Lose Weight the Smart Way for Men and Women
Lose Weight the Smart Way for Men and Women
In this guide we are going to concentrate on the 1-2-3 punch to turning your body into a fat fighting machine. Our goal is to teach you how a combination of diet, cardio exercise and weight training will transform your physique in no time flat. Sometimes all it takes is understanding the process to get you motivated and start you on your journey to a leaner, meaner, healthier you. Let's take a look at what you should know to get you started.
Diet
Let's start with diet. There is a misconception that diet equals starving yourself. The truth is you don't have to eat less, you just need to eat the right food, at the right time, 6 or more times per day. This will keep you satisfied and stop most hunger pains or sugar cravings.
Keep track of your daily caloric intake. Did you know that 1 pound of body fat equals 3500 calories? The average person burns approximately 2000 calories doing normal everyday activities. If you are physically active, your body would burn more. So in order to lose 1 pound per week, you would need to reduce your caloric consumption by 500 calories per day.
Eat less carbohydrate and more protein, but don't eliminate carbs completely. Remember that carbohydrates are very important in your diet, especially when exercising. They give you the energy needed to get you through the day, and supply your body with vital nutrients and vitamins for staying healthy and keeping your immune system strong. Have most of your carbs before noon, and stick to healthy carbs such as fresh fruit, grains, nuts, and seeds. After noon, eat more protein rich foods and less carbs.
Try eating foods on the low and medium side of the Glycemic Index. High GI foods create a surge of sugar in the body and cause insulin levels to spike and increase fat storage in the body. Low GI foods only cause small fluctuations and a gradual rise in blood sugar and insulin levels. Lower GI foods not only aid in weight loss, but also help feel fuller, give you more energy, and reduce the risk of diabetes.
Eat smaller portions more often. Six or more smaller portioned meals is better than three larger meals. This will keep you full throughout the day and raise your metabolism, which will help you burn more fat.
Eat more fat burning foods. Fat burning foods are those which help accelerate the body's fat burning process, or better yet help burn more calories or close to the calorie content of the food being consumed. Does this mean you should stop exercising? Absolutely not! It's only an added bonus on top of the many other things you are doing to keep yourself fit and healthy. Here is a list of thermal or fat burning foods, and other foods that help lower calories being stored in your body:
High vitamin C foods dilutes the fat and renders it less effective, thus making it easier to be flushed out of the body. These foods would include fruits and vegetables such as kiwi, strawberries, oranges, lemons, tomatoes, bell peppers, and broccoli.
Foods rich in pectin are said to limit the absorption of fat by the cells, and helps in the absorption of watery substances which in turn also helps the cells release fat deposits. Pectin rich foods include apples, plums, peaches, and currant.
Capsaicin is a thermogenic agent in foods which cause the body to produce stress hormones, which raise your body's metabolic rate and burn more calories. Foods containing capsaicin include chilli peppers, cayenne peppers, and tobasco sauce.
Cinnamon helps metabolize sugar which decreases blood sugar levels in your body and helps reduce the amount of sugar your body will store as fat.
Green Tea, apples, and berries contain catechin which is known to help accelerate many of the body's internal processes including those involved in burning fat.
Omega 3 rich foods help by reducing insulin levels in the body. Insulin is a hormone that reduces the use of fat for fuel, while also promoting fat storage in the presence of excess calories. Insulin increases the activity of an enzyme known to promote the storage of fat. Omega 3 can be found in salmon, flaxseed, walnuts, olive oil, fish oil and winter squash.
Protein foods have a high thermal affect and burn more calories when being digested than either carbohydrates or fat. In addition, protein helps build muscle which increases your metabolism. Good sources of protein are chicken, turkey, eggs, fish, beans, nuts, and dairy products.
Water is great in that it has zero calories, helps raise your metabolism, suppresses appetite, and flushes toxins from your body. Drink as much as you like!
Cardio Exercise
Cardio exercise is any exercise that is aerobic (with oxygen) and increases your heart rate through steady and repetitive movements involving a person's arms and legs to increase circulation and blood flow throughout the body. Typically, exercise periods are 15 20 minutes in duration, while maintaining 60 80% of your maximum heart rate.
High vs. Low Intensity
Everyone has wondered at some point in time which cardio exercise is better for fat loss. To put it in simple terms, both low and high intensity exercises will help you to burn off body fat. The question here is which is the most effective to burn off more body fat.
Scientists first discovered that during high intensity exercises, your body burns more glycogen, which is a form of stored carbohydrates that are stored in your liver and muscles for energy, and that during low intensity exercises, your body will burn more fat. So for many years people were afraid to exercise too hard thinking they would burn only sugar and not body fat.
Today, research has proven that low intensity aerobic exercise to stay in the fat burning zone was false. Low intensity exercise actually burns more calories from fat, but you burn fewer total calories. So regardless if your exercise is 20 minutes or 40 minutes, the higher the intensity the more calories you will burn. The more calories you burn, the more fat you will burn.
An added bonus to high intensity cardio exercise is that it will juice up your metabolism even after you have completed your workout. What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat hours after your exercise session. This effect is nearly non-existent in low intensity cardio or aerobic workout.
Accumulatively, your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you have finished a high intensity cardio exercise than it will with low intensity.
You can inject high intensity exercises into your cardio workout by introducing some interval training. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes or so. Then, walk briskly again until you have caught your breath and then sprint for a minute before you walk again. From this point, simply alternate your running and walking for the next 15 minutes until you are finished.
One of the best things about cardio is the more you do it, the more energy you'll have. Cardio will help you to burn calories, and keep your energy levels high.
If you've never tried cardio before, you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you'll find cardio the best way to boost your energy and keep in top shape. If you are just starting out, you'll want to go slow and keep your cardio exercise in track - as it is very easy to over exert yourself.
Key Benefits
The reason to do cardio does not end with fat loss though; there are a wide variety of health benefits you receive from a regular cardio program.
Improved Heart Rate: A strong heart muscle will prevent a variety of negative health issues.
Increased Metabolism: Will help to burn fat faster.
Improved Hormonal Profile: Feel good hormone release, helps ease symptoms of depression & fatigue.
Diabetes: Exercise increases your body's ability to utilize glucose.
Types of Exercises
There are various forms and methods of performing cardio exercise. To get you started, here is a list of exercises and activities you can use to get started: running, jogging, brisk walking, swimming, bicycling, jump-roping, treadmill, stairclimbers, rowing machines, step aerobics.
Weight Training
Popular belief has it that weight training is for building big muscles and not for losing weight. However, weight training is very effective in burning calories when done properly and will contribute to speeding up the fat burning process during your workout and even long after your workout is done.
Weight training is anaerobic and therefore burns carbohydrates. Cardiovascular exercises such as jogging, cycling, swimming, walking, or stair climbing are aerobic and therefore burn fat. So it seems logical to focus on aerobic training for fat loss. However, something interesting happens "beneath the surface" when you lift weights. Weight training increases your lean body mass aerobic training does not. Low calorie dieting and aerobic training without weight lifting can make you lose muscle. By losing lean body mass, your metabolism slows down, and this makes it easier to gain fat. By increasing your lean body mass, you increase your metabolic rate. And the faster your metabolism is, the more fat you'll burn all day long - even while you're sleeping! This explains why bodybuilders, who have extremely high muscle to fat ratios, can stay lean year round without doing much aerobic work.
The absolute quickest and efficient way possible to lose body fat requires three main ingredients. You must pay equal attention to nutrition, aerobic training and weight training. All three ingredients are essential. If you neglect any one of these components, it will prevent you from reaching your goals, or at the very least it will compromise your results.
The most amazing thing about this combination of weights, cardio and nutrition is that the effects of the three parts brought together are not linear, they are exponential! The synergy between them complements each other and magnifies the results. The result is an efficient metabolism and a lean, muscular and low body fat composition. Your metabolism is enhanced through the thermal effects of nutrition, it is elevated for several hours after every cardio session and it is also increased with every ounce of lean body mass you add making you the ultimate fat burning machine!
Don't make dieting and exercising a chore, but rather, make it a lifestyle. Try to prepare your meals ahead or know what your eating ahead of schedule. Don't eat out as much and make eating out a treat once per week or every other week. Try to schedule your workouts at the same time on workout days. For example, going straight to the gym after work will make it feel more like a routine rather than a chore. Stick with it and you will notice over time how it becomes a part of your everyday life.
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