EAT MORE - WEIGH LESS!
Part 1 of 3
So many of us get so caught-up in losing weight we fail to completely
understand the consequences of not eating enough food each day. You see
it's not so much of caloric restriction as it is calorie management. So
many times we feel like if I just stop eating I will lose weight. Well I
wish it were that easy, if it were we would all be in great shape.
The trick to dropping
unwanted body-fat may sound a bit confusing at first but once you
understand how the metabolism works you will have a much better
understanding.
Here's the facts
First we must understand why we eat and when we eat.
The obvious, "I'M HUNGRY" is NOT why you should eat. In fact if you
wait until you are hungry you have waited far to long to eat and proper
caloric management is disrupted.
(GOLDEN RULE: EAT FOR WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO, NOT FOR WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DONE)
I'm sure you've all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of
the day....and this is true. But have you ever really wondered why?
Let's examine the word, "breakfast" separate the word and you have two words and it simply means, "break the fast"!
Most people will eat their last meal between 5-8PM and then we relax a
while and typically go to bed between 10PM and 12AM. Then we sleep
between 6-8 hours. In many cases allot of us have not eaten for 10-12
hours by the time we have gotten out of bed in the morning.
Understand this, if you have a healthy metabolism your blood sugar will
be very low in the morning because you have not eaten for a long time.
We are not always hungry simply because there is no caloric demand from
waking up. Your body has been is a resting and rebuilding phase while
you were asleep.
We all get our day started by waking up and
hitting the floor with both feet just like everyone else does. But in
many cases that's where the similarity stops. What everyone should do
upon waking up is break the fast they have been in before they get
hungry and keep feeding the body all day long so it never gets hungry
and the facts are you will melt body-fat away.
However if you
are like many Americans you will skip breakfast grab a drug called
caffeine and get your day started with a stimulant. So let me tell you
what happens when you chose either situation.
First lets go with the benefits of breaking the fast and eating breakfast.
1. (And this is KEY throughout the day) You will elevate your blood
sugar to normal ranges. You see by not eating for 6-14 hours your
glycogen storage will be low, yes you do still burn calories while you
sleep. (I will get into that later) So it is important to get blood
sugar into normal ranges first thing in the morning and maintain normal
blood sugar levels all day long.
2. It prevents your body from
going into the catabolic phase. Providing the body with proper nutrients
upon wake-up will prevent the body from pulling nutrients from muscle
tissue. You see our body behaves much like us, the last thing it wants
to eat is fat, the nutrients your body craves are all found in the lean
muscle tissue throughout our body. Once you blood sugar has bottomed out
the body goes into starvation mode and will start wasting muscle
tissue. The saddest thing about this over a long peroid of time is you
are destroying your metabolism because muscle tissue and it's activity
is the only thing that burns calories. Think about it for a minute, how
many of you have had a steak with a ring of fat on the side and
purposely eaten the fat first because you love fat? The answer is very
few if any at all! The body acts the same way, just for different
reasons. You see fat is our reserve energy source and if you do not feed
the body the first thing that will happen is the body starts reducing
its need for more calories by getting rid of the cause for more calories
and that is your muscle tissue.
Here is the biggest problem we
have, our body is very efficient at saving itself from us (LOL) by being
able to store fat so easily and in many cases we are our own worst
enemy and we aid our bodies into hanging onto stored body fat by
starving ourselves.
3. Eating breakfast automatically elevates your metabolism for the rest of the day!
4. Eating breakfast also aids in brain function and sets the tone for a
better day. Yes eating breakfast stimulates a hormonal release to
energize your day.
The key is keep blood sugar in normal ranges and it becomes impossible to store body-fat.
Tomorrow I will explain why it's more calorie management than it is calorie restriction.
Here is what you will need to know more about.
1. The Glycemic index and how you can use it to maintain your blood sugar.
2. Proteins and the Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER)
3. Fats and their key role to a healthy metabolism
4. Feeding the lean body mass, not total body weight (your true BMR)
Food for thought, is resistance exercise the key to maintaining low body fat more so than cardiovascular exercise???
EAT MORE - WEIGH LESS!
Part 3 of 3. Conclusion.
There is one thing I hope you take from this article, you do not have to starve yourself to death to look good. You simply have to eat the right foods at the right time of day based on your activity levels for the next 3 hours. If you remember in Part 1 I spoke about the Golden Rule, "Eat for what you are about to do, not for what you have already done." The second thing I hope you will remember is, "Eating fats will not make you fat"! Eating the wrong foods at the wrong time WILL!
Here's what you need to know in order to establish you caloric requirements for the day.
1. Body weight
2. Lean body mass weight
3. Body fat % and lbs of body fat you carry.
4. Your body type (endomorph, ectomorph or mesomorph)
5. Daily time and activity chart
6. Gender
7. Age
8. Activity history and basic medical back ground.
9 Hydration level
I personally like to add a comprehensive blood panel to check for possible metabolic dysfunction or hormonal issues that may be causing problems.
Once you take in all the data you can sit down with a nutritional consultant and establish your daily BMR and calorie expenditure for the day. Once that has been established you can then design your custom nutrition program based on your needs and desire to obtain that lean stealth look.
Meals should be eaten every 3 hours, why? To keep your blood sugar stable and keep your muscles fed with protein.
The volume of food for each meal will be based on the type of activity you will have for the following three hours of your day. Too many carbs during an inactive time of the day is something you need to avoid, in fact lower calorie meals should be eaten before your periods of inactivity. Breakfast should always be no less than 1/5 of your calories or 20% for the day, get your blood sugar levels to normal range and get your metabolism running in high gear.
The highest calorie meals should be eaten before you most active periods of the day. IMO Protein consumption should be distributed evenly with each meal throughout the day, your carbohydrates and fats should fluctuate based on your energy needs during the day.
Another big tip: Take 1 gram of L-Glutamine with each meal and your hunger levels and cravings will all but disappear.
If you recall I also said I would discuss the fat intake today. What you are about to read may very well go against what your current nutritionist or personal trainer may recommend. So please discuss this with them before you change you eating program.
There are fats that in fact will speedup your metabolism and speed up fat loss. However it will require some discipline on your part to stick with the program.
Recent medical studies and several Universities have done extensive research on the use of fats to increase the metabolism and in fact turn on the fat burning machine within our body.
Some people struggle with weight loss simply because they are using the wrong foods for energy and we have ALL been mislead by the medical industry on how evil fats are to the human body, when in fact the truth is the complete opposite of what's been preached since the late 1960's. What I mean by wrong foods is simple, many people have digestive resistance to carbohydrates and in particular GLUTEN. You very well could be one of the millions of people that would do far better on weight management on a diet low in carbohydrates and higher in healthy fats.
Fact: Coconut Oil (in it's raw form) Is by far the healthiest fat you can possibly consume. Contrary to popular beliefs Coconut oil is 100% MCT oil and does not serve as an Omega 6 fatty acid. Too much Omega 6 can and will cause inflammation in the body. Coconut oil aids in reducing inflammation and also serves as an excellent energy source the brain and yes even muscle tissue as well.
So if you think you may be sensitive to carbohydrates you really need to have your program constructed using fats in your meals over complex carbohydrates. The biggest group of people that benefit from a program like this are typically have type O blood but is not limited to just this particular group.
Coconut oil is quickly converted into an energy source called ketones. The awesome thing about ketones is they cross the blood brain barrier and feed our brain the valuable nutrients it needs to function normally. The second benefit is it turns on the fat burning furnace in our muscles.
The key to success is to maintain ketosis for extended periods of time and allow the body to burn the stored fats that are typically left untouched when carbohydrates are present in the diet.
I know I mentioned I would talk about caloric requirements and I did, I just did not give you any numbers or percentages just yet. The fact is every single person will have different needs based on their nine (9) question we ask when you visit us. Yes even the percentages of proteins to carbohydrates to fats will vary based on a number of factors. This is what makes your programs with us so unique. I often here people comparing notes on their diets and that get confused because what they are eating may be the complete opposite of what the next person is eating. There are just too many variables to give a base program that will work for everyone.
