Going from flab to fab
June has hit! Coming in hot. Temperatures are on the rise and summer is upon us. Many people will undoubtably endure the “oh crap” moment of feeling out of shape at the wrong time when they put on shorts or a swimsuit. You are in good company if you are overweight. Roughly 70% of the USA is categorized as overweight now. This is great news if you sell diabetic supplies and oversized clothes, however, I’d prefer to help you avoid the high cost of a failing fitness. One of my favorite quotes is “If you think the price of good health is high, wait until you get the bill for bad health.” My aim with this article is to clarify how simple weight loss really is. It is not the rocket science you been persuaded to believe as you will soon find out!
The good things in life are simple. If you don’t believe me, go live life as complicated and complex as possible and report back in ten years. I’ll wait. The good news is that weight loss and regaining your health is a very simple endeavor. An inverted relationship looks like this.
Eat More Than Your Body Needs = Weight Gain
Eat Less Than Your Body Needs = Weight Loss
Exercise alone is little help
By it’s nature, aerobic and anaerobic exercise is not a very efficient way to lose body fat. Controlling your Calories is a much more efficient way to lose body fat.
A point I wish to emphasis is that just 1 pound of fat equals 10 hours of aerobic activity. It’s been said before and I’ll say it again: You simply cannot out exercise a bad diet (no matter how hard you try).
Calories, Calories, Calories
I wish to stress the importance of Calories with a vivid example. Everyone requires different amounts due to size and activity levels, but let’s say your body requires 2,500 Calories per day to maintain it’s activity and current bodyweight. I’d be safe to say that if you ate 2,000 Calories per day of pure table sugar you’d still be able to lose weight. Does that sound crazy? I surely wouldn’t recommend it. But it would work!
You must figure out how much your body needs to function and maintain good activity. You can estimate this using a good online BMR Calculator. Most people wildly overestimate their activity level multiple. So please be conservative with that.
This number is the magic key. Now just minus roughly 500 Calories per day and you will be well on your way. You want to aim to lose roughly one pound per week. If you lose more than that you can be assured that you are burning lots of lean muscle too which as you will see is very counterproductive long term. If you are overweight by 30 plus pounds you must undertake your weight loss journey as a long range proposition. If it took years to gain the weight it won’t come off in days.
Eat a balanced diet
Make sure that your Calories are dialed in and then eat a balanced diet rich in nutrients from real food. Properly balance Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats.
Muscle = Metabolism
It is vital to understand that muscle equals metabolism. Lean muscle requires Calories to survive. Picture your muscles as Caloric Termites quietly eating away Calories around the clock automatically. Lean muscle essentially turns your whole body into a furnace to burn Calories every day. This leads us to why we train the way we do in workouts.
We have already established that aerobic and anaerobic exercise is an inefficient way to burn body fat. Remember, that one pound of fat equals 10 hours of aerobic activity. Then why workout at all? The answer is to build lean muscle tissue. Muscle equals metabolism!
How to build good looking lean muscle
So the key to living lean long term is to focus workouts on building lean muscle and then eating properly to burn off fat. Understanding when aiming to build muscle it is crucial to understand that muscle is not built in the gym. Your hard reps in the gym serve as the stimulus to start the process of muscle growth. ONLY IF YOU ALLOW THE MUSCLE TO FULLY RECOVER AND THEN SUPER-COMPENSATE will you experience improvements in muscle quality and definition.
The fatigue from a hard workout is local in the targeted muscle and systematic in your whole body. If you workout again too soon you will short-circuit the process and it will render your prior work useless and you will be overtraining. Overtraining over stresses the body and can even lead to fat storage and muscle loss. The exact opposite of what we want! It is of vital importance to manage your stimulus and recovery phases using proper periodization and allow recovery cycles during your training year.
Life is too short to be miserable
Let me stress fat loss and/or reaching a peak conditioning level should be a joy. If you enjoy a balanced diet in tune with your proper amount of Calories with ample Carbohydrates you should receive a happy attitude and feel really good while shedding the unwanted pounds. The extremely low carb crowd is too darn cranky and uninspiring for me. You should feel great and highly energized while losing weight IF your training and nutrition is properly balanced in all ways.
Summary & Shameless Book Pitch
My wish is that you have learned something of value of this article. Let’s summarize how to execute your Simple Summer Shred.
EAT LESS THAT YOU NEED
1 POUND OF FAT = 10 HOURS OF AEROBICS
MINUS 500 CALORIES PER DAY
AIM TO LOSE 1 POUND PER WEEK
MUSCLE = METABOLISM
FOLLOW A BALANCED DIET
LIFT WEIGHTS TO BUILD MUSCLE
TRAINING STIMULATES, RECOVERY BUILDS
DON’T BE A 90 DAY WONDER: START RIGHT AND THINK LONG TERM
IT SHOULD BE A JOY TO LIVE LEAN FOR GOOD
This is one simple approach, if you desire an even simpler plan you can check out my little book: Lazy Weight Loss. (I do get compensated a few bucks per book) If nothing else just remember the principle that weight loss is simple. Don’t let the hucksters tell you any different (Our top secret pill/sauce/herb/oil/etc will make it happen for you with no effort on your part today only 4 easy payments of 29.95!!!). Nutrition, exercise, and elbow grease combined properly is unstoppable long term. Give it a shot!
Beau
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