I received a great question this morning via email about exercise and fat loss and how best to achieve it. So with the first day of Summer downunder upon us, I thought that I would answer that question right here so it will benefit everyone.
Q: Do you always make sure that your energy expenditure is greater than your energy intake? Is this the only way to lose weight & get lean?
A: Great question(s). I am going to "translate" the knowledge into user friendly form (I hope) because I want to give you everything you need to know to help you lose bodyfat forever.
Why am I doing this ?
My goal is simple. I don't want or need to sell you anything. In fact I want to give it away so YOU can use it for FREE. Why - because we are facing a crisis like no other when it comes to health.
I am going to continue to do my part to change that.
You have to do your part by getting involved in YOUR own life.
FAT LOSS KNOWLEDGE AND STRATEGIES FOR WORKING OUT - 1 0N 1 (ME to YOU)
This knowledge is designed to teach you about your Human E.C.O. System and the best way I have found and learned to access stored bodyfat for use as energy.
Maximum Fat Loss Objective - ensure the levels of available energy from sugar (glucose / glycogen) in your blood stream and also your stored glycogen levels in your liver are low when there is a required demand from you being active.
What is Glycogen ?
It is the stored form of glucose (sugar) in your body
Where is it stored ?
In your muscles with a reserve held in your liver.
Most of the Diets that are Low / No Carbohydrate often fail when they tell you to stop eating one nutrient (carbs) and load up on another (fat).
Think logic - does loading up one nutrient seem to make sense ? Answer = NO.
Strategy Tip = Eat the required amounts of good fat daily (about 30-40g) but don't abuse this (eating treats) just so you fill your body up with an energy overload of calories that will lead to another failure.
So if the original premise has a basis for doing good and helping us lose bodyfat can we improve the application of how to make that last for life ?
Answer = YES. Our goal is to get you to lower your intake of "non-essential processed carbohydrates" and focus on getting your body ECO-friendly.
Working with the expert nutrition team that I use, we came up with the RAINBOW NUTRIENT REFUELLING PLAN that is filled with nutrient dense foods that mainly are loaded up with anti-oxidant profiles and essential phyto-nutrients. The basic method of application to apply is to ensure that you have three (3) colours on your plate - see where the catchy title came from.
So now back to the lesson.
How do we take advantage of being active to help this.
Activity can be an added bonus for increasing fat loss to happen and thus get the advantage of improving your health too.
Throw in a cardiovascular use and it is HIGH on the positive side for health benefits.
When you are active, there is a rise in your body's energy demands (calorie use) by lowering your stored energy (muscle use) and to keep this happening there is a requirement to "burn" or use calories = POSITIVE BENEFIT.
The most common error for fat loss that I see is that people starve themselves thinking that this will lead to fat loss. It won't. In fact it only leads to the body being given the signal that you are doing this so it tells YOU that you are hungry or tired = NEGATIVE BENEFIT.
Your brain is very clever.
It will limit any use of stored fat (as it has the highest energy value at 9 calories per gram in comparison to carbohydrate or protein at 4 calories per gram).
The brain deems that your body is going into "starvation mode" and so in an effort to conserve this resource to protect itself and the important organs that may need energy later during the starvation period it stops the use of any release of stored bodyfat = NEGATIVE BENEFIT.
As a result, when you recognize the signal for being tired / hungry, you will probably eat something which will then likely "blunt any activity benefit" or alternatively you decide to rest and go to sleep which lowers your caloric demand and metabolism = NEGATIVE BENEFIT.
It's not all bad news. Now you know what NOT to do. What can you do to help ?
Instead of encountering these problems ABOVE and to attain maximum effect and increase the benefit of an "Afterburner" response - use this hydration mantra that I use with children - "Go Go Go with H20" (drink water !!!)
Try to limit soft drinks / sodas or these types of sugar laden drinks, plus also limit excessive fruit intake before AND during periods of activity to assist your fat loss goal = POSITIVE BENEFIT
NOTE - this is not relevant if you are doing an activity that is OVER 2 hours in duration when there will be a larger demand to prolong activity.
Okay, so what do you need to do to help get the most out of this activity benefit (calorie burning). Eating within certain time windows before and after activity can assist the benefit of calorie burning from exercise - for example :
BEFORE
- dont eat for about 2 hours before exercise but if you must limit the intake of excessive carbohydrates. One option is to have a boiled egg before exercising in the morning, eat a piece of lean ham with it and its quite tasty.
- caffeine is one of the only things that can assist with stored fat for use as energy. If your "available blood sugar levels" are low, which they will be if you havent eaten for 1.5-2 hours there is more chance this will happen.
NOTE - there are some stipulations for doing this. You need to have only one within the hour before. You CANT have any sugar in this drink and try to use skim milk and only a small amount.
AFTER
- eat within an hour after exercise and this is the time that you want BOTH protein and carbohyrates. A protein based energy drink with fruit after working out is perfect.
- Our goal at this time is to have a response with "insulin - the storage hormone" being active to take advantage of the available nutrients of both energy loaded carbohydrates and building focussed amino acids.
I can see you are already learning - Good Job !
My plan is to help you and yes it may seem a lot to digest but here is another tip to help you -
Chew (or read slowly)
Swallow (and Understand)
Bon Appetite !
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