulate the fat and it will take just as long to remove it.
Remember that you should aim to lose 1.5 to 2 lbs. per week. Lose any faster and you are probably losing water and muscle. Losing muscle is detrimental to any fat loss program because it is muscle that burns calories. THE MORE MUSCLE YOU HAVE THE MORE CALORIES YOUR BODY REQUIRES!
If you lose fat slowly while learning to adopt a healthy lifestyle, you are more likely to keep the weight off. And, if you ever falter, you’ll know exactly how to get back to your goal weight without returning to your old ways.
Here is how to start a good eating program.
1. Increase your water intake. If you are exercising, try to drink at least 100 oz. to 128 oz. per day.
2. Limit yourself to two drinks per week. Alcohol slows your metabolism and decreases your body’s ability to burn fat by as much at 40%. Empty calories!
3. Decrease significantly or completely eliminate sugar from your diet. If you are a dessert person, treat yourself once a week to something sweet. This includes soda. If you are a soda drinker, switch to diet and only have two cans per day?Splenda sweetened preferred!
4. Eat 5 small meals per day. This is the most important factor in losing fat. Eating smaller more frequent meals will speed up your metabolism and prevent your body from going into starvation mode. Each meal should be approximately 3 hours apart.
5. Try to eat a serving of vegetables with 3 of your 5 meals. Vegetables are water rich (so is fruit) and have plenty of vitamins and fiber. They are filling and of course they are good for you.
6. Do not eat 3 hours before bedtime. The evening is when you are least active and your metabolism slows in preparation for sleep. You risk storing late-night calories as fat. IF you are absolutely starving at night, have a few pieces of fat free turkey breast to fight the hunger.
7. Do not skip breakfast. This is the meal that will govern your day. Eat a basic breakfast of carbohydrates, protein and fat to set up your metabolism for the day and to provide fuel for your daily activities. Remember, if you don’t feed yourself a small wholesome meal in the morning, your body will draw on your muscle tissue as a source of energy, putting you in a slump and in muscle deficit. This means your body will eat your muscle to fuel your activities and your body fat will grow.
8. To lose fat you must put yourself into calorie deficit. This means you will have to eat less than you have been eating. Try to eat 500 calories less per day than you have been eating or reduce your calorie intake by 250 calories and add enough exercise to burn 250 calories. (Example: 35 minutes on a treadmill at 4% incline at 3.5mph.)
9. Lower your starchy carbohydrate intake, increase your protein intake and be careful how much fat you eat. Some fat is necessary. Try not to eat more than 20% of your daily calories from fat. Starchy carbs are potatoes, rice, beans, bread, pasta, oatmeal, etc. Replace these carbohydrates with fibrous carbs, such as green veggies. The best way to slowly lower your carb intake is to stop eating starchy carbs after 3pm so that your last two meals of the day do not contain starchy carbs.
10. Get 8 hours sleep per night. Sleep, rest and relaxation are of prime importance. It’s during periods of sound sleep that our bodies recuperate and build muscle tissue. Lack of sleep encourages the production of the hormone Cortisol. High levels of Cortisol have been shown to promote fat storage.
My fat loss and fitness plan "Every Body Loses" will give you the tools you need to begin a healthy weight loss program. The style of eating and exercising outlined in my book is one that you can follow for life without feeling deprived. If you’re serious about losing fat and getting fit go to www.aim4nutrition.com and get started TODAY!
Good Luck and Be Well,
Aimee Deak
Personal Trainer & Nutrition Analyst
AIM 4 NUTRITION
aim4nutrition.com
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What You Need to Know Before Starting a Low Carb Diet
In the last 12 months or so, low carbohydrate diets have captured the hearts and weight loss hopes of the American public. And why not? These diets promise quick weight loss and the ability to keep eating fatty foods. If you love your steak and eggs, this seems like the ultimate diet. However, before signing up, the low carb diet bears a review. Is it really the right diet for you?
The premise of the Atkins or any low carbohydrate diet is that carbohydrates are the source of all our weight loss woes. There is some real substance to the argument in that we Americans have been eating excessive amounts of refined carbohydrates which have caused many of us to become insulin resistant as the body continues to wage war against repeated blood sugar spikes brought on by our poor eating habits.
The Atkins diet and other very low carbohydrate diets take your body out of a sugar burning state by practically eliminating all carbs for an induction period that can last two weeks or more. The body will continue to burn sugar as it primary energy source until it essentially runs dry and then converts to burning fat. During the conversion, the dieter can feel tired, irritable, have headaches or get dizzy. Once you get past this incredibly tough period, you are allowed to eat a few carbs, but generally not more than 60 grams a day. That’s like eating one bagel a day and then stopping. This is a difficult road to follow for a liftetime.
In fact, a recent study showed that most adults who start a low carbohydrate diet quit the diet within a year. Admittedly, there is great progress by Atkins and other food manufacturers to dramatically reduce the amount of effective carbs in some food offerings that could be classified as comfort foods (e.g., muffins, brownies, yogurt and more). This helps but you cannot have much if you want to stay within the diet guidelines.
In addition to the loss of almost all traditional comfort foods, by cutting out carbohydrates, the diet is also cutting out a lot of foods that are good for us. Fruits and vegetables have fiber, vitamins and phytonutrients that help keep us healthy. Limiting fiber while consuming a lot of saturated fat, is not the most heart healthy diet.
The low carb diet does take a person out of a primary sugar burning state into a fat burning state. However, some literature makes it sound as though you cannot burn fat any other way. The fact is that we are all burning some fat, we may just be adding more fat faster than we burn it. Modifying the diet to eliminate refined carbohydrates and focusing on high quality protein and good fats will gradually train the body to burn more fat and less sugar.
To their credit, the Atkins group have refined their diet guidelines from their original ‘eat all the fat you want’ stance to ‘eat moderate amounts of good fats’. This is not only a heart healthy step forward but is also likely to help your weight loss efforts as essential fatty acids (the good fats) can help you actually burn more fat. However, when you consider that carbs are already limited on this diet, I’m not sure what you eat except grilled chicken breast, fat free cottage cheese and egg-white omelets. This effectively transforms the diet into a high-protein, low-calorie diet which, if it becomes low calorie, will induce the body to lower its metabolism.
But the one thing you need to know about why the Atkins diet brings about significant weight loss in the first week is that it sends the body into ketosis. Without getting technical, this is a body imbalance that causes your body to flush out toxins (ketones) through your urine like crazy! What you are losing then is primarily water – not fat. Over the long term, restricting carbohydrate consumption to the levels recommended in Atkins and other similar diets is that they overlook the fact that your body needs carbohydrates to utilize the protein you consume. Thus, just like the low calorie diet, this diet cannot help you increase or even maintain muscle mass if carbohydrates are not consumed at a higher level than they recommend.
Finally, if you go off of the low carb diet, your body will immediately stop burning fat as it’s primary fuel source. Adding carbs back into the diet will usually cause weight gain as the water weight loss comes back within days.
If you are committed to fat loss success, then you cannot overlook the body’s need for sufficient calorie levels to prevent the body from lowering its metabolism. You also need sufficient protein that the body can utilize to have a shapely figure (this goes for guys and gals), youthful skin and great hair. Keep the fruits and vegetables, permit yourself a serving or two of a whole grain bread or pasta, focus on high quality proteins and good fats, get calcium from low fat dairy products such as yogurt and your body will respond with a slow, steady and healthy weight loss.
Here’s to your health as well as your weight loss success!
About The Author
After four years of a near twenty-year Finance career as VP Finance at a global software company, I wanted a fresh challenge. I re-focused my career to pursue my long term personal interest, Health and Fitness, and founded Accelerate Nutrition, Inc. of which I am President. Our website, accelerate-weight-loss.com is focused at increasing health awareness on diet and fitness issues.
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