Archivi categoria: Q & A – Domande e Risposte

“Ask Tom Venuto! Ask The Fat Loss Guru!” Questa è la sezione che risponde a molte delle domande su come perdere veramente grasso e non peso! Risponde Tom Venuto, uno dei massimi esperti sul tema nel mondo! Provare per credere.

Q & A: Should You Weigh Yourself Everyday or Throw Away…

Title:Should You Weigh Yourself Everyday or Throw Away Your Scale?
By : Tom Venuto
URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!
Word count: 1363 words

Have you ever had a weight loss expert tell you to “throw away your scale?”…
or maybe you heard that too much focus on scale weight can turn you into an obsessive-compulsive (sound familiar?). Well… body composition is more important
than body weight – you won’t get any argument from me about THAT. But… what if I told you that research supports a strong correlation between daily weigh-ins and
long term weight loss success? Yes, I said DAILY weigh-ins. Do you think that’s crazy, or could this habit be something that might help you increase your fat loss success?
This week’s Burn the Fat Blog Q & A column answers…

QUESTION: Tom, I know your www.BurnTheFat.com! recommends weekly
weight and body fat measurement, but what do you think about daily weigh-ins? What about using a moving average? The problem with daily readings is they may fluctuate based on a number of factors. You never know which is an “up” and which is a “down” reading. But I was thinking the same could be true weekly. You don’t know if your weekly weigh-in is actually a bit higher than your “true” weight or a bit lower. A moving average would smooth out those variances and give you a better idea of your “real” weight and the general trend of your improvement.Thoughts?

ANSWER: It’s normal for your body weight to fluctuate, so it’s important to control and account for those variances when you weigh-in and chart your progress. Your weight fluctuates not only on a weekly and day to day basis,but even within the same day – sometimes by several pounds just from morning to night!

Changes in weight can be based on numerous factors including hydration (loss or gain of water weight) and contents of your digestive system (how recent the last meal and bowel movements were). A moving average could definitely smooth out the variances.

To get accurate weigh-ins, consistency is also a key. Always do your best to duplicate the weigh in conditions every time: Fed or fasted, clothed or not clothed, bladder empty or full, pre or post workout, morning or evening, high carb or low carb day, amount of fluids ingested, diuretic substances consumed,etc. If you control for all these factors, you’ll get more accurate weight and body composition data and also help smooth out the variances.

As part of the www.BurnTheFat.com!Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle program, I recommend taking a body fat measurement only once a week (once every two weeks would probably suffice, but I prefer getting weekly feedback). I also recommend weighing yourself “officially” once a week, on the
same scale, under the same conditions. But I also believe daily weighing can be helpful as long as you’re controlling the variables and you don’t obsess over daily fluctuations (instead, using the multiple data points to track the trend over time).

If you weigh yourself daily, you can log your weight into a spreadsheet and then convert your progress into a graph with the date on the horizontal axis and weight on the vertical axis. The key is to look for the trend over time. Body fat (and weight) should be heading down in a long term trend and lean body mass should be staying relatively stable. You could also add a column for 7-day moving average if you choose, which smooths out the fluctuations or “noise.” (okay, okay, so only the analytical, number-crunching “geeks” will go that far…but then again, we have quite a few of them in our Burn The Fat ranks… and someof them are pretty darn LEAN!)

Another benefit of tracking your measurements frequently is that you can compare your weight and body composition results to your training and nutrition for the same time period to look for correlations between methods and results and hopefully learn what methods work the best for you.

Many weight loss experts say you should “throw away your scales” and that it’s a bad idea to weigh yourself daily or even to weigh yourself at all. I disagree and there’s a LOT of research showing that self monitoring behaviors such as tracking food intake, exercise, body weight and body composition helps to increase compliance and improve weight loss and
maintenance.

It’s common sense for weight management, but also well accepted wisdom in teaching, coaching and business management — that you can only expect what you inspect – and what gets measured and tracked gets improved. When measurements are reported to an authority figure, and you are “graded” and held accountable for what gets measured and tracked, results usually improve even more.

Although weight gain can sometimes happen quickly when there are sudden changes in environment, body weight and body fat usually tend to “creep” when left unchecked. Folks who don’t monitor weight or body composition seem to wake up one day and realize they “suddenly” got fat. Of course, what really happened is that tiny increases in fat and waist line went unchecked and therefore,
unnoticed over a long time period.

Successful weight reducers and maintainers have a common behavior pattern and that is they keep track of their weight. Weight monitoring could be daily or weekly, but either way, most people will get best results by checking it regularly. This way, if results are negative, you’ll be alerted and you can increase compliance and “buckle down” or change your strategy. Frequent (weekly
or even daily) weighings provide a feedback tool which increases awareness,allowing for a quick course correction.

By the way, people who have to wear well-tailored suits or tight fitting clothes have a feedback mechanism they can check themselves with every single day. Those who wear baggy clothes / elastic waist bands who also do not weigh themselves tend to succumb to the weight creep and not realize it. If you don’t have to dress up for work every day or if you wear loose, baggy clothing most of the time, its not a bad idea to have a pair of “lean jeans” that you try on regularly just to see how they’re fitting.

Just to be fair and show both sides, the only potential criticisms /drawbacks to frequent weighing that remain include:

(1) It might encourage obsessive behaviors (IF someone is psychologically susceptible), and

(2) There may be only a small amount of measurable progress after one week,and no measurable change after just a day – both of which might lead some people to impatience and frustration if they don’t have a long term time perspective and/or they don’t understand how to use statistics.

So, I admit, daily weighing may not be appropriate for everyone. In fact, I think it’s best practice to suggest measuring and recording body weight “at least once a week” and then leave it up to the individual to decide whether they want to weigh daily or not.

Keep in mind, weigh ins are not an absolute necessity and the mere act of weighing yourself every day or every week doesn’t guarantee more weight loss.
There are people who for various reasons, choose not to weigh themselves at all, who never go near a scale who successfully lose weight and maintain their ideal
weight.

However, regular weigh-ins have consistently been correlated with improved weight loss and some research says that daily weigh ins correlate even more highly with long term success than weekly weigh ins. Studies have also concluded that people who weighed themselves regularly improved weight maintenance and avoided weight regain/cycling as compared to people who didn’t weigh themselves at all.

There’s one last thing I want to re-emphasize and that’s the importance of measuring and tracking body composition (fat vs. muscle) not just scale weight.

Understanding body composition (not just body weight), and developing the patient-person’s lifestyle mindset are the final keys that really complete
this self-monitoring advice and helps you avoid compulsive behaviors or obsessing over short term results. This is exactly the approach I outline in the Burn The Fat System, which teaches you how to leverage your daily and weekly feedback results to help you burn stubborn body fat and strengthen your metabolism over the long haul.

Train hard and expect success!


Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.BurnTheFat.com!

Founder & CEO of
Burn The Fat Inner Circle
Burn the fat inner circle

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the
Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and
Fitness Models.
Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert
who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements.
Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out
which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss
report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Q & A : What’s the Required Bodyfat Percentage to See Your Abs?

By:Tom Venuto
URL:www.BurnTheFat.com!
Word count: 1238 words

QUESTION: “Tom, I know what I want to look like and I follow your
advice about visualization and seeing my abs the way I want them to look. But
what I can’t figure out is what body fat % I should be aiming at to achieve that look? I am female, 35 yrs old and I’ve done awesome on your Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program. I started at 19% body fat and the lowest I’ve gotten so far was 11.8% body fat with a caliper test. I’ve been thinking about doing a figure competition, but even at that body fat percentage, which I know is very low, I still had some “patches” of fat. How do I know what body fat percentage I should target so that all the fat is gone?”

ANSWER: Congrats! For most women, 11.8% is ripped, and for many women,
that’s contest ready.

Just for comparison, I’ve done over 7,000 body fat tests during my career,and the lowest I have ever measured on a female was 8.9% (4-site skinfold method).
She was a national-level figure competitor and she was shredded – full six pack of abs… “onion skin!” However, I do know some women who get down to 11-13% body fat – by all
standards extremely lean, complete with six pack abs – but oddly, they still had a few stubborn fat spots – usually the hips and lower body – so this would confirm your experience.

I know a guy who looks absolutely chiseled in his abs at 11% body fat, but other guys don’t look really cut in the abs until they get down to 6-8% body fat.
That’s the trouble with trying to pin down one specific body fat number as THE body fat level for seeing 6-pack abs (or being contest or photo-shoot ready).
Everyone distributes their body fat differently and two people may look different at the same percentage.

Here’s what I’d recommend:

Get familiar with some benchmarks for body fat levels.
My www.BurnTheFat.com!
has a body fat rating scale, which includes averages and my suggested optimal body fat percentages.
This is my own chart, which I created with a combination of research
literature and my own personal experience.

:: Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle Body Fat Rating Scale ::
WOMEN:
Competition Shape (“ripped”): 8-12%
Very Lean (excellent): < 15%
Lean (good): 16-20%
Satisfactory (fair): 21-25%
Improvement needed (poor): 26-30%
Major improvement needed (very poor):
31-40+%
MEN:
Competition Shape (“ripped”): 3-6%
Very Lean (excellent):< 9%
Lean (good): 10-14%
Satisfactory (fair): 15-19%
Improvement
needed (poor): 20-25%
Major improvement needed (very poor): 26-30+%

Just a quick note: You’re not destined to get fatter as you get older, but in the general population (non fitness and bodybuilding folks), the average older person has more body fat.

What I did to accomodate this is to include a range instead of one number, so younger people can use the low end of the range and older people can use the higher number.
Also, just so the average reader can keep things in perspective, single digit body fat for women and low single digits for men is far beyond lean – it’s
RIPPED – and that’s usually solely the domain of competitive physique athletes. Competition body fat levels were not meant to be maintained all year round.
It’s not realistic and it may may not be healthy, particularly for women.
The average guy or gal should probably aim for the “lean” category as a realistic year round goal, or if you’re really ambitious and dedicated, the “very lean category.”
You’ll probably have to hit the “very lean” category for six pack abs.However, the bottom line is that there’s no “perfect” body fat percentage where you’re assured of seeing your abs.
Besides, body fat is one of those numbers that gets fudged and exaggerated all the time. I hear reports of women with body fat between 4 and 8% and I usually dismiss it as error in measurement (or there’s some “assistance” involved). Body fat testing, especially with skinfolds, is not an exact science.
All body fat tests are estimations and there is always room for human error.
The low numbers are nice for bragging rights, but the judges don’t measure your body fat on stage. What counts is how you look and whether you’re happy with that (or whether the judges are happy with it, if you’re competing).You can use my chart to help you set some initial goals, but for the most part, I recommend using body fat testing as a way of charting your progress over time to see if you’re improving rather than pursuing some holy grail number.
One final note: there are always a few people out there who take exception to my body fat rating scale. More often it’s females than males. More often older than younger. And more often non athletes than athletes. Usually it’s because they have a body fat of 26% or 27% or thereabouts, they are perfectly healthy and they are not significantly overweight. They argue that a body fat of 26% or so should not be rated as “poor” and that the standards on my chart are too high.
Having been influenced by the bodybuilding and physique world my entire life,I do have high standards, and my chart is admittedly skewed slightly toward an athletic population. However, for a young girl, 26% body fat and for a 40 or 50-something woman, 30% body fat, does in fact, leave plenty of room for improvement which is exactly what the chart says.

I’d like to encourage all my readers to consider setting higher standards and loftier goals. Not everyone wants or needs to be “ripped.” But in my opinion,many people set goals too low and settle for what they think they can get, not what they really want. With that said, please use my chart only as a guideline and not as gospel. Ultimately, it’s up to you to set your own goals and standards. if 6-pack abs are your goal, I think this info should give you a better idea of what it will take.
In my Burn The fat, Feed The Muscle system, you can learn more about how to measure your body fat – professionally or even by yourself in the privacy of your own home.
Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle explains why body mass index and height and weight charts are virtually worthless, and shows you how to track your body composition over time and “tweak” your nutrition and training according to your weekly results.
Get more details at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Train hard and expect success!

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Musclewww.BurnTheFat.com!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the
Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and
Fitness Models.
Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert
who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements.
Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out
which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss
report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Q & A : Fat Loss Per Week: Average vs High Achievers

By: Tom Venuto

URL:www.BurnTheFat.com!

Word count:669 words

QUESTION: Dear Tom: I know it will probably be different for everyone, but I find it hard to set weekly goals for body fat
percentage because I don’t know what an average body fat percentage drop in a week is supposed to look like. I’m a 30 year old female. Any input?

ANSWER: I recommend setting a fat reduction goal of about half a percent per week (0.5%). Based on many years of testing clients in person with
skinfold calipers, I’ve concluded that this is about average.

This is an
honest number that reflects not just the outliers in the top success stories,but an average of everyone. That’s what makes this figure a good realistic
weekly goal [To see some of the more exceptional transformations
visit: www.BurnTheFat.com!
Chris,
for example dropped 9% body fat in 7 weeks. That’s not typical, but its possible
in a highly motivating environment like our Burn the Fat body transformation
contests]

To calculate realistic, average weekly fat loss:

If your body fat measured 24.6 percent on day one of week one, then 24.1 percent would be your goal for the end of that seven-day period. That will be an impressive 6%
drop in your body fat if you keep that up over 12 weeks.If you’re more ambitious and you want to shed body fat even faster, it’s certainly possible,although it does
depend on body size. Larger people can often lose larger amounts of weight and body fat.
When someone is already lean and wants to get even leaner, there is less fat remaining so it becomes more difficult to lose large amounts every week.
I’ve seen many people drop 0.6 percent or 0.7 percent body fat per week if they worked hard, usually doing multiple cardio sessions per week on top of their weight training, combined with excellent dietary compliance.
I’ve even seen people shed 0.8 to 1.0 percent body fat per week, but more often than not, those were temporary spikes in progress,reflecting one exceptionally good week, or in conjunction with a highly motivating event, like one of our burn the fat challenge contests (where the reward of a luxury trip to Maui is dangling in front of you).
If you lose less than a half a percent per week, as long as you made some forward progress,you should celebrate that as success.
It’s more normal for results to vary from one week to the next than to drop the same amount every week, so an occasional slow week is nothing to get upset about. It’s just feedback.
After a below average week, to bring the rate of fat loss up to
average or better for the next week, you’ll need to:
(a) re-establish
compliance if you had a bad week (get back on the wagon! and start tracking food
intake more meticulously if necessary) or
(b) make adjustments to your
nutrition and training to increase your caloric deficit and optimize body
composition changes.
Last but not least, if you want to be one of those
“not typical” people, then remember this:
* Above average results require
above average effort.
* Extraordinary results require extraordinary
effort.
Everything in this article is explained in even further detail in my fat loss
program, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle at: http://www.BurnTheFat.com

Train hard and expect success!

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Musclewww.Burn The Fat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the
Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and
Fitness Models.
Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert
who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements.
Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out
which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss
report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at:

www.BurnTheFat.com!