Comfort 2 Growth

Most people dread diets. Images of starvation arise. Neglecting your favorite foods and going through your day with a constant feeling of hunger does not sound very appealing.

What if there is a way to shed those fat pounds, increase your lean mass and still eat some of the foods you love!?

The bottom line to losing weight is to burn more calories than we consume. However, the weight we lose, be it fat or lean (muscle) mass, is largely dictated by our diet and exercise regimen. Generally, most people want to retain lean mass and burn fat.

As we age, our metabolisms begin to slow down. Even though I am still relatively young, I have noticed a significant drop in my body’s ability remain fit with little effort. After prolonged times of heavy eating and drinking (alcohol), coupled with inadequate exercise, a beer belly and a second chin begin to grow.

Most of us hate this unsightly increase in body fat.

What can we do to maximize our bodies’ ability to stay fit with minimal effort?

How Our Bodies Burn Calories

Before we dive in to the tactics of how to minimize body fat, I will briefly discuss how our bodies use all those calories we consume.

We all burn calories 3 ways:

1. Resting Metabolic Rate – This is the largest energy consumer in your body. Your body uses energy to maintain itself through its normal functions (cell and tissue repair, brain energy, respiration, cardiovascular processes, etc.) Think of this as the energy your body would burn if you did nothing all day.
2. Physical Activity – This variable is the easiest to control. It is simply the method of burning calories to physically move your body. The rate of calorie consumption is dependent on the intensity, duration, and frequency of activity.
3. Thermic Effect of Food (digestion) – After we eat, our bodies’ ramp up our metabolisms to digest our food, and consequently burn more calories. Depending on how much, how often, and what you eat; you can leverage this effect to assist your diet.

Now that we have an idea of how our bodies use energy, we can come up with a variety of strategies to burn body fat. The rate of fat loss will be dependent on your willingness to manipulate your diet and to exercise.

All Calories Are Not Created Equal

That heading may be a bit misleading; a calorie is just a simple measure of energy. However, what I mean by this statement is WHERE you get your calories matters greatly on how your body uses it.

If you haven’t been under a rock, you have probably heard of low-carb diets. Most people do not know how this diet works or the vital roles fat and protein play in this diet.

American media has touted fat as the great evil of our diets. Low-fat, no-fat foods have flooded the marketplace. What they don’t tell you is that these fat reduced options are pumped up with sugar to help maintain a good flavor.

Fat plays a vital role in many bodily functions. It is the macro-nutrient with the highest energy concentration and it also signals the brain to feel full faster and longer when we eat it. For more information, check out  7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat and Good Fat, Bad Fat.

Protein is also extremely important to your diet. It is the macro-nutrient used to rebuild body tissue. Furthermore, when the body is in a calorie deficit, protein is the first nutrient to be tapped for energy. The importance of this is if you want to retain muscle while burning body fat, you must consume enough protein.

Read more on the power of protein here.

The White Devil

White carbs (white sugars/complex carbohydrates) are your #1 enemy in the fight against body fat. White carbs come from foods such as white bread, sugar, pasta, potatoes, or anything else that is starchy or white colored.

To make a long story short, white carbs cause an insulin spike in your body. Insulin is a hormone that triggers your body to retain energy (increase fat mass). Generally, these white carbs do not satiate hunger and actually trigger your body to want to eat more. Furthermore, since these sugars are burned quickly, it causes a temporary rush of energy, followed quickly by an unpleasant crash.

Complete, or whole, carbohydrates are what you need to focus on. Whole wheat, grains, oats, and vegetables are sources for these “slow burning” carbohydrates.

With all that being said, carbohydrates do play a very positive role in nutrition, especially if you are an athlete. It is the easiest source of energy for your body to consume. However, for the sake of weight-loss, the reduction of carbohydrates relative to protein and fat is important.

You should strive to eat the majority of your carbs after bouts of physical activity and exercise. This will aid in recovering your glycogen (energy stored in your muscles derived from carbs) stores in your muscles.

The Weight-Loss Formula

To lose weight you must do several things…

• Eat Less, Burn More – You must lower your calorie intake below your calorie expenditure. Simply put: Burn more energy than you take in. Either eat less, and/or exercise more.
• Cut Out White Carbs – Attempt to eliminate white carbs. These are sweets, white breads, pasta, and potatoes. If it is white in its original form, it is probably a white carb.
• Increase Protein Intake – Protein is vital in maintaining and building lean muscle mass. When your body is burning more calories than it is consuming, it looks for protein to burn first. Prevent muscle loss by consuming enough protein!
• Include Enough Fat – Fat is critical in many bodily functions. Most importantly, in this diet, it makes you feel full and satisfied even after a lower calorie meal.
• Eat Smaller Portions More Frequently – To capitalize on the thermic effect of food, you should eat smaller meals spaced 4-5 hours apart through out the day.

If you follow these guidelines and include hill sprints in to your regimen, I guarantee your body will begin to shed pounds of fat.

Here is an example of an extreme method to melt away body fat in minimal time… Tim Ferris’ How To Lose 20 lbs of Fat in 30 Days.

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The goal of this essay is to provide a brief, yet informative, overview of the benefits of fat and protein in a weight loss diet. I encourage you to do more research on this topic as new developments are being discovered each day.