Archivi tag: lose weight

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!

How Liquid Calories May Be Making You Fat…!

Title:How Liquid Calories May Be Making You Fat..Even Your Favorite Protein Drinks!

By :Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com!
Word count: 994 words

At least 7 scientific studies have provided strong evidence that energy containing beverages (i.e., “liquid calories”) do not properly activate the satiety mechanisms in the body and brain and do not satisfy the appetite as well as food in solid form.

Epidemiological research also supports a positive association between calorie-containing beverage consumption and increased body weight or body mass index. New research now suggests that soda may not be the only culprit…
The primary source of liquid calories in the United States Diet is carbohydrate, namely soda. Now running a close second are specialty and dessert coffees. Did you know that a 16 ounce Frappucino can contain 500 calories or even more! That’s one-third of a typical female’s daily calorie intake while on a fat loss program.
A recent study at Purdue University published in the International Journal of Obesity set out to learn even more about this bodyfat – liquid calories relationship.
Researchers compared solid and beverage forms of foods composed primarily of carbohydrate, fat or protein in order to document the independent effect of food form in foods with different dominant macronutrient sources.
Based on previous research, some experts have recommended targeting specific beverages as being “worse” than others. High fructose corn syrup and soda has been singled out the most and you’ve probably seen that yourself in the news.
There’s no question that soda has been on top of the “hit list” for some time now, by virtue of the amounts and frequency of consumption alone.
However, this recent study says that from a pure energy balance perspective, we should be cautious about ALL liquid calories, not just soda and not just carbohydrates!
Fruit juice for example, appears to be an obvious improvement over soda, so many people have swapped out their soda for fruit juice. However, when fruit juice is compared to an equal amount of calories from whole fruit, the whole fruit satisfies appetite better (largely due to the bulk and fiber content), and so you tend to eat fewer calories for the day.
[On an interesting side note, soup does not seem to apply; soup has higher satiety value than calorie containing beverages, possibly for mere cognitive reasons.]
If you were to meticulously track your calories from beverages and you made sure that your calories remained the same for the day, whether liquid or solid, there would probably be little or no difference in your body composition.
But that’s not what usually happens in free-living humans. Most people do not accurately track or report their caloric intake. Our mistake is that we tend to drink calories IN ADDITION TO our usual food intake, not instead of it.
Men are especially guilty of this when they drink alcohol – Men tend to drink AND eat, while women tend to drink INSTEAD OF eating.
This new research found that with all three macronutrients – protein, carbs or fat – daily calorie intake was significantly greater when the beverage form was consumed as compared to the solid.
Yes, it’s true! Even protein drinks did not satisfy the appetite the way that protein foods did!
While you would think that protein drinks are purely a good thing, because protein foods have been proven to reduce appetite and increase satiety, if you turn a solid protein food into a protein drink, it loses it’s appetite suppressive properties in the same way that happens when you turn fruit into fruit juice.

[NOTE: After weight training workouts, liquid nutrition may have benefits that outweigh any downside, especially on muscle-gaining programs]

Why do liquid calories fail to elicit the same response as whole foods? reasons include:

high calorie density lower satiety value more calories ingested in short period of time lower demand for oral processing shorter gastrointestinal transit times energy in beverages has greater bioaccessibility and bioavailability mechanisms may include cognitive, orosensory, digestive, metabolic, endocrine and neural influences (human appetite is a complex thing!!!)
last but not least, nowhere in our history have our ancestors had access to large amounts of liquid calories. Alcohol may have been around as far back as several thousand years BC, but even that is a blip on the evolutionary calendar of humanity.
As a result, our genetic code has never developed the physiological mechanisms to properly register the caloric content in liquids the way it does when you eat, chew and swallow whole foods.

Bottom line: This study suggests that we shouldn’t just target one type of liquid calories such as soda. If you’re trying to beat body fat, it’s wise to limit all types of liquid calories and eat whole foods as much as possible.
Start by ditching the soda. Then ditch the high calorie dessert coffees. Then cut back on the alcohol. From there, be cautious even about milk, juice and protein drinks.
Drink water or tea instead, or limited amounts of black coffee – without all the high calorie extras.
If you do consume any beverages that contain calories, such as protein shakes, be sure to account for those calories meticulously and be sure you don’t drink them in addition to your usual food intake, but in place of an equal amount of food calories.
Remember, those protein shakes you might be drinking are called “meal replacements” not “free calories!”
For many years I have suggested focusing primarily on whole foods rather than liquids, even protein shakes. Unlike so many other fat reduction programs, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle does not require any kind of liquid meal replacement or protein drinks and our company does not exist to sell supplements; we are here to educate you and millions of others about the realities of body fat loss.
We now have even more scientific data that confirms what Burn The Fat has been teaching all along.

I hope you found this helpful. You can learn more about “Burn The Fat” at www.BurnTheFat.com!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

Reference: Effects of food form on appetite and energy intake in lean and obese young adults. International Journal of Obesity. 2007 Nov (11):1688-95. Mourao DM, Bressan J, Campbell WW, Mattes RD. Department of Foods and Nutrition, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2059, USA.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Why Cardio Doesn’t Work For Some People: A NEAT Explanation

Title: Why Cardio Doesn’t Work For Some People: A NEAT Explanation

By: Tom Venuto
URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Word count: 1701 words

At the Burn the Fat Inner Circle member forums, I get a question which comes up with alarming frequency: “Why isn’t my cardio working?”  Despite not only doing regular cardio for weeks, but actually increasing the duration of her workouts, one member still saw no added fat loss and started wondering what she was doing wrong… or what was wrong with her!  I gave her the surprisingly simple answer, which I’ve printed for you as well in this article and new research has added even more to the answer – it’s a NEAT explanation…

How is it possible that some people do tons of cardio and don’t lose weight?

Simple: Weight loss is a function of caloric deficit, not how much cardio you do. Cardio is only one of the tools you use to create and increase a caloric deficit.

Endurance athletes are a perfect example for illustrating the error in thinking that “an hour a day” (or whatever amount) of cardio will guarantee weight loss…

They might train for two, three, even four hours or more on some days, but they are often not trying to lose weight. They (have to) eat huge amounts of food to fuel their training and keep their weight stable.

It’s not unusual at all for a cyclist to burn 4000 or 5000 calories per day and not lose any weight. Why? Same reason you’re doing a lot of cardio but not losing weight:  there’s no calorie deficit. Calories in are equaling the calories out.

What you need to do is shift your focus OFF of some kind of prerequisite time spent doing cardio and ON to the REAL pre-requisite for weight loss: a caloric deficit.

If your caloric intake remains exactly the same and you add cardio or other training or activity you will create a deficit and you will lose weight, guaranteed.

With all this talk about “cardio” and “training” one important area that people often forget about is all the other activity in your life outside of your cardio and weight training. There’s a name for that:

Non exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT

NEAT is all your physical activity throughout the day, excluding your “formal” workouts.

NEAT includes all the calories you burn from casual walking, shopping, yard work, housework, standing, pacing and even little things like talking, chewing, changing posture, maintaining posture and fidgeting. Walking contributes to the majority of NEAT

It seems like a bunch of little stuff – and it is – which is why most people completely ignore it. Big mistake.

At the end of the day, week, month and year, all the little stuff adds up to a very significant amount of energy. For most people, NEAT accounts for about 30% of physical activity calories spent daily, but NEAT can run as low 15% in sedentary individuals and as high as 50% in highly active individuals.

I’m always telling people to exercise more – to burn more, not just eat less. This is not only for health, fitness and well-being, but also to help increase fat loss.

But some people say that increasing exercise doesn’t always work and they quote from research to make their case.  It’s true that some studies paradoxically don’t show better weight loss by adding exercise on top of diet.

But there are explanations for this…

If you add training into your fat loss regime but you don’t maintain your nutritional discipline and keep your food intake the same, you remain in energy balance. If a study doesn’t monitor this type of compensation, or if the researchers trust the subjects to accurately self-report their own food intake (hahahahahahahaha!), it will look like the exercise was for nothing.

In studies where the food intake was controlled when exercise was added… surprise, surprise, weight loss increased!

Stated differently, all these “experts” who keep saying that exercise doesn’t work for weight loss are  ignoring or not understanding the concepts of calorie deficit and energy compensation.

Why  Exercise “Doesn’t Work” – The NEAT Explanation

So a handful of people exercise and then eat more than they were eating before and then scratch their heads and wonder why they aren’t losing. DUH!

Or, they go on some idiotic crusade against exercise. “SEE! exercise is a waste of time… all you have to do is follow the ‘magic’ diet!”

Wrong. Dieting alone is the worst way to lose weight because without training, the composition of the weight you lose is not so good (goodbye muscle… hello skinny fat person!). Want to avoid skinny fat syndrome? It’s nutrition, then weight training, then add in and manipulate the cardio as your results dictate.

There’s another type of compensation that researchers have recently started studying.  When people increase their training, especially high intensity training, sometimes they also compensate by moving less later in the day and in the days that that follow!

For example, you work out like an animal in the morning, but then instead of your usual walking around and doing housework the rest of the day, you crash and plop your tired body in your LAZY BOY for a nice nap and a marathon session of TV. The next day, the delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) sets in and then you REALLY don’t feel like moving!

Research on NEAT is extensive and it tells us that NEAT plays a major role in obesity and fat loss. Finding ways to INCREASE NEAT along with formal exercise can be a promising strategy to increase your total daily calorie burn and thus, increase fat loss. The flip side of that equation is finding ways to avoid decreases in NEAT that we might not have been aware of. Because NEAT is so completely off most people’s radars, most people miss this.

(NOTE: For a real eye-opener, try a using a pedometer or bodybugg for a while)

Previous studies have confirmed that many people compensated and decreased their activity (NEAT) during the remainder of the day or on rest days after exercise training. This led anti-exercise pundits once again to spit out their party line, “see, exercise doesn’t work! You might as well just diet.”

However, a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found no immediate debilitative effect on NEAT on the day of exercise or on the following 2 days. In fact, there was a delayed reaction and NEAT actually INCREASED 48 hours after the exercise session (60 minutes of treadmill walking at 6 kph @ 10% grade with 5 minute intervals at 0% grade).

Why the conflicting findings? Scientists aren’t 100% sure yet, but they have discovered that part of it has to do with exercise intensity.

Moderate Intensity vs High Intensity cardio: Effect on NEAT

You sometimes hear certain trainers claim that only high intensity exercise is worthwhile and everything else is a waste of time or at best inefficient. That’s not always true, on many levels, and one of them involves NEAT.

It looks like higher intensity training has more potential to DECREASE NEAT later on than low or moderate intensity training. You burn a lot of calories DURING the workout when training at high intensity. However, the calories burned during the formal training can be at least partly canceled out by a decrease in NEAT outside the training session.

It also appears that moderate intensity exercise may be better tolerated than high intensity exercise by some people, especially beginners and obese individuals. The low or moderate intensity workouts don’t wipe them out so much that they don’t become fatigued, sluggish and sore later in the day…. and there’s no decrease in NEAT.

Am I saying you shouldn’t do high intensity exercise? Not at all.

High intensity training can be very effective and very time efficient and a mix of high and lower-intensity training might be ideal. But if you do a lot of high intensity training, you have to be aware of how OVER-doing it might affect your energy and activity level outside the gym – on the day of training, and even in the days that follow the intense workout. Otherwise, you might end up with fewer total calories burned at the end of the week, not more.

If you don’t understand the calorie balance equation and the calorie deficit… if you don’t understand the compensatory effect of NEAT on energy out and you don’t understand the compensatory effect of eating behaviors on energy in, then you can do cardio until you’re blue in the face and you’ll still be in energy balance… and your body fat will stay exactly the same.

Important points

1. This study SUPPORTS the role of exercise for weight loss and debunks the idea that exercise doesn’t work for weight loss, provided all else remains equal when exercise is added on top of diet.

2. Exercise intensity can affect NEAT for days after a workout is over. Too much high intensity work might zap your energy and activity outside the gym, resulting in a lower level of NEAT. You have to keep up your habitual activity level outside the gym after pushing yourself hard in the gym.

3. This information supports the role of low moderate intensity exercise (like 60 minutes of treadmill walking) based on the effect this has on your activity outside the gym. It is not true that only high intensity training is worthwhile. There are pros and cons of training at various intensities.

4. If you can keep up your NEAT, you can increase your weekly calorie expenditure and increase your fat loss.

5. It’s important in research to look beyond short term results (during a workout bout, 24 hour studies, etc), and also consider longer term effects. We should watch out for more studies on NEAT that go beyond 24 hours to learn more.

NEAT is a great way to improve your total fat loss results, but it can also undermine your efforts if you don’t consider the toll it takes on your daily energy expenditure. The best thing you can do is follow a fat loss system like my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle Program that takes account of the big picture, including NEAT.


Train hard and expect success!

 

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

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best sellingTom Venuto
diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get
lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your
metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com!