How to burn fat, the right way
Losing fat is something that most people are very uneducated about. Most listen to the mainstream say so’s of effective diets, so called better nutrition and the ever encompassing tactics of selling gym memberships, weight loss coaches and ever changing ways on how to burn calories.
While some of those techniques work in the short term, many are undermined by other methods and have no real long term control on losing fat. Heck, just the notion of weight loss is wrong; it’s all about losing fat.
Healthy fat loss typically composes of losing fat, while keeping water content and lean muscle mass growing. In other words most of the overweight and obese class can reach healthy fat levels by losing fat the right way while increasing their lean muscle mass. While many of you know of ways to accomplish this, the right way on how to burn fat comes from true better nutrition, to increase your metabolism, an effective workout plan and the right way to burn calories and general lifestyle changes.
The fact remains that most people take the wrong approach to losing fat. Ideally, those who are overweight and obese or just seek losing fat should concentrate on healthy fat loss while preserving and growing muscle mass through proper exercising. Especially since lean muscle mass burns calories more than fat does.
One pound of lean muscle mass burns approximately 14 kilo-calories at rest. So the obvious conclusion is that the more lean muscle mass one has, the higher you will increase your metabolism. You as a result will burn calories efficiently especially at rest and creating a calorie deficit which in turn ultimately leads to healthy fat loss.
So the obvious question is: What is the best way of losing fat while keeping and growing lean muscle mass. The answer is a permanent healthy fat loss equation that is divided into three vital parts:
1. Better Nutrition Plan
2. Resistance Strength Training
3. Behavior Modification
Each is as important as the other and you will not succeed in the short or long term unless you follow each step in this permanent healthy fat loss equation.
Before you learn these secrets to fat loss you have to rid your self of the five most common mainstream myths of losing fat and better nutrition.
1. Focusing on weight loss.
No, you need to focus on losing fat. The biggest disappointment that causes most dieters to fail is the scale of measuring success by the weight loss in pounds. Remember the best way you will lose fat is to gain lean muscle mass. So while you lose weight when losing fat, you will also gain weight when building lean muscle mass.
2. Non effective diet.
Better nutrition should be a lifestyle of nutrients and minerals added to the your meal plan, not subtracted. This non effective diet approach cuts out certain things in food for weight loss. However the basic principal of good nutrition is the intake of nutrients and minerals. Carbohydrates, proteins, fats and calories are crucial to increase your metabolism. With out them your body goes into starvation mode which forces your metabolism to slow and your body to hold onto fats and calories. This is a fundamental part of your body’s instinct trying to survive.
3. Cardio exercising
This form of exercising can be very inefficient and potentially damaging to overweight and obese people. If your starting out on your losing fat endeavors, remember that your body is out of shape and prone to injury. High impact cardio exercising is the quickest way to side line your quest of losing fat and cause injury.
On top of that cardio exercising teaches the body to be efficient. While that may sound good at first consider that an efficient body does the same tasks with less and less effort over time. This will also sideline your goals of losing fat as you stop building more lean muscle mass. You need a low impact way of teaching your body to become stronger and to grow its self, consuming and losing fat in your body while doing so.
4. The dogma of late night eating
This is wrong; sleeping on an empty stomach is a great no-no. When you wake up you have already been without foods that increase your metabolism for many hours. Eating a small healthy snack and water with in an hour of sleeping will increase your metabolism while you sleep and will over time give you more energy when you wake up.
Of course for the older generation that may be prone to heartburn and acid reflux will have to be careful. The doctors orders of not eating three hours before sleeping is correct for these people and is what started this way of thinking in a generalized fashion to those that it does not apply to. However it only applies to those at risk of such conditions. But water and something very lite as a snack should be okay either way.
5. Toning your muscles
This is also inefficient and creates a potential of hurting weaker muscle groups. Toning your muscles means focusing on a specific muscle or group of muscles for losing fat and increasing lean muscle mass definition. Losing fat in one specific place can not happen. Losing fat is generalized and everywhere. Muscles can be focused on, but neglecting muscles around the ones your are focusing will lag behind and be prone to injury since most of your muscles link and support each other for most movements you body can make. This can easily led to injury.
I know this seems foreign and a bit insane considering what you have been told in the past. But that which I pursue is the efficient and most effective route to my goals with the greatest results, in this case losing fat. I have found them and now wish to share them with you. I’ve told you what you need to know to be in the right mindset to start losing fat. Now we need to stop talking and start doing.
The how in achieving compliance in this permanent health fat loss equation can be found in many resources around the Internet if you know where to look. Like I said I pursue the efficient and most effective way of losing fat.
The best overall resource I found is “The Fatburning Furnace” by “Rob Poulos”. This book is a gold mine of information that has an excellent guide to resistance strength training and behavior modification strategies. This book also touches on the basics of better nutrition and eating habits.
For a comprehensive better nutrition resource I recommend “Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating
Be warned that both these resources will turn everything you know about nutrition, exercise and losing fat upside down. At the same time however, both take a very common sense and easy to under stand approach that will actually make you mad that it took you this long to learn these principles.
