TTABF

The Truth About Burning Fat
Your Complete Step-By-Step Guide To A Lean, Defined & Healthy Body

By Sean Nalewanyj www.HowToBurnFat.com
Copyright & Disclaimer
- Copyright & Disclaimer Before beginning any new nutrition or dietary supplement program you should consult a physician first. The information presented herein is not meant to treat or prevent any disease or to provide the reader with medical advice. If you are looking for specific medical advice then you should obtain this information from a licensed health-care practitioner.
This publication is intended for informational use only. Sean Nalewanyj and www.HowToBurnFat.com will not assume any liability or be held responsible for any form of injury, personal loss or illness caused by the utilization of this information. The individual results obtained from the use of this information will vary from person to person and we make no guarantee as to the degree of results that you will personally achieve.
This publication is fully copyrighted and does not come with giveaway or resale rights. You may not sell or redistribute this report. It is reserved solely for HowToBurnFat.com members. Copyright and illegal distribution violations will be prosecuted.
2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved
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Table Of Contents
Table Of Contents
Introduction 6
Section#1: Optimum Fat Burning Nutrition
17
Why Nutrition Will Make Or Break Your Results Why Traditional Diets Make You Fatter! How To Work With Your Biology; NOT Against It Understanding Calories & Fat Loss The Harris-Benedict Formula The Katch-McArdle Formula Proper Dietary Structure Everything You Need To Know About Protein Everything You Need To Know About Carbs The Glycemic Index Everything You Need To Know About Fats Macronutrient Ratios Meal Frequency Meal Combinations Meal Timing Liquid Intake Fat Burning Nutrition Overview
18 20 32 35 41 44 47 51 55 66 70 83 98 111 115 135 147
Section#2: Highly Effective Weight Training
152
The Critical Importance Of Resistance Training For Fat Loss The Spot Reduction Myth Weight Training Framework Crossing The Adaptation Threshold The Law of Progression Muscle Myths Why Less Is More Weight Training Power Factors Power Factor #1: Training Frequency Power Factor #2: Workout Structure Power Factor #3: Workout Length Power Factor #4: Exercise Selection Power Factor #5: Warming Up Power Factor #6: Number Of Sets Power Factor #7: Rep Ranges Power Factor #8: Resting Between Sets Power Factor #9: Rep Speed
153 155 161 163 166 169 172 174 175 177 179 180 183 186 188 190 192
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Table Of Contents
Power Factor #10: Proper Breathing Power Factor #11: Recovery Week Weight Training Summary
194 195 196
Section#3: Maximum Fat Loss Cardio
199
Why Long Duration/Low Intensity Cardio Is Far From Optimal Frequency Duration Intervals Beginner Intervals Intermediate Intervals Advanced Intervals Warming Up & Cooling Down Why Calorie Readings Are Irrelevant Why Heart Rate Is Unimportant Acceptable Cardio Exercises Pre & Post Cardio Nutrition Implementing Cardio into Your Weekly Schedule Cardio Review
203 206 210 213 214 215 216 218 219 220 221 225 226 231
Section#4: How To Track Your Progress
233
Method #1: Changes In Body Weight Method #2: Changes In Body Fat Percentage Method #3: Changes In Lean Body Mass Method #4: Changes In Body Part Measurements Method #5: Changes In Appearance Realistic Progress Rates Minimum/Maximum Body Fat Percentages Program Modifications To Optimize Your Results
234 236 236 239 241 245 247 250
Wrapping It Up
255
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Table Of Contents
*Wait!*
Heres an extremely important message for you:
Before attempting any of the nutritional, weight training or cardiovascular exercise guidelines discussed in this e-book, you MUST get a doctors approval first!
You should have a complete physical examination, especially if youve been living a primarily sedentary lifestyle. You also need to check with your doctor if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or if youre over the age of 30.
Have you had any physical injuries recently or in the past that might be affected by an intense workout program?
These are all factors that you absolutely must get checked out by a medical doctor before you proceed any further with the recommendations outlined here.
Get it? Got it? Good!
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Introduction
Introduction
Let me start off by saying that I am truly happy you are reading this e-book right now.
Whether it be by sheer luck or destiny of some kind, I am ecstatic that your Internet travels somehow led you to these words that you are reading at this moment.
It means that one more person has been saved!
One more fat loss hopeful will finally get their hands on the information they truly require to reach their goals, rather than being sucked down the rabbit hole of the money-hungry marketers looking to expand their bank accounts by flogging the latest miracle breakthrough.
The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar empire, and I would not be exaggerating if I told you that the vast majority of fat burning products on the market today are pure, 100% garbage.
From fat burning supplements to infomercial workout gizmos, to the latest fad diet, it is extremely easy for the average Joe or Jane to get lost in this massive heap of junk, and never find out what they really need to do in order to get the body they so desperately desire.
Most of these people will end up with minimal to no results at all to their body, but they will thin out their wallets significantly in the process.
That all ends right here, right now!
Ive seen enough. In all my years of being involved in this industry and seeing the incredibly disproportionate balance between success stories and failures, it finally reached a boiling point.
No longer will you be left confused and wondering, aimlessly and haphazardly switching from diet
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Introduction
to diet and program to program, hoping that someday and somehow youll achieve that lean, defined body youre after.
If the release of this e-book can at least tip the scales toward the success stories side in any reasonable fashion, then Ive done my job.
And my job is to provide you with valid, effective and efficient information for burning body fat and getting into shape as quickly and efficiently as possible. You can trust the information that you read here.
I have no hidden agenda. I am not affiliated with any supplement companies. I have no vested interest in workout gadgets of any kind. I am not motivated by selling you any additional backend products.
What youre getting here is the real deal - unbiased, honest and objective information from a genuine expert who truly wants to see you succeed. There is so much information out there on this subject and for the average everyday person it can be literally impossible to know who to trust.
Since the majority of information out there is put forth by individuals who either lack credibility or have a hidden plan to sell you some additional supplement or workout device on the side, most people who want to lose weight end up placing their trust in the wrong sources.
So lets set the record straight once and for all
Burning body fat and getting into shape is NOT a complex process.
Biologically complex, yes, but NOT complex in terms of the daily steps youll need to take in order to set that process into motion.
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Introduction
Ill probably be one of the first people to tell you that.
Why?
Because if everyone knew that burning fat and getting into shape was a simple process, the greedy marketers would soon run out of products to sell. If everyone simply placed their trust in
knowledge rather than in some phony physical product, wed have a lot more people in good
shape (and with their bank accounts steady), and a lot less out-of-shape individuals who continued to rely on the latest fads, failing over and over again, and constantly coming back for more.
For the big players in the weight loss industry who continue to make millions off the sweat and dreams of these innocent hopefuls, this would be terrible news.
Its in their best interest to keep everyone soft and flabby, and judging by the most recent U.S obesity statistics (where 7 out of every 10 adults are classified as overweight), Id say theyre doing a pretty good job.
A bit scary, huh?
It is scary, but luckily this wont be you.
I honestly believe that after reading through this e-book and making use of the additional items that came with the package, you may very well never need to spend your money on another fat loss information product ever again. All of the strategies contained here are enough to take you from point A to point B in the shortest period of time possible.
As I said before, all of the necessary steps youll need to take in order to drop your body fat, increase your muscle definition, as well as to feel healthier, more energetic and better about yourself are NOT complicated.
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Introduction
The reality is that they are ONLY as complicated as we choose to make them.
In fact, we can make it extremely complicated if we really wanted to. The decision is ours.
We can obsess about every single little detail, analyze our training and diets with laser-targeted precision and measure our body composition down to the finest level. We can break down the specific microscopic processes happening at the cellular level, discuss the latest university study where 3 grams of glutamine as opposed to 5 was ingested post-workout, or we can talk about Co-Enzyme Q-10s role in the production of ATP
At the end of the day, for the bottom line results we want to achieve, this is all simply unnecessary, confusing and a waste of time.
If youre reading this right now, then chances are that youre simply a typical everyday person who wants to lose body fat as quickly and easily as possible without revolving your entire life around your weight loss program.
If this pretty much describes you, then were on the same page here.
Mark my words
You do not need to invest in fancy training equipment of any kind. You do not need to hire a personal trainer. You do not need to spend your money on expensive, overpriced supplements. You do not need to sift through endless books and magazines. You do not need to follow the latest fad diets.
The only thing you truly need is the desire to learn and the willpower to work, coupled with a sound, sensible and straightforward approach.
This manual is written for you: the reader, the trainee, the fat loss hopeful.
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Introduction
This is not intended to be a biology course jam-packed with scientific mumbo-jumbo and technical terminology, nor is it a journal filled with University studies and endless references.
You are reading this e-book right now because you want to lose fat and get into shape, and not because you want to get your fat loss PhD.
I could make this whole thing extremely simple, or extremely complex. I could dazzle you with every single piece of knowledge I have absorbed over all these years, and pack it into 1000 pages if I wanted to.
I will not do that.
Instead, I will teach you every single thing you need to know to get the best results possible in the most efficient manner, and not a thing more. This is not intended as a general educational resource, but rather as a tool to get you a result.
You will not find a single piece of fluff in this e-book. I will not ramble endlessly on useless topics for the sake of filling up more pages like most other fat burning books and systems do.
Some of the most popular fat burning programs available today will actually leave you even more confused once you put them down. The reality is that in many cases, the more you read, the less you know.
That being said, there is no fat burning system out there that is 100% absolute.
For every popular principle or technique you read about, there will always be someone somewhere who disagrees with it and who promotes the exact opposite of that technique.
If I was to present you with every possible angle imaginable, you would ultimately not learn a thing. You would be left even more confused and frustrated than you were to begin with.
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Introduction
You want a result, and thats what I intend to give you.
I could care less what anyone besides you thinks of this program. It has been created for you, and no one else. I am not setting out to impress anyone or to show off my knowledge on the subject matter, nor am I interested in trying to dazzle my peers with any innovative, neverbefore-seen strategies.
If innovative and never-before-seen strategies were what I truly felt were best for you, then thats what I would deliver. The reality is that this is NOT what you need, and that the most effective and powerful fat loss strategies available are actually reasonably straightforward and basic.
You are not going to find any revolutionary techniques or special breakthrough methods here. In all of my years of dedicating my time and effort to researching the topics of burning fat and building muscle I have yet to come across a single breakthrough strategy that actually lived up to its hype.
There are NO breakthrough secrets. (At least not yet)
If you are reading this e-book with the hopes of uncovering some magical, exclusive strategy not found anywhere else, then you are reading the wrong book, and you are searching for a pot of gold that doesnt really exist.
As I said before, it is up to us how complex we choose to make this topic.
I will make it only as complicated as it needs to be in order for you to get results.
In this book, you will come across strategies that you had never before considered, and you will also come across some strategies that you have probably read or heard about elsewhere. If youve already conducted a reasonable amount of research about losing fat, then some of these ideas will not be brand new to you.
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Introduction
This e-book is not just about teaching you new strategies; it is also about validating older strategies that you may have previously come across.
The Internet is absolutely flooded with weight loss information, some of it good and some bad. Some of it is put forth by reputable, trustworthy authorities, and some of it (actually, most of it) is put forth by people who either lack credibility or have some sort of hidden agenda. At this point you probably have quite a large number of different fat loss ideas swirling around in your head, and you probably dont have a clue which of them are valid and which are not.
So, just as Ill be teaching you some new ideas, Ill also be clearing up older ones.
Do I claim that this book is the be-all-end-all of fat loss and the only possible method that can get you the body you desire?
Of course not.
There are many different recipes that can be successfully used to bake a cake, just as there are many different recipes that can be successfully used to burn body fat and get you into shape.
This is just one of many possible methods.
It is, however, the most powerful, efficient and effective method as far as Im concerned. After more than a decade of research, trial and error and observing my clients closely, I dont know of any other method that can get you from point A to point B as lightning fast as what youll find here.
The principles and techniques that I outline here are essentially agreed upon by the top and most trusted trainers in the world. I am 100% sure that they will work wonders for you if you apply them correctly.
I have yet to come across a single person who didnt slash their body fat, increase their muscle
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Introduction
definition, and see dramatic changes in their physique after properly applying the techniques that Ill be talking about.
If you dont use them, or if you dont apply them properly, thats another story.
I get emails all the time from clients who are frustrated by a lack of progress, and when I ask them to outline their training and dietary approach it almost always turns out that theyre following something completely different than what I had recommended.
If you dont follow these methods properly, dont expect noteworthy results.
The methods work, but whether you put them to work is your own choice. All I ask is that you place your trust in what Im teaching you and implement the program as Ive outlined it here.
Im going to share with you the most explosive strategies that I know of for dropping body fat while maintaining muscle mass, and they WILL work for you if you truly want them to.
Chances are that youre currently implementing a method that is filled with fundamental errors, contradictions and downright ineffective strategies, or youre simply not following any sort of fat loss program at all. Maybe youre hoping that if you just spend a few days reading this e-book and the additional items that come with the package, youll finally have the ultimate quick-fix.
Now, I had just typed in the words this is not a quick fix.
I then realized that that is not true.
This IS a quick-fix Not in terms of the bottom line results youre going to achieve, but rather, in terms of the outlook and approach that you take towards your fat burning program.
You can start putting these fat loss techniques to use right away, and set the wheels into maximum motion virtually overnight. You can literally go from 0 to 100 miles per hour in just a
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Introduction
matter of days. You can eliminate all of the weight loss nonsense and B.S. that is infecting your mind and keeping you from having the body you desire. You can immediately reframe your approach with sound, scientific and highly effective techniques that produce serious, real-life results.
If thats not a quick-fix, then I dont know what is.
How this program is NOT a quick-fix is in the traditional sense. It is not a quick-fix in terms of your actual physical results.
If youre expecting to transform your body overnight with minimal work on your part, then forget it. Its not going to happen, and it never will.
If youre coming in with a laid-back attitude expecting to see significant reductions in body fat without hard and consistent work on your part, then youre honestly doomed right from the getgo. You might as well put this e-book down right now and carry on with your regular ways.
I dont mean to sound harsh, but I refuse to sugarcoat anything here. If you arent willing to put in some hard, focused work, then it is simply a waste of time to bother trying.
Burning fat is not highly complicated, however, that doesnt mean its EASY.
It does require some real effort on your part, and it does require consistency. Being lean and in shape is not something that you do for a set period of time, stop, and then look back to admire yourself for what youve accomplished. Its not comparable to a sculptor who puts in the effort to build a statue and then walks away from it forever.
Being lean and in shape requires a change in your lifestyle.
It requires you to stick to a basic set of guidelines over the long run. Weve all seen those people
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Introduction
who go all out for a couple of months, watching their diet and doing their workouts, getting impressive results, but then they gradually revert back to their old ways.
What happens?
Just as quickly as they lost the fat, they gain it all back.
If your goal is to lose the fat and keep it off, you must be prepared to make permanent changes to your daily habits. I can only open doors for you; I cant drag you through them.
Im not talking about obsessing over all of the nitty-gritty details (in fact, this will probably work against you in the long run), but I am talking about making a commitment to a basic training plan and a nutritional approach that WILL require some dedication and willpower to stick to.
Nothing truly worth having in life comes easily, and a lean and defined body is no exception.
Listen, I have no problem with your desire to put in the least amount of work necessary to achieve a goal. Im all for that. Why shouldnt we want that?
That is the very definition of efficiency.
We SHOULD strive to see the best possible output from the smallest possible input. However, even the smallest possible input towards achieving a lean body requires hard work. The rewards are well worth the effort (many times over), but it will come at a price.
If thats something that youre prepared to accept and move forward with (and Im sure the majority of you are), then congratulations
No really, I mean that.
Congratulations.
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Introduction
It takes guts to step up and make a change like this, and I truly admire you for that.
The vast majority of people go through life settling for mediocrity and never going out and capturing the things they truly desire. The fact that you have recognized your desire to change and are taking active steps to reach that goal despite the knowledge that it will require hard work and patience is truly admirable.
Its not an easy thing to do, but youre already doing it.
Now all I ask is that you stick with me and allow me to teach you the things that youll need to know and implement.
This is a two-way deal. You bring the will, and Ill show you the way.
I told you that this e-book would not contain any fluff or filler, so before I start getting fluffy on you, lets begin
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Section #1: Optimum Fat Burning Nutrition

You might be wondering why nutrition is listed as the first section in this e-book.
After all, your biggest questions are probably about the type of cardio workouts you should be doing, how long you should be doing them, which machines are best to use for your workouts, and other factors in regards to a proper fat burning training program.
Well, what if I was to tell you that proper nutrition was, hands down, the single most important factor in regard to losing your body fat and achieving a lean, defined physique?
What if I was to tell you that proper nutrition will literally make or break your fat burning success?
What if I was to tell you that without proper nutrition you literally dont stand a chance of ever getting yourself into the shape you desire?
Its true!
Do you want to know the 3 most important factors in your entire fat burning approach?
Here they are
1) What you eat. 2) How much of it you eat. 3) How often you eat it.
If you want the one true secret to melting through body fat at the fastest rate possible, proper fat burning nutrition would be it. In fact, if I was to venture my best guess, I would say that
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proper nutrition is going to be responsible for a minimum of 70% of your total bottom line results.
Thats a bare minimum.
The actual figure could be closer to 80%... maybe even as high as 85 or 90%. So can you really afford to ignore nutritional advice?
Proper nutrition is truly the ultimate key to rapid fat loss. Your food choices will make the difference between having a body thats a soft, sluggish, fat-storing ball of flab, or a body thats rock-hard, good looking, energetic, and that incinerates excess fat around the clock.
Which would you prefer? You choose!
You truly ARE what you eat.
Im sure weve all seen the guy or gal at the gym who seems to be there virtually every day, slaving away on the stairmaster or treadmill, working up a furious sweat and yet their body shape and size hasnt changed in months or possibly even years. When that happens, the problem is almost certainly because of their diet.
The training program you carry out at the gym certainly plays an important role in your success, however, its importance does not even come close to the role thats played by nutrition. As the saying goes
You cant out-train a bad diet, but you CAN out-eat a bad training program!
In other words, if your training routine is properly structured but your diet is not, your results will either be significantly compromised or non-existent... However, even if youre following an ineffective training routine, youll still see significant progress as long as youre following a sound
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diet.
You just cant expect to train hard at the gym and then make a late night stop at the McDonalds drive-thru window if you want to see positive changes in your body. It just doesnt work like that, and it never will.
Regardless of how important proper nutrition may be, in this day and age it seems nearly impossible to follow a clean and healthy eating plan. Were constantly bombarded by junk food from every possible angle every time we enter a grocery store or flip on the television.
No matter where you live, there seems to be a fast food joint on virtually every street corner. With all of these delicious looking foods tempting us from every direction and literally an arms reach away, all the willpower in the world sometimes doesnt seem like enough.
Even if were able to resist the Big Macs and the Snickers Bars and make the commitment to start eating healthy, there is still another giant obstacle standing in our way
Most of us dont even know what it means to eat properly! We dont know what to eat, and we dont know how much to eat.
The vast majority of us have such a poor understanding of proper nutrition that even if we do decide to take action and make a dietary change, we dont know what that change should consist of.
With so much conflicting advice and so many fad diets floating around, how the heck are we supposed to go about eating properly for fat loss in the first place? What IS a proper fat loss diet anyway?
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Why Traditional Diets Make You Fatter!

Ill tell you one thing, its NOT what 90% or more of the population thinks it is.
And what does 90% or more of the population think it is?
When most people make the decision to lose body fat and get into shape, the first thing they do is they drastically reduce their caloric intake. They try to starve themselves. The logic is simple
If I want to lose weight, I should eat less! The less I eat, the more Ill lose!
* Insert game show buzzer sound here *
Wrong!
First of all, lets establish two things right now
Number 1, your goal should not be to merely lose bodyweight. Bodyweight in itself tells us little to nothing about the overall health or appearance of an individual. There are very heavy individuals out there who are in excellent health with lean and impressive bodies, and there are very thin individuals out there who are in poor health with soft and flabby bodies.
Stop worrying about raw bodyweight numbers, as they mean very little in terms of the success of your fat loss program.
If your goal is to achieve a lean, defined and shapely body, then your focus should be on losing body fat.
There is a massive distinction to be made between merely losing bodyweight and losing body fat.
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You could lose a ton of overall weight and still have your bodyfat levels barely budge (this would happen if you were to lose muscle weight, water weight, glycogen weight etc.)
Or, you could gain bodyweight and still have your bodyfat levels barely budge (this would happen if you were to increase muscle levels, water levels, glycogen levels etc.)
Heres the bottom line: your entire focus should be on losing body fat while maintaining muscle mass. A loss of body fat while maintaining (or possibly even gaining) muscle mass is what is going to deliver that lean, toned body youre after.
Number 2, your goal is not to achieve a temporary fix or an overnight result, but rather to lose body fat, improve your health, and improve your appearance permanently.
Youre not aiming to simply drop a bunch of weight over the course of a few weeks and then resort back to your old ways. You want to trim off the body fat, and KEEP it off.
Assuming this is your goal - to lose body fat, and to keep it off - then restricting your calorie intake is the worst approach you could possibly implement... Yet this type of severe calorie restriction is precisely what most people do when they want to lose weight.
Its not sustainable over the long term. And, its also the reason why the vast majority of dieters fail miserably. They starve themselves temporarily, but once they cant stick to their severe diet any longer, they often end up gaining even more body fat than they had to begin with.
Effectively losing body fat through dietary modifications is far more complex than simply counting the number of calories consumed versus the number of calories burned.
This is certainly part of the equation, but is not the be-all-end-all by any stretch of the imagination. You cannot expect to simply slash your caloric intake down to a minimal level and watch as your body moulds itself into a lean and toned figure.
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The reason why severely restricted-calorie diets dont work has to do with your bodys natural survival mechanisms that have been built up over thousands of years.
Its true that when you drastically cut down on your calories, you will temporarily lose weight. But a lot of this weight loss will simply be due to muscle wasting, which well talk about shortly. Once the bodys natural survival mechanisms kick into gear, youll not only gain back all of the weight you originally lost, but you will end up piling on even more weight than you had to begin with.
How does this happen?
Lets take a look
Biologically speaking, your body is really only concerned with two things: survival, and replication. The biological purpose of the human body is to keep you alive and healthy long enough so that you can reproduce and spread your genes.
Over the course of 2.5 billion years (the most accepted estimate as to when life forms first showed up on the earth) the forces of evolution and natural selection have been at play, gradually transforming us into the most fit and effective organisms that will accomplish these two goals in our respective environments. As you can imagine, after that long a period of time, the human body has evolved into quite an intricate and complex piece of machinery.
However, since evolution relies on incredibly small changes that are naturally selected upon over the course of millions of years, it takes a vast amount of time for any real, noticeable changes and improvements to take place.
So slow is the process of evolution that the human body has gone virtually unchanged for the past 40,000 years. Thats correct; from an anatomical standpoint, the human body today is virtually identical to the human body of 40,000 years ago. If you were to take an individual who lived 40,000 years ago and place them in todays society at birth, they would function exactly the same as any modern person does, and vice versa.
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What does this all mean?
It means that were still using a body that has been primed and adapted to survive in the harsh conditions our ancestors faced 40,000 years ago and prior; conditions where they were forced to constantly hunt and gather food, where only the strongest and smartest survived and where each and every day was a physical battle to stay alive and propagate the species.
Our ancestors didnt always have a readily available source of nutrition. There would be cycles of feast followed by times of famine. Sometimes there would be periods where they literally would not know when their next meal would be coming. Because of this, our ancestors were forced to endure long periods of time with no food at all. To survive these periods of famine when they had very few calories they could consume, the human body was forced to adapt in order to survive. Various mechanisms developed in our bodies to ensure our survival during these famines.
Lets fast forward from the plains of Africa 40,000 years ago to the Agricultural Revolution, which first began about 10,000 years ago.
It was around that time period when humans figured out how to grow food and store it for the long haul. We figured out how to domesticate animals, and began trading goods with others in order to meet a large number of our needs. Life became easier.
Food was more available, and the supply more reliable. These changes meant that people could keep living in one place instead of having to keep moving while they followed the herds of animals they hunted.
Now, lets now jump forward to the Industrial Revolution that started in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not so long ago really, compared to how long people have been living on this earth.
During the Industrial Revolution, there were massive changes in agriculture, manufacturing and
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transportation that took place in Europe and North America, and spread throughout the world. People figured out how to use machines to replace the work of humans. They figured out how to mass produce a lot of food and how to mass produce machinery.
This Industrial Revolution marks a huge turning point in human social history and it had a profound effect on almost every aspect of daily life. In many cases, machines replaced the need for manual labor. People didnt have to work as hard physically. Food became much more easily available than ever before.
Today we are in a period often referred to as the Information Age. The world around us is rapidly changing, and it seems like the changes are coming upon us at an accelerated pace.
Most of us now live in a society where all of the food we need is literally a few steps away, and the issues of famine and starvation are the furthest of our personal worries. And when we do get hungry, we dont have to work physically hard to get that food.
Can you see the conflict here?
The food production system and delivery system has changed, but the human body is still the same. Your body still has the same nutritional needs your ancestors had back when they were living by hunting for what they had to eat. In addition, your body is still meant to be physically active on a constant basis.
The human body has remained virtually unchanged for the past 40,000 years, while our environment has undergone massive, almost unthinkable changes. The kind of food we have available to us today has changed tremendously, and not always for the better.
We have a 40,000 year-old body that is trying to maneuver in an environment that has advanced well beyond it.
We are like cavemen and cavewomen who have been thrown into a technologically advanced
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alien world. We are still designed to live in a primitive 50-person tribal society in harsh natural conditions requiring intense physical demands and uncertainty.
You might be wondering why I am going on and on about this. Why should you care about what your stone age ancestors did? Why should you learn anything about the Industrial Revolution? What can that possibly have to do with your desire for a slim, trim, and well defined body? Rest assured, Im telling you all of this for a damn good reason. And you need to know it!
Its because understanding this notion of an outdated body forms the entire underlying basis of a successful fat burning nutritional approach.
If you really want to know how you can burn body fat and attain a lean and in-shape physique, you have to understand that you are trying to fine-tune a body that is both the product of 2.5 billion years of evolution, and that is primed for a set of conditions that existed 40,000 years ago.
And 40,000 years ago, you needed to have a body that could easily store fat in order to survive the periods of famine.
Body fat is really a form of stored energy. Fat is a great energy source too, yielding a whopping 9 calories per gram (while protein and carbohydrates only yield 4 calories per gram).
If you had lived 40,000 years ago, storing as much body fat as possible was a good thing. You had to do it to stay alive in those days when you didnt know where your next meal was coming from.
Having a supply of body fat in those days meant you had a source of energy so you could hunt down and kill that big tasty wildebeest. Having stored fat meant you had some protection against the unpredictable famines and starvation periods when food was not readily available. In cold winter periods where food was especially scarce, those people with greater levels of body fat would naturally have a greater survival rate. (And thus, this trait would be favored and passed down to subsequent generations)
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You are the inheritor of these genetic traits.
Your body is still primed for maximum fat storage despite the fact that our current society renders this trait as being far less important and less desirable.
In fact, nowadays, storing too much fat on your body can interfere with your survival! (Unless of course by some bad stroke of luck you ended up stranded on a desert island, or stuck in a cave on a ski hill somewhere).
Your body is still programmed to store fat for the times when food is scarce. It doesnt really understand that there is a refrigerator full of food 15 feet away, a grocery store down the street and a Burger King joint that could be reached in 5 minutes by car. Your body still thinks it needs to store fat to keep you from starving!
So, using this piece of knowledge, lets go back to what I was originally talking about in terms of a severe calorie restricted diet.
What would happen to an individual living 40,000 years ago if they were to suddenly experience an extreme decrease in caloric intake?
Well, first of all, their metabolic rate would dramatically decrease.
The reason for this is simple: the body doesnt know when its next meal is coming, and in an effort to prolong survival, it will take action to preserve as much energy as possible by expending as little energy as possible. This effect is virtually immediate and is in itself hugely detrimental to any weight loss program. As you eat smaller and smaller amounts of food, the body will burn smaller and smaller amounts of energy in order to keep you alive.
In periods of severe calorie restrictions, the metabolic rate can decrease by up to a whopping 40%. If the significance of that isnt registering for you, then read it again until it does, because its very important.
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When you eat less, you burn less, plain and simple.
Now, as if having your metabolic rate drop significantly wasnt bad enough, theres more
One of the other major drawbacks and failings of a severe calorie restriction is the effect that it will have on your levels of lean muscle tissue.
Muscle is a metabolically expensive tissue for the body to maintain and it requires a lot of energy to keep in place. In an effort to conserve energy during periods of restricted calories, the body will actually convert your lean muscle tissue into sugar (glucose) by sending it to the liver through a complicated process called gluconeogenesis.
In fact, around half of the bodyweight that you lose during a crash diet is lean muscle tissue. (Not to mention that another large portion of it is water and muscle glycogen, which is the stored form of carbohydrates in the muscle).
Since your goal is to lose body FAT and not merely to lose body WEIGHT, losing large amounts of muscle tissue clearly does you no good.
In fact, if your goal is to achieve a defined and toned body, increasing and maintaining muscular levels should be one of your primary goals, since muscle is metabolically active tissue and it actually increases the rate at which your body burns fat.
In other words, by starving yourself of calories, you create a situation where you decrease your metabolic rate and your muscle tissue wastes away. This is the exact opposite of what you should be trying to achieve!
Its the ultimate double-whammy.
Its unhealthy, detrimental to your bodys internal state, and it does nothing to move you closer to your goal of burning body fat and getting into shape.
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As if that wasnt enough, the rabbit hole goes deeper and things get even uglier when we take a closer look.
Its not merely that crash diets are ineffective at burning body fat They will actually make you fatter!
Yes, thats what I said.
Diets make you fatter.
You will lose body weight temporarily (again, most of that weight wasnt even body fat to begin with), but when you go off the diet, you will almost certainly gain it all back and more.
How could this possibly be?
Again, it all comes back to our 40,000 year old caveman body and the survival mechanisms that have built up over millions and millions of years. If you think that you can simply trick your body into losing fat with a large reduction in calories, think again.
First of all, lets acknowledge one simple and painfully obvious fact: If youre eating significantly less, youre going to be significantly hungrier!
It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure that out, right?
For as long as youre on a restricted calorie diet, youll be walking around with the constant growling of your stomach and the uncomfortable pain that comes with it being empty. (Not to mention that youll be thinking about food non-stop)
Do you honestly believe that you can maintain that state for any extended period of time? Do you really think your body is going to let you get away with starving it?
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Of course not, and until you begin eating regularly again, those stabbing hunger pains will be constant. I dont personally know of anyone who can maintain that permanently, and I would guess that 99% or more of the population cant either.
Eventually it will be too much, and youll give in.
Youll start raising your caloric intake and increasing your food consumption.
The problem is that your body is now primed for fat storage as a natural response to this period of starvation that youve just gone through. Your body now manufactures increased levels of a powerful fat storing enzyme called lipoprotein lipase that is stimulated during periods of famine. The end result is that a much larger-than-normal amount of the calories you consume will go straight to your arms, waistline, hips, thighs, butt and everywhere else you can imagine.
The fat will begin piling on again, and your bodyweight will rise back to or near its original level.
But heres the kicker
Now that youve wasted away a massive amount of lean muscle tissue, your fat burning metabolism is even lower than it was when you started. Couple this with the fact that your LPL (lipoprotein lipase) levels are also high and youre left in a situation where youll be burning less fat, and storing more!
The amount of calories that you used to consume just to maintain your previous weight has now become too much. If you go back to the regular diet you had before you restricted your calories, youll put on even more weight, because youre burning calories less efficiently.
Alarmed by the sudden and unpredictable increase in bodyweight, you eventually decide to go back on your diet again
You starve yourself.
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You lose some temporary weight again.
Inevitably, it rebounds back again even further.
And again, and again, and again
This is known as yo-yo dieting. Its a vicious self-defeating cycle that a huge number of people are struggling with. But it happens because they dont really understand how the body works. This weight gain after a period of calorie restriction is simply a result of your bodys built-in survival mechanisms.
To repeat: severe calorie-restricted diets do not work, have never worked, and never will work.
If your goal is to lose body fat, to maintain or increase muscular levels, and to achieve a defined, lean and attractive body, you must avoid severe calorie-restricted diets at all costs.
You cannot work against your biology!
You are the inheritor of 2.5 billion years of successful survival and replication, and the body that you have been given is not going to allow you to force it into submission using these sorts of extreme methods.
The responses to crash dieting are ingrained in your genetic code; they are virtually tattooed in your being, and there is no way around it.
So, what can you do? Is there a way out?
Like the saying goes
If you cant beat em, join em!
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Instead of trying to go against the grain and work against your natural biology and survival mechanisms, you must adopt the mentality of working WITH your biology and survival mechanisms.
You must stop trying to fight against your body and trying to use the wrong methods to force a result. Instead you need to figure out how your fat burning and muscle gaining processes really work.
When you know what to do, you can maximize your fat burning capacity in a way that is both positive for your health AND thats possible to maintain over the long haul.
So just how does one go about working in harmony with their biology? How can you create a fat burning nutritional plan that actually works?
Lets talk about it
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How To Work With Your Biology; NOT Against It!

The first step towards working with your biology in terms of burning fat and achieving a lean and healthy body is to reframe your entire attitude in regards to how you approach and think about this goal.
We all have different fitness goals in mind and some of us may have a lot farther to go than others in order to reach our ideal physique.
But first, we need two establish two critical truths
Truth #1: A quick-fix does not exist! Accept it and get used to it!
Yes, we can achieve a quick-fix in terms of your knowledge and overall approach, but we absolutely cannot achieve a quick-fix in terms of your bottom line physical results.
No matter where youre at today, forget the idea of instant gratification.
Theres nothing wrong with looking at the big picture and being driven and motivated by the idea of the ultimate body you want to achieve. In fact, I encourage you to constantly envision your desired goal. But, if you truly want that body to become a reality you must be willing to accept the fact that you wont be able to achieve it over night. It will take time, knowledge, patience, and effort on your part.
If youre serious about this and if youre truly driven to go about it properly and intelligently, then let us establish right here and right now that having a lean, fit body will require patience and effort on your part for you to reach this goal.
There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Sure, all of us are genetically different and we all experience progress at differing rates, but no matter who you are or what your situation is, you
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absolutely cannot expect to magically transform your body overnight, or see massive changes in a short period of time.
Truth #2: Long-term, permanent results are what we seek.
Achieving a lean and defined body is not something that you do for a set period of time and then stop. As Ive said before, its not like a sculptor who carves out a statue and then walks away from it, never having to work on it again.
This is not about going on a diet or completing a 12-week program. This is about reframing your mindset and becoming a new person. This is a firm commitment to change the way in which you live your life. Permanently. This is about developing proper lifestyle habits that are continually implemented and maintained on a day-to-day basis.
When were dealing with the human body, were dealing with a complex biological machine that is constantly changing and constantly trying to maintain a balanced state. For as long as you want to be lean and healthy, youll have to maintain a lean and healthy lifestyle.
This is the only mindset that can deliver the serious, dramatic, long-term changes to your mind and body that youre seeking.
Now, Im not implying that you have to turn your entire world upside down and obsess about every little precise training and nutrition detail for the rest of your life. I definitely dont recommend a hardcore and obsessive mentality that is implemented without any deviation whatsoever. What I am talking about is making general and overall lifestyle changes that will require some willpower and determination to stick to.
But believe me, once you start implementing the principles that Ill be covering throughout the rest of the e-book, you wont WANT to go back to your old ways. Youll be so full of energy, so vibrant and youll be feeling so ecstatic about the way you look, feel and think, that the idea of doing anything different will feel alien to you. It will become a way of life, and a way of life that
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will improve your day-to-day experience by leaps and bounds.
So, youve accepted the fact that the instant gratification of a quick-fix does not exist, and youve also accepted the fact that youll have to work hard and be patient in order to obtain the results you seek.
You have also accepted the idea that in order to maintain your new lean, toned body, you will have to maintain a set of overall lifestyle guidelines permanently and over the long haul.
Are we on the same page here?
Good!
By simply understanding those two points and integrating them into your mindset, you are already far ahead of the majority of fat loss hopefuls out there who have been blinded and misled by the marketing and misinformation and are oblivious to these basic facts.
You are now on the path to implementing a sound and realistic approach to weight loss, and this is the only plan that guarantees optimal results.
Lets get started now by diving into the specifics of a proper fat burning, muscle maintaining nutritional approach. Well begin at the very base of the entire topic by discussing caloric intake, and will then dive into more details following that.
The goal of this section is NOT to teach you everything there is to know about proper nutrition, but rather only what you NEED to know. I have done my best to make everything only as complicated as it absolutely has to be, without any unnecessary information included.
Here we go
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Understanding Calories & Fat Loss

To truly understand the very basics of structuring a proper fat burning nutritional approach, we have to talk about calories and caloric intake.
The issue of caloric intake is where most people make their fundamental mistakes right off the bat. By making mistakes in this area, these people completely destroy their chances of ever achieving any significant results.
First of all, what exactly ARE calories?
A calorie isnt even really a thing per se, its just a measurement. The term calorie is simply a way for us to measure the amount of energy contained in the foods that we eat. A chicken breast, for example, contains about 140 calories.
The technical definition of a calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
There are three major kinds of macronutrients in the food you eat that well be covering in this ebook. These are proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Each of these basic macronutrients contains a specific number of calories per gram...
Protein: 4 calories per gram. Carbohydrates: 4 calories per gram. Fats: 9 calories per gram.
We also use the term calories to measure the amount of energy available in the tissues on our bodies. For example, one pound of our body fat contains 3500 calories.
The underlying goal of a fat burning program is simple: to stimulate the body to release the
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stored energy in our fat tissues as heat. Thats really all there is to it.
Body fat essentially serves as a stored form of energy, and our bottom line goal is to stimulate our bodies to tap into this fat and begin using it up as energy throughout the day.
In order for this to occur, you have to place the body into a state of a caloric deficit. That means creating a situation where you burn more energy each day than you take in through your food.
The reason is obvious: if your body cannot meet its daily energy requirements through the foods that you consume, it will be forced to burn your body fat to use as a source of energy.
So lets start by reinforcing this fundamental information about fat loss
In order to burn body fat, your caloric expenditure must exceed your caloric intake.
Or, to express it another way: your caloric intake has to be less than your caloric expenditure.
To lose weight, you must burn more calories than you consume.
This is a basic law - the law of energy balance. This concept should form the cornerstone of your entire nutritional approach.
If you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you consume the same number of calories as you burn, your weight will remain the same. If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.
Once you eat any food, there are usually just two basic things that can happen to those calories you consume. The calories you take in will either be used for immediate energy, or they will be
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stored as a source of future energy. Again, this all has to do with our basic survival mechanisms that we talked about earlier.
Calories cannot be simply flushed out of the body. It doesnt matter how clean your food sources are, and it doesnt matter if youre following what you believe is a healthy diet. Any excess of calories beyond your maintenance level (the number of calories needed daily in order to maintain your current weight) WILL result in stored body fat. (The one exception is when people train with the goal of building muscle mass. In this case if the body is stimulated to increase muscular levels through resistance training, then some of the surplus will be diverted and used for muscular growth.)
Do not underestimate the importance of caloric intake in relation to your calorie expenditure!
Without a proper caloric deficit, your results will be either greatly compromised or eliminated altogether. Sometimes the difference between a mediocre and excellent fat burning nutritional approach is simply the reduction of a few hundred calories (which can very easily add up throughout the day by a few small choices here and there). This is why tracking your caloric intake is the only real way to ensure that youre on the right path.
Caloric deficits can be achieved through your nutritional plan, through exercise, or through both. For the purposes of this section well be addressing the nutritional portion. (Well talk about the training portion later on)
Ive already told you that simply cutting down drastically on your calories isnt going to work to produce long term fat loss. Cutting too much of your calorie intake or cutting too little isnt going to produce the results you want, for reasons I will explain soon.
So how do you establish a caloric reduction plan that is going to work?
The first thing you need to do is to figure out how many calories you need to consume daily just to maintain your current bodyweight.
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The second step is to decrease your caloric maintenance level by a specific figure in order to determine how many calories you should be consuming daily in order to lose body fat.
So, what is the ideal caloric deficit that we should abide by in order to maximize body fat losses while maintaining as much lean muscle mass as possible?
First off, it should only be a very slight reduction. We want to work with our body rather than against it. Remember that any extreme, sudden drops are only going to produce negative results.
The most common guideline youll come across is one which states that an individual should consume anywhere from 500-1000 calories lower than their maintenance level.
While this can often be an accurate and effective way to go, the fundamental problem is obvious: by using a static number rather than a percentage, 500-1000 calories can represent a very large reduction or a relatively small reduction depending on the individual.
For example, an individual whose maintenance intake was 2000 calories daily would experience a 25% decrease with a 500 calorie reduction, while an individual whose maintenance level was 3000 calories would only be experiencing a 17% reduction with that same decrease.
For this reason, static figures are not the most accurate way to go. If we want to get the most precise figure possible, its better to focus on reducing our caloric intake by a percentage rather than a set figure.
In order to achieve a steady, efficient rate of fat burning while keeping lean muscle tissue intact, you should aim to reduce your daily caloric maintenance level by 1520%.
In other words, you should aim to consume 15-20% fewer calories on a daily basis than what is needed to maintain your current weight. (Well outline the formulas you can use to calculate this shortly)
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You might think that 15-20% is a pretty small deficit, but a small deficit is precisely what were after. We want to gently stimulate our body to burn fat through our diet rather than trying to force things. Youre much better off taking a slower, more gradual approach in terms of your nutritional plan because at the end of the day youll wind up with far more dramatic long-term results.
The more gradual the pace, the more lean muscle tissue youll be able to preserve. By going slower, your fat burning metabolism can be maximized and your visible muscle shape and definition will increase as a result.
In fact, I recommend that you never go below a 20% deficit.
Why not?
The reason is that when you cut back on calories too drastically, you can easily kick-start the bodys starvation mechanisms that we talked about earlier. Instead of cutting fat and preserving muscle, your body will start to lose muscle mass and slow down your fat burning metabolism instead. So, start out small, and make very gradual and gentle changes as you go along.
So, weve established that in order to burn maximal body fat and maintain muscle mass through our diet, a 15-20% reduction in calories below maintenance level is optimal.
Lets now outline some ways to determine your individual daily caloric maintenance level...
There are a multitude of factors that will affect an individuals caloric maintenance level. Some of these factors are purely genetic and some are based on the actions of the individual on a daily basis.
Factors that will affect your metabolic rate include your current lean body mass, your overall
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body weight, your age, activity level and gender. Depending on the combination of all of these factors, the number of calories needed just to maintain your current weight will vary greatly.
Obviously we want to determine the most accurate figure we possibly can, and therefore it is best to use formulas which take as many individual factors into account as possible. For example, we could merely use age/gender/bodyweight to come up with a caloric maintenance figure, but inserting activity level and height into the equation could make a big difference to the results.
Many people try to determine their daily caloric intake by simply multiplying their overall body weight by a set number. For fat loss, this usually means taking your bodyweight in pounds and multiplying it by 11-13 to determine your daily caloric intake. While this can sometimes be a reasonable approach for individuals with average figures across the board, it is far less than optimal when youre trying to structure a precise fat burning nutritional plan.
To get a more accurate and more useful figure, its better to use a calculation formula that includes more individualized factors. For those people who have greater or lower than average levels of muscle mass, or who have greater or lower than average levels of body fat, the figure you get by using this general formula mentioned above will inevitably be far off the mark.
What I recommend instead to calculate your caloric intake for achieving fat loss is to use one of the following two formulas...
1) The Harris-Benedict Formula
Or
2) The Katch-McArdle Formula
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The Harris-Benedict Formula

This formula works much better than the basic multiplier formula because you can personalize it for your own situation. Along with your overall body weight, it also takes into account the individual factors of age, height, gender and activity level. This will certainly allow you to come up with a more precise caloric figure.
The first goal with this method is to determine your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Your basal metabolic rate is the total number of calories that your body requires to perform all of its natural daily functions. This does not include extra activities such as weight training or playing sports; the BMR is for natural processes such as breathing, digesting food, regulating body temperature etc.
Once you have figured out your BMR, you can then plug it into the Activity Multiplier (how active you are on a daily basis) in order to determine your Caloric Maintenance Level.
You can then take your caloric maintenance level and decrease it by 15-20% in order to create a caloric deficit that will stimulate fat loss. So, once again...
1) Determine your basal metabolic rate.
2) Find your caloric maintenance level by multiplying your basal metabolic rate by the activity multiplier.
3) Reduce that figure by 15-20% to find your ideal daily caloric intake for weight loss.
It may sound complicated, but its actually pretty simple.
I'm now going to outline step-by-step how to calculate all of this...
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Using The Harris-Benedict Formula To Calculate Daily Caloric Intake

First, Calculate the Basal Metabolic Rate
For Men: 66 + (13.7 X bodyweight in kg) + (5 X height in cm) - (6.8 X age in years) = BMR
For Women: 655 + (9.6 X bodyweight in kg) + (1.8 X height in cm) - (4.7 X age in years) = BMR
Then, take that number and multiply it by...
The Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (if you get little to no exercise) Lightly Active = BMR X 1.375 (if you get light exercise: 1-3 days a week) Moderately Active = BMR X 1.55 (if you get moderate exercise: 3-5 days a week) Very active = BMR X 1.725 (if you get intense exercise: 6-7 days a week) Extremely Active = BMR X 1.9 (if you get intense daily exercise and you also have a strenuous physical job)
Take that resulting number and reduce it by 15-20% to get the reduced caloric intake you need for fat loss.
Ive provided an example of this formula on the following page to make it even clearer
In case you're a bit confused, here is an example of how to plug all of this information in.
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Example of Harris-Benedict Formula

We'll use Paul as our example.
Paul weighs 95 kg. He is 177.8 cm tall, and he's 32 years old. Paul is moderately active.
First we determine Paul's Basal Metabolic Rate using the Harris-Benedict formula...
BMR = 66 + 1302 + 889 218 = 2039
Pauls basal metabolic rate is 2039 calories. This is the number of calories that he requires daily in order for his normal bodily processes to be carried out. We'll now take his activity level into account by multiplying his BMR by the appropriate activity multiplier.
2039 (BMR) x 1.55 (moderately active) = 3160
This means that Paul needs to consume 3160 calories daily in order to maintain his weight. In order to create a caloric deficit that stimulates fat loss, he needs to reduce this by 15-20%.
3160 X 0.15 = 474 3160 464 = 2686
3160 X 0.2 = 632 3160 632 = 2528
Paul's daily caloric intake for fat loss should be 2528-2686 calories.
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The Katch-McArdle Formula

The Katch-McArdle formula is the most accurate of all because it takes into account the specific individual factor of lean body mass. This will result in a more accurate basal metabolic rate reading.
The Harris-Benedict formula outlined on the previous pages is a great method and will be accurate in almost all situations. The main drawback of the Harris-Benedict formula is that it doesn't take lean body mass into account.
This is fine for most people, but for those who have a very high amount of body fat or a high amount of muscle, the results will not be as accurate.
If you've had your lean body mass tested then you can use the following formula to get the most accurate reading of all.
BMR = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)
To figure out your lean body mass, you simply need to know your body fat percentage. You can then use your body fat percentage to determine how many pounds of fat are on your body. Any body weight that is NOT fat is lean body mass. This includes muscle tissue, bone, water, glycogen etc.
For example, if Paul weighs in at 95kg and has a body fat percentage of 16%, this means that his body is made up of 15.2kg of fat and 79.8kg of lean mass.
You can then multiply your BMR by the appropriate Activity Multiplier in order to figure out your caloric maintenance level.
Heres the activity multiplier again
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The Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (if you get little to no exercise) Lightly Active = BMR X 1.375 (if you get light exercise: 1-3 days a week) Moderately Active = BMR X 1.55 (if you get moderate exercise: 3-5 days a week) Very active = BMR X 1.725 (if you get intense exercise: 6-7 days a week) Extremely Active = BMR X 1.9 (if you get intense daily exercise and you also have a strenuous physical job)
You should then reduce that number by 15-20% in order to figure out the proper caloric intake to stimulate fat loss for your body.
It's really as simple as that.
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Calorie Summary
Okay, so weve now covered all of the necessary information regarding proper caloric intake. You now understand that
- Calories are a measure of the energy contained in the foods you eat and the tissues on your body. Body fat is essentially a collection of stored energy.
- In order to stimulate the body to burn fat, a caloric deficit must be achieved. This caloric deficit will force the body to tap into its fat stores in order to obtain a source of energy.
- Extreme reductions in caloric intake will result in minimal losses of fat and maximal losses in muscle tissue, glycogen and water. In addition, reducing your caloric intake too far will prime your body to store more fat over the long run.
- In order to achieve the greatest fat burning effect possible while maintaining lean body mass, a very slight caloric deficit should be created. The ideal caloric reduction to stimulate fat loss will be somewhere in the range of 15-20% below the level required for maintenance.
- In order to determine your caloric maintenance level, either the Harris-Benedict Formula or the Katch McArdle formula will provide the best estimation. The basic multiplier method is the least accurate, and is not recommended in most cases.
By this time you should have figured out your caloric maintenance level using one of the methods described at the end of the calorie section, and you should have then reduced that number by 15-20% to determine your raw daily caloric intake for fat loss.
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Proper Dietary Structure

Calculating your daily caloric intake is the first and most fundamental step to take toward structuring an optimal fat burning nutritional approach, but it is far from being the final word.
Despite what you may have read in other publications and articles, effective and long-term fat loss is NOT a simple issue of calories in versus calories out. If you place all of your focus only on the raw number of calories that you consume daily and nothing else, your results will be seriously compromised.
The reason is simple: not all calories have the same effect on body composition. Consuming 2000 calories derived from potato chips and ice cream will NOT produce the same physiological effect as 2000 calories consumed from lean poultry and oatmeal.
Calories derived from different sources have DIFFERENT effects on the metabolism and will ultimately produce a different result in the body. A calorie is NOT merely a calorie. The source of your caloric intake AND the ratio in which they are consumed (the ratio of protein to carbohydrates to fats) WILL produce a drastically different effect on your body composition.
There are other factors as well that determine what effect those calories will have on your body...
One factor is the frequency of your meals. For example, lets assume your daily caloric intake is set at 2400 calories. The way that you break those calories up for consumption can have a powerful effect on your end result. If you consume two daily meals of 1200 calories each, youll get a different result than if you eat four meals that contain 600 calories each, or if you eat eight small meals that contain 300 calories each.
In addition, the combination of calorie sources at each meal also plays a role in your bottom line results. Different combinations of calorie sources will produce different effects on body
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composition. Eating a pure carbohydrate source on its own will not produce the same fat burning effect as eating a carbohydrate/protein combination or a carbohydrate/protein/fat combination.
Finally, there are certain periods in the day when consuming specific food sources and macronutrient amounts will have differing effects in your body. The same meal could have a different effect on body composition depending on whether you eat it first thing in the morning, before a workout, after a workout, or before you go to bed.
If we want to sum this up into one all-encompassing statement, well simply say this...
The raw number of calories that you consume daily will determine whether you lose weight, gain weight or maintain your weight.
The STRUCTURE of your caloric intake will determine what type of body weight you lose, gain or maintain.
When we talk about structure, were addressing 6 key issues
1) Macronutrient Food Sources: The specific food items that you consume. (For example, skinless poultry with broccoli or deli meat with white bread.)
2) Macronutrient Ratios: The specific ratio that those foods are consumed in. (For example, 45% carbohydrates, 35% protein and 20% fats.)
3) Meal Frequency: The overall number of meals that you consume daily and the length of the intervals they are consumed in. (For example, you might eat 6 daily meals consumed at 3 hour intervals.)
4) Macronutrient Meal Combinations: The specific combination of food sources at each meal. (For example, eating a meal containing lean protein, complex carbs and healthy fats, versus a meal containing only a complex carb and healthy fat.)
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5) Meal Timing: The specific times of the day when you should consume certain combinations/amounts of food in order to meet specific needs. (For example, making sure to consume a high amount of carbohydrates immediately following an intense workout.)
6) Liquid Intake: The consumption of water and other beverages. (For example, water, juice, milk, sodas, diet drinks, alcohol etc.)
Does all this sound too complicated?
Well, if we dive into every single solitary detail possible in relation to these 6 factors then yes, things can get pretty complicated.
But instead of dissecting everything down to the most minute level of detail, Im going to make it simple for you. Ill cover these topics in as straightforward a manner as possible while still providing you with the most powerful and effective strategies that youll need to obtain the best results.
If you want the most dramatic results possible then you should have at least a fundamental understanding of all 6 factors.
These six factors all interact with each other. They operate in a synergistic fashion and will exponentially improve your results if you apply them properly.
Having the proper meal frequency wont do you much good without the proper caloric ratio and food sources.
Having the proper food sources wont do you much good without properly combining them at each meal.
Having the proper caloric ratio wont do you much good without the proper meal frequency.
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Im sure you get the point by now.
So remember: your caloric intake will determine your weight gain or weight loss, and your caloric
structure will determine the effect of your weight loss on your body composition.
What is the effect on body composition that were striving for?
Maximum fat loss and minimal muscle loss.
All of the six nutritional factors well be covering are specifically designed with that goal in mind: to create the most powerful fat burning stimulus possible while maintaining as much lean body mass as possible.
I will first begin by covering the three major macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fats. Ill describe the functions of each within the body and Ill provide a list of acceptable and unacceptable food sources.
Lets get started by talking about protein
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Everything You Need To Know About Protein

Your body needs to take in protein to carry out a big long list of important functions in your body.
Every single one of your trillions of cells contains protein. You need a steady supply of protein for the growth and maintenance of your muscle tissue, your immune system, your skin, even your eyes. Protein is also needed for your body to produce enzymes and to maintain blood health.
Proteins are complex macromolecules yielding 4 calories per gram that essentially form the building blocks for your entire body.
Proteins are made up of smaller sub-components known as amino acids. There are about 20 amino acids that the body requires for survival and optimal health.
Your body combines amino acids together to form various proteins. Anytime you consume protein in the form of food, it will ultimately be broken down into its individual amino acid components and will enter the free amino acid pool where it can then be sent to different areas of the body for utilization.
Amino acids are categorized as being either essential or non-essential depending on whether or not the body can produce them on its own, or whether they need to be consumed through the diet. There are 8 essential amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own, and about 12 non-essential amino acids that the body can manufacture.
Foods that contain all 8 essential amino acids are known as complete proteins, and are typically derived from animal sources, such as fish, poultry, red meat, egg whites, etc.
Foods that do not contain all 8 of the essential amino acids are known as incomplete proteins, and are typically those derived from vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, soy and legumes.
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For the purposes of providing your body with all of the protein it requires while maintaining as much lean muscle mass as possible, complete protein sources should form the cornerstone of your daily protein intake.
Since complete proteins contain all of the essential amino acids (those that the body cannot make on its own), the consumption of these foods maximizes the chances that your lean muscle mass will be preserved. If are you are constantly consuming incomplete proteins on their own, the body will have no choice but to break down its own muscle tissue in order to obtain the amino acids that were not provided though your food sources.
The body does not have a readily available source of protein to use (as opposed to carbohydrates which are stored in the muscle tissue as glycogen), and therefore you must provide your body with a constant supply of protein through your diet. In order to maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss, you should consume complete protein sources at every meal.
As Ive said before, most complete proteins are derived from animal sources. Many fat loss experts recommend against the consumption of animal proteins because these types of foods tend to be higher in saturated fats. The danger of this is usually way over-exaggerated. Not all animal proteins are created equally, and there is a massive disparity in saturated fat levels depending on which specific sources you choose. For example, lean poultry, egg whites, fish and lean cuts of red meat will all provide high quality complete proteins with minimal amounts of saturated fat. (I will outline a list of acceptable protein sources shortly)
Weve established proteins positive effect on muscle maintenance and growth, but eating high quality protein also has a direct beneficial effect on fat loss.
Diets that are higher in protein initiate greater fat burning effects than those that are low in protein. In fact, protein provides a good example of the not all calories are created equally mantra.
There are two main ways that protein directly contributes to the fat burning process. One way is
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through the effects of protein consumption on hunger, and the other is through its effects on a process called thermogenesis.
When you eat lean protein, you are much more likely to feel full and satisfied from your meals. This has positive implications if you are trying to reduce your caloric intake, because you can feel full even while taking in less food.
The second direct fat burning benefit is proteins thermogenic effect on the body. A substance that has a thermogenic effect on the body is one that causes your core temperature to increase. The average temperature inside the body is usually 98.6 degrees, but when this level is increased by even just 1 or 2 degrees, the fat burning metabolism is raised and more calories will be expended even at rest.
Because the amino acids from protein are more difficult for the body to digest than carbohydrates or fats, the body must inevitably work harder to break down the protein into its individual components. This results in a thermogenic effect that causes the body to expend more calories when digesting the protein.
How significant is this thermogenic effect?
Researchers at Arizona University examined individuals who consumed a high protein diet and compared them to another group on a high carbohydrate diet. The researchers found that the high protein group burned an average of 30 calories more per meal. At 6 meals a day, that would be an additional 1260 calories burned per week simply as a result of increasing your protein intake. Certainly not a huge amount, but every little bit counts.
What are the best fat burning sources of protein to include in your nutritional plan?
The following is a list of acceptable protein sources to include in your diet: (They are all lean sources of protein containing minimal amounts of fat and the majority of these are complete protein sources)
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- Lean cuts of red meat - Skinless chicken breast - Skinless turkey breast - Salmon/tuna/fish of all types - Egg whites - Low-fat cottage cheese - Whey protein powder - Low/nonfat dairy products
The foods listed above are all excellent sources of protein to include in your diet and should make up the vast majority of your protein intake.
Here are some protein sources that you should severely limit or avoid altogether:
- Whole milk - Cheese - Bacon - Pork chops - Bacon - Luncheon meats
These are all high-fat, lower quality protein sources, and should be completely avoided with the exception of rare occasions.
Well discuss protein later in more in detail in the macronutrient ratio section, where youll learn more about how much protein to take in, and how to combine it with other types of food for maximal weight loss.
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Everything You Need To Know About Carbs

When youre trying to lose weight, youre probably going to hear a lot about carbs or carbohydrates. Youll hear about low carbs, good carbs, bad carbs, and moderate carbs. No other macronutrient has more confusion, hype and contradiction surrounding it than the alltoo-famous carbohydrate.
Most average people trying to lose weight dont know what to believe or which methods to follow. A lot of what you read about carbohydrates in one place seems to contradict what you read in another place. Who can you believe?
Mark my words: the issue of carbohydrate consumption doesnt need to be complicated. You just need a basic understanding of the function of carbohydrates within the body and you need a good sense of which food sources fall into which categories in order to effectively implement them into your nutritional plan.
In this section I will give you a general overview of the function of carbohydrates within the body. Ill tell you which food sources are best to include in your diet and Ill give you some other key pointers along the way. Well discuss specific daily intake and ratios for carbohydrates later on.
When it all comes down to it, carbohydrates are essentially sugar.
Whether you were to consume a plate full of spaghetti noodles, a bowl of grapes, a glass of orange juice or a chocolate bar, the ultimate end result will be the same. No matter which food sources you consume, by the time your body gets through with processing the carbohydrates in your food, they will be broken down into a simple form of sugar called glucose.
The main function of glucose is to provide fuel for your muscles and your brain in order to carry out your daily tasks.
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If all carbohydrates end up in the same form, why does it make any difference which specific food sources we consume?
Well, it actually makes a huge difference, and one reason is the effects of consuming carbohydrates on your blood sugar levels.
As Ive just explained, when you eat foods that contain carbohydrates, the body will digest and break the carbs down into glucose, which is then released into the bloodstream to be used as a source of fuel by your body cells.
The glucose cant get into your cells without something else happening first. The body has to release a hormone called insulin from the pancreas to get the glucose out of your bloodstream and into your body organs and tissues. Every carbohydrate source has a unique effect on blood sugar levels. Some carbs cause sharp, rapid rises in blood sugar levels, while some carbs raise blood sugar levels very slowly and gradually. Other carbs have an effect that is somewhere in between.
Now, why is the rise and fall of blood sugar important?
Its all related to insulin levels. When you consume carbohydrate sources that trigger a dramatic rise in blood sugar levels, youll experience what is known as an insulin spike. The body is always trying to maintain a balanced state, and in an effort to level out your blood sugar levels, it will release a large shot of insulin. This insulin spike will quickly remove the glucose from the bloodstream, which will then result in lower-than-normal blood sugar levels.
When your blood sugar levels are low, your energy levels will crash and you will feel an intense craving for more food in order to elevate the blood glucose levels again. If you end up eating more carbs because youre suddenly hungry, you set off a constant cycle of large rises in blood sugar followed by sharp falls that continue throughout the day. Not only does this create negative effects in terms of your mood, energy levels and constant cravings for sugar, but it also has direct negative effects on the burning and storage of body fat as well.
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When high levels of insulin are present in the bloodstream, it keeps fat from being used as an energy source by the body due to a rise in enzymes that prevent the breakdown of body fat. In other words, if youre constantly experiencing this cycle of rising/falling blood sugar levels, your body will be physically unable to burn body fat for use as energy.
Not only that, but the presence of insulin also stimulates the body to move fats from the bloodstream and store them as body fat. In other words, with constantly high insulin levels youll be storing more body fat and burning less of your body fat as fuel at the same time. Not a good combination!
If insulin levels remain elevated for too long, the body builds up a resistance, and eventually greater and greater amounts of insulin are needed to stabilize blood sugar levels. Not only does this prime you for fat storage around the clock, but it can also lead to a whole host of serious health problems, such as diabetes.
It should be clear by now that rapidly rising and falling blood sugar levels is a recipe for disaster in terms of fat loss. Because of this, you need to learn to keep your blood sugar levels stable and balanced throughout the day. Ill be teaching you how to do exactly that very shortly.
Not only does the type of carbohydrate that we consume play a role in the fat burning process, but the overall amount does as well.
When you consume carbohydrates, there are 3 basic paths that carbohydrate could potentially follow
The first possibility is that it could be used by the body as an immediate energy source. If you consume carbohydrates while you are in a state in which you require fuel immediately, (for example, if youre involved in an intense game of basketball), then the glucose will be used by the body right away as a source of energy.
The second possibility is that the carbohydrate could be stored in your body as glycogen.
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Glycogen is a form of glucose that is stored in the liver and muscle tissue for future use. If the body does not require an immediate source of energy, then the glucose will be stored in the liver and muscle tissue as glycogen.
But heres the kicker: theres a limit to how much glycogen the body will store. Usually, the body will store up to a maximum of about 200 grams of glycogen in the muscle tissue and about 90 grams in the liver. If you consume additional carbs once the glycogen storage bank is full, guess what happens? The body will convert the extra glucose and store it in the form of body fat.
This is one of the reasons why nutritional modifications alone are not enough to trigger maximal fat loss. People who are very sedentary and who rarely take part in strenuous physical activities are constantly operating with full glycogen storage levels. As a result, their consumption of carbohydrates will be much more likely to end up as stored body fat.
This is just one of the many reasons why intense weight training and cardiovascular activity has to be part of your fat loss program. By exercising consistently, youll be regularly depleting your bodys glycogen levels. This means that many of the carbohydrates you consume will be less likely to end up as stored body fat.
Based on all of this information so far, we can conclude that our overall goal in terms of carbohydrate consumption is to provide our body with just enough energy to fuel our daily tasks (including workouts and cardio sessions), while keeping our blood sugar levels stabilized.
Well be talking about specific daily amounts of carbohydrates later on in this e-book.
Lets discuss how we can keep our blood sugar levels stable.
As I said before, all carbohydrate sources have unique effects on blood sugar levels. Its vital to understand which sources have what effects, and then use that information to make the proper food choices.
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Carbohydrates are essentially broken up into two main categories: simple and complex. At the molecular level, carbohydrates are basically rings of carbon/hydrogen/oxygen atoms linked together. The number of rings and the manner in which they hook together determines whether the carbohydrates are classed as simple or complex.
Simple carbohydrates are typically found in food items such as fruits, refined products and sweets like candy, table sugar, syrups and juices. Complex carbohydrates are typically found in vegetables and starchy sources like whole grains, brown rice, pasta, oats, beans, etc.
For years we were told to limit our consumption of simple carbohydrates and instead to focus on consuming complex carbohydrates. While this does provide a very general guideline to abide by, in itself it is not entirely accurate. The reason is because the terms simple and complex do not always accurately describe the blood-sugar raising effect of that specific source.
For example, apples are a simple carbohydrate source that cause a negligible effect on blood sugar, while potatoes are a complex carbohydrate source that raises blood sugar levels quite quickly. For a more accurate classification of carbohydrates, it is best to look at something called the glycemic index, also known as the GI.
The glycemic index is a method of ranking carbohydrate sources based on how quickly or slowly they elevate blood sugar levels in a 2-hour period after they are consumed. All foods on the GI are ranked from 0 to 100.
The GI chart ranks the effects of various carbohydrates on blood sugar levels compared to the effect of consuming pure glucose, which has a GI ranking of 100. A lower number indicates that a particular food has a smaller effect on blood sugar levels. For example, a grapefruit has a GI ranking of 25. This means that eating a grapefruit will raise blood sugar levels 25% as high as pure glucose will.
In general, low glycemic foods are those with a GI ranking of 55 or less; medium foods would
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have a GI score of 56 to 69; while those foods that score 70 or above on the glycemic index would be considered high.
Since the glycemic index bases its rankings on blood sugar effects, and since steady blood sugar levels are really the ultimate goal of proper carbohydrate consumption, it is obviously a very useful tool for those wishing to lose body fat.
Is the GI the be-all-end-all of wisdom about carbohydrate consumption?
No, its not.
One thing you must understand about the GI is that the index rankings are based on what effect those specific foods would have on your blood sugar levels if you consumed them alone in a fasted state.
However, most of the time we dont consume carbohydrates alone in a fasted state. Usually we eat them as part of a complete meal with other foods, such as proteins and fats. When we eat carbohydrates along with other food sources, the resulting GI effects in our bodies can change dramatically.
For example, when eaten alone, a microwaved potato has a GI ranking of 82. If you eat this potato along with a lean protein source such as a skinless chicken breast and a fibrous carbohydrate source such as broccoli, the GI ranking would be altered significantly.
In the real world, we almost never consume carbohydrate sources on their own, and we rarely consume them while we are in a fasted state, except when we eat breakfast. So the GI rankings themselves do not tell us the whole story.
In addition, just because a carbohydrate has a low GI ranking doesnt necessarily mean that we should include it in our diet. Full fat ice cream has a GI of just 61, while brown rice has a GI of 59. Does that mean that we can freely choose between ice cream or brown rice simply because
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their GI ranking is the same?
Obviously not.
What is the final verdict on the glycemic index?
Some experts consider the GI to be fairly useless, while others regard it as the be-all-end-all of carbohydrate consumption. The truth is that it is neither. The GI ranking is not the only thing to consider when making carbohydrate food choices, but it most definitely IS a very useful tool.
My basic overall view on the glycemic index is this:
Natural carbohydrate sources that have a low GI ranking are almost always acceptable choices. However, carbohydrate sources that have a high GI ranking are not necessarily unacceptable choices.
Again, this is mostly due to the fact that when consumed in combination with other foods, GI rankings can be lowered significantly.
If the glycemic index doesnt tell us the whole story, what is another criterion that we can use in combination with it to figure out which carbohydrate sources to include in our diet?
The final issue well discuss is a big one, and it is the issue of natural carbohydrate sources versus refined carbohydrate sources
Refined carbohydrates are foods where the high fiber bits (the bran and the germ) have been removed from the grain. White rice, white bread, sugary cereals, and any item made from white flour are all examples of refined carbohydrates.
When a carbohydrate is refined, its complexity is broken down and it is basically transformed into
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a simple carbohydrate that raises blood sugar levels quickly. For this reason, refined products of any kind are not recommended for fat burning nutrition plans.
Most people today eat a diet thats very high in refined carbohydrate sources, and this is definitely a huge contributing factor to the current obesity problem in North America.
Our focus should be on eating natural, unrefined sources of carbohydrates which still contain the whole grain, including the bran and the germ. These carbohydrate sources are high in fiber, take longer to digest and will keep you feeling full for longer. Eating unrefined carbohydrates wont cause a spike and then a crash in your blood sugar levels if you consume them as part of a balanced meal. Unrefined carbohydrate sources also have far greater nutritional value, whereas refined sources often provide very little to no nutritional value at all.
How do you know if a carbohydrate is refined or unrefined?
The best way to determine this is to read the ingredient list.
When you look at an ingredient label for a product such as bread or cereal, check to see if the first ingredient listed is whole wheat flour, brown rice, rye flour, barley, or oats. If it is, that means that you are getting a lot of unrefined, whole grain goodness.
Once you start regularly reading ingredient lists on food items, youll notice another term on the majority of bread products made in the US: enriched wheat flour. Enriched wheat flour is NOT the same thing as whole grain. This term simply means that the refined grain has had some of the vitamins and one mineral added back to it. You will also see enriched wheat flour listed as bleached flour, bread flour, all-purpose flour or cake flour.
In addition, watch out for terms such as rice syrup, corn syrup, sucrose and brown sugar. These are all refined sugars that are commonly added to food items. These refined sugars are empty calorie foods that will upset your blood sugar balance and will probably set off food cravings shortly after you eat them.
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One of the simplest questions you can ask is to determine whether the food item youre consuming went from its natural source to your plate without being modified. If the answer is yes, then its probably fine to include as a carbohydrate source.
Weve covered a lot of information in regards to carbohydrate food sources so far. The biggest problem with discussing this topic is that its not a cut and dry issue, and there are many smaller details to pay attention to.
Here are a few guidelines for you to follow when deciding which carbohydrate sources to include in your nutritional plan:
1) In general, you should avoid all refined carbohydrate sources of any kind. 2) Include unrefined starchy carbohydrate sources in your diet. 3) Vegetables of all kinds are highly acceptable. 4) Fruit sources on the medium to lower end of the glycemic index are acceptable with a maximum of 3 pieces per day. 5) Low fat and non-fat dairy products are fine to include in moderation.
The bulk of your sources should be derived from vegetables and natural unrefined starches. Your secondary sources should be derived from fruits and low-fat dairy products. Refined sources of carbohydrates should be completely eliminated except on rare occasions.
Vegetable sources are easily the most effective fat burning carbohydrate food items of all.
In addition to containing carbohydrates, vegetables are also full of valuable vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber that contribute to overall health. For this reason, vegetables are an exceptionally good food source for those looking to burn fat. Vegetables have a very favorable ratio of nutrients in relation to their caloric content.
Vegetables are high in bulk (which will keep you feeling full and satisfied from your meals), yet they are extremely low in calories. This means that you can consume a very large amount of
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vegetables without having to worry that youve gone overboard on calories. This is why I recommend that vegetables make up a large portion of your daily carbohydrate intake.
Green vegetables are especially beneficial because of their blood-sugar regulating effects. Green vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery and zucchini actually slow down the rate at which sugars are released into the bloodstream, and this is a powerful way to keep your blood sugar levels balanced throughout the day.
For example, if you were to consume a regular white potato alongside a fibrous green vegetable source such as broccoli, the glycemic effect of both foods consumed together would be considerably lower due to the effects of the broccoli.
Here is a basic list of carbohydrate food items you can use to structure your diet with
These carbohydrate sources should form a large part of your diet:
Vegetables of all kinds (Particularly green fibrous vegetables) Barley Rye Potatoes Sweet potatoes Yams Brown rice Oatmeal Lentils Whole grain breads Whole grain cereals
These carbohydrate sources should be consumed in moderation:
Cherries Grapefruits
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Dried apricots Apples Pears Plums Peaches Oranges Grapes Kiwi Bananas Low-fat/Non-fat yogurt Skim milk
I will also include a glycemic index chart on the following pages for your reference as well
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The Glycemic Index

Foods
Bakery Products
Pound cake Danish pastry Muffin (unsweetened) Cake, tart Cake, angel Croissant Waffles Low Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High 54 59 62 65 67 67 76
Rating
Glycemic Ranking
Beverages
Soya milk Apple juice Carrot juice Pineapple juice Grapefruit juice Orange juice Low Low Low Low Low Low 30 41 45 46 48 52
Biscuits
Digestives Shortbread Water biscuits Ryvita Wafer biscuits Rice cakes Medium Medium Medium Medium High High 58 64 65 67 77 77
Breads
Multi grain bread Whole grain Pita bread, white Pizza, cheese Hamburger bun Rye-flour bread Whole meal bread White bread White rolls Baguette Low Low Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High High High 48 50 57 60 61 64 69 71 73 95
Breakfast Cereals
All-Bran Porridge, non instant Oat bran Muesli Mini Wheats (wholemeal) Shredded Wheat Golden Grahams Puffed wheat Weetabix Rice Krispies Cornflakes Low Low Medium Medium Medium Medium High High High High High 42 49 55 56 57 69 71 74 77 82 83
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Cereal Grains
Pearl barley Rye Wheat kernels Rice, instant Rice, parboiled Barley, cracked Rice, brown Rice, wild Rice, white Barley, flakes Taco Shell Millet Low Low Low Low Low Low Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High 25 34 41 46 48 50 55 57 58 66 68 71
Dairy Foods
Yogurt low- fat (sweetened) Milk, chocolate Milk, whole Milk, Fat-free Milk ,skimmed Milk, semi-skimmed Ice-cream (low- fat) Ice-cream Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Medium 14 24 27 32 32 34 50 61
Fruits
Cherries Grapefruit Apricots (dried) Apples Pears Plums Peaches Oranges Grapes Kiwi fruit Bananas Fruit cocktail Mangoes Apricots Apricots (tinned in syrup) Raisins Pineapple Watermelon Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High 22 25 31 38 38 39 42 44 46 53 54 55 56 57 64 64 66 72
Pasta
Spaghetti, protein enriched Fettuccine Vermicelli Spaghetti, whole wheat Ravioli, meat filled Spaghetti, white Macaroni Spaghetti, durum wheat Macaroni cheese Rice pasta, brown Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Medium Medium High 27 32 35 37 39 41 45 55 64 92
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Root Crop
Carrots, cooked Yam Sweet potato Potato, boiled Potato, new Potato, tinned Beetroot Potato, steamed Potato, mashed Chips Potato, micro waved Potato, instant Potato, baked Parsnips Low Low Low Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High High High High High 39 51 54 56 57 61 64 65 70 75 82 83 85 97
Snack Food and Sweets

Peanuts M&Ms (peanut) Snickers bar Chocolate bar; 30g Jams and marmalades Crisps Popcorn Mars bar Table sugar (sucrose) Corn chips Jelly beans Pretzels Dates Low Low Low Low Low Low Medium Medium Medium High High High High 15 32 40 49 49 54 55 64 65 74 80 81 103
Soups
Tomato soup, tinned Lentil soup, tinned Black bean soup, tinned Green pea soup, tinned Low Low Medium Medium 38 44 64 66
Vegetable and Beans

Artichoke Asparagus Broccoli Cauliflower Celery Cucumber Eggplant Green beans Lettuce, all varieties Low-fat yogurt, artificially sweetened Peppers, all varieties Snow peas Spinach Young summer squash Tomatoes Zucchini Soya beans, boiled Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low 15 15 15 15 15 15 16 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15
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Peas, dried Kidney beans, boiled Lentils green, boiled Chickpeas Haricot beans, boiled Black-eyed beans Chickpeas, tinned Baked beans, tinned Kidney beans, tinned Lentils green, tinned Broad beans
Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Low High
22 29 29 33 38 41 42 48 52 52 79
Ill be making specific recommendations for daily amounts of carbohydrates right after we discuss the role of fats
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Everything You Need To Know About Fats

As a person looking to get rid of body fat and achieve a lean, defined appearance, you may have the idea in your head that you should limit your consumption of dietary fat as much as possible.
For years weve been told that low-fat diets are the only healthy solution and that fats are somehow an evil, harmful substance that we should avoid at all costs. With the endless slew of fat free products lining the shelves at our grocery stores and all of the crazy low-fat diets being promoted everywhere, its no wonder people feel this way.
For those of you who point the finger at dietary fat as the cause of a high fat body, heres an interesting fact for you
Despite the current obesity crisis in the United States, where 7 out of 10 individuals over the age of 25 are considered overweight, our consumption of dietary fat is actually at an all-time low!
Thats correct, were consuming LESS fat, yet many of us are FATTER than ever!
How could this be?
Simple: dietary fat in itself is NOT the major cause of body fat increases. In addition, not all fats are created equally, and there is a huge difference in the physiological effect you will experience depending on what types of fat you are consuming.
For a perfect example of this, just take a look at our early ancestors. Fossilized remains show that these individuals were in great health (much healthier than we are today) yet their diet was heavily made up of animal proteins containing large amounts of fat.
What about the French? Or the Inuit tribes of Northern Canada? Again, these groups follow diets that are very high in fat, yet in general they are healthy individuals who are not overweight.
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In this section I will clear up the confusion once and for all by outlining the role of fat within the body. Ill tell you how to get the proper fat sources into your diet, as well as give you additional pointers and tips to help clear up your questions.
Dietary fat is NOT your enemy, and very shortly you will understand why.
The first major mistake that most individuals make is the false assumption that fats are the only nutrient that will MAKE YOU fat. Because of this, they assume that all they need to do is limit their fat intake, and that lean body theyve been chasing after will be theirs.
This way of thinking is completely false and if implemented into a nutritional approach will literally destroy your chances of getting into the shape you desire.
Lets take a look at what would happen to an individual following the all fat is evil mantra
First of all, since their levels of dietary fat are so low, theyll be making up for those missing calories by increasing their protein and carbohydrate consumption. For most uninformed individuals, carbohydrates will make up the bulk of this caloric increase. Now remember, carbohydrates are essentially sugar; and what happens when we consume an excessive amount of carbohydrates through our diet?
We experience all of the negative effects we discussed in the previous section. Blood sugar levels constantly rise and fall, insulin levels remain elevated, and glycogen levels fill up. The end result is a large amount of stored fat as well as a body that is now permanently primed for fat storage.
However, if your dietary fat levels are too low, youll have a whole new problem to cope with. You see, fat actually acts as a timed-release agent when consumed alongside other items. In other words, the consumption of fat actually slows down the release of carbohydrates into the bloodstream. This decrease in the absorption rate of carbohydrates lessens their impact and keeps blood sugar and insulin levels more stable. If dietary levels of fat are too low, the
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carbohydrates consumed will now be acting at hyper speed and the negative effects will be even greater.
For many individuals trying to lose weight, things get even worse
Since this idea that fat makes you fat is stuck in their heads, theyll often have the idea that a fat free item is not going to cause them any harm. They end up indulging in all kinds of fat free foods such as frozen yogurt, crackers, cookies and other sweet items to satisfy their cravings.
What they dont realize is that although these items are low in fat, they are also extremely high in refined sugars and calories. And we all know what happens when we consume products containing refined sugarThats right - blood sugar levels skyrocket, insulin levels are spiked, and the fat starts piling on.
Just because an item says fat free on the label means next to nothing in terms of how that food item will act in the body. Anything in excess: sugar, calories, and even protein will result in stored body fat.
So now we have our individual on his or her low fat diet Theyre consuming far greater amounts of carbohydrates than they need, and as a result blood sugar levels are experiencing the perpetual seesaw of up and down swings that we should be trying to avoid at all costs. In addition, there is no agent to slow down the release of these sugars and so the effect becomes even more pronounced. Finally, the indulgence in low-fat foods pushes the boundary even further, since without even realizing it the individual is consuming massive amounts of refined simple sugar.
It cant get much worse than that, can it?
Unfortunately things get even uglier when we take a closer look
First of all, individuals on a low fat diet will experience greater cravings and hunger pangs than
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those who include a reasonable amount of fat into their diet. This, once again, is all related to blood sugar levels. When the insulin is released to clear the bloodstream of glucose and drive it into the cells, the end result is lower-than-normal blood sugar levels. This causes unstoppable cravings that no individual could fight off over the long run.
Secondly, diets very low in fat decrease testosterone levels. Most people are aware that testosterone plays a large role in the process of building lean muscle tissue (which in turn causes greater body fat losses), but testosterone in itself also has direct fat burning effects.
Testosterone appears to increase the number of beta-receptors in fat cells. Beta-receptors are essentially an accelerator that makes it easier for fat to be released from the cell. For example, most women have lower numbers of beta-receptors in their hips, butt and thighs, and this is part of the reason why it can be so hard for women to lose fat from that area. In addition, testosterone also decreases the activity of lipoprotein lipase (the enzyme we mentioned earlier on), which is responsible for the storage of body fat.
Thirdly, diets that are too low in fat trigger the famine response that we talked about at the very beginning of the book. The body perceives the lack of dietary fat as a potential threat to its survival since fat is a primary source of energy. As a result, your body will make the necessary adjustments to survive a period of famine by causing a slow-down in metabolism and a rise in the hormones that promote fat storage.
Finally, your body quite simply NEEDS dietary fat in order for regular and healthy functioning. Forget about your concerns with storing body fat; if you deprive your body of the fat it needs to keep you alive and healthy, you will inevitably cause problems. I will outline the amazing health benefits of the right kinds of fat shortly.
Judging by everything weve covered so far, it should be clear that a severely reduced-fat diet is far less than optimal in terms of fat loss, and is actually directly counterproductive. Eating fat does not make you fat, and when consumed properly, it will actually promote an increase in fat loss.
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Now, not all dietary gurus have been preaching the low fat mantra. There are some on the virtual opposite side of the fat intake debate. Instead of preaching low-fat, they promote a very high-fat diet with an extreme restriction on carbohydrate intake.
Perhaps youve heard the hype about the Atkins Diet and other super low-carb eating plans. These dietary gurus state that as long as you keep your carbohydrate intake at a very minimal level, you can stuff your face with as many greasy, high-fat foods as you desire and still experience maximal body fat losses.
These types of ultra low carb/high fat diets are usually referred to as ketogenic diets.
The basic premise is simple: carbohydrates are the preferred source of energy by the body, and when carbohydrate intake is severely restricted, the body will be forced to utilize its fat stores instead. Following these diets will place the body into a state known as ketosis. In this stage of metabolism, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies which can be used as a source of fuel.
Such diets often recommend caloric ratios in the range of 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbohydrates. That 65% fat isnt coming from healthy, unsaturated sources either. Were talking about foods such as burgers, bacon, cheese of all sorts, juicy steaks, whole eggs and other saturated-fat filled items. Proponents of this diet claim that as long as your carbohydrate intake is minimal, you can enjoy these high fat foods in virtually unrestricted quantities and still lose body fat.
It sounds crazy, and in my opinion, it is!
Why would anyone actually believe that an eating plan filled with gobs of cheese and bacon would be a sensible, healthy method of getting into shape?
Regardless of the macronutrient ratio you are using, if youre consuming too many calories, you simply will not be able to lose weight. Because fat is so calorie dense, at 9 calories per gram, it
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will be very difficult to stick to the food choices recommended (high-fat, greasy foods) without exceeding your caloric limits for fat loss.
On top of this, another disadvantage of eating a diet very high in fats is that dietary fats are stored as body fat very easily and more readily than protein or carbohydrates. Excessive calories coming from any macronutrient will be stored as fat, but protein and carbohydrates must undergo a complicated conversion process before they end up as body fat. Dietary fats are already in the proper form, and therefore can be stored as body fat more efficiently.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when describing the perils of a high fat diet
What about those high intensity workouts and cardio sessions youll need to perform in order to maximize your fat burning metabolism?
You wont get any massive jolts of energy on a high fat/low carb diet, as fats are primarily used only when the body is in a steady state (where oxygen supply meets oxygen demand). Weight training and high intensity cardio are anaerobic activities fuelled by glycogen. Without a proper supply of glycogen available, your workout performance will be zapped.
Why do you think that competitive bodybuilders who are only a few weeks out from a contest and are on low-carb diets as a result, always report that their strength and energy levels are far lower than normal? Stick to a high-fat/low-carb diet and youll see your strength, energy and mental focus steadily decline.
Since were on the topic of workouts, what about muscle growth itself?
Almost all credible fat loss experts will agree that increasing your levels of lean muscle tissue is one of the true secrets to maximizing your fat burning metabolism. True, even on a high-fat diet youll probably be consuming more than enough protein to carry out the muscle-building process, but if your carbohydrate levels are too low, your insulin levels will be quite low as well.
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Yes, its true that high insulin levels are not desirable when trying to lose body fat, but excessively low levels are not good either.
Insulin is needed to drive nutrients into cells, and when insulin levels are too low, those valuable amino acids wont be reaching your muscle cells where they can be used to produce muscle growth. Not only that, but as Ive already outlined, excessively high fat diets also hinder testosterone production, which is the key hormone involved in building muscle.
In addition to all of these negative fat storing and muscle wasting effects of these extreme diet plans, lets also not overlook the obvious health implications as well.
Does anyone really believe that they can eat bacon and eggs everyday over the long run and not be placing themselves at risk? Diets excessively high in unhealthy saturated fats have been connected to all kinds of negative health ailments, from heart disease, to diabetes, to even cancer.
If youre looking for a sensible and effective fat burning nutritional approach, ignore this high fat/low carb craze. Not only is it ineffective at burning body fat and keeping it off, but it is also highly unrealistic that you will be able to maintain this approach over any extended period of time. (That would explain the nearly 97% drop-out rate of those following the Atkins Diet.)
So, weve established that neither extremely low fat nor extremely high fat diets are the answer. The best approach lies somewhere in the middle.
Lets now talk about exactly how fats should be incorporated into your nutritional plan to optimize your results. In this section well be dealing with the different types of fat and the food sources that you can obtain them from. Later on well discuss specific daily amounts and ratios to consume them in.
As previously outlined, fats are a macromolecule that yield 9 calories per gram. If youll remember back to the protein and carbohydrates sections, youll notice thats twice as many
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calories as either provides (protein and carbohydrates both yield 4 calories per gram). What this means is that you can consume far smaller amounts of fat before you end up going overboard on calories.
Just as amino acids form the building blocks for protein, fats are made up of smaller subcomponents known as fatty acids. Two of these fatty acids, linoleic acid (also known as the omega 6 fatty acid) and alpha-linoleic acid (also known as the omega 3 fatty acid), cannot be manufactured by the body and therefore must be consumed through our diets. Because of this, they are known as the essential fatty acids or EFAs for short.
Fats are typically found in animal and vegetable tissues and can essentially be classified into two major categories: saturated and unsaturated.
Saturated fats are those that are solid at room temperature and are derived from animal sources. Although saturated fats are necessary to the body in small amounts, an excessive consumption of saturated fat can lead to all kinds of health problems such as high cholesterol, stroke and heart attack. For this reason, saturated fats are often considered unhealthy fats.
Youll find high levels of saturated fats in fatty cuts of animal meat, cheese, butter, dairy fats and other foods that are generally considered unhealthy.
Overall, there is no reason to specifically aim to consume saturated fats from your diet. The small amount of saturated fat that you need can easily be consumed in the regular foods you eat throughout the day. Any excess of saturated fat you consume will most likely work against you.
Instead, your prime focus should be on consuming the unsaturated fats which are derived from plant sources and which are liquid at room temperature. This favorable form of fat provides a whole host of powerful fat burning and overall health benefits and should make up the vast majority of your daily fat intake.
Unsaturated fats can be broken down into two major subcategories: monounsaturated fats and
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polyunsaturated fats, depending on their molecular structure. The essential fatty acids which I mentioned earlier (linoleic acid and alpha-linoleic acid) can be derived from these two sources.
These essential fats are further converted into the following:
Linoleic Acid - Gamma Linoleic Acid (GLA) (omega 6) - Dihomogamma Linoleic Acid (DLA) (omega 6) - Arachidonic Acid (AA) (omega 6)
Alpha Linoleic Acid - Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) (omega 3) - Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) (omega 3)
These essential fatty acids not only increase the fat burning metabolic rate but are also responsible for an almost endless list of positive health effects, including but not limited to the following
- Energy production - Diffusion of oxygen into the bloodstream - Hemoglobin production - Transportation and metabolism of triglycerides and cholesterol - Brain and nerve tissue development - Cell membrane fluid control - Lowering of high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels - Insulin and blood sugar stabilization - Arthritis treatment - Anti-inflammatory effects - Asthma relief - Easing of PMS symptoms - Strengthening the immune system
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- Water retention reduction - Improvement of skin texture - Psoriasis alleviation - Mood regulation
Here are some approved food sources where you can obtain these healthy fats from
Food Sources
- Salmon - Cod - Avocado - Almonds - Hazelnuts - Flaxseeds - Albacore tuna - Sardines - Mackerel - Hemp seeds - Pumpkin seeds - Olives - Soybeans - Peanuts - Pecans - Macadamia nuts
Healthy Oils
- Flaxseed oil - Extra virgin olive oil
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- Fish oil - Sunflower oil - Safflower oil - Corn oil - Canola oil - Hemp oil - Peanut oil - Evening primrose oil
If you decide to use any of these oils, they must be in an unrefined form. Heat, light and oxygen destroy EFAs. Most of the oils you buy at the grocery store have been refined and have lost many of their beneficial nutrients. If the bottle has been removed from its original box and is out on the shelf, dont bother with it. Try to look for products still in their original packaging and that have been kept refrigerated.
Also, when consuming food sources high in EFAs, you should try your best to avoid forms that have been cooked or heated. For example, opt for raw nuts as opposed to heated nuts, and dont use your oils for cooking.
Finally, there is one form of fat that Id like to discuss before closing out this section: trans fat.
Trans fats occur naturally in small amounts in animal products, but are most commonly artificially added to commercial products in order to increase their shelf life.
Trans fats are literally one of, if not THE worst substance you could possibly put into your body. The consumption of trans fat has been associated with increases in bad cholesterol, the lowering of good cholesterol, mutation of cell membranes, negative effects on cell function, cancer, muscle wasting and of course, fat gain.
If your goal is to achieve a lean and defined body, trans fat consumption should be kept at the absolute minimum level possible. Its not practical to completely eliminate trans fats, as many foods do contain them in small amounts, but you should certainly be avoiding any foods that contain high levels of these dangerous forms of fat.
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Trans fats are formed when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil; a process known as hydrogenation. You might wonder why anyone would bother adding hydrogen to vegetable oils
This is a process that was developed in the early part of the last century. By adding hydrogen to fats, the shelf life of the product was greatly extended, and the product was also left with a more desirable taste and functionality (for example, trans fats allow margarine products to be spread more easily).
While this is all fine and dandy for the food companies that create them, the resulting health effects for the people who eat them are literally devastating.
Foods that contain high levels of trans fat include, but are not limited to the following:
- Margarines - Pastries - Sugary breakfast cereals - Cookies - Crackers - Breads - Cakes - Fast food - French fries - Shortenings - Commercial peanut butter - Frostings - Donuts
Avoid deep fried foods, fast foods or any of the junk food listed above. When you check the labels of the foods you are buying, if you see the words hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, put it back on the shelf!
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Well, thats all you need to know about dietary fats in terms of proper food sources and overall information, and well now be switching gears and talking specifically about macronutrient ratios
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Macronutrient Ratios
Okay now, weve established our daily caloric intake and weve outlined an easy and straightforward method to calculate how many calories youll need to consume daily in order to stimulate maximum fat loss.
Weve also talked about the 3 major types of macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Weve discussed their functions within the body in terms of burning fat and building muscle, and have outlined the proper ways to obtain these nutrients from the foods you eat with acceptable and unacceptable food sources.
Now well be talking about macronutrient ratios by outlining the specific daily amounts of these nutrients you should be consuming in grams.
One of the errors that a lot of people make when trying to figure out their daily protein/carbohydrate/fat intake is that they calculate their daily gram amounts as a sole function of their bodyweight, for example, 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight.
The reason why this method is less than optimal is because bodyweight is just one of the many factors that come into play when determining your daily caloric intake. Age, gender, activity level, lean body mass and other factors are also important to consider. Because of this, two individuals who both weigh 180 pounds could have very different caloric requirements, and therefore would need different amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fats.
For this reason, you should always aim to figure out your daily caloric intake based on your own individual stats (which we already covered), and then express your macronutrient amounts as a percentage of that caloric total.
In order to accomplish this we use macronutrient ratios. A macronutrient ratio is simply an expression of the relationship between the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fats that you
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consume on a daily basis as part of your total caloric intake.
Examples:
45% Carbohydrates 35% Protein 20% Fat
Or
You can then translate each individual percentage into a specific number of grams using a basic mathematical formula that Ill outline shortly. For example, if you know that you need to consume 2300 calories daily at 45% carbohydrates, youll plug these numbers into the formula to figure out how many grams of carbohydrates that equals out to.
What is the perfect macronutrient ratio for fat loss?
First of all, there is no such thing as one, concrete, absolute, perfect ratio. We all may be human, but there are certainly significant differences between us in terms of our individual physiology and metabolism. For example, some of us may be overly sensitive to carbohydrates depending on how our bodies manage insulin, while some of us may be able to tolerate higher amounts of fat. For this reason we cant simply throw out a single ratio and hail it as the be-allend-all of fat loss for everyone to use.
That being said, there ARE general guidelines that will work for the majority of people. Within a certain ballpark, I dont think there will be a huge difference in terms of the precise percentages that you stick to.
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I cant stress this enough: do NOT obsess over specific macronutrient ratios! Its far from the most important factor in terms of structuring an effective nutrition plan. As long as you are within a rough range and guideline, making small adjustments probably wont make any real noticeable difference to your bottom line results.
Far more important are the fundamental, core principles of overall caloric intake, proper food selection and meal frequency (which well be talking about in the next section). If you follow those 3 principles and add in a well-balanced ratio, you already have covered 95% of what you need in terms of fat burning nutrition. Any further tweaking and testing of your macronutrient ratio will account for the other 5%.
When it comes to structuring a proper fat burning diet, just like most things in life, there is a principle of diminishing returns at play. The further you adjust the more minute details, the less of a return youll gain from your efforts.
Take an individual who is consistently consuming 100 calories above their maintenance level with poor food choices and switch them over to a plan of 15-20% calories below whats required for body weight maintenance. Instantly a massive change occurs.
Now, have them consume the majority of their food intake from lean, high quality proteins, natural/high fiber carbohydrates and small amounts of healthy, unsaturated fats, while removing all high saturated fat items and refined carbs from the diet. Again, a huge shift in results occurs.
Now get them to take all of those calories and high quality foods and split them up into the proper meal frequency. Meal frequency is extremely important, but the change theyll experience after adjusting caloric intake and food choices and THEN implementing proper meal intervals will not be as significant as the first changes were.
Now add in a proper macronutrient ratio. Thats still an important factor overall, but the resulting change will inevitably be smaller.
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Now, take that same macronutrient ratio and adjust the specific percentages up and down in percentiles of 5-10%. It may improve the results somewhat, but probably not by a very significant margin.
The point Im trying to make here is that obsessing over nitty-gritty details really isnt necessary. In many cases it will probably do you more harm than good. Remember, the changes that youll be making to your nutritional approach should be more or less permanent, and will have to be maintained over the long run.
Is it really realistic to think that youll be counting every food item you put into your body every single day, 7 days a week for the rest of your life?
If youre a competitive bodybuilder or a fitness model, sure. When the situation calls for precision and when slight changes in your appearance could make the difference between victory and defeat, certainly a different approach and mentality is necessary. That being said, I highly doubt if you are reading this right now that you fall into those categories.
Youre most likely an everyday person looking to burn off excess body fat, you want to maintain or build muscle and get into good shape, and youre not using this approach to get yourself into contest shape. If thats the case, then striving for dietary perfection will probably be counterproductive over the long haul.
Trying too hard to make everything perfect will most likely burn you out mentally and leave you tired and frustrated. As a long term approach, its much more realistic and effective to have a basic set of guidelines to follow and to aim to stay within those guidelines MOST of the time. But a few percent differences here and there in terms of macronutrient ratios is most definitely NOT a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination.
So, what were going to do in this section is the following:
- Outline a basic macronutrient ratio starting point that will work for the vast majority of people.
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- Demonstrate exactly how to take that ratio and translate it into specific gram amounts using a basic mathematical formula that anyone can use.
- Discuss specific individual situations where a differing macronutrient ratio might be in order, and how to tweak the ratios accordingly.
Lets begin by outlining and discussing the starting point ratio
Before we get into the specifics, let me reiterate this one more time: there is no such thing as a secret macronutrient ratio that will catapult you to fat burning stardom. All of these fad diets you read about that promote extremes such as very high fat or very low carbs are nothing more than marketing schemes designed to go against the grain and get your attention.
After all, if everyone simply knew the basic truths about fat burning nutrition, the people behind all of these weight loss products would quickly go out of business. Thats why new fads are constantly popping up and promising you the world with some new breakthrough approach. Theyre designed to convince you that a straightforward and balanced plan isnt the best answer and that you need some specially tweaked approach in order to see maximum results.
Heres the honest truth: Excessive consumption of any macronutrient, whether it be protein, carbohydrates or fats is never the answer to an effective long-term fat burning solution.
There are NO magic secrets when it comes to macronutrient ratios!
There is also no such thing as super nutrition. The only thing we can do is transform a lessthan-optimal nutrition plan into an optimal one. However, we cant take an optimal nutrition plan and accelerate it to super optimal by using some fancy, innovative technique.
After all, to have an optimal diet means having one that produces the best possible result. Obviously there is no such thing as going BEYOND optimal. Optimal is optimal.
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And what is an optimal fat burning diet centered around?
Balance.
An optimal fat burning diet contains nothing in excess. Instead, it contains all of the macronutrients that our bodies require in a sound, sensible and balanced ratio that provides us with everything we need; nothing more and nothing less.
So without further ado, let me present to you what I consider the starting point macronutrient ratio that I believe will work well for virtually anyone who uses it.
Fat
Well start with dietary fats. We know for certain that excessively low fat is not an effective approach. A diet that focuses on severely restricting fat intake will ultimately slow down the fat burning metabolism, cause a de-stabilization in blood sugar levels, lead to uncomfortable hunger pangs, trigger our bodys famine response, and will often lead to excessive consumption of carbohydrates.
In addition, our bodies require dietary fats for normal functioning, and essential fatty acids must be consumed through our diet since our bodies cannot manufacture them on its own. In order to avoid the dangers of a very low fat diet, I would strongly recommend that your fat intake never drops below 10% of your total daily caloric intake. Remember, this is an absolute minimum figure.
We also know that excessively high fat diets dont work either. Fats are very calorie-dense and a high fat diet will usually send us over our caloric limits for fat loss. High fat diets will also hinder muscle growth, lower our energy levels and stimulate a greater increase in body fat. In order to ensure that we arent consuming too much fat from our diets, I would recommend that you never let your fat intake exceed 30% of your total daily caloric intake.
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Here it is in a nutshell: Never let your fat intake drop below 10% of your daily calories, and never let it exceed 30%.
For the starting point ratio, I would recommend aiming for the middle point between these two figures.
Daily fat consumption should begin at 20% of your total daily caloric intake.
Protein
We now have a remaining 80% of our daily caloric intake to assign to protein and carbohydrates. Again, balance here is the key.
Diets that are too low in protein are far from optimal in terms of maximizing fat loss. The regular consumption of high quality, lean protein sources leads to a greater satiety effect from meals, a direct fat burning thermogenic effect, and also plays a significant role in the maintenance and growth of lean muscle tissue.
In order to derive all of the amazing fat burning and muscle building effects of high quality protein, I would recommend that your protein consumption never drops below 25% of your total daily caloric intake.
There are no real documented negative effects associated directly with a high consumption of protein, and many competitive athletes and bodybuilders do use very high protein diets at certain points in their training. However, excessive protein consumption simply means that we wont be leaving enough room for carbohydrate consumption, which should ultimately make up the greater portion of your overall diet.
For the purposes of leaving a wide open slot for carbohydrates to fit in, I would recommend that your protein consumption never exceeds 40% of your total daily calories. The starting point ratio will land somewhere in the middle.
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To begin, I would recommend that protein make up 35% of your total daily caloric intake.
Carbohydrates
Weve outlined the starting point ratios for both fats (20% of daily caloric intake) and protein (35% of daily caloric intake). That leaves us with a remaining 45% of daily calories to be allotted to carbohydrates.
Extremely high carbohydrate intake as well as extremely low carbohydrate intake are both far from optimal for a multitude of reasons
Excessively high-carbohydrate diets will inevitably lead to an unbalanced rising and falling of blood sugar levels, which, as weve already outlined, is one of the key pitfalls that most fat burning hopefuls encounter. In addition, excessive carbohydrates can easily lead to excess fat gain, particularly in individuals who are not highly active. For this reason, carbohydrates should never exceed 60% of your total daily calories.
Low-carb diets are a mistake as well. This type of eating approach will leave you feeling tired and sluggish both in and out of the gym and its simply not a realistic long-term approach for anyone to follow. To avoid these negative effects I would suggest keeping your carbohydrate intake above 30% at all times.
The starting point ratio for carbs lands right in the middle at 45% of total daily caloric intake.
So, the final outline for the starting point ratio is as follows:
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This, in my opinion, is the caloric ratio that will work most effectively for the majority of people in the majority of situations.
Is there anything special or fancy about this ratio?
Absolutely not.
It is simply a balanced, sound, sensible approach that keeps all macronutrient consumption in moderation. None of the macronutrients are too high, and none are too low. They are right in the middle ground where they need to be.
This ratio will not perform any miracles, and it is not designed to produce any sort of magical fat loss effect. However, I am highly confident that virtually anyone who applies it properly will experience a significant fat burning effect that other ratios wandering too far in either direction will not produce.
Would it make a big difference if we went from 20% fat down to 15%? Or if we went from 45% carbohydrates up to 50%? Or 35% protein down to 30%?
It might make a very small difference, but nothing too significant. As long as you are implementing your nutritional plan in such a way that you at least come close to these outlined percentages, youll be fine.
Remember, macronutrient ratios are not the most important overall factor in the fat burning nutritional area.
Overall caloric intake, food sources and meal frequency are definitely higher up on the list and have greater effects. That brings me to one other point: no macronutrient ratio in the world can save you if your overall caloric intake is not at the proper level.
Youre only as strong as your weakest link. If youre consuming too many calories, it wont matter
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how precisely you try to tweak these percentages. Take in too many calories and fat loss will be physiologically impossible.
The same goes for a caloric intake that is too low. Regardless of what macronutrient ratio you use, if your calorie intake is too low, the natural famine response that your body came wired with is unavoidable.
So again, make sure the core, fundamental principles are in place FIRST, and only then should you worry about macronutrient ratios.
Lets now outline exactly how you can translate this macronutrient percentage into an exact gram amount based on your daily caloric intake.
The first thing we need to remember is that each macronutrient will yield a certain number of calories per gram.
Proteins yield 4 calories per gram. Carbohydrates yield 4 calories per gram. Fats yield 9 calories per gram.
This is really all we need to know. We then simply take your total daily caloric intake, multiply it by the appropriate percentage (for example, 45% carbohydrates) and then divide by the number of calories per gram in order to land on a final gram amount.
(Daily Calories) x (Macronutrient Percentage) = X (X) (Number Of Calories Per Gram) = Daily Gram Amount
Ill give you an example
Lets use an individual with a daily caloric intake of 2500 calories.
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We can then use this caloric amount in order to determine how many grams of carbohydrates they should be consuming daily based on the starting point of 45% carbs in the diet
First we multiply the daily calories by the percentage
2500 x 0.45 = 1125
Through this calculation we have determined that 1125 of our total daily calories should be derived from carbohydrates. Now, all we have to do is divide 1125 by the number of calories per gram for carbohydrates (4) to figure out the daily gram amount.
1125 4 = 281
This individual should be consuming 281 grams of carbohydrates daily.
For reference, Ill outline all 3 calculations below for protein, carbs and fats based on a 2500 calorie diet
CARBOHYDRATES 2500 x 0.45 = 1125 1125 4 = 281 grams
PROTEIN 2500 x 0.35 = 875 875 4 = 219 grams
FATS 2500 x 0.2 = 500 500 9 = 56 grams
On a daily basis this individual should be consuming:
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281 grams of carbohydrates 219 grams of protein 56 grams of fat
Weve now outlined the recommended starting point ratio of 45% carbohydrates, 35% protein and 20% fat and have demonstrated exactly how to translate these percentages into daily gram amounts based on your caloric intake.
Now lets discuss how you can tweak these ratios in order to suit your individual needs.
First of all, I recommend that everyone begin by using the starting point ratio. Regardless of your body type or situation, if you combine this ratio with the proper caloric intake and meal frequency, you WILL see positive results. I dont see any reason to deviate from it right off the bat until youve had a chance to try it for a while and then test the results.
Second, ONLY tweak the ratios if youre willing to measure your food intake down to a precise level and if youre willing to measure your results closely each time you tweak. Theres no sense in haphazardly jumping from ratio to ratio if you arent going to do it properly and if you arent going to obtain an accurate reading each time you do.
If you want to test the effect of lowering your fat intake by 5% and raising your carbohydrate intake by 5%, then youd better be sure that you are in fact structuring your diet properly based on this change. And you have to be sure that youre accurately tracking the result of the change once it is made.
For the majority of you, this tweaking process is most likely not necessary. A lot of you arent going to track your diet down to the most minute levels anyway (which, for the average individual, is fine), so theres no sense in worrying about it.
For the more hardcore individuals out there, it might be worth experimenting with. The analogy that I use is to compare it to the way a marketing agency might test different advertisements
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against each other. The most effective advertisement that has been created to date is known as the control. The agency would then create new ads and test the results compared to the control. If a newer ad produced a better result than the control, then THAT ad would become the new control and would be tested against future ads and so on.
For right now, consider the starting point ratio your control. Give that ratio a try for a certain period and then measure the results. (By the way, there will be an entire section dedicated to tracking and measuring results later on in the book, so dont worry about that specific process right now.)
Once youve figured out the results, you can then make small modifications to the ratio and test it out again. If the new ratio produces better results than the previous one, youll know that based on your individual physiology, the newer ratio is more effective.
In any case, regardless of your individual situation and body type, any adjustments that you make to the starting point ratio of 45% carbohydrates, 35% protein and 20% fats should not wander too far. Here are the maximum ranges for increases or decreases that I would recommend trying out for each macronutrient:
Carbohydrates = +15% / -10% Protein = +5%/ -10% Fats= +5% / -10%
In other words, here are the potential daily percentages for each macronutrient that you may want to test:
Carbohydrates = 35%-60% of overall calories Protein = 25%-40% of overall calories Fats = 10%-25% of overall calories
There are a massive number of potential factors that would influence whether any specific
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individual should increase or decrease any of the starting point ratios, and so it would be extremely difficult to outline any sort of set protocol for this.
The best thing you can do is to pay close attention to your body type and results and to make modifications based on that. Here are just a few basic points that you may want to consider
Carbohydrates: If you feel that you are particularly carbohydrate sensitive and put on fat easily when consuming this nutrient, try lowering your carb intake gradually until you find a level that youre comfortable with. Carbohydrate sensitive individuals are usually those who are naturally overweight and have a tough time dropping body fat (these people are referred to as endomorphs).
If you feel as though your energy levels are too low and that increasing your carbohydrate intake wouldnt result in any additional body fat, try increasing it to a level that makes you feel more energetic throughout the day. Individuals who may consider increasing carb intake are those who do not gain body fat easily and have naturally muscular or thinner frames (referred to as mesomorphs and ectomorphs respectively).
Protein: There arent many situations where an individual would decide to increase or decrease their protein intake as the first step. Usually an increase or decrease in protein intake would be the result of an increase/decrease in carbohydrate or fat intake.
Fat: Again, endomorphs who gain fat easily and have a tough time keeping it off may want to consider dropping their fat intake down to 15%. In rare circumstances they could consider going as low as 10% of total caloric intake.
Individuals who do not gain fat easily might want to experiment with a slightly higher intake of 25% as opposed to the baseline of 20%.
Again, it all comes down to experimentation, precision and patience. For most individuals, there wont be any need to bother worrying about these sorts of details. The starting point ratio will
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work for virtually anyone as long as they implement it properly. I only suggest making tweaks if you are truly committed and focused on your nutritional plan down to the last detail.
In addition, there are certain pitfalls to watch out for that are associated with these tweaks.
For example, making a tweak in your diet assumes that your training plan remains 100% consistent at all times. An individual might unconsciously be putting forth a greater level of effort into their cardio and weight training sessions after making a change in their diet. After measuring the results they might decide that their diet was responsible for the improved response from the body, when in fact the improvement was a result of the more intensified training.
In addition, we often see varying results depending on the amount of time weve been on a specific program.
We usually see the most significant response in the first few weeks, and a gradual slowdown in response as we continue further. An individual might be on nutritional plan A for the first 8 weeks, and then switch to nutritional plan B for the next 8 weeks. They might then measure the results and perceive that nutritional plan B was less effective, when in fact it was simply a natural result of their body adapting (and thus responding to a lesser degree) to the training stresses.
So again, I only recommend nutritional tweaks for the more hardcore and analytical trainees out there who are willing to put in the effort to assess their results down to the most minute levels.
Thats all now for macronutrient ratios.
Next well be discussing one of the most important dietary factors: meal frequency.
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Meal Frequency
As Ive mentioned before, the frequency of your meals will have a huge effect on your fat burning results. Meal frequency can make a big difference in whether you metabolize your fat quickly, or whether youll be constantly struggling with hunger pangs and a slowed down metabolism.
Ill explain why the correct meal frequency can have such dramatic results on your fat loss program very shortly.
First, lets just do a short recap of what weve established so far
1) Youve figured out how many calories you must consume daily in order to stimulate fat loss. This can be determined by finding out your caloric maintenance level (using either the HarrisBenedict or Katch-McArdle formula) and then reducing that number by 15-20%.
2) You understand the role and function of each of the major macronutrients - proteins, carbohydrates and fats, and you know the best food sources to obtain them.
3) Youve figured out how to take your daily caloric intake and break it up into a set daily gram amount for each of the major macronutrients. You should begin your fat loss program using a starting point ratio of 45% carbohydrates, 35% protein and 20% fat. Once youve had a chance to experience and measure the results, you can then make tweaks to this ratio to see if they produce a greater effect.
So far, so good.
However, this is still not sufficient information to properly structure your nutritional approach for maximum results.
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Lets assume that we know our daily caloric intake should be set at 2500 calories with 281 grams of carbohydrates, 219 grams of protein and 56 grams of fat. We also know that these calories should be derived mainly from natural, high fiber carbs, lean sources of protein and healthy, unsaturated fats.
Great, but how do we actually lay all of this out into an effective structure for food consumption?
Should we consume 3 square meals a day and divide all of the nutrients up equally? Do we consume a big breakfast and a big dinner with smaller meals inserted in between? Do we break the entire days allotment of food into 8 snacks and graze on them every couple hours? Does any of this even matter?
Let me explain to you now how meal frequency affects your fat burning results.
Yes, calories are important. Yes, food sources are important. Yes, macronutrients are important But unless we break all of this up into a proper meal frequency, none of it will really matter.
If you sit down and gorge yourself on two 1250 calorie meals spaced 8 hours apart, your overall caloric intake, food sources and macronutrient ratios will be rendered useless.
Your nutritional plan is only as effective as its weakest link, and meal frequency is an extremely important link to pay attention to. In fact, it ranks right at the top as being one of the most critical and important factors of all. If there really were one true secret to achieving a fast fat burning metabolism and having a lean, defined body, then proper meal frequency would be it.
If you dont pay attention to the number of meals you consume each day and how often you consume them, you will be taking a huge step backward. You will be severely compromising the bottom line results that you can achieve.
Lets take a look at how most individuals approach their daily diet, and why this method is so counterproductive and ineffective in the first place
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The vast majority of individuals out there are following the basic and accepted method of eating 3 square meals a day. Some people even go as low as having just two meals per day, with a few small snacks here and there.
If you really want to burn maximal body fat and build/maintain muscle, this is virtually a suicidal approach. To put it simply, eating just 2-3 times per day with huge gaps in between meals will have disastrous consequences on your fat loss program. Eating only 1-3 times a day will:
slow down your fat burning metabolism decrease your lean muscle tissue destabilize blood sugar levels cause hunger pangs lower your energy levels decrease the efficiency of your digestive system
None of those results are what you want, right? Yet thats what youll experience if your meals are too far apart.
But heres the good news for you: If you space out your meal frequency properly, youll get the opposite effect.
Proper meal frequency and spacing will achieve these results for you:
speed up your fat burning metabolism maintain your lean muscle tissue stabilize your blood sugar levels reduce or eliminate hunger pangs increase your energy levels improve the efficiency of your digestive system
Why would increased meal frequency cause all these beneficial results for our fat loss program?
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To understand why this is the case, we need to once again travel back 40,000 years and examine our physiology from the evolutionary standpoint that we covered at the beginning of the book.
From a purely biological, physical standpoint, the human body is literally a machine that is geared toward the primary goals of survival and reproduction. Every process that goes on within your body can in some way be linked to these two ultimate goals. Through millions of years of evolution, the human body has built up a huge array of survival mechanisms and protective measures in order to maximize the chances of these two goals being realized.
All of the survival mechanisms that were developed in the ancient, harsh, survival of the fittest world are still hardwired into our genes. But now, because our lifestyle and our world have changed so much, some of those built in programs can act against us.
Remember when we talked earlier in the book about our bodys built in famine response that is triggered by excessively low daily caloric intake? The body is primed to slow down metabolism whenever it thinks that it is in danger of starving.
This same response also kicks into gear when you leave too large of a gap between your meals and force your body to operate for an excessive period of time without any nutritional intake.
What this means is that even if your caloric intake is at the proper level, this metabolic response will be triggered if you dont structure your daily meals and intervals properly.
Remember, your body has no idea that you have constant access to a supply of food. Your conscious brain might know that, but the rest of your body doesnt. And your body has a plan for survival when it gets hungry.
Your body is not aware that there is a fridge full of food 10 feet away while you lie on the couch watching television. Your body is still primed for the competitive and unforgiving conditions that we experienced thousands of years ago, when food supplies were uncertain and where we often had to operate for days at a time without any nutrition at all.
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As far as your body is concerned, an excessive period of time between meals is a threat to its survival. The body treats this as a famine and will react accordingly by switching on its built in defense mechanisms to prolong your survival.
How long does it take for this mechanism to kick in?
The first signs will start to appear after the body has gone for about 3 hours without a meal. After 4 or more hours without food intake, your bodys mechanism for surviving famine will begin switching into full gear. This response will become even more pronounced the longer you go without eating.
What exactly happens when this response is triggered?
First of all, when you stop taking in food, your fat burning metabolism comes to a screeching halt.
Remember, body fat is essentially a form of stored energy, and in times of famine the body tries to preserve as much energy as possible. It slows down your fat burning processes because it wants you to maximize your chances of survival. But if youre trying to lose weight and burn fat, a slower fat burning metabolism is virtually the last thing you would want. Obviously this effect is hugely detrimental.
Secondly, and arguably just as harmful, is the muscle wasting effect of the famine response. Muscle is metabolically expensive tissue. That means that muscle tissue requires a lot of energy and resources for the body to build and maintain it. As a result of this, in times of famine the body will simply follow its priorities and break down muscle tissue to obtain a source of protein and energy for survival.
Your levels of lean muscle tissue have a direct effect on your fat burning metabolism as well. When you have more lean muscle tissue, you burn more energy. When you lose muscle tissue, you burn less energy.
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As if these two effects were not drastic enough, theres still more.
Since youll be concentrating all of your caloric intake into just 2-3 sittings, these portions will naturally be larger than they would be if you were consuming your daily caloric intake in 5 or 6 sittings. When you consume larger portions of food at one time, you set off much larger fluctuations in your blood sugar levels, because you trigger a bigger insulin response after each large meal.
Weve already talked in detail about blood sugar stabilization, so you should have a good idea as to why unstable blood sugar levels are not desirable. Remember that when your blood sugar levels are unstable, this leads to rapid rising and falling of energy levels, increased cravings for food, and it will encourage fat storage.
In addition, by consuming very large portions you also decrease the efficiency of your digestive system. Your body can only deal with so many nutrients at once, and there is a good chance that the nutrition in your meals will not be fully utilized as a result.
How do we avoid all of these negative effects?
Simple. Stop consuming large meals spaced far apart. Instead, flip that method on its head and do the exact opposite. Start consuming small meals at more frequent intervals. But remember to stick to the same overall daily caloric intake!
How frequent should these meal intervals be?
In order to avoid all of the negative effects that are associated with the bodys hardwired famine response, we should aim to consume a small meal and provide our body with the proper fat burning and muscle building nutrients roughly once every 2-3 hours throughout the day.
Following this approach, we should be consuming roughly 5-7 small meals daily.
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For those of you who have not been exposed to this way of thinking or have never consumed this many daily meals before, the idea might seem a bit crazy. I mean, how can you possibly expect to consume that many meals every single day?
Well, first of all, were not talking about full-on meals or large portion sizes like you might be used to when you follow the 3 square meals a day approach. What Im recommending is 5-7
small meals a day, and the overall volume of each meal will be less than what youre used to.
With the proper planning and dedication, anyone can squeeze in at least 5 small meals into their daily schedule without too much hassle. I honestly believe that those who claim that they cannot fit this into their schedule simply havent really tried it and are just making up excuses. Well discuss some basic planning strategies on how to accomplish this toward the end of this section.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the 5-7 small meals a day approach is by far, THE most effective way to structure your diet. If you havent been using this approach, then prepare for a powerful, virtually instant acceleration in your results, both in the way that you look and feel.
Many people are resistant to this method because they are still stuck with the false notion that to lose body fat they need to eat drastically less. The idea of eating 5-7 meals daily simply sounds like too much food to consume, and many individuals will ignore this advice as a result.
All we have to do is take a look at our physiology to understand why this approach is so incredibly effective, and why anyone who is interested in losing body fat or gaining muscle should be following it to a T.
Remember all of those nasty negative effects we talked about a short while ago that resulted from large meals being consumed at infrequent intervals? Not only does the 5-7 small meals a day approach stop those undesired negative effects from occurring, but it will literally send your body in the opposite direction.
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First of all, your fat burning metabolism will be maximized. By providing your body with a constant stream of nutrients every 2-3 hours, it will never have any incentive to preserve its energy stores since an external source is constantly being provided. The result is a turbo charged metabolism that melts fat from your body around the clock.
Not only will your fat burning metabolism be sent through the roof, but your lean muscle tissue will be protected as well. Since youll be consuming high quality, complete protein sources every 2-3 hours, your body will not be forced to tap into its muscle tissue to obtain a source of protein. Keeping your muscle tissue intact is one of the most powerful ways to burn fat, as your metabolism will be increased even further.
In addition to these 2 positive benefits, theres still far more.
By consuming natural, high fiber carbohydrates every 2-3 hours, your blood sugar levels will remain stable. You wont experience the large up and down fluctuations that most individuals go through when their meals are spaced too far apart. Instead youll be providing your body with a consistent level of blood sugar to fuel you throughout the day. This will keep your insulin levels steady, and as a result, your hunger levels will remain under control, your energy will stay at its peak, and no undesired fat storage will occur.
On top of all of this, since each meal will contain smaller portions, your digestive system will be able to fully extract the nutrients from each meal in a more efficient manner.
Sound like a pretty solid list of positive benefits doesnt it?
It really is, and consuming 5-7 small meals spaced every 2-3 hours is the only real way to achieve them. You need to let go of all the previous false notions youve held about fat loss, because this method works directly with your biology rather than against it. The honest truth is that you will probably never reach your true physical potential unless you are consuming a bare minimum of 5 meals per day. Yes, its that important and that effective!
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Using this information we can now take our fat burning nutritional plan a step further by taking our overall calories, food sources and ratios and breaking them up into 5-7 small servings each day.
Whether you consume 5 meals, 6 meals or 7 meals will depend on your individual situation and schedule. It will depend on how many hours you sleep per night, how much free time you have during the day to squeeze in meals, and also how high your caloric intake is. The majority of individuals will probably end up consuming either 5 or 6 meals in a day. I would recommend that 7 meals a day be the upper limit, and thats still realistic in some situations.
To figure out the structure of your meals, simply take your overall caloric intake and divide it by the number of meals that youre going to consume. If we use an individual with a daily caloric intake of 2200 calories, this is what their daily diet would consist of using each meal breakdown:
For 5 Daily Meals:
Meal Meal Meal Meal Meal
# # # # #
1 2 3 4 5
= = = = =
440 440 440 440 440
calories calories calories calories calories
For 6 Daily Meals:
Meal Meal Meal Meal Meal Meal
# # # # # #
1 2 3 4 5 6
= = = = = =
367 367 367 367 367 367
calories calories calories calories calories calories
7 Daily Meals:
Meal # 1 = 314 calories Meal # 2 = 314 calories
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Meal Meal Meal Meal Meal
# # # # #
3 4 5 6 7
= = = = =
314 314 314 314 314
calories calories calories calories calories
As you can see, when you spread your caloric intake over 5, 6 or 7 meals a day, this equates to a reasonably small serving at each sitting.
If you were to divide 2200 daily calories by 7 meals, that equals out to just 314 calories per meal, which is a far cry from what most people consume in an average sitting.
Here are a few examples of what an individual meal using smaller portions might consist of
3oz chicken breast 6oz yam 1 cup broccoli (373 calories)
1 can tuna 2 slices whole wheat bread 6oz. green beans (330 calories)
4oz salmon 1 cup brown rice cup peas (413 calories)
As you can see, these meals are certainly manageable.
Now, there are two additional notes I would like to make about the above schedules.
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First of all, these are just estimates. Its not practical to insist that every single meal equate to an exact number of calories. Being off by 20, 40 or 75 calories here and there is not a big deal as long as your daily totals come out to roughly the proper amount.
Secondly, there are still a few adjustments that need to be made if we truly want to optimize our results. This has to do with the subject of meal timing, which we will cover soon. Using proper meal timing will change the caloric layout of each meal.
That being said, the schedules above are a good, basic starting point to go by.
Some of you might still be somewhat skeptical about these recommendations. You might understand the theoretical reasons behind consuming 5-7 small meals per day, but you still dont think that its a practical method for you to use all the time.
Spacing out your calories over 5-7 meals a day isnt impossible to carry out, but its definitely not easy either. Its not necessarily more work, but it takes more planning. However, if youre serious about achieving dramatic fat burning results, then putting more effort into planning your meals is one of the sacrifices you must be willing to make.
For many people, changing to smaller, more frequent meals is one of the most difficult changes to make in their lifestyle. The key is to transform these smaller meals into a habit. Once you get used to it, it becomes engrained into your lifestyle. Ive been following this approach for many years now and its no longer something that I have to think about; its just something I do.
Fortunately, there are some incredibly useful tools that can help you more easily achieve the required number of daily meals, and those are protein powders and meal replacement powders (MRPs). If there are any supplements out there that will directly benefit you and allow you to carry out your program in a more efficient manner, protein powders and MRPs would be it. Its certainly possible to consume 5-7 small whole food meals a day, but wouldnt it be a lot easier to consume 3 small meals daily along with 3 MRP shakes? Or how about 4 small meals and 2 shakes?
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Protein powders and MRPs provide a quick and easy way to squeeze in a small meal with virtually no preparation time or chewing time. You can simply mix up a shake, slam it back in 30 seconds and continue about your day. For most busy individuals, this is a far more realistic long term approach.
Replacing one, two, or even three of your daily meals with a shake is something I would highly recommend. You can read more about the specifics of protein powders and meal replacements in the supplement guide that came with this program.
Now, is it possible to still see results by consuming just 3 meals daily?
Certainly, but I can guarantee that those results will come at a much slower pace than they would if you simply took the time and effort to squeeze in two additional small meals. It really comes down to you and how badly you want this, as well as how quickly youd like to see the results.
Its all a matter of willpower, determination and proper planning.
If you have a pretty standard daily schedule, then you have to plan ahead to get all your meals in. Devise a basic timeline as to when youll be consuming each meal and stick to it. This way it will simply become a step-by-step process rather than something that you just wing each day. In addition, it will be very helpful if you prepare your foods in advance. If you have to prepare a complete meal from scratch 5, 6 or 7 times a day, it could very quickly become something that you dread and arent willing to do.
Heres a tip: cook your foods in large quantities and then simply freeze them or store in them in the refrigerator in containers for future use. When its time for the next meal all you have to do is toss it in the microwave and youll be all set.
Finally, always have a back up plan for your meals just in case.
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Life is often unpredictable and there will be times that you find yourself in a situation where youre unable to get that next meal. Keep a meal replacement shake or protein shake handy at all times. All you need is water and a shaker cup for this. If something comes up and you cant sit down for your regular meal, simply mix up the powder in your shaker cup and youll be fine.
If you do end up missing a meal for one reason or another, dont be too hard on yourself. Your nutritional plan is not going to be perfect 100% of the time. Sometimes situations come up that are completely unavoidable and you may end up missing a meal here or there as a result. When this happens, dont stress out about it or let it affect you in the future. Simply get back on track as quickly as you can and move on.
As long as your diet is on track at least 90%-95% of the time, thats about all you can expect, and 90% of perfection can still get you the results you want.
In the end it all comes down to you and just how hard youre willing to work at this. With the proper willingness and determination, I truly believe that anyone, regardless of their daily schedule, can fit it at least 5 small meals into their day and derive all of the amazing benefits that this approach provides. So, stop making excuses, and make it happen!
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Meal Combinations
So, heres where you should be by nowYouve figured out your daily caloric intake needed to stimulate fat loss, youve identified the proper food sources to get the nutrition you need, youve looked at the macronutrient ratios you require, and youve broken this up into 5-7 small meals that youll be consuming every 2-3 hours.
With these steps in place, were almost done. There are just two more fundamental factors we need to address: meal combinations and meal timing.
Ill deal with the subject of meal combinations first, and then well talk about meal timing later in the next section.
When we talk about meal combinations were simply referring to the specific combination of food sources that we include in each meal.
For example, does it make a difference if one of our meals is made up entirely of carbohydrates, while the other meal consists only of protein and fat?
Yes, it does actually make a big difference, and thats what well be addressing in this section.
Luckily, the concept of proper meal combining is quite simple and straightforward and it doesnt require a huge amount of explanation. The reason for this is that virtually every single meal should follow the same basic structure.
Lets get started
The number one rule for the proper structuring of your daily meals is this: every meal must contain a source of lean protein!
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Remember, you need protein for the growth and maintenance of muscle tissue. The body cant store up amino acids for later use, and therefore a constant external source of amino acids must be regularly provided.
In order to provide the body with a readily available source of amino acids at all times, high quality proteins must be consumed every 2 to 3 hours.
Consuming high quality protein regularly will help keep your muscle tissue intact, which is one of the keys to having a turbo-charged fat burning metabolism.
So, meal component # 1 has to be a high quality, complete source of protein.
The second component that you must include in each of your meals is a high fiber, unrefined carbohydrate source. A steady stream of carbohydrates throughout the day is necessary in order to keep your blood sugar levels and your insulin levels stable.
In addition to their positive energy producing effects, carbohydrates will also aid in the assimilation of protein. This is because carbohydrate consumption results in a release of insulin into the bloodstream which plays the role of driving nutrients into the cells. Whenever you consume a lean protein source along with carbohydrates, the two will have a synergistic effect within the body.
The carbohydrates will aid in the absorption of the protein, and in turn the protein will help to slow down the release of the insulin. As you already know, large surges in insulin are critical to avoid if you want to keep the fat off of your body.
Here once again is the base structure that every single meal should follow:
High quality/complete protein source + high fiber/unrefined carbohydrate source
Every meal must contain a high quality protein source and a high quality carbohydrate source.
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Neither one of these macronutrients should be consumed alone, because it is the combination of both together that produces the powerful fat burning and muscle building effects that we want.
Once you have this basic meal structure in place, there are still two more optional additions for you to include with this basic arrangement.
The first additional recommendation is for you to include a green fibrous carbohydrate source.
When we talk about green fibrous carbohydrate sources were essentially referring to green vegetable sources such as broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, celery, zucchini and cabbage.
Why these particular foods? The types of green fibrous carbohydrates Ive just listed are foods that are extremely low in caloric density, yet they are very dense in terms of other needed nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. You can consume a very high amount of these foods without having to worry that youre going overboard on calories.
Add these green fibrous vegetables to your meals to increase their bulk and to make you feel full after you eat them. Remember that these foods are very low in calories if you leave out the butter and fancy sauces.
Green fibrous vegetables are also directly beneficial because they further slow down the release of glucose into the blood stream. The more control we can exercise over our blood sugar and insulin levels, the better off well be.
You can add green fibrous vegetables to as many meals as youd like, but as a bare minimum Id recommend including them with at least 2-3 of your daily meals.
The final optional addition you can try including with some of your meals is a source of healthy, unsaturated fat. Weve already talked about the amazing benefits that essential fatty acids provide, so you should have a good idea as to why we need to include them in our nutrition plan.
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Remember that most people are filling themselves with the wrong kinds of fats, the wrong amounts of fats, and most of us arent getting the kinds of good fats that the body really needs.
If youve gone to the effort of adding good quality lean protein sources to your diet, particularly cold water fish, youll already be consuming beneficial EFAs in small amounts. However, you can still benefit by including a few supplemental sources of EFAs as well.
One way to do this is by including a tablespoon of a healthy oil such as flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, or canola oil with some of your meals. You can also obtain some of these beneficial fatty acids by eating a very small serving of a solid source such as nuts, seeds or almonds. Try to consume them in their fresh form. Roasted nuts that have become stale and rancid will not have the good EFAs that your body needs.
If youre consuming a protein shake at one of your meals you could mix in a spoonful of coldpressed flax seed oil, or you could sprinkle flax seeds over your morning cereal or a salad.
Its important to pay attention to how much fat you are directly adding to your diet since fats are very calorie dense and these calories can add up quickly. That being said, you can safely add a source of high quality unsaturated fat to at least 1-2 of your daily meals.
Now lets put all of this information together. Heres a summary of what our ideal meal combination looks like:
Lean protein (mandatory) + natural/unrefined carbohydrate (mandatory) + green fibrous vegetable (optional) + healthy fat (optional)
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Meal Timing
Are you ready? Its now time to put the finishing touches on your fat burning nutritional plan.
Weve covered nearly everything you need to know to get started on your fat burning dietary program. Theres just one additional piece of the puzzle that we need to discuss: meal timing.
Why is timing our meals important when we want to achieve fat loss? The reason is because your body constantly changes throughout the day depending on the time and on your activity level.
For example, your metabolic state first thing in the morning is quite different from your metabolic state just before you go to bed. And your bodys state just before a workout is quite different from your state immediately following a workout.
If we truly want to optimize our fat burning diet and get the most bang for our buck possible, then we should be tailoring our diet to match the state that our body is in at any given time.
For the purposes of burning body fat, building and maintaining muscle, and staying as healthy and energetic as possible, there are 4 specific time periods that you should be paying attention to:
1) The period first thing in the morning when you wake up 2) An hour prior to your workouts 3) The few hours immediately following your workouts 4) Two or three hours prior to going to sleep at night
This means that on the days we perform workouts (weight training or cardio), we have 4 specific periods we need to take advantage of, and on non-workout days there will be 2 periods. Ill show you how.
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We dont need to overcomplicate things or make any drastic changes, but some slight adjustments based on these periods will accelerate our results further and will make some noticeable increases to our bottom line results.
In order to keep things as simple as possible, for each period Ill be outlining the following information:
1) The state that your body will be in. 2) The overall nutritional goals for that period. 3) The specific dietary adjustments that you should follow in order to reach those goals.
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Morning Nutrition
If youre one of those people who is fixed on the habit of skipping breakfast and beginning your day without consuming a meal first (either because youre too rushed or because you think this approach will keep the fat off), youll need to immediately put an end to that approach if you ever want to see impressive results from your fat loss program.
Theres a reason why youve always been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Consuming a high quality meal upon awakening really is the key to kick-starting your metabolism and maintaining your energy levels for the day ahead.
Lets take a quick look at what is happening in your body upon awakening after a full night of rest:
- During the night, your fat burning metabolism has been drastically slowed down. - Your protein levels are depleted and muscle catabolism is occurring rapidly. - Your blood sugar and glycogen levels are low. - Your body is dehydrated.
In terms of burning body fat and building/maintaining muscle mass, these are 4 highly detrimental states for the body to be in. Depending on how long youve slept, youve just gone 8 to 12 hours without having any nutrition whatsoever. By morning, your bodys hardwired famine response will be operating in full force.
Your goal in the morning is to correct this nutritional deficit and reverse these harmful processes as quickly as possible.
By consuming the proper kind of breakfast, you can shift your body back to a state where it can accomplish these goals:
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- Re-elevate the fat burning metabolism - Provide high quality protein to reverse muscle catabolism - Restore blood sugar and glycogen levels - Hydrate the body
In addition, youll want to accomplish all of this as quickly as you possibly can. The longer you leave your body in this fat storing, muscle wasting state that we all wake up in, the harder it will be to get your body back into the proper fat burning mode.
I would recommend consuming your breakfast meal as soon as you possibly can upon awakening. Ideally this should be done within half an hour of waking up, but the sooner the better.
Your breakfast meal can follow the same basic structure as your other daily meals with a couple of exceptions which Im going to spell out for you right now.
Since your body is in such a depleted nutritional state after having fasted for at least 8 hours or more, you may want to consider increasing the caloric intake of this meal a bit. You dont have to make any drastic increases, but an additional 100-200 calories will provide you with the additional fuel that your body so badly needs at this time.
Although most of the time you should be staying away from the faster absorbing, simple carbohydrate sources, you can make an exception at breakfast. Consuming faster absorbing carbohydrates at this time is not a problem since your blood sugar and glycogen levels will be very low. Higher glycemic sources such as fruits, yogurt or certain cereals will not be detrimental to consume at this time.
In addition to having your breakfast as soon as possible after waking up, be sure you start your day by drinking at least 10 to 16 ounces of pure, clean water.
Not coffee. Not juice. Water.
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Why is drinking water in the morning so important?
As Ill be explaining later on, water performs many important functions in the body. You need water for fat loss, muscle building, and overall health. When you first wake up in the morning, your body cells have gone for many hours without any water at all. You need to rehydrate quickly.
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Pre-Workout Nutrition
So far in this book weve been focused on the topic of proper nutrition for effective fat loss.
However, as youre probably already aware, weight training and cardiovascular exercise will also be a necessary part of your fat burning program.
For the best results, youll be working out about 3-4 days per week. The combination of weight training and cardio is necessary to stimulate an increase in lean body mass while further speeding up your resting fat burning metabolism.
Although we havent discussed the approach and structure of your actual training program, for the sake of organization we will include proper pre-workout and post-workout nutrition as part of this section.
Well start by discussing pre-workout nutrition. By this, we mean the foods that you consume before your workout.
One of the biggest mistakes that fat burning trainees make is exercising on an empty stomach. The logic seems to be simple: if there is no readily available source of nutrition for the body to rely on as fuel for the workout, then it will look to its stored forms of energy, primarily body fat, instead.
While it is possible that this approach could increase the amount of body fat that is used as energy during the workout as opposed to one in which a meal is consumed prior, this approach will also result in significant muscle wasting. Remember that one of your primary goals when following a properly structured fat burning program is to maintain as much lean muscle mass as you possibly can due to its positive effects on your resting metabolic rate and overall appearance. Intense workouts that are performed on an empty stomach are literally muscle building suicide and will make it very difficult to build/maintain your lean tissue.
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One of the key factors we need to realize when it comes to weight training and cardio sessions is that it is their effect on our resting metabolic rate that plays the biggest part in achieving our desired result. What we happen to burn as fuel during the actual workout session plays a smaller role.
The goal of a weight training or cardio session is not to enter the gym and force our bodies to use fat as fuel for that specific activity. Rather, our goal is to stimulate an increase in our resting metabolism.
The positive fat burning effect that we get from our training sessions is based on what we burn after the workout while we are at rest, and not what we burn while doing the workout.
The specific energy systems of the body are extremely complex and it would be very difficult for us to dictate exactly what type of bodily fuel will be used based on our nutritional intake. Because of this, theres no sense in trying to manipulate our diets in order to force the body to use more fat as an energy source during our training sessions.
High intensity weight training and interval-based cardio are anaerobic activities anyway, which means that they will be primarily fuelled by glucose/glycogen. The body will only turn to fat as its primary source of energy during low intensity aerobic activities where a steady state can be reached (where oxygen supply meets oxygen demand). However, as you will learn later on in the training section, low intensity aerobics are far from optimal.
Well talk more about this subject later on. For now lets simply establish that training on an empty stomach is certainly not an effective approach for achieving effective fat loss. In order to maintain as much lean body mass as possible while keeping our energy levels peaked, we should always consume a proper meal before working out.
Here are the two goals of a proper pre-workout meal:
- We want to be sure we preserve as much lean muscle mass as possible.
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- We want to keep our energy levels raised.
We can accomplish both of these goals by consuming a high quality, complete protein source along with natural/high fiber carbohydrates prior to entering the gym. This pre-workout meal can essentially be structured identically to the rest of your daily meals.
The only additional consideration you may want to make for this meal is to include whey as your pre-workout protein source. I rarely recommend any specific fat burning supplements (as youll read about in the supplement information guide that comes with this package), but whey protein is one of the products I do stand by.
Many studies have shown that consuming whey protein prior to intense training helps to conserve lean muscle tissue better than alternative protein sources. This is most likely due to wheys rapid absorption rate in the body (which would provide the body with a readily available source of amino acids during the workout) as well as its high BCAA content.
The term BCAA stands for branched chain amino acids. BCAA is made up of the amino acids valine, leucine and isoleucine. When the body seeks a source of amino acids during an intense training session, it will break down muscle tissue in order to obtain BCAAs. If you consume BCAAs prior to training, youll achieve an anti-catabolic effect that keeps your muscle tissue from being broken down. Thats why I recommend that you supplement with whey protein and that you include it as your pre-workout protein source.
What about our intake of carbs before a workout? Heres some important information
While were training, we dont want to have any crashes in energy because of large rising or falling of our insulin levels. To prevent big changes in our levels of blood glucose and insulin while were working out, its important to choose carbohydrates that are released slowly into the bloodstream. Our goal is to produce a steady, consistent stream of energy through the workout, so sticking to slower releasing carbohydrate choices will be best. Be sure to choose from the higher fiber, natural sources of carbs for your pre-work out meal.
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To get the best effect, I would recommend consuming this pre-workout meal about 1-2 hours prior to your training session.
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Post-Workout Nutrition
So, your workout is over. Now what should you do?
When we talk about the post-workout period were referring to a time frame of about 3 hours that directly follows an intense weight training or cardio session in the gym.
Intense training is very stressful to the body as a whole. The foods that you consume during the post workout period will have a significant impact on your recovery ability and resulting lean muscle gains.
Lets take a look at the state that your body will be in directly following a hard session in the gym
1) Muscle breakdown is occurring rapidly After about 45 minutes of intense exercise the body releases a powerful catabolic hormone known as cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that stimulates the breakdown of muscle tissue for use as energy. After your weight training/cardio session, your muscles will be in a state of wasting as cortisol circulates through your bloodstream.
2) Blood sugar and glycogen levels have been depleted Carbohydrates are a major source of fuel for the body, especially during intense anaerobic activities such as weight training and interval-based cardio. By the end of your workout, your body will have released a large amount of glycogen into the bloodstream to be broken down into glucose for use as fuel.
3) High levels of free radicals Free radicals are natural metabolic waste products that are produced in the body as a result of natural processes and intense exercise. Free radicals are electrically charged molecules that attack your cells, mutate cell membranes and can cause destruction within your body. High levels of free radicals have been linked to many diseases such as cancer and diabetes. After a highly intense workout, the level of free radical levels in your
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body will be much higher than normal.
4) The body is in a state of maximum nutrient uptake Because of the enormous amount of stress you have placed on your body and the intense protein and carbohydrate depletion going on within, your body will do anything it can to restore its normal levels. During this post workout period, your muscles basically become sponges that will soak up much larger than normal amounts of these nutrients.
Keeping these 4 factors in mind, the goal of the post-workout period is as follows:
- Reverse muscle catabolism and prevent further muscle wasting. - Suppress the secretion of cortisol. - Restore blood sugar and glycogen to their normal levels. - Neutralize free radicals. - Feed the muscles with proper nutrients to facilitate recovery and growth.
This can all be accomplished by making the right dietary changes in the 3-hour period following the workout.
So far weve been stressing the importance of keeping blood sugar levels stable by focusing on high fiber, slow-release carbohydrates that are broken down slowly into the bloodstream. During the post workout period this approach to carbohydrate intake no longer applies. In fact, this is the one time in the day when it is actually directly beneficial to take the opposite approach. Now is the time when you should consume the simpler, faster-absorbing carbohydrate sources that can be rapidly broken down and absorbed by the body.
We can get away with this during the post workout period because our blood sugar and glycogen levels are already depleted. If you consume higher-glycemic carbohydrates immediately after a workout, they will be used to re-stock your blood sugar levels rather than being stored as body fat. The accompanying surge in insulin that results will be beneficial because it will drive the
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protein that we consume straight into our muscle cells where it can be used to kick-start the recovery process.
The first component of proper post-workout nutrition is to consume a liquid shake within half an hour of completing your workout. The liquid form is ideal because our bodies are in a state of maximal nutrient uptake and a liquid meal will be absorbed more quickly and efficiently than solid foods.
This liquid shake should be made up of two main components:
1) Whey protein 2) A simple, fast absorbing sugar. (Dextrose or maltodextrin are ideal.)
Countless studies have confirmed the benefits of consuming a whey protein/simple sugar mixture immediately following intense exercise.
The whey protein will be used to reverse muscle breakdown and facilitate muscular recovery. The simple sugars will restock blood sugar/glycogen levels as well as produce a surge in insulin that will increase the absorption of the protein. Together, these two items will have a synergistic effect within the body.
The amount of each that you consume will depend on your individual bodyweight. Obviously a 225 pound individual will require greater amounts than a 120 pound individual will.
Here is a basic chart you can follow to determine how much whey protein/simple sugar you should consume at your post workout meal. The left hand column refers to your body weight
100-150 pounds = 25 grams whey protein/25 grams simple sugar 151-200 pounds = 35 grams whey protein/35 grams simple sugar 201-250 pounds = 45 grams whey protein/45 grams simple sugar 251-300 pounds = 55 grams whey protein/55 grams simple sugar
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301-350+ pounds = 65 grams whey protein/65 grams simple sugar
These two items should be mixed in water or a fruit juice of some kind. If you decide to use fruit juice, be sure to factor in the sugar in the fruit juice as part of the overall sugar total. Consuming these items mixed with a liquid allows them to be quickly absorbed. Ideally they should be consumed within half an hour of completing your workout.
If you prefer the taste, you may also consider mixing this up as two separate shakes. For example, if youre using a chocolate flavored protein powder and want to use fruit juice to consume the simple sugars, obviously they wouldnt taste so great mixed together. For taste preference it might be better to combine the whey/water mix in one shake, and then your sugars/juice into a separate shake.
This is the first component of proper post-workout nutrition.
I realize that this recommendation of consuming simple sugars goes against all the previous advice Ive been giving you. However, you must understand that your body is in a very different and highly specific state immediately following a workout and those sugars will be directly beneficial to your bottom line fat loss and muscle gains.
If you are not supplementing with whey protein then obviously this post workout shake approach will not apply to you. For those who are not using whey protein, I would recommend consuming a regular solid-food protein source alongside a serving of simple sugars as outlined above. Any high quality and complete protein source will work fine here.
Also, if you are supplementing with a multivitamin, I would recommend taking your daily dose alongside your post workout shake. Multivitamins are high in antioxidants and will work to neutralize the free radicals that are produced as a result of your workout.
We now have the first and most important part of the post-workout puzzle in place.
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Youve consumed your liquid protein/carb shake, and those nutrients will be immediately going to work to restore your body back to its previous state and to kick-start the recovery process into motion. However, were not done yet.
As you know, a large intake of simple sugars will result in an insulin spike as the body works to drive nutrients into the cells and tries to restore blood sugar levels back to a stable state.
This large insulin spike is highly beneficial in the post-workout period as it will drive the protein/simple sugars into your muscle cells at an increased rate. However, a large insulin surge is always followed by an insulin crash, where insulin levels dip down below the norm. An insulin crash will be accompanied by a drop in blood sugar levels and the possibility of muscle breakdown.
In order to combat this insulin crash and to restore blood sugar levels back to a steady state, as well as to provide your body with the nutrients it needs to begin the recovery process, your postworkout shake should be followed by another small solid food meal.
This solid food meal should come anywhere from 30-60 minutes following your post-workout shake. It should consist of a lean, complete source of protein, along with a small serving of faster absorbing carbohydrates.
Remember that just after a workout your muscles are still in a state of increased nutrient uptake. At this time the higher glycemic carbohydrates are the best choice for your post workout meal.
You should also make sure to keep the fat content as low as possible, since fat will slow down the absorption rate of the entire meal. For this post-workout meal you should also avoid foods that act as timed release agents, such as green fibrous vegetables.
Here are a few examples of what your post-workout meal might look like:
1) 1 can of tuna + 100g rice cakes
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2) 4oz. chicken breast + 1 large banana 3) 6oz. Steak + 1 white potato
Once youve finished this post-workout meal you can resume your regular nutritional approach of eating every 2-3 hours thereafter.
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Pre-Bedtime Nutrition
The final time period well be looking at is the evening meal you consume before heading off to bed for the night.
If you were a person who needed to bulk up and focus on building overall muscle mass, then I typically would be recommending that you consume a regular meal very close to bedtime in order to ward off the muscle wasting effects that result from a full night of sleep.
However, if you are someone who is looking to burn off body fat as your primary goal, this usually is not the best approach. While consuming a meal right before bed will help you to maintain more lean body mass, it can also result in a greater fat storing effect.
During the evening hours, your biological clock will begin ramping down and your fat burning metabolism will naturally become slower. This increases the chances of calories being stored as body fat. In addition, since youll be inactive and sedentary at night, youll also be burning fewer calories as well.
To add to this, your glycogen stores will be more likely to have filled up due to a full day of eating. This will increase the likelihood that carbohydrates will be converted into fat.
For these reasons, if you want to lose body fat, I recommend that your final meal of the day be consumed about 2-3 hours before bed. You can also decrease the size of this meal and cut back on the calories a bit.
Earlier we mentioned that your breakfast meal should contain slightly more calories than your other daily meals. These additional calories at your breakfast meal can be deducted from the calories at your final evening meal. This means that your evening meal should be about 100-200 calories smaller than your other daily meals.
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At your evening meal you should continue to use the same basic meal structure. Youll want to consume a high quality, complete protein source alongside high fiber/slow-release carbohydrates. Its important that you focus on eating very slow absorbing forms of carbohydrates at this meal in order to minimize the chances of those carbs ending up as body fat.
You can also consider adding a small serving of healthy fats to this meal in order to further slow down the absorption rate. A tablespoon of healthy oils such as flaxseed or extra virgin olive oil would be ideal here. Make sure to keep the serving size of any fats at this meal on the small side. Fats are very calorie dense and youll need to keep the overall caloric amount for the meal on the lower end.
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Meal Timing Overview
Here is a quick recap of the 4 time periods that we covered in this section and the specific nutritional considerations that should be made for each
Morning
Considerations: At this time, muscle breakdown is occurring rapidly, the fat burning metabolism is extremely slowed down, blood sugar and glycogen levels are low and the body is dehydrated. The goal of the morning meal is to prevent muscle breakdown, kick-start the fat burning metabolism, restore blood sugar/glycogen, re-hydrate the body and provide fuel for the day ahead.
Contents of your morning meal: Increase the caloric value of the meal by roughly 100-200 calories in comparison to your other daily meals. A high quality, complete protein source is a must alongside 1-2 sources of carbohydrates. Faster absorbing carbohydrates are acceptable at this meal since blood sugar and glycogen levels are depleted. In addition to the solid foods, you should also consume 10-16 ounces of pure, clean water either before, during or shortly after the meal.
Time: This meal should be consumed as quickly as possible upon awakening, ideally within half an hour.
Pre-Workout
Considerations: You are about to perform a high intensity workout and the goal is to provide fuel for the activity ahead as well as to prevent muscle breakdown while you train. I strongly advise you never to train on an empty stomach!
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Contents of your pre-workout meal: Consume a high quality, complete protein source (whey protein is ideal) alongside natural/high fiber carbohydrates.
Time: This meal should be consumed roughly 1-2 hours prior to training.
Post-Workout
Considerations: You have just completed a high intensity weight training and/or cardio session. Muscle breakdown is occurring rapidly, cortisol levels are raised, blood sugar/glycogen levels are depleted, free radical circulation has increased and the body is in a state of maximum nutrient uptake. The goal is to reverse all of these harmful processes and to provide the body with the raw materials it needs to begin recovering.
Contents: Proper post-workout nutrition is made up of two meals. The first meal is a liquid shake containing whey protein and simple carbohydrates such as dextrose or maltodextrin. You can use the table I provided in the previous section to determine the correct amounts based on your bodyweight. The second small post-workout meal will consist of solid food. This meal will include high quality, complete protein alongside a serving of faster absorbing carbohydrates.
Time: The liquid shake should be consumed within half an hour of completing your workout, while the solid food meal should be consumed 30-60 minutes following the shake.
Pre-Bedtime
Considerations: At this time of day, your fat burning metabolism has slowed down, the body is in an inactive state and glycogen levels are fuller than normal.
Contents: The pre-bedtime meal should contain roughly 100-200 fewer calories than your other
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daily meals. It should be made up of high quality, complete protein alongside the slowest absorbing forms of carbohydrates possible. A small serving of healthy fats can also be included to slow down the absorption of the meal even further.
Time: To help achieve your fat loss goals, aim to consume your pre-bedtime meal 2-3 hours prior to sleep.
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Liquid Intake
We have now covered all of the principles that youll need to know in order to structure an optimal fat burning diet in terms of the actual solid foods that youll consume on a day to day basis.
Weve talked about caloric intake, macronutrients, meal frequency, meal combinations, macronutrient ratios and meal timing. You should now be able to take all of that information and translate it into a daily step-by-step plan.
Theres still one more major nutritional topic that we need to cover, and that is the subject of your daily liquid intake.
In this section well be covering the subject of acceptable and unacceptable beverage choices in relation to your fat burning program.
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Water
Do you want to know an easy and simple way to instantly accelerate your bodys fat burning and muscle-building capabilities virtually overnight?
Heres the secret:
Drink more water!
Sure, weve all been told over and over again that we should be drinking plenty of water each day. But do you know how much is enough? Do you actually realize just how crucial water intake is to your bottom line fat loss, muscle gains and overall appearance?
The amount of water you drink daily is hugely important when you are trying to burn fat and reshape your body. If you arent paying close attention to the amount of water that you drink each day, you are definitely short-changing your progress.
Water is the most abundant element in your body. Roughly 80% of your body is made up of water. Your brain is 85% water and your lean muscle tissue is 70% water.
Water is ranked 2nd only to oxygen as being essential to life.
Your body can survive for weeks without food, but without water you'd be dead in just several days.
Research has shown that being even slightly dehydrated can decrease strength and physical performance significantly. In fact, a mere 3-4% drop in your body's water levels will lead to a 1020% decrease in muscle contractions. This will have dire consequences for those high intensity weight training and cardio sessions where you need to put forth maximum effort. To get the best
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results from your workout, be sure that your body is fully hydrated before you even enter the gym.
Not only will being properly hydrated increase your strength, but it will also help prevent injuries in the gym. Highly intensive training over a long period of time can put unwanted stress on your joints and connective tissues. Being hydrated with water will help to fight against this stress by lubricating your joints and forming a protective "cushion" around them.
Along with protecting your joints, water is also vital for the process of digesting your food. We've already talked about how important protein consumption is for burning body fat. If you havent consumed proper amounts of water you will not receive the full benefit of the foods you eat.
In addition, water helps to carry nutrients around the body so that they can be used where they are needed.
Water also plays an important role as a temperature regulator by keeping the skin moist through perspiration. It helps the body remove unwanted waste products from the cells through expired air, sweat, feces, urine, blood and the lymphatic system.
In addition to its many positive effects on performance in the gym, injury prevention and digestion, water also has a direct effect on your bodys ability to burn fat. Heres why
One of the primary jobs of the liver is to metabolize fat. However, another one of the livers duties is to help perform the work of the kidneys when they arent functioning at full capacity. The main function of the kidneys is to flush out waste products from the body through the urine. When your water intake is less than optimal, the waste products will accumulate in the body and will force both the kidneys and the liver to work extra hard to clear out the waste.
When you deprive your body of water, you actually force your liver to divert its focus from doing its regular jobs to performing the work that the kidneys were supposed to do. This means
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that the liver will not be able to metabolize fat as efficiently as it would if the kidneys had been originally provided with all of the water they needed in the first place.
So in reality, water intake has a direct positive effect on your bodys ability to metabolize fat efficiently.
But it doesnt end there. Not only does water directly increase your fat burning metabolism, but being properly hydrated will improve your overall appearance as well.
How so?
Proper water intake will actually cause your body to retain less fluid. Now I know this may sound counter-intuitive. But heres what happens if you dont drink enough water.
When your water intake is low, your body responds by holding on to a greater amount of it as a natural survival response. That extra water that your body is holding on to will end up in the places you want it least: your face, arms, stomach, butt, thighs; you name it.
If your body has been retaining extra water because you havent been drinking enough, you can actually force your body to slim down slightly in just a matter of days by increasing your water intake. Since your body will now be provided with a constant external source, it will no longer have any incentive to store it.
Not only will increasing your water intake lower your bodys retention of fluid, but drinking the right amount of water will flush out impurities in your skin and improve your complexion.
So how much water is enough?
Many people think that they already drink enough water each day, but if they actually sat down and paid attention theyd quickly realize that they are not.
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The amount that you should consume each day depends on your body weight. Obviously an individual weighing 220 pounds will require more water than an individual weighing 120 pounds.
Heres a good rough guideline to follow: simply multiply your overall bodyweight by 0.6. This will show you how many fluid ounces of water you should be consuming daily.
Body weight in pounds X 0.6 = fluid ounces of water per day
For example, an individual weighing in at 175 pounds would aim to consume about 105 fluid ounces of water daily. There are obviously other factors that could be added to this equation, but for the sake of simplicity the 0.6 figure will be fine.
For those of you who arent used to consuming anywhere near this amount of water, it may sound a bit crazy. Believe me; once you get started its really not a big deal.
Keep a water bottle with you at all times and sip from it periodically. Keep water in the places where you spend most of your time: in your car, at work, on your nightstand.
Another good method to ensure that you drink enough water is to pre-fill a few 16 ounce bottles at the beginning of the day. This way you can have a visual representation of where your water consumption is at any point in the day.
For the first few days you'll probably find yourself running to the bathroom quite frequently. Dont worry, your body will soon adapt to the increased water volume and this should no longer be a problem. The frequent bathroom trips at the beginning are largely due to the body getting rid of the excess water it has been holding on to for so long.
Although there are many deciding factors, a good general way to gauge your body's level of hydration is by the color and smell of your urine. Your urine should always be on the clearer side and should be fairly odorless if your body is receiving all of the water it needs.
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You should never gauge your water intake based on how thirsty you feel. By the time you feel thirsty, your body is already dehydrated. If youre consuming the proper amount of water that your body needs to function optimally, you should virtually NEVER feel thirsty throughout a regular day. (Aside from first thing in the morning or in the middle of a workout.)
Now, youre probably wondering: what about other sources of liquid, such as coffee, tea, diet drinks and juices?
First of all, lets clearly establish that the vast majority of your liquid intake should be coming from pure, clean water. Plain water absolutely cannot be beat in terms of its beneficial effects in the body, and other beverages should be consumed in moderation. You should never make any flavored beverage your primary source of liquid.
Coffee & Tea
These are fine to consume in moderation. I enjoy a nice cup of coffee as much as the next guy and I find that it helps give me a nice boost of energy through the day. Drinking 1-3 cups of coffee a day is fine as long as you pay attention to what is going into your cup.
Adding table sugar or any fancy creams to your tea or coffee is not a wise decision as those calories will very easily add up over the day. Keep your coffee/tea intake as plain as possible to avoid any unwanted calories.
You also need to keep in mind that since coffee/teas contain caffeine, these drinks act as diuretics that shut off a hormone that regulates water content in the body.
However, contrary to popular belief, the diuretic effect of drinking caffeinated tea or coffee does not actually result in a net loss of water in your body. However, it does mean that youll have to subtract some of the liquid in these drinks from your total daily water intake. In general, you should only add half of the liquid content of these drinks to your daily water intake numbers. For
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example, if you consume an 8oz cup of coffee, you should only count 4 ounces of that coffee as part of your daily water intake.
Diet Drinks
Zero calorie (or extremely low calorie) diet drinks such as diet sodas, Fresca, Crystal Lite or other such items are also fine as long as you consume them in moderation.
Since simple sugars are so detrimental to your fat loss program, diet drinks are a great way to satisfy that craving for something sweet. Dont go overboard, but one or two of these drinks a day is fine. You can count the liquid in these drinks as part of your daily allotment of water.
Juices
You should be careful to consume fruit juices in moderation.
Most fruit juices are high in simple sugars and will end up adding unwanted calories to your diet without you even realizing it. Its all too easy to drink a couple of glasses of fruit juice a day and not realize that youve added an extra 60 grams or so of simple sugar to your daily total. This can easily add 200-300 calories to your daily intake.
It is okay to consume small amounts of fruit juice now and then. Stick to juices that come from relatively low-glycemic and natural, unsweetened sources. Be sure to include those extra calories from the juice as part of your daily total.
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Milk
Skim milk is fine to include in moderation as part of your diet. Skim milk is a high quality source of protein and can be used to mix up your protein shakes or meal replacement powders if you decide to use them. As long as you stick to non-fat milk then 1-2 glasses a day is fine.
Alcohol
Alcohol is one of the world's oldest and most widely used drugs. Although it is made from the seemingly harmless substances of grain, juice and honey, its consumption can pose numerous threats that will affect you both in and out of the gym.
While alcohol does have a few positive benefits when consumed in moderation, the negatives are far more prominent and numerous. So, does alcohol have any significant negative effects on burning body fat and building muscle?
The answer to this extremely common question is YES!
Excessive consumption of alcohol will have a fairly significant negative effect on your workout performance and on your resulting fat loss and muscle gains. I'm not here to tell you that you
can't drink if you want to improve your body, but you should definitely be aware of how this drug
(yes, alcohol is a drug) will affect your progress.
So, how will alcohol prevent you from seeing the most significant changes in your body in terms of burning fat and building muscle?
Well
1) Alcohol negatively affects protein synthesis.
Protein synthesis is the process by which amino acids are joined together to form complete proteins.
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Excessive consumption of alcohol has been shown to slow down protein synthesis by as much as 20%! That's a huge decrease, and since muscles are made of protein you can see how this would be a problem. The slower the rate of protein synthesis, the slower your body will synthesize new muscle tissue.
2) Alcohol lowers testosterone and increases estrogen in the body.
One of the limiting factors that determines how much muscle you can gain and how much fat you can burn is the amount of testosterone in your body. Without the use of steroids, controlling testosterone levels can be very difficult. One way to maximize testosterone production is to limit alcohol consumption as much as possible.
In one study, it was found that testosterone levels decreased by an average of 25% when the individual was intoxicated. It was found that there is a direct relationship between blood alcohol levels and testosterone production.
Alcohol also lowers another very important muscle-building hormone, IGF-1.
3) Alcohol dehydrates you.
It is fairly well known that alcohol has a significant negative impact on the kidneys, but how does this affect us?
Well, since the kidneys must filter large amounts of water from the body in order to break down the alcohol, your body becomes dehydrated as it attempts to process the alcohol intake. You already know how absolutely vital water and proper hydration are, so I'm sure you can see why you'd want to avoid dehydration like the plague.
4) Alcohol disrupts your sleep.
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Although alcohol's sedative effects can make falling asleep much easier, the actual quality of your sleep will be greatly reduced.
The time you spend sleeping is very important to your recovery and hormonal balance. Its crucial that you treat this period of time with respect. I'll talk a lot more in detail about the importance of a solid night's rest later on.
5) Alcohol depletes your body of vitamins and minerals.
Alcohol interferes with the absorption of many important vitamins and minerals which are critical to the building of muscle and burning of fat.
Alcohol causes a drain on Vitamin A, C, the B vitamins, and on the minerals calcium, zinc and phosphorus in the body. Not only does this depletion of important nutrients interfere with your ability to utilize proteins and carbohydrates, but it will literally have a negative effect on every single process going on in your entire body.
6) Alcohol increases fat storage.
Heres some advice for you: if you want to have a body that stores fat easily and has trouble gaining and maintaining lean mass, drink away!
But if you want to have a body that sheds excess fat and that maintains lean muscle mass, then steer clear of drinking alcohol except on rare occasions, and even then, consume it in moderation.
Alcohol contains 7 empty, worthless calories per gram. That's almost twice the amount of calories youd get from protein and carbohydrates, but alcohol has none of the nutritional value.
In addition, alcohol has a negative effect on the Kreb's Cycle, which plays a large role in fat burning. Alcohol also impairs the production of certain enzymes produced by the pancreas that metabolize fat.
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These are the main negative effects alcohol will have on your body when it comes to your fat burning program.
So how much alcohol is too much?
Well, if you want to see the absolute greatest positive changes in your body possible, you should ideally avoid getting drunk altogether.
Notice that I said getting drunk.
There is a big difference between getting completely hammered and just having a couple of drinks every now and then. A couple of drinks (where a couple means 2; not 3, 5 or 12) on the weekend shouldn't pose too much of a problem. However, getting highly intoxicated is a completely different story.
Its important to have fun in life, but too much fun can lead to problems. If youre serious about maximizing your fat loss and muscle gains, you definitely need to monitor your intake of alcohol. You need to make sure that you are consuming it in moderation and not be kidding yourself.
A couple drinks here and there shouldnt be a problem. But if you find yourself getting drunk more than once a month you can almost certainly guarantee that your fat burning progress will be compromised.
If you do decide to go out and party, make sure you drink plenty of water and be sure to properly nourish yourself with vitamins/minerals and a protein rich meal.
I dont recommend revolving your entire life around your fitness program, so dont be afraid to go out and have a good time once in a while. Just make sure to keep your drinking nights infrequent; no more than once a month.
As long as you monitor what youre doing, you can achieve an impressive physique and have a social life at the same time.
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Making a significant change to your physical appearance is all about making sacrifices. If you want to be the best you can possibly be then there are certain things you'll have to live without.
You know what you're up against, so you make the choice. If you do decide to go out and get hammered, then follow these steps to lessen the impact...
1) Have a protein rich meal before you go to bed. This will help to ward off some of the alcohols muscle wasting effects.
2) Take a multivitamin/multi-mineral supplement. Since alcohol robs your body of vitamins and minerals, taking a high-potency vitamin before bed will help to replenish your body's stores and also help to prevent a hangover
3) Take 5-10 grams of glutamine. This highly anti-catabolic supplement will further help to spare muscle tissue through the night.
4) Drink 16-20oz of water before bed. This will help to re-hydrate your muscles as well as the rest of your body and will also help to prevent a hangover.
5) Eat a big breakfast rich in protein. This will get you back on track and feed your body with the important nutrients it has been depleted of.
While this certainly wont eliminate the negative effects of the alcohol, it will definitely help to minimize them.
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Fat Burning Nutrition Overview

This brings us to the end of our discussion about proper nutrition and its effects on your fat burning results. What youve learned up to this point is easily the most important piece of the entire fat burning puzzle.
Weight training and cardio exercise in the gym are certainly necessary to accelerate your results further, but proper nutrition forms the cornerstone of your entire approach. Eating properly will contribute the greatest overall effects to your bottom line results.
Lets quickly go over all the nutritional information weve covered so far. Here is a general synopsis of the main factors that youll need to understand and implement into your nutritional approach
1) There is no such thing as a nutritional quick-fix for effective fat loss. Conventional diets that focus on severely restricting calories are both ineffective and counterproductive in the long term. Severe calorie restricted diets will result in large losses of lean body mass and will program the body to store more fat over time.
This happens because of survival mechanisms that your body has inherited through the process of evolution. The key to losing body fat through diet is to work with our biology rather than against it. We dont want to trigger our built-in famine response by cutting calories too drastically.
2) Working with our biology means that we should never starve ourselves or follow any nutritional approach that focuses on large cutbacks in caloric intake. The key is to keep our body out of survival mode and instead to place it in such a state that body fat is burned consistently throughout the day, and lean muscle tissue losses are minimized.
3) We need to create a system of eating that is not just a temporary fix, but rather a permanent
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lifestyle change. We seek long-term results that can be maintained indefinitely.
4) The first step toward structuring a proper nutritional approach is to determine our daily caloric intake. An effective caloric intake is one which places the body into a deficit large enough that it will be stimulated to burn fat for use as energy, but small enough that the bodys starvation response is not triggered. In order to achieve this, our caloric intake should be set at 15-20% below our maintenance level.
5) Consuming the proper number of calories daily will ensure that we lose weight, but this doesnt tell us the whole story. Our goal is not merely to lose overall body weight, but rather to lose body fat while maintaining muscle mass.
The raw number of calories that we consume daily will determine whether we lose weight or gain weight, but it is the structure of our diet that determines what type of weight is gained or lost. The structure of our diet takes into account our food choices, macronutrient ratios, meal frequency, meal combinations, meal timing and our fluid intake.
6) Our dietary food intake is based on choosing the correct proportions of 3 major macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fats.
7) Ideal protein sources are those that are complete, contain all 8 essential amino acids, and are low in fat. Examples of good protein sources include lean poultry, fish/seafood, egg whites, nonfat dairy products and lean red meat.
8) Ideal carbohydrate choices are those that do not cause quick, abrupt rises and drops in blood sugar levels. Quick rising and falling of blood sugar levels will result in large surges of insulin that will cause us to store body fat easily. We should aim instead to consume carbohydrates that raise blood sugar slowly.
The two main tools that we can use to determine this are the glycemic index (GI), and the issue of refined carbs versus unrefined carbs. In general, we should focus on consuming carbohydrates
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that are lower on the glycemic index, high in fiber and unrefined.
9) Ideal fat choices are those that are low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat. Unsaturated fat sources contain essential fatty acids such as omega 3s and omega 6s that our body cannot produce on its own. These fats can be directly beneficial for burning fat and building muscle in our bodies. Examples of healthy fats are nuts, seeds, fish, and healthy oils such as flaxseed oil and olive oil.
10) In order to produce the most significant improvements in body composition, we should focus on consuming these food sources in a specific ratio. As a starting point, you should begin by structuring your diet to contain 45% carbohydrates, 35% protein and 20% fat.
You can translate these percentages into daily gram amounts by using a basic calculation outlined in the macronutrient ratio section. You can then measure the results from this ratio. After several weeks you may wish to possibly tweak these ratios slightly to see if your body responds better.
11) Your daily intake of proteins/carbs/fats should be split up over 5-7 small meals that are consumed roughly every 2-3 hours. This will keep your fat burning metabolism raised at all times and will allow your body to maintain as much lean muscle as possible. To begin figuring out how much to consume at each meal, simply divide your total daily caloric intake by 5, 6 or 7 depending on how many meals you plan to consume.
12) Every single daily meal should contain a lean protein source along with a natural carbohydrate source. Protein and carbohydrates should always be combined rather than being consumed on their own, as they have a synergistic effect within the body when ingested together.
Green fibrous vegetables should be consumed with meals whenever possible as they are low in calorie density and help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Healthy fats should also be added to a couple of your daily meals.
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13) In order to reap the greatest benefits possible, you should further tweak these specific meals by paying attention to meal timing; the specific states that your body is in at different periods throughout the day. The most important time periods to which you should be paying attention include first thing in the morning, pre-workout, post-workout and pre-bedtime. The specific nutritional approach for each daily time period is outlined in detail in the meal timing section.
14) In addition to all of your solid foods, you should also aim to consume about 0.6 fluid ounces of water per pound of body weight daily. Water is an incredible fat burning and muscle building substance and on its own will accelerate your results further. Correct water intake will also protect your joints, improve digestion and nutrient delivery and will provide a long list of overall health benefits.
15) Coffee, tea and diet drinks are fine to consume in moderation. Fruit juices should be consumed in limited amounts. Nonfat milk is fine to include once or twice daily. Alcohol intake should be limited as much as possible.
In terms of structuring an optimal fat burning diet, this is everything you need to know to get started. You can either translate this information into your own custom meal plan, or make use of the pre-made meal plans that came with the program.
If youre still not clear on any of the major principles that we just summarized here, then you should go back and read through the main sections in detail.
Now that we have covered the basics of nutrition for fat loss success, were going to move on to the subject of weight training and cardio. Without a good training program in place, you will never reach your true physical potential or see the best possible results.
Eating properly is not enough; you can certainly see measurable results through your diet alone, but it will not compare to the powerful synergistic effect of nutrition and exercise combined.
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Exercise will further stimulate your body to burn fat even while youre at rest, and will allow you to maintain/increase your lean body mass.
So lets not waste any more time and lets get started right now by discussing the topic of weight training
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Section #2: Highly Effective Weight Training

When most individuals want to begin a fat burning program, training intensely with weights is typically not the first thing that comes to mind. With visions of bulked up bodybuilders and strength athletes dancing in their heads, most individuals stay away from the weight room and instead place all of their focus on cardiovascular exercise, endlessly pounding away on the treadmills and stairsteppers.
After all, training with weights builds muscle, while performing cardio burns fat, right? If this is the case, then cardio training must be the key to fat loss, and weight training should be pushed aside, correct?
Wrong!
In fact, this is one of the most critical and costly training mistakes that you could possibly make. The reality is that if you want to dramatically transform your body shape and achieve a lean, defined and sculpted physique, intense resistance training must be included in your program.
Weight training stimulates the body to build and maintain muscle mass. All along weve been stressing how important it is to burn fat while simultaneously maintaining as much lean muscle as possible, and now its time to explain why this is the case.
It is because muscle is metabolically active tissue.
In other words, muscle burns fat!
The amount of lean muscle tissue on your body has a direct effect on your basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories that you burn through natural bodily processes while at rest. When you train intensely with weights, you actually stimulate an increase in the amount of
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mitochondria in your muscle fibers. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells where nutrients are converted into energy. The more mitochondria you have, the faster and more efficiently your body can burn fat for use as fuel.
As a result, your muscles act like furnaces that incinerate fat around the clock. They are like an idling car engine that constantly burns up fuel in the form of calories. And were not just talking about burning more fat while you train; were talking about burning more fat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, non-stop from morning to night.
The significance of this is simple: the more muscle you have on your body, the more fat youll burn.
This is why intense resistance training is so important to your long-term results. A program that includes nutrition alone with no exercise will gradually waste away your lean muscle tissue, and your metabolic rate will actually slow down rather than speed up. But when you include weight training in your program, your lean muscle will be spared and your metabolism will actually increase!
Just take a look around your gym the next time youre there. Its almost a guarantee that the leanest, most impressive looking people are the ones who spend a reasonable amount of time training hard with weights. On the contrary, youll notice quite a few out-of-shape individuals who work their butts off on the cardio machines but who never lift weights.
Coincidence? Definitely not!
Now I know what a lot of you are thinking:
I dont want to weight train because Im afraid of looking bulky!
This is one of the primary reasons why so many people, especially women, steer clear of the
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weight room at all costs. Theyre stuck with the misguided notion that training with weights will cause them to beef up and take on a bulky, masculine appearance.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
In fact, if a lean, shapely, and feminine looking physique is what youre after (which Im sure at least 95% of the women reading this will answer yes to) increasing your muscle mass is one of the keys to doing so.
Just look at the worlds top fitness models. Do you think they achieved those defined, shapely looking bodies through cardio alone? Theres no chance. All of those impressive bodies you see posted across the pages of the fitness magazines were achieved using intense resistance training in some form or another.
This is the second reason why weight training should be included in your program and why building/maintaining muscle mass should be one of your primary goals. The combination of low body fat levels and reasonable muscular development is the only way to achieve a defined, toned body with those impressive cuts and lines. Losing body fat alone will decrease your overall body size, but youll never attain a shapely appearance without adequate levels of lean muscle mass.
For those of you who are worried about bulking up too quickly, you have to realize that the buildup of muscular mass is an incredibly gradual process. It most certainly does not happen over night. Theres no way youre going to suddenly wake up one day, look in the mirror and gasp in horror at the realization that youve gone too far.
Muscle mass is slowly and gradually increased over long periods of time, and this is especially true for females. Testosterone is the key hormone that determines how quickly and easily an individual can increase their muscle mass. Females have only a fraction of the amount of testosterone as men, and as a result they build muscle at an even slower rate. Unless you are
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incredibly genetically gifted, the fear of becoming bulky from weight training is completely irrational and is definitely not something to worry about.
Even if a rare situation were to occur where your body responded extremely well to weight training and you did begin seeing increases in muscle size that you werent happy with, it would be very easy to make some simple modifications to combat this. But in any case, the changes will happen so gradually that youll see them coming long before they ever materialize.
The same thing goes for the men out there. Most likely the majority of you would like to see an increase in muscle size, but even if you dont, the changes will still come at a slow enough rate that youll be able to anticipate them far in advance and make the necessary adjustments.
Besides, on a fat burning diet your goal is not so much to build muscle mass as it is to maintain the muscle mass that you already have. When your body is in a caloric deficit it is extremely difficult to synthesize new muscle tissue, so think of the weight training more in terms of maintaining your lean mass as opposed to adding new mass. (In order to see measurable increases in muscle mass, the body must be in a caloric surplus as opposed to a caloric deficit).
Okay, Im glad we got the I dont want to look bulky myth out of the way. I can still hear some of you in the background raising another concern
But Im an athlete and I dont want to decrease my speed, agility or flexibility!
Is that right?
Look, if your goal is to increase your speed, agility and flexibility, then weight training is precisely what you SHOULD be doing, as it will actually improve all three of these factors.
The stronger a muscle is, the more force it can apply. An increase in muscle size and strength means youll be able to run faster, jump higher, throw harder and improve just about every other
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sports-specific skill that requires any sort of explosive motion. Strong muscles are able muscles, not the other way around.
Just take a look at the worlds top sprinting athletes, who all include intense weight training as part of their programs. They are typically very strong and muscular, yet they can run faster than anyone in the world. Theres a good reason for it.
If youre an athlete participating in a sport that requires you to run fast, hit hard, jump high etc., start including heavy power movements into your program such as squats, deadlifts, lunges, and rows. Then watch as your performance dramatically improves.
As for flexibility, the same thing holds true: when you perform your exercises with proper form through a full range of motion, your flexibility will increase rather than decrease.
Now, before we dive into the specific strategies that youll be employing in the weight room, lets first clear up a couple of issues in regards to weight training and its effects on fat loss. As Ive outlined before, weight training has positive benefits for burning fat because of its effects on increasing/maintaining lean muscle tissue. The muscle tissue in turn speeds up the bodys fat burning metabolism.
So in reality, while weight training does not directly burn fat, it does help the body to burn more fat indirectly.
This is why the idea of spot reduction is such a fallacy. Many people harbor a false notion that training a certain area of your body with weights will directly burn fat from that specific area.
Fat and muscle are two completely different kinds of tissue. When you train with weights, it is your muscles that are performing the work. The fat stores in and around that specific area of your body play no role in moving the weights.
Performing a tricep extension does not magically burn fat from your tricep area.
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Performing bicep curls does not somehow firm up your bicep area. Performing leg curls will not tighten up your hamstrings. Performing crunches or situps of any kind will not have any positive effect on removing stomach fat.
In fact, the idea that you can burn fat for local spot reduction is one of the most pervasive myths in the fitness industry. Just flip on the TV or check out a magazine stand and youll immediately be bombarded with a gigantic array of specialized workout equipment and breakthrough exercises that will supposedly tone up your muscles and allow you to lose X number of inches in 5 weeks.
If you want the honest truth, its all nothing more than an outright lie! Why?
You cannot target fat loss from a specific area on your body!
Fat is simply a stored form of energy. When stimulated to release fat for use as fuel, the body will pull it from wherever it sees fit. Over time you will lose fat from your entire body, but you have no control over the specific areas where fat is burned. This idea of toning or sculpting certain areas of the body is completely false and has no real basis behind it.
Every single time you enter the weight room, your goal is simple: to stimulate an increase in muscle mass. That muscle mass will then speed up your fat burning metabolism, and you will lose fat from your entire body as a result.
However, dont think that as you curl that weight up and down that you are somehow melting fat from your arms, or that as you perform leg presses your butt and thighs are somehow firming up. What you are simply doing is stimulating your muscles to grow, and that muscle will then burn fat on its own.
This brings me to another very important issue
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Different forms of weight training are not going to produce different types of muscle.
We often hear women who train with weights state that they make sure to stick to lighter weights and higher reps in order to produce longer and leaner muscles. Men often say the same thing when their goal is to cut up rather than to focus on adding more size. They lighten up the weight and stick to specific machines and exercises in order to sculpt the muscle mass that theyve already built.
I have no clue where this idea came from, but there is physiological basis whatsoever to support it.
Building muscle is building muscle. When you train with weights, you stimulate an increase in muscle size, period. There are no specific rep schemes or amounts of weight that will somehow produce a more sculpted or toned muscle.
There are really only 3 things you can do with your muscles:
1) You can make them bigger. 2) You can keep them the same size. 3) You can make them smaller.
But you most definitely CANNOT switch up your rep schemes, exercises or any other variable of your weight training program to somehow alter the shape or appearance of those muscles.
How exactly, then, do we define a muscle?
Well, flex your bicep and look down at it.
What youre seeing is 2 main kinds of body tissue: muscle and fat.
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The bicep muscle is underneath, and laying on top of that muscle is a thin (or thick) layer of body fat.
Defining your bicep is nothing more than a simple matter of removing that layer of body fat lying on top in order to make the bicep muscle underneath appear more visible. Thats really all there is to it.
Since spot reduction is impossible and since you cannot physically target fat loss from the bicep area by training with weights, we can conclude that achieving a more shaped and defined bicep (and entire physique for that matter) is simply a matter of lowering your OVERALL body fat levels through cardiovascular exercise and proper diet.
Sure, different rep schemes will activate different types of muscle fiber. Lower reps activate the fast twitch fibers while higher reps activate the slow twitch fibers. But this has no bearing whatsoever on the resulting appearance or shape.
So let me state this again: every single time you enter a gym and wrap your hands around a barbell or dumbbell, your goal is to stimulate a maximum increase in muscle size.
Youre not trying to tone. Youre not trying to sculpt. Youre not trying to shape.
Instead, you are aiming to carry out a method that will stimulate the greatest increase in muscle size possible. And as a general statement, this is produced through the use of heavy, lower rep sets using basic compound exercises that are carried all the way to, or close to, muscular failure.
Still afraid to train like a bodybuilder? Dont be! Its the fastest and most efficient way to achieve the lean and in-shape body youre after.
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This goes for both sexes.
Whether you happen to be male or female, the principles for stimulating maximum increases in muscle size are the same. Men and women need NOT train any differently in the weight room. In terms of the way that we build and maintain muscle mass, there is virtually no difference.
So, to synopsize this entire introduction:
Lifting weights builds muscle, which indirectly burns fat. Performing cardio and eating properly directly burns fat.
The combination of an increase/maintenance of muscle mass and a decrease in body fat will result in the lean, shapely and defined body that 95% or more of you are after.
The goal now is to teach you exactly how to structure a proper weight training schedule and workout plan in order to produce the most significant growth response from your muscles possible.
As always, my goal is to keep things as straightforward and basic as possible. Im not going to dive into all of the details and subtleties behind every single principle. Instead Ill try to compress all of the most important information into a method that you can begin using right away.
My other best-selling e-book, The Truth About Building Muscle covers the entire bodybuilding process from A to Z, so if youre interested in a complete system that focuses solely muscle building you may want to check that out.
In the next section Im going to give you a general overview, explaining how and why the body builds muscle, and then Ill dive into a specific set of concrete workout principles that you can directly apply to your program. So lets get started right away
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Weight Training Framework

Before we get into specific workout principles such as which exercises to focus on, how many sets to perform, how many reps are best, how long to train, and so on, Id first like to lay the foundation by discussing the underlying principles behind muscle growth and how it all relates to your program.
Im not interested in simply throwing a workout plan at you and saying go do this. I want to give you full insight into the entire process so that you understand exactly why youre doing what youre doing, and why certain approaches work better than others.
As I mentioned earlier, Im not going to try to teach you everything there is to know about training for muscle mass. Rather I will aim to synopsize all of the most important factors. It can be an extremely in-depth topic with all kinds of subtleties to take into account, and for the purposes of your fat burning program I dont feel it is necessary to explore every possible angle.
This section will be broken up into two major parts. In the first section I will outline the abstract principles of muscle growth, the overall philosophy and the big picture. The second section will contain the concrete principles (the exact step-by-step methods you will implement).
Lets begin
In order to start at the very foundation of the entire topic, we first have to address the very simple and straightforward question of, why do muscles grow in the first place?
Without a basic understanding of this concept, structuring an effective workout plan would be nothing more than an aimless stab in the dark.
To find the answer, we have to once again look at our bodies from an evolutionary standpoint
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and understand that over millions of years of progression as an organism, our bodies have built up a vast array of defense mechanisms to ensure our survival. The buildup of muscular mass is just one of the bodys many defense mechanisms and is a natural response to the environment that you place your muscles in.
Right now as you sit reading this, your muscles have stored in them a specific amount of resources that can be used to carry out tasks in nature. The vast majority of the tasks that you carry out on a day-to-day basis are well within your muscles current ability, such as walking to your car, typing at your desk or climbing a flight of stairs.
As long as the tasks that your muscles are consistently presented with can be easily accomplished, the body will have no incentive to make any adjustments.
But what happens if we place our muscles into a demanding environment and present them with a task that they cannot complete without extreme difficulty? For example, picking up a heavy loaded barbell and curling it 8 times to the point where your muscles nearly give out?
All of a sudden a giant red light begins flashing within the body, and the defense mechanisms kick in.
The body realizes that it has been presented with a task that it could not currently perform without great difficulty, and this is treated as a threat to survival. If the body wants to protect itself against this threat (the barbell being curled) in the future, it must make adjustments and adapt to the stress by increasing the size and strength of the muscles fibers.
Do you see where this is going?
When you train intensely with weights, you are placing your muscles under stress. You are actually damaging your muscles intentionally by creating micro tears in the tissue.
The body will first repair the muscles back up to their previous level. As a natural survival
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response, it will then build the muscles up even larger and stronger than they were previously in order to battle against this threat in case it were to present itself again in the future.
Its really that simple. We dont need to understand the precise biological processes going on; all we really need to know is that muscle growth is a natural response to stress.
The implication of this is very important
If you want to get any significant response from the muscles, you must train them with a sufficient level of intensity.
Your body will only carry out this muscle growth survival response if it has a good reason to do so. Muscle growth is a metabolically complex process and requires a lot of energy and resources to carry out. Because of this, your body will only divert its resources to accomplishing this if it really senses that the stress was intense enough to warrant it.
In other words, if you want to gain any real benefit from your weight training program, you must be willing to push yourself hard in the gym!
There is a lot of debate in the strength training world as to just how intensely a weightlifter should perform each set in order to produce a maximum response. But one thing is certain: if the last few reps of a set can be performed without a reasonable level of difficulty, you are wasting your time!
If you never push yourself hard in the gym, you will never trigger an adaptive response from your body. If you perform a set of leg presses for 15 reps without any struggle whatsoever, why would your body bother to increase the muscle mass in your legs? If the set can be performed with ease, then that means your muscles already have plenty of resources in order to carry it out. If they already have plenty of resources to carry it out, what incentive is there to build upon the existing resources?
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In order to trigger a muscle growth response, your set must be intense enough that it threatens the existing resources of your muscles.
Just how intensely should we train in order for this to occur?
Well, as I mentioned before, there is no absolute clear cut answer. Some advocate training all the way to muscular failure (myself included) while others dont feel that its necessary to train that hard.
Training all the way to muscular failure means that you perform your set until you are physically unable to complete an additional repetition using proper form. In other words, you perform your set with 100% intensity, and only stop the set when you are unable to complete one more rep despite your best efforts to do so.
One things is for sure though: even if you dont train all the way to muscular failure, you should be pretty darn close to it. Regardless of your experience level or age, assuming you have no limiting factors such as an injury of some kind, the last 1-2 reps of every set should be extremely challenging and uncomfortable to perform. If you dont have to dig down deep to pump out those last 1-2 reps, then you simply arent training hard enough.
Here is a rough guideline to follow in order to gauge your intensity level in the gym:
1) If you have previous training experience with weights and are able to comfortably train with maximal effort (comfortable in the sense that you feel safe doing so, but not comfortable in the physical sense), then you should perform all sets to the point of concentric muscular failure.
Again, this means that you should continue your set until you are unable to complete an additional repetition using proper form despite your best efforts to do so. As soon as your form begins to slip or the weights wont move no matter how much effort you put forth, end the set right there.
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2) If you are a weightlifting beginner and are still learning the ropes, then you can still train with a fairly high level of intensity without going all the way to failure. Here is a rough way to gauge how hard you should train:
Perform your set to the point where you feel that if you were to train with 100% maximum effort, you could still perform 1-2 more reps in proper form. In other words, your goal is to stop 1-2 reps short of muscular failure.
As you become more experienced you can gradually build up your intensity level until you are able to train all the way to muscular failure. For beginners or those who still arent comfortable pushing themselves to the max, 1-2 reps short of failure is a good guideline to abide by. Any less than this and you just arent putting forth enough effort.
Often in the gym we see people casually lifting weights without ever breaking a sweat, or even worse, having a conversation in the middle of a set. This just wont cut it.
Muscles grow as an adaptive response to stress. If you never cross a certain threshold, the body will not have any incentive to increase your muscle size or strength. If the last 1-2 reps of a set dont force you to buckle down mentally and dont cause a reasonable amount of discomfort in your muscles, then you might as well not bother. If you dont give your muscles a good reason to grow, then they wont.
So again, for those of you with previous training experience and no injuries, I recommend taking all sets to concentric muscular failure. For those of you who are beginners and still want to learn the ropes before raising the bar, take each set to about 1-2 reps short of muscular failure. As you gain more experience and become more comfortable with weight training, you can gradually raise your intensity level.
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The Law Of Progression
You now understand that muscles grow due to an adaptive response to stress, and that in order to trigger this response you must train with a sufficient level of intensity.
The next critical principle you must understand and implement is the law of progression.
If you want to see continual increases in muscle size and strength, you must continually place your muscles under progressively greater workloads.
It only makes sense, right?
You place your muscles under X amount of stress, and they will adapt to X amount of stress. In order to see a further increase, the muscles must be presented with an even greater amount of stress than the first time. If you continually present them with the same stimulus, there is no incentive to grow larger and stronger.
The way we accomplish this is by consistently increasing the amount of weight that we lift on our exercises and/or the number of repetitions performed.
For example, if you were to bench press 125 pounds for 6 reps in one workout, you would then aim to bench press 125 pounds for 7 or 8 reps in the following workout.
Once you can perform a high enough number of reps with a given amount of weight, you would then increase the weight by 5-10 pounds.
This continual, incremental increase in weight/reps will force your muscles to adapt further and further. As the workload progressively increases, they will have no choice but to continually grow larger and stronger.
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This is why it is so important that you keep a training logbook and track every single workout that you perform. You should write down the date and the workout that youll be performing, as well as the exercises, sets, amount of weight used and reps executed.
Every single time you enter the gym your goal is to beat the logbook by either performing an additional rep or two with the same weight as the previous week, or by increasing the weight slightly by 5-10 pounds.
This is so important to your bottom line improvements
Your goal in the gym is always to beat the previous weeks performance!
If you constantly present your muscles with the same stimulus, nothing new will occur. If you are leg pressing 300 pounds today and are still leg pressing the same weight 2 months from now, your efforts are literally going to waste.
As the saying says, If you always do what youve always done, youll always get what youve always got.
This combination of a high training intensity with constant focus on progression is known in the bodybuilding world as the principle of overload and progression.
It should be a constant cycle
1) Trigger an adaptive response by training with a high level of intensity. 2) Increase the weight and/or reps the following week.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Placing your focus on the law of overload and progression is the only way to ensure consistent gains from your efforts in the gym.
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There are literally an endless number of different possible approaches to take in the gym, and every expert has his or her own opinion on what the ideal methods are. However, the law of overload and progression transcends it all.
No matter what type of program you choose to employ, the principle of overload and progression remains constant and universal. You must train with a sufficient level of intensity to trigger an adaptive response, and you must strive to continually increase the workload over time. There are no ifs, ands or buts about this, and it should always remain at the core of your focus.
In fact, in terms of the actual sets that you perform in the gym, overload and progression really is the only thing you need to use in order to gauge the success of your workouts. After performing a set/workout, if you can say that:
a) You trained with a sufficient level of intensity. b) You progressed in weight and/or reps as compared to the previous workout.
Then youve done your job.
Most trainees get caught up focusing on the wrong factors when trying to decide if their workout plan is running successfully.
Most individuals are thinking things such as
Do my muscles feel pumped up enough? Did I achieve enough muscle burn? Am I sore the next day?
These factors really are irrelevant in the grand scheme of it all.
Let me quickly explain why
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Muscle Pump
This is the pumped up feeling you get in your muscles after a few hard sets in the gym and is the result of blood that has been trapped inside the muscle tissue.
Your muscles will temporarily increase in size, vascularity and feel very tight and engorged. Because this pump feels so great, many lifters often mistake it as a sign that theyre training properly and having a good workout.
The truth is that the pump actually means very little to nothing in terms of the success of your workout. Almost all muscle building training styles will result in a pump, and blood flow into the muscles is certainly not a limiting factor in the gym.
There are a multitude of different methods that would allow you to achieve a pumped up feeling in your muscles. Heck, get up out of your chair and start performing jumping jacks until youre blue in the face. No doubt your legs and arms will feel very pumped up as a result, but it doesnt take a genius to figure out that this wouldnt be an effective way to build muscle.
So, dont worry about how pumped up your muscles feel in the gym. Its just not an important factor to pay attention to.
Muscle Burn
Weve always been told that if we want to see gains in the gym we need to feel the burn.
The burning sensation that you feel when you train with weights is simply the result of an accumulation of lactic acid, a metabolic waste product that is produced from the burning of carbohydrates for energy.
Theres nothing wrong with feeling the burn, and on most sets you will experience this to some
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degree. However, once again, this is not to be used as a gauge for the success of your sets. A set that produces a strong burning sensation is not necessarily going to be more effective than a set that produces a minimal burning sensation.
A set of 200 reps would produce a virtually unbearable amount of muscle burn compared to a set of 8 reps, but 99% of experts would agree that 8 reps is much more effective for stimulating muscle growth than 200.
Feeling some degree of muscle burn is inevitable; but again, dont treat it as a gauge for success.
Muscle Soreness
Anyone involved in weight training or athletics has experienced that aching, but somewhat enjoyable feeling of muscle soreness that results from a good hard training session in the gym.
This is known as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), and usually sets in about 12-24 hours following your workout. Yes, it often feels good, and yes, it often gives you a sense of accomplishment from your workout.
However, DOMS is, again, NOT an indication that your training session was successful. Some days you will be very sore from your workouts, and other days you wont be. There a ton of factors that will influence DOMS such as previous training experience (this is a big one), nutrition, sleep, water intake, stretching and more.
Beginning lifters will often find themselves feeling incredibly sore in the days following a workout, while advanced lifters sometimes never get sore. In addition, some muscle groups tend to become sore very easily while others wont.
Dont make the mistake of assuming that if youre sore from your workout that it was a success, or that if you arent sore, you didnt train hard enough. Its simply not true. DOMS is an indication
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that some level of damage has been induced in the muscle tissue, but it does not indicate that that damage will result in a growth response. In addition, a lack of DOMS does not indicate that the muscles are not damaged.
So if muscle pump, muscle burn and muscle soreness are not accurate indicators that your training session was successful, what is the true indicator?
Again, overload and progression are the answers.
If you took your sets either to muscular failure or close to it, and you beat your previous workouts performance, then assuming you follow the workout parameters Im going to outline shortly (things such as number of sets, rep ranges etc.), you did your job and you had a successful session.
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Why Less Is More
One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to building muscle size and strength in the gym is the idea that you must perform a large number of sets in order to see optimal results.
Yes, you must train with a high level of intensity in order to trigger an adaptive response, but as long as you are training hard then you certainly do not need to perform an endless number of sets in order to see the greatest benefits.
In fact, performing too much work in the gym is actually directly counterproductive to your progress.
Intense weight training is far more stressful to the body than most people think. Its not just your muscles that are stimulated in the gym; your joints, connective tissues, immune system, central nervous system and entire body as a whole is heavily stressed as well.
This is why it is imperative that you dont perform any more work than is absolutely necessary. Remember, when you train with weights, you are intentionally damaging your muscles and forcing your body to rebuild them larger and stronger. However, your body only has a finite amount of resources in order to carry out this process. These resources are known as your bodys recovery ability.
If you start tossing weights around endlessly day in and day out, youll actually end up pushing your body beyond its ability to recover. In doing so, you enter a state of overtraining, and this is a state that you must avoid at all costs.
When your body is in an overtrained state, building muscle size will literally be next to impossible. Youll be pushing your body into a state where its recovery resources are constantly being depleted and can never be put to use. If your muscles cant recover properly, then they absolutely cannot grow.
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Every time your body tries to repair the damage that was inflicted from a previous workout, youll be presenting it with even further damage that it has to deal with. Keep your body overtrained long enough and youll actually start moving backwards! You may end up losing muscle size and strength.
On top of this, youll end up feeling chronically fatigued, your chances of getting sick will increase since your immune system will be compromised, and your joints and connective tissues will take a huge beating as well.
Just remember this: your muscles do not grow in the gym while you train. Your muscles grow when you are out of the gym, while you are eating and resting. Your only goal in the gym is to trigger the muscle growth process into motion, and then get out and let the recovery process begin.
You should be aiming to perform the minimum amount of work necessary to achieve an adaptive response and not a thing more. If in doubt, always perform less! If you train hard, then you do NOT need to train often, or with a large amount of work.
All of the workout plans will already be laid out for you, so overtraining is not something you should have to worry about. However, I still feel it is necessary to explain all of these principles so that you have a full grasp of why everything is structured the way it is.
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Weight Training Power Factors

Okay, weve now covered all of the necessary abstract information that I wanted to cover. Now its time to shift gears and take a look at the actual concrete workout principles youll be employing.
Ive broken this up into my 11 weight training power factors so that you can easily absorb them all.
These 11 factors will teach you the most important information for structuring an effective muscle building workout. Im not going to go into super detail on each one, but will just outline the main points that you should be aware of.
This is certainly not the only way to train for muscle growth, but is in my opinion the most effective.
One thing is for sure: if you follow these factors properly, you WILL see significant results
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Weight Training Power Factor #1: Training Frequency
When we talk about training frequency, were referring to two things:
a) How many actual workouts you perform per week. b) How often you directly train each major muscle group per week.
As I outlined earlier, as long as you train with a sufficient level of intensity and focus, performing a large amount of work in the gym is simply unnecessary and in many cases is directly counterproductive. Its critical that you provide your body with a great enough stimulus for muscle growth, but if you start going too far it will begin to work against you rather than for you.
In order to prevent overtraining and to ensure that your bodys recovery ability is not exceeded, I would recommend that you perform a maximum of 4 weight training sessions per week. I dont see any reason at all why an individual would need to train with weights for more than 4 days per week. This will provide ample time for you to fully stimulate all of the major muscle groups in your body without the risk of overtraining.
Now remember, 4 days is the maximum. If youre able to generate a considerable amount of intensity during your workouts, then 3 days per week is even better. Training 3 days per week will allow at least one full day of recovery after every single session, and is in my opinion the ideal number of training days for most individuals. The reason is simple: as long as you can train at a high level of intensity, you wont require very many sets for each muscle group. Therefore, you will easily be able to train your entire body over the course of 3 workouts. Adding a 4th workout would simply be unnecessary.
Now what about training each individual muscle group?
As an overall guideline, stick to training each individual muscle group once per week.
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Remember, your muscles dont grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym while you are eating and recovering. Every time you train an individual muscle, you break down the fibers and damage them. The muscle will first be rebuilt back to its original state, and then be further built up to a greater level if the stress was sufficient and if proper nutrition is in place. If you start training a muscle two or even three times per week, youll be constantly interfering with this recovery process and will never give the muscle a chance to grow.
Training each muscle group directly just once per week is usually an adequate time frame to allow for full recovery and growth without any unnecessary rest time.
Perform a maximum of 4 workouts per week, with 3 being ideal. Directly train each individual muscle group once per week.
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Weight Training Power Factor #2: Workout Structure
When we refer to workout structure, were talking about which muscle groups to train, and on which days.
Rather than aimlessly going into the gym and performing a full body workout each time, I recommend that you make use of a split routine in which the major muscle groups of the body are trained separately on their own specific days.
The reason for this is because when you train with weights, you rarely directly stimulate only one muscle group at a time. On virtually all major exercises there are multiple muscle groups involved that are used to move the weight.
For example, when you perform a bench press you are not merely stimulating your chest muscles; your shoulders and triceps are heavily involved as well. On a lat pulldown, your back AND biceps are heavily stressed.
If we were to perform full body workouts every time we entered the gym, a considerable amount of overlap would occur where major muscle groups would be trained more than once per week. For example, if you trained your chest on workout A, your triceps on workout B and your shoulders on workout C, your triceps would actually be trained hard three times in that same week.
For this reason we should rely on intelligently structured split routines where the muscle groups are separated in such a way that minimal overlap occurs.
The ideal training split to accomplish this is known as the legs/push/pull split, and this is what I would use as my first recommendation. The legs/push/pull split looks like this:
Workout 1: Legs/Abs
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Workout 2: Chest/Shoulders/Triceps Workout 3: Back/Biceps
The reason why this split is so incredibly effective is because it separates all of the muscles into groups that specifically work together and almost completely eliminates overlap of any kind. On day 1 you train your legs and abs, on day 2 you train all of your pushing muscles, and on day 3 you train all of your pulling muscles. Every muscle is hit hard just once per week and is given a full 7 days of recovery without any interruptions.
There are other 3 and 4 day splits that can still work well, but the above structure is what I consider to be ideal. Youll find all of the recommended training splits in the workout guide that came with the program.
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Weight Training Power Factor #3: Workout Length
When we talk about workout length, were referring to the maximum amount of time that should be spent training intensely, excluding warm-ups and cool downs.
For the purposes of maximizing muscle gains and fat loss, you should never spend more than 60 minutes training at a high level of intensity. In fact, the shorter, the better.
After about 45 minutes of strenuous exercise, the body releases a powerful catabolic hormone known as cortisol which stimulates the breakdown of muscle for use as energy and also stimulates fat storage. The longer you continue to train while this hormone is circulating, the more powerful its negative effects will be.
In addition, as you pass the 45 minute mark, your mental focus will rapidly begin to decline. Youll be less and less willing to train at a high level of intensity, and this will decrease the quality of your training. It will also increase the chances of injury.
For these reasons, you should aim to complete your workouts in 40-60 minutes. This time frame begins with your first high intensity muscle building set (again, this excludes warm-ups) and concludes with your final muscle-building set (or concludes with the completion of your post weight-training cardio session which well be talking about later on).
Think of your workouts as a sprint rather than a marathon. You are there to give one short burst of hard effort, and then get out as soon as possible.
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Weight Training Power Factor #4: Exercise Selection
Every single time you pick up a weight in the gym, your goal is simple: stimulate as much muscle growth as you possibly can.
Youre not there to tone, shape or sculpt; youre there to produce the most dramatic spark for muscle growth that you can.
One of the most important factors in accomplishing this is the exercises that you choose to perform. Most people take the easy way out by opting for the easiest and most comfortable exercises in the gym. They stick to machine and cable movements, and gravitate towards smaller isolation exercises as opposed to bigger compound lifts.
If you want to yield the most dramatic response from your body possible, your overall focus should be placed on compound, free weight exercises.
1) A compound exercise is one that stimulates multiple muscle groups at a time, such as a bench press, chin-up, squat, leg press or barbell row. The alternative to a compound exercise is an isolation exercise, where only a single major muscle group is stimulated. Chest flyes, tricep presses and shoulder raises are all examples of isolation exercises.
2) A freeweight exercise is of course one that is performed using a basic barbell or dumbbells as opposed to the various equipment and machines found in most commercial gyms.
Free weight compound exercises will allow you to move the most weight, will stimulate as many muscles as possible at one time, and will place your muscles under the most stress as compared to any other exercise. This of course will result in the greatest stimulus for growth possible.
The following exercises should form the cornerstone of your training routine:
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- Squats - Leg Presses - Stiff-Legged Deadlifts - Lunges - Deadlifts - Bench Presses - Wide-Grip Dips - Rows - Overhead Presses - Chin-Ups or Lat Pulldowns
This list might seem intimidating to some of you out there who dont have any experience with these exercises or who are used to the idea of cables, rubber tubing, swiss balls and other fancy gadgetry.
Mark my words: your exercise choices need not be complicated. The most basic lifts possible will produce the absolute best results. Everyone should be focusing on these exercises, from 18-yearold females to 75-year-old men.
All of the fancy machines that you see on late night infomercials or new breakthrough exercise techniques are nothing more than overpriced and less effective alternatives to the basics.
The goal in the gym is always to produce a stimulus for muscle growth, and these basic compound exercises are by far the best way to get there.
If youre used to performing leg extensions or leg curls as opposed to squats and stiff-legged deadlifts, just watch your progress skyrocket once you make the change. If youre accustomed to performing pec flyes on a machine or seated cable rows for your back, try making the switch to basic bench presses, deadlifts and chin-ups. These will re-shape your body like nothing else youll encounter.
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Isolation exercises and machine exercises will still be part of your workout plan, but will be included as a supplemental portion rather than being the main focus.
The only drawback to using these big compound lifts is that it can be a bit more challenging to learn the proper form. I would highly recommend consulting the video exercise database before beginning, and also getting help from a trainer at your gym who can show you the proper ways to perform all of the exercises that are included in your workout plan.
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Weight Training Power Factor #5: Warming Up
One of the most costly mistakes that I see in the gym week in and week out is that the majority of trainees fail to recognize the importance of a proper warmup. Some lifters perform a brief, worthless warmup that consists of 1 set of 20 reps using the weight of the bar, while others neglect the warmup process altogether.
There are two main reasons why a proper warmup will serve you well both in the short and long term:
1) A proper warmup will increase the amount of weight that you are able to lift during your actual workout, thereby maximizing muscle stimulation and growth.
2) A proper warmup will greatly decrease your chance of injury.
Now I don't know about you, but to me those look like two perfectly good reasons to spend a simple 15-20 minutes before each workout properly warming up. Don't you agree?
Good! Now let me explain what a proper warmup should consist of...
The first component of a proper warmup consists of 5 minutes of light cardiovascular activity. You can choose any basic piece of cardio equipment to perform this, such as a recumbent bike, rowing machine or treadmill. This basic cardio warmup will increase your body's core temperature, stimulate your heart and lungs, and will also lubricate your joints by increasing the secretion of synovial fluid.
Once your 5 minutes is up, you can move into the next and final component of the warmup process. In this section you will be performing 5 warmup sets using the first major compound exercise of your workout.
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For example, if you were training legs by using squats as your main exercise, then you would perform 5 warmup sets for squats. The goal here is to start by using a very light weight with high repetitions. Gradually you would increase the resistance while lowering the repetitions.
However, the most crucial aspect of these 5 warmup sets is this:
YOU MUST NOT FATIGUE YOUR MUSCLES WHATSOEVER DURING THESE 5 SETS!
Remember, this is merely a warmup that is designed to increase blood flow to the muscles and surrounding connective tissue. Its purpose is also to increase the amount of weight you will be able to lift on your muscle-building sets by preparing your mind and body for the heavier weights to come.
If you fatigue your muscles during these warmup sets then you are completely destroying their entire purpose. Here is a basic formula you can follow when calculating how much weight to use and how many reps to perform on your warmups.
The percentage given is in relation to the weight that you will use for your first muscle-building set. If you were planning on squatting 150 pounds, then the first set should be performed with 75 pounds for 10 reps as you can see below.
Set 1: 50% x 10 reps Set 2: 60% x 6 reps Set 3: 70% x 4 reps Set 4: 80% x 3 reps Set 5: 90% x 1 rep
This is just a rough outline. Getting the actual weights down exactly is not that important; this is just a ballpark figure to go by.
Once you've completed these 5 basic sets, you can move right into your actual workout.
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Note #1: These 5 warmup sets do NOT count towards your overall workout length. Your 60 minute maximum time frame comes into play beginning with your first actual muscle-building set.
Note#2: If you are training unrelated muscle groups later on in the workout you may also want to perform 1-2 very quick and light warmup sets for those as well. For example, if you train quads at the beginning of your workout and triceps later on, you may want to perform 1-2 quick warmup sets for your triceps since they would not have been warmed up during your quad exercises.
(If you are following the legs/push/pull split as previously described then all muscle groups will be adequately warmed up after your first exercise and therefore no further warm-ups will be necessary.)
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Weight Training Power Factor #6: Number Of Sets
When we talk about the number of sets, were referring to how many direct sets should be performed for each major muscle group.
The number of sets that you perform is largely dependent on the level of intensity that you are able to generate on each set, as well as your previous training experience. This is because:
a) Intensity and volume are inversely proportional. The harder you train, the less work you can perform. (You could maintain a steady jog for a long period of time, but could only maintain an all out sprint for several seconds.)
b) Inexperienced trainees are not used to training at an all out effort, and will generally also be using weights that are lighter for their bodies. Experienced trainees will be using heavier weights (which will cause more stress per individual set), and will also have a greater mind-muscle connection that allows them to train at a higher level of intensity.
Even with the above factors in mind we can still lay out a basic guideline to follow.
First we have to distinguish between large muscle groups and smaller muscle groups. Smaller groups require fewer sets because they are indirectly stimulated when you perform compound exercises for your larger muscle groups.
The large muscle groups are the chest, back (which is broken up into about 4 smaller muscle groups) and the thighs (the quadriceps and hamstrings).
The smaller muscle groups are the shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs, calves and forearms.
As a general rule of thumb, I would recommend performing anywhere from 5 to 7 sets for your large muscle groups, and 2-4 sets for your smaller muscle groups.
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Keep in mind that were talking about total sets per workout, not sets per exercise. For example, a chest workout might be:
2 sets of flat bench press 2 sets of incline dumbbell press 2 sets of wide-grip dips
This would equal to a total of 6 sets.
It might not sound like a lot, but as long as your intensity levels remain high on every set (all the way to muscular failure or 1-2 reps short), its definitely enough.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to perform a very high number of sets in order to trigger muscle growth. The goal is simply to present the muscles with a task that is beyond their current capacity, spark the muscle growth process into motion, and then get out of the gym and grow.
This certainly does not require you to perform an endless number of sets. As long as you train hard, you do not need to perform very much work.
Very advanced trainees can get away with doing even less than the above figures. There have been times in my training career where I was performing just ONE set per muscle group every 6 days and I still saw consistent progress in size and strength doing so. It sounds crazy, but with the proper focus and intensity its perfectly possible.
I would recommend that beginners stick to the higher end of the spectrum by performing around 7 sets for large muscle groups and 4 sets for smaller ones. More advanced trainees can cut back on the volume a bit and stick to the lower end. If youre a complete beginner training at the bottom end of the intensity level (around 2 reps short of failure) and have no prior training experience at all, then adding 2-3 additional sets may be necessary in order to ensure complete stimulation of the muscles.
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Weight Training Power Factor #7: Rep Ranges
When we talk about rep ranges were referring to the minimum/maximum number of repetitions that should be performed on each individual set.
This is a highly debated topic and there really is no one absolute answer. However, we can definitely set out some solid guidelines that will work optimally for the vast majority of individuals.
Weve already discussed in detail the myth of spot reduction as well as the myth of shaping and sculpting our muscles through weight training, so it should be clear that the rep ranges we use are designed only for the purpose of maximizing muscle stimulation.
Contrary to popular belief, high reps (in the range of 15 and up) dont burn more fat or cause our muscles to become more shapely and toned. In fact, all they really do is provide a less effective stimulus for muscle growth.
As a general statement, lower reps are far more effective for our purposes in the gym. Lower rep ranges allow us to handle greater amounts of weight and provide a deeper growth stimulating effect by tapping into our fast twitch muscle fibers, which are by far the most responsive to increases in size/strength. In addition, they allow us to keep our sets short, which lets us maintain peak mental focus and decreases the chances of injury due to sloppy technique.
For most upper body exercises, a rep range anywhere between 5-10 is acceptable. This means that the weight needs to be light enough for you to perform at least 5 reps in proper form, and heavy enough that you cannot complete more than 10. If youre able to perform 10 reps in good form, then its time to increase the weight.
Beginners would probably be better off sticking to the higher end of this rep range (around 8 to 10) in order to keep the weights a bit lighter, while more advanced trainers would benefit by
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sticking to the lower end (around 5 to 7) as I consider this to be the prime zone for stimulating muscle growth.
The lower body is a bit different and tends to respond well to almost any rep range. Reps as low as 5 all the way up to 25 will all produce significant results. Since most compound leg exercises such as squats, stiff-legged deadlifts and lunges are more complicated to perform, I would recommend that beginning lifters stick to a higher rep range of about 10-12, while more advanced lifters wanting to use maximal weights can go lower. As I just mentioned though, the legs will respond well to almost any rep range as long as the intensity is there.
Theres no need to worry too much about juggling this information as all of the rep ranges will be clearly outlined in the "Metabolic Ignition" workout plan that is provided for you.
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Weight Training Power Factor #8: Resting Between Sets
How long of a rest period should we insert in between our sets in the gym?
The important thing to remember is that our goal when training with weights is to stimulate muscle growth rather than to directly burn fat. A lot of people training for fat loss follow the notion of keeping their rest between sets minimal (around 30-60 seconds) in order to keep their heart rate elevated so that they can gain a greater fat burning effect from the workout.
While this isnt a terrible approach to take, its also not ideal.
Again, the primary focus is on stimulating muscle growth. If you dont allow yourself adequate time in between sets to fully recover, you will greatly reduce the amount of weight that you are able to lift and the amount of intensity that you are able to generate on each set. Building muscle is all about training hard and progressing in weight/reps each week. When you cut back on rest time in between sets, this will simply decrease your overall performance.
In terms of a net effect on fat loss, youll be much better off taking longer rest periods in between sets and producing greater muscle stimulation as opposed to resting for shorter periods in between sets to yield a more cardiovascular effect from your training. Youll be performing cardiovascular training in addition to your weight training, so theres no need to try and turn your weight session into a cardio session as well.
For this reason, you should rest as long as you need to in between sets in order to feel like you have fully recovered from the previous set and that you can put forth a full effort on the next one. If youre still worn out from the previous set and feel that this will short change your weight/reps on the next set, you arent ready yet.
The actual time frame will depend on the individual trainee and also on the exercise youre performing. Harder exercises such as squats or deadlifts will require more recovery time than
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smaller lifts like shoulder raises and tricep presses. In addition, some individuals tend to require more rest than others due to genetic factors.
In general, the rest period could take anywhere from 2 minutes up to 5 minutes or more depending on the previously mentioned factors. As soon as you feel recovered, jump into the next set. Remember, you want to finish your workout as quickly as possible, so dont take any more rest time than is absolutely necessary.
Again, weight training is not an aerobic exercise and is not to be treated like a cardio session. Your goal is stimulate a maximum response from the muscles by putting forth as much intensity as you can with as much weight/reps as you can. Rest as long as you need to in order to maximize your performance.
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Weight Training Power Factor #9: Rep Speed
To understand the speed at which you should perform your repetitions, you must first understand the 2 basic phases of lifting a weight:
Concentric (also referred to as the "positive"): When the muscle contracts by shortening. This is when the muscle exerts force to move the weight against gravity. For example, the pushing phase of a bench press or the pulling phase of a chin-up.
Eccentric (also referred to as the "negative"): When the muscle is put under tension as it lengthens. This is when the weight is lowered towards the force of gravity. For example, the lowering phase of a bench press or the lowering phase of a chin-up.
How fast should you perform your reps?
First, there is no such as a magic rep speed. The most important factor is that you remain 100% in control of the weight at all times. If your form is sloppy, then rep speed is irrelevant.
A basic guideline is this
1) Perform the concentric phase as hard and fast as you can while still maintaining complete control of the weight
2) Perform the eccentric phase in roughly 3-4 seconds.
The reason we dont assign a set speed to the concentric phase is because you should be training with weights that are heavy enough that you must exert full force at all times. If youre able to set the speed of the concentric phase on all of your reps, then the weight is too light.
Also, never forget to accentuate the negative portion. Most studies show that more muscle
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breakdown actually occurs on the eccentric phase of a rep, so always make sure to lower the weights with full muscular control rather than dropping them and letting gravity do the work.
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Weight Training Power Factor #10: Proper Breathing
Breathing properly when you exercise will allow you to lift more weight and will decrease your chance of injury. It is very important that you do not hold your breath when you lift. Since you'll be training with as much weight as you can safely handle, holding your breath will cause a buildup of pressure within the body and could lead to a hernia or even fainting.
Proper breathing is very simple, but must be correctly performed at all times. The only thing you really need to know when it comes to breathing is this:
On the negative/eccentric portion of the rep, INHALE. On the positive/concentric portion of the rep, EXHALE.
For example, if you were performing a bench press, you would breathe in as you lowered the weight, and breathe out as you pushed the weight up.
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Weight Training Power Factor #11: Recovery Week
Weve already talked about how stressful intense weightlifting is to the muscles and the body as a whole, and thats where recovery week comes into play.
After about 8 weeks of consistent weight training, you should take a full week off from the gym to give your body time to fully recuperate from all of those hard sessions. That means no weight training at all, and ideally no cardio either, although 1-2 light sessions shouldn't be a problem.
There are 4 major reasons why you should always take advantage of this one-week recovery period:
1) It will give your muscles a chance to fully recuperate and regroup to prevent overtraining.
2) It will give your joints and connective tissues a much needed rest.
3) It will allow for full recovery of your immune and central nervous systems.
4) It will provide a mental benefit by giving you a chance to relax and reward yourself for all of your hard work.
Theres nothing magical about the specific time frame of 8 weeks either. If you decide to take a week off after 7 weeks of training thats fine, just as taking a break after 9 weeks is no big deal either. In any case you should always make sure to take a full week off somewhere around this length of consistent training.
The interesting thing is that youll often notice you come back feeling even stronger and more energized after the rest, which is concrete proof of its benefits.
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Weight Training Summary

Okay, so that covers all of the most important information that youll need to know in order to perform a highly effective muscle-building workout. Here is a very brief overview of the 11 factors we just covered
1) Perform 3-4 total weight training workouts per week, with 4 being the maximum and 3 being ideal for most individuals. Also aim to train each individual muscle group directly only once per week.
2) Make use of split routines by assigning specific muscle groups to be trained on each day. The ideal split routine to allow for the best overall results is the legs/push/pull split.
3) Each workout should last between 40-60 minutes, and the shorter the better. This time frame begins with the completion of your first muscle-building set and ends with the completion of your final muscle-building set.
5) Place the majority of your focus on compound, free weight exercises as opposed to isolation exercises and machine exercises.
6) Perform roughly 5-7 sets for large muscle groups and 2-4 sets for small muscle groups per workout.
7) Utilize a rep range of 5-10 reps on upper body movements and 5-12 reps on lower body movements.
8) Rest as long as you need to in between sets in order to feel fully recovered and able to give a 100% effort on the following set.
9) Perform the concentric portion of the rep as fast and hard as you can while maintaining
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complete control of the weight. Perform the eccentric phase of the rep in 3-4 seconds under strict control.
10) Inhale on the eccentric portion of the rep and exhale on the concentric portion of the rep.
11) Take a full week off from the gym after about 8 consecutive weeks of training.
You dont need to worry about juggling all of these factors together to produce a workout plan, as all of the training routines youll require are already laid out for you. However, this will now give you a deeper understanding of why the workout schedules are outlined the way that they are.
One of the common questions that is asked about the workout plans is whether or not joining a gym is mandatory in order to perform them.
I would usually recommend joining a gym if possible, but if you are unable to do so then you can perform your workouts at home as long as you have the proper equipment.
As a bare minimum you should have the following
1) Barbell with weight plates (with enough weight to allow for steady progression over time) 2) Adjustable dumbbells 3) Bench with an incline adjustment
In order to optimize your workout I would also recommend a squat rack of some variety (any apparatus that allows you to safely perform barbell squats) and a chin-up bar (those that fit inside of a door frame).
These 5 pieces of equipment will allow you to get a pretty complete workout at home without having to join a gym.
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That does it for our section on weight training and muscle building.
Well now be shifting gears and discussing the second component of a proper fat burning training plan: cardiovascular exercise.
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Section #3: Maximum Fat Loss Cardio

The subject of cardiovascular exercise stirs up huge debate and controversy, with recommended techniques and expert opinions ranging all over the map.
From the best cardio exercises to intensity levels to frequency to duration, everybody has their own opinion on what constitutes the ideal cardio protocol. Unfortunately the majority of these opinions come from so-called experts who lack credibility and experience and are only motivated by creating new fads that will dump money into their pockets.
In this section I hope to clear up your confusion by addressing all of the most important issues in relation to cardio. Im going to give you a solid, step-by-step method that you can start implementing right away. By the end of this section you will probably have a totally new outlook on cardiovascular exercise as it relates to burning fat.
There are no breakthrough secrets here, but there ARE some insights that you probably have not previously considered. These insights can really accelerate the effectiveness of your cardio program if you begin using them.
So lets get started
Im going to start right at the ground level of this topic by stating the following:
If you want to maximize your bodys fat burning capabilities, you should include cardiovascular exercise in your program.
Sounds like a pretty obvious statement, doesnt it?
Well, it isnt obvious to everyone.
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There are a lot of people out there who dont include any exercise at all in their program. These people mistakenly believe that dieting alone is going to be enough to burn fat and reshape their bodies.
In addition to this, there is a growing school of thought in the fitness industry going all the way to the extreme by stating that cardio is unnecessary and should not be included in a fitness program at all. (Although this is most likely nothing more than a marketing ploy)
First, Im going to briefly outline exactly why cardio should be included in your program if you want to see the best possible results.
We already know that in order to burn body fat, we need to create a deficit of calories within the body. And we know that we can achieve this caloric deficit either through our diet, through exercise, or through both.
In a black and white sense it might seem that performing cardio would not be necessary in order to achieve this. After all, if the goal is to simply burn more calories than we consume, why not just shave those extra calories from our diet and skip exercising completely?
The reason why this doesnt work all has to do with what we discussed at the beginning of the book in relation to the bodys genetically hard-wired survival responses. When we restrict calories (even if its not to a significant degree), our fat burning metabolism naturally slows down in order to conserve energy. The slower our metabolism becomes, the slower the rate of fat burning becomes.
A fat burning program that includes dietary changes but no exercise will still produce positive results. But it will not produce results at a rate anywhere near what youd get by using a proper diet coupled with a well-structured cardio program.
This is because intense cardio enables us to actively burn more calories while still being able to provide our bodies with all of the nutrients it needs to maintain lean mass and function optimally.
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In other words, well prevent our bodies from ever entering into a starvation state and our metabolism will continually remain elevated.
The synergistic effect of a well-structured nutrition plan coupled with weight training and cardio will actually force your bodys fat burning metabolism into overdrive while still allowing you to keep your body in a well fed state.
To sum up:
Nutrition without exercise = fat burning with a loss in lean body mass and a slowing down of the metabolism.
Nutrition WITH exercise = fat burning while maintaining lean body mass and increasing metabolism.
Which one do you think would produce greater results? Take your pick.
If youre just a casual individual looking to lose a bit of fat and clean up your eating habits without any highly significant changes, then go ahead and modify your diet without including exercise.
But if youre truly serious about maximizing your fat burning capacity and molding your body into a lean, defined and re-shaped condition, then your program must include cardiovascular exercise along with weight training.
Now, while Ive just stated the importance of cardio as part of your overall program, I will say this
As a whole, cardiovascular exercise on its own is probably overrated as a fat burning catalyst.
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Keep in mind that there is a big difference between ineffective and overrated.
Cardio is certainly highly effective when implemented properly, but it is also not the holy grail of fat loss as some individuals treat it.
Weve all seen those people in the gym who slave away on cardio machines for long, tedious sessions 5-6 times a week and dont seem to make any progress at all. If cardio really was the key to fat loss then we wouldnt be seeing so many out-of-shape trainees running on the treadmills and riding the recumbent bikes day in and day out.
Cardio on its own will do little to nothing for fat loss if your nutritional plan is not intelligently structured and carried out. Cardio is also far less effective on its own without the inclusion of weight training.
Your fat burning program will only be as effective as its weakest link. Without proper nutrition and intense weight training, you can run on that treadmill till youre blue in the face and still not lose an ounce of fat.
In addition, cardio will only produce a measurable effect on fat loss if it is implemented in the most effective way. And the most effective way is far different than what youll see the majority of individuals doing in the gym.
That is the topic of our next discussion
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Why Long Duration/Low Intensity Cardio Is Far From Optimal

When I talk about long duration Im referring to cardio sessions lasting around 45-60 minutes or more, performed at a slow or moderate pace. This is the way that most individuals perform their cardio, and this is exactly why most people dont get maximal results from their workouts.
Were often told that we should be exercising in a steady state or that we should be able to comfortably hold a conversation while performing our cardio. Were told that if we perform our cardio at a greater level of intensity, then were working too hard.
What do I say to that?
Bull!
The reason why this method is often recommended is because of the way that the bodys energy systems work.
When the body is in a steady state where oxygen supply meets oxygen demand, fat will be primarily oxidized for use as energy. When the body is in an anaerobic state (higher intensity states where activities are performed intermittently), carbohydrates will be primarily used for fuel.
It would seem logical that since our goal is to burn body fat, the former method would be far more effective. It seems to make sense on the surface. But, if we look at the big picture we quickly discover that this is not the case.
The reason is simple: while low intensity/long duration sessions will burn a greater percentage of body fat during the actual exercise, high intensity/low duration sessions will burn a greater NET amount of body fat over a period of time lasting well beyond the initial exercise.
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When you perform an intense cardio session (or even an intense weight training session for that matter), you actually end up spiking your metabolism and cause it to work extra hard even while you arent training. Thats correct: higher intensity cardio actually causes your body to burn fat for hours following the session.
The initial cardio session lights the fire, and that fire continues to burn even while youre at rest. The result is a turbo-charged fat burning metabolism that literally forces your body to expend more calories around the clock.
Even though high intensity bouts of cardio use carbohydrates as their primary fuel, a greater net amount of fat will be burned as compared to a low intensity session.
Slow-paced, low intensity sessions do not cause any serious spike in metabolism and for this reason they are less effective.
Another problem with using lower intensity cardio sessions is that they eat up far more of your time.
Would you rather spend 15 minutes exercising or 45? Long cardio sessions are tedious and boring to perform and they increase the chance of over-use injuries. They will also produce greater muscle loss than their high intensity counterparts.
Not only will you induce a greater fat burning effect by utilizing higher intensity sessions, but youll also spare more lean muscle mass as well. And youll increase the efficiency of your program by spending less time in the gym. In addition, it will give you the opportunity to combine weight training and cardio into a single session (for example, 40 minutes of weight training + 15 minutes of cardio). With lower intensity/long duration sessions this would not be possible as the sessions would drag on for far too long.
If you always separate weight training and cardio into different sessions youll literally multiply the number of days youre forced to spend in the gym.
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For example, with 3 weight training sessions and 3-4 cardio sessions weekly youd be in the gym nearly every day, and possibly twice on some days. If you combine your weight training/cardio into a single session, you could complete the same amount of work with just 3-4 sessions in the gym each week.
So, we now know that higher intensity/lower duration cardio is superior to lower intensity/longer duration cardio in terms of the net effect on fat loss.
Im not saying that lower intensity cardio doesnt work. After all, there are plenty of individuals who use this method and have incredible physiques. All Im saying is that for the majority of the population, its not optimal.
Any kind of cardio at all is better than none, and all forms of cardio will have some fat loss benefits as long as your nutrition and weight training is properly in place. If youve done lower intensity cardio in the past and have found it beneficial, or for some reason are unable to stick to the higher intensity methods Im about to outline, then its your choice. Lower intensity cardio will still produce results; they just wont be the maximum, explosive results youd see with the higher intensity variety.
Lets now get started by breaking down the cardio issue into individual step-by-step principles that you can translate into your workout plan. Well be talking about such topics as duration, frequency, structure, cardio machines, use of intervals, pre and post cardio nutrition, progress tracking, and more.
Lets begin
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Frequency
How many cardio sessions should you perform weekly?
First of all, this depends largely on the individual. We have to take into account each individuals personal goals as well as their recovery ability.
Individuals who have very large amounts of fat to lose would probably benefit from performing more cardio, while for others excessive cardio may be unnecessary.
In addition, those who can recover easily from exercise will be able to get away with doing cardio more frequently. Those without great recovery ability might be at risk of overtraining if they perform the same amount.
As a general guideline, I recommend that you include 3-5 weekly cardio sessions into your workout program.
Combine your cardio sessions with your weight training workouts wherever possible, preferably at the end of the workout. Then add the additional cardio sessions as a supplemental portion on other days of the week.
Here is what your weekly workout schedule might look like at different numbers of weight training/cardio workouts:
3 Weight Workouts & 3 Cardio Sessions Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight workout A + cardio rest weight workout B + cardio rest weight workout C + cardio rest rest
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3 Weight Workouts & 4 Cardio Sessions Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight workout A + cardio rest weight workout B + cardio rest weight workout C + cardio rest cardio
4 Weight Workouts & 4 Cardio Sessions Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight rest weight rest weight rest weight workout A + cardio
workout B + cardio
workout C + cardio
workout D + cardio
4 Weight Workouts & 3 Cardio Sessions Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight rest weight rest weight rest weight workout A + cardio
workout B + cardio
workout C + cardio
workout D
4 Weight Workouts & 5 Cardio Sessions Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight rest weight rest weight cardio weight workout A + cardio
workout B + cardio
workout C + cardio
workout D + cardio
You get the idea.
Simply attach one cardio session to the end of each weight workout, and then any leftover cardio
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sessions that have not been assigned to a weight workout can be performed alone on other days in the week.
If you arent an experienced trainee then its always better to start off with less rather than more.
I would suggest beginning with a basic outline of 3 weight training sessions and 3 cardio sessions per week (this means youll be in the gym 3 days per week).
Once youre comfortable with this plan then you can experiment by inserting an additional cardio day during the week and see how that goes. If youre able to handle that schedule without feeling run down or fatigued and if you see better results this way, then you can experiment with one final cardio session added on.
Some gifted and hard working individuals may be able to get away with doing cardio 6 days per week, but for the majority of people this just isnt practical or necessary.
So, the basic process is:
1) Start by performing 3 cardio sessions weekly.
2) Insert an additional session and evaluate the results. If the result is positive then move to step 3. If it is negative go back to step one.
3) Insert one final session and evaluate again. If the result is positive, stick with this, and if youre really ambitious then try inserting one final session. If the result is negative, then drop back to 4 sessions.
How do we know if the result is positive or negative?
A lot of it will come down to your own ability to listen to your body.
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If you feel rundown or overly tired after performing a given number of sessions, then you are obviously pushing your body beyond its ability to properly recover and will need to scale back. You can also pay attention to your performance during your actual workouts. If your performance is decreasing or stagnant then most likely you are overtraining.
Finally, take a look at your bottom line results. When you add an additional cardio session youll need to carefully look at how that addition is impacting your progress. Well be talking about measuring progress in the final section of the book. (However, if you are able to throw in an additional session with no negative effects on your energy levels or performance then it most likely will accelerate your rate of fat loss.)
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Duration
Ive talked so far about the benefits of performing short duration/higher intensity cardio. But just how short of a session am I referring to?
First, you need to realize that there is no magical number of minutes that will produce any kind of special results as opposed to other similar durations.
Having said that, given the intensity level that I recommend you train with, your cardio sessions will probably land somewhere in the range of 15-25 minutes.
If youre able to easily exceed 25 minutes then you simply arent pushing yourself hard enough.
Advanced trainees who make use of high intensity sprint intervals (which well talk about shortly) will be able to finish their cardio in the shortest periods of time.
This recommended workout duration is simply a function of the intensity level. We dont look at the duration first and then assign an intensity level to it; it works the other way around. We simply determine the intensity level that will produce the most dramatic fat burning effect, and then we assign the duration as a function of that intensity.
As I mentioned in the weight training section, intensity and volume are inversely proportional.
As intensity goes up, the workload must inevitably come down. You could maintain a walking pace for hours on end, you might be able to jog for an hour or so, but you can only sprint for several seconds.
Given the intensity level that we should strive for during our cardio sessions, 15-25 minutes is the rough amount of time you will be able to effectively sustain it for.
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Not only do cardio sessions lasting this length of time allow us to train with an optimal level of intensity, but as I mentioned earlier, they also increase the overall efficiency of our workout plan by leaps and bounds.
How so?
When we keep our cardio workouts short and intense, we can actually perform both weight training and cardio in a single training session.
I explained in the weight training section that we can only perform intense exercise for about 4060 minutes before our cortisol levels start to rise and our mental focus rapidly diminishes.
If you try to perform traditional cardio sessions lasting 45-60 minutes, theres no way you could cram that into the same workout as your weight training without wasting away huge amounts of muscle and overtraining yourself.
Youd either have to perform it during another part of the day (for example, cardio in the morning and weights at night) or youd have to put it on a different day altogether.
By having your cardio sessions last just 15-25 minutes, you will literally cut your trips to the gym in half.
As long as youre able to complete your weight training workout within about 40-45 minutes, you can then jump right into your cardio workout immediately following for an additional 15-25 minutes.
This means youll get the muscle building benefit of weight training and the fat burning cardio benefits all wrapped up into a single 60-70 minute session. This is the ultimate way to kill two birds with one stone and get maximum efficiency from your training plan.
Of course this type of schedule is not mandatory (for example, you are allowed to perform cardio
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in the morning and weight training at night, or put them on separate days altogether) but in my experience it is the most practical method.
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Intervals
Weve now established that your cardio sessions should be performed at a high intensity level (high intensity is obviously a relative term and depends on the individual), implemented 3-5 times weekly and lasting anywhere from 15-25 minutes in total duration.
Lets now take a look at the actual structure of the cardio session itself.
These cardio sessions Im recommending are most likely going to be different than the regular structure that youre used to. Rather than simply jumping onto a machine and peddling or running at a set resistance level for a set period of time, these cardio sessions will be structured using intervals.
The idea behind intervals is simple: you exercise at a hard pace for a set period of time followed by a slower pace for a set period of time, and then repeat. For example, you might train at a high intensity for 2 minutes followed by a low intensity for 1 minute.
Intervals are much more effective than traditional steady-pace cardio because they increase the overall intensity output of the workout. Intervals allow you to achieve a greater total energy expenditure and burn more total calories both during and after the session.
We talked about the importance of spiking your metabolism during your training sessions in order to keep it elevated for hours afterwards, and intervals are the most efficient way to accomplish this.
Intervals also seem to serve mental benefits as well. By having frequent rest periods inserted in between the high intensity bouts it will be easier to generate a total net level of energy output.
There are literally an endless number of different interval structures that can be used. What works best for you will depend on your current fitness level and experience. Obviously a
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complete beginner would not start out by performing all-out sprints and would instead start off on a lower intensity plan. Advanced trainees could safely push themselves to a much higher level.
There are many different work/rest period combinations you can use, so dont get too hung up on specific numbers. There is no one absolute best interval structure that will yield significantly greater results than other similar structures.
The best thing you can do is to switch up your intervals periodically to keep things fresh and continually test yourself against new boundaries. Just focus on training yourself hard and consistently progressing.
Here are the rough interval periods and intensities that you can implement depending on your fitness level
Beginner Intervals
23 minutes ON / 90 seconds - 2 minutes OFF
Those who are just getting started and who have no real experience with higher intensity cardio methods should begin with these intervals.
Exercise at a harder pace for anywhere from 2 to 3 minutes, and follow this with a rest period of 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Theres no way to assign one absolute structure to everyone, so youll have to experiment and see what youre able to handle.
If youre a complete beginner then you may want to start with a basic structure of 3 minutes on and 2 minutes off. If you feel that you have it in you to go harder, try 2 minutes on and 45 seconds off.
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As you get used to performing this style of cardio and as your fitness level inevitably increases, you can continually raise the demands on your body.
For example, you might start off by performing 3 minutes on and 2 minutes off. After a few sessions you could try decreasing the rest period in order to make the session harder; say, 3 minutes on and 1.5 minutes off. After that you could try lowering the first period down to 2 minutes and raise the intensity further.
During the on period your goal is simply to train at an intensity level greater than what youre regularly used to. For example, if you normally ride a recumbent bike at a resistance level of 4, then during the on period you might aim to increase that to around 6 or 7.
And remember, the off period is not literally a time to stop working altogether. It simply means that you scale back on the intensity compared to what you do during the on period. Youll still be peddling, stepping, or running, depending on which form of cardio you choose, but youll be doing it at a more gradual pace.
Using the beginner structure you can complete a total of about 6 intervals, which should take anywhere from around 15 to 25 minutes.
Intermediate Intervals
30-90 seconds ON / 30-90 seconds OFF
These intervals will be harder than the beginner structure as youll have to push yourself closer to your maximum capacity during the on periods. The on period should not be an all out sprint as you cannot maintain a full effort for that long, but you should be pushing yourself as intensely as you reasonably can.
Again, the time periods you choose will depend on your fitness level and experience. The shorter
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the on and off periods are, the harder the workout will be. Youll be forced to train at a greater percentage of your all-out effort and you will be resting for shorter periods of time in between.
You can perform about 4-6 of these intermediate intervals to constitute a full session.
Advanced Intervals
10-25 seconds ON / 10 seconds-60 seconds OFF
These types of advanced intervals should only be used by experienced individuals who are comfortable training at an all-out pace. As long as you provide yourself with enough rest in between intervals you should be able to perform the on period with 100% effort (or damn near close to it).
The benefit of using this advanced structure is that your workout time will be greatly reduced. In addition, youll get the most dramatic effect on your overall caloric expenditure and boost to your metabolism.
These types of intense intervals will also increase the bodys secretion of growth hormone, which is one of the primary fat burning substances in your body.
If you choose intervals on the lower end of the scale (say, 15 seconds on and 15 seconds off), you most likely wont be able to perform them using a traditional cardio machine as the intensity level on the machine will not be able to adjust quickly enough to keep up with you. These types of intervals should be performed using activities such as outdoor sprinting or bodyweight exercises.
Start out with an interval structure and intensity level that youre comfortable with, and focus on progressing from there. If in doubt, always err on the side of caution and start with a lower intensity level. Then gradually build up from there.
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This is a very important point: you should always be striving for progression! Just as you keep a weight training log to track your workouts each week, you should be tracking the progress of your cardio sessions as well.
Each time you perform a session you should aim to improve slightly upon the previous session in some fashion. In order to continually improve, you can manipulate the following factors:
- Increase the resistance on the machine - Increase the distance that you travel at a given resistance - Decrease the resting time in between intervals - Decrease the work period of an interval and raise the intensity as a result - Increase the work period of an interval at the same intensity - Perform a greater number of total intervals
By continually striving to push the envelope further and further, your body will continue to adapt and adjust. This will boost your fat burning metabolism to greater and greater heights.
If you think of your fat burning metabolism as a fire, then manipulating the above factors is like throwing on more wood. As the total workload becomes more and more intense, the fire will continue to burn stronger and stronger.
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Warming Up & Cooling Down
I dont advise that you simply jump onto the machine and start exercising at full intensity right off the bat.
You should prepare your mind and body first with a light 5-minute warm up using whichever exercise youll be using for your intervals. If youll be running on the treadmill for your intervals, then warm up on the treadmill. If youll be using a stationary bike, then warm up on the stationary bike. You get the picture.
The 5 minute warm up should not fatigue you in any way, but should simply be used to drive blood into the surrounding connective tissues, stimulate your heart and lungs and prepare you for the work that lies ahead. Once the 5 minutes is up you can go ahead and start.
After you have finished your interval training, you should follow it up with a 5-minute cool down. Again, this should simply be a very low intensity pace using the same exercise that you used for the intervals. The cool down will help to relax your muscles and clear out waste products that were produced during the high intensity bout.
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Why Calorie Readings Are Irrelevant

For those of you who have included cardiovascular exercise in your program in the past, you may have been using the calories burned tool on the machine as a gauge for the success of your session.
From here on out, ignore it completely!
Remember, the main benefit that you achieve from your cardio session is not the raw number of calories burned during the actual exercise but rather the overall net effect it will have on your resting metabolism. For this reason, the calories burned that shows up on the machine doesnt really tell you much in terms of the overall fat burning effect that that session will have.
In addition to this, the readings are often inaccurate and can sometimes be off by up to 100 calories or more.
Dont worry about what the machine tells you in terms of calories burnt. Simply focus on pushing yourself to a high level of intensity and youll be burning calories for many hours following the session.
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Why Heart Rate Is Unimportant

The same goes for these so-called target heart rates that many fat loss gurus recommend you try to reach during your session.
The same logic applies here: your goal is not to burn a high amount of fat during the actual session but instead to increase your overall resting fat burning metabolism.
For this reason its not important that you try to get yourself into a fat burning zone based on your heart rate during the workout. Again, the goal is simply to push yourself hard in order to spike your overall metabolism into action.
The only time heart rate can become useful is when trying to gauge your rest periods during the intervals. You want to be able to put forth a hard effort during the higher intensity periods, so dont jump right back into them if your heart rate is still highly elevated from the first high intensity period. Doing so will sacrifice the effort that you can put forth and will cause you to burn out very quickly.
Although this is just a rough guideline, try to get your heart rate back down to about 60% of your maximum before jumping into the next interval. A basic way to figure out your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220.
220 Age = Maximum Heart Rate
You can then multiply this number by 0.6 in order to determine roughly how low your heart rate should be before jumping back into your next high intensity interval.
You can check the pulse in your wrist or neck during the workout to figure out your heart rate. Simply count the number of beats over a 10 second period and then multiply by 6 in order to find the number of beats per minute.
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Acceptable Cardio Exercises

Weve now established the frequency, length and structure of the cardio sessions, but which actual machines or methods should we use to perform our cardio?
Just as there is no best interval setting for cardio, there is also no best machine. However, there are some machines that will be more effective than others.
The main goal to keep in mind when choosing a piece of cardio equipment is to find a machine that:
Does not require very much skill to perform You dont want to have to divert very much of your focus onto balancing yourself on the machine and maintaining a specific form. Instead, you should pick a cardio exercise that is simple and mechanical to execute so that the majority of your focus can be placed on generating a high level of intensity.
Minimizes the risk of injury One of your primary goals when it comes to both weight training and cardiovascular exercise is to keep your joints and connective tissues strong and healthy at all times. It doesnt matter how effective and well structured your training routine is, if you end up with an injury the entire thing will come to a grinding halt. For this reason you should try to stick to machines that produce low impact on your joints and that also dont aggravate any existing injuries you may have.
In my opinion, the following machines are ideal for our purposes when performing cardio
Upright stationary bike
This machine is extremely straightforward to use and will allow you to place all of your focus on generating a high level of intensity without having to worry about your form.
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It is also a very low impact exercise and will keep the stress off your joints. Stationary bikes are easily programmable and are ideal when performing interval-style training.
Recumbent Bike
This is the same as a stationary bike except that your body is in a seated position. The seated position will take some of the stress off your lower back, which is a nice advantage for those who have previous lower back problems.
Treadmill
Treadmills offer an excellent alternative to running outdoors. The treadmill platforms are designed to produce less impact on the joints than you would get if you ran outside on concrete.
If you want to increase the difficulty you can also raise the platform up on an incline. Treadmills are a great choice when implementing an interval-style of training.
Stairclimber
A stairclimber can be used by anyone, whether beginner or advanced. This offers another low impact movement that allows you to focus on putting forth a hard effort. Be sure to avoid leaning on the handle bars as this will reduce the intensity of the workout.
Outdoor Sprinting
Ive included this option as well for advanced trainees who will be utilizing the advanced interval
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structure. This method should only be used by those with a high level of fitness and who have previous experience using sprint intervals.
Outdoor sprinting is probably the most effective way to spike your fat burning metabolism into overdrive, and can also be completed in a very short amount of time. The only downside is that sprinting is a very high impact exercise and can quickly cause stress to the joints, so use it cautiously.
You may consider alternating sprinting with other cardio methods. For example, you could include 2 sprint workouts per week and 2 stationary bike workouts per week. You can sprint uphill as well in order to increase the difficulty even further.
If for some reason using the above-mentioned methods is not possible, then you can also use the following
Rowing machine
The reason this machine is less than ideal is because it requires a more complicated motion and thus will divert some of your focus away from generating full intensity during your session.
The rowing machine can also be stressful to the lower back and should be avoided by those who have pre-existing lower back issues.
Elliptical
The only time when I would really recommend using the elliptical is if you are suffering from knee problems. The elliptical is a great alternative in that situation.
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However, if your knees are otherwise healthy I dont think an elliptical is the best choice for a cardio workout.
Swimming
Swimming can be a reasonable alternative to the traditional cardio methods, especially if you have pre-existing joint problems. Swimming uses a very wide range of muscles from head to toe and thus is a great way to expend a large number of total calories. The use of swimming as a cardio option should only be used by advanced swimmers.
Experiment with different cardio exercises and see what you feel works best.
I would recommend that you stick with the first list of suggestions such as the stationary bike, recumbent bike, treadmill, stairclimber and sprinting wherever possible. The other alternatives should be used mainly by those who have a specific reason to do so, such as a pre-existing injury.
I would also recommend that you change the machines that you use periodically in order to keep things fresh and interesting. This will also keep your body from adjusting to one set pattern of movement.
You can also combine different methods into the same week. For example, you could perform 2 sessions on a stationary bike and 2 sessions on the treadmill.
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Pre & Post Cardio Nutrition

We already covered proper post workout nutrition in detail during the weight training section, but Id like to do a very quick review just to make sure you fully understand how it should be implemented.
As I mentioned earlier, your cardio sessions can be added to the end of your weight training sessions as long as the total work time is kept to 60 minutes or less, although going a bit longer up to 70-75 minutes wont kill you.
In this situation, you can simply follow pre and post workout nutrition guidelines as spelled out in the weight training section. You would have your regular pre-workout meal consisting of slowrelease carbs and high quality protein prior to the workout. Your post workout shake would be consumed directly after your cardio session.
There may be days where you perform cardio on its own without weight training, and in those situations the protocol is still the same. If you are utilizing high intensity intervals as outlined previously, then the pre and post workout nutrition guidelines are the same as they would be around a regular workout.
If you are using lower intensity aerobic sessions as a supplemental part of your workout plan, then I would recommend following the same pre-workout nutrition guidelines for those occasions. However, in this particular situation you can eliminate the post workout guidelines.
Lower intensity aerobic sessions are not nearly as stressful to the body as high intensity weight training and intervals. Therefore, the higher glycemic food choices that I recommended for use after a strenuous workout are not necessary after doing a low intensity workout. You should simply consume a regular pre-workout meal, perform your cardio session, and then resume with regular nutrition following the session. However, you should still aim to have that meal within about an hour of finishing your cardio.
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Implementing Cardio Into Your Weekly Schedule

We touched on this briefly in the frequency section, but Id like to expand a little bit on the topic just to make sure you fully understand your options.
As I have already mentioned a few times, if you are able to complete both your weight training and cardio session into a single 60 minute workout, then that is what I would advise you do. This will literally cut your trips to the gym in half and will increase the overall efficiency of your plan by leaps and bounds.
There are some experts who advise against combining weight training and cardio into a single session, but this is usually because the cardio sessions being performed are of the lower intensity/long duration variety.
Under most circumstances this would result in a workout duration of 90 minutes or more, which I agree is not acceptable and will lead to muscle loss and overtraining.
However, since our cardio sessions are performed at a higher intensity level and will only last 1525 minutes, you should be able to squeeze them both into one session and keep the entire workout around 60 minutes or less.
There are some circumstances when you may be unable to combine the weight training and cardio into a single session.
This could happen simply due to the time constraints, or the amount of work involved may be too much for you to do at one time. Or, you may be unable to perform the low duration/high intensity cardio method that I recommend due to health/injury reasons.
If for any reason you find it too difficult to combine your weight training and cardio together, there are 3 alternative options I can recommend:
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1) Separate your cardio and weight training onto separate days of the week.
Such a schedule might look like this:
Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7:
weight training workout A cardio weight training workout B cardio weight training workout C cardio rest
2) Perform your cardio in the morning and weight training at night, or vice versa.
This is fine as long as the sessions are spaced at least 8 hours apart. This schedule might look like this:
morning cardio + weight training workout A at night rest morning cardio + weight training workout B at night rest morning cardio + weight training workout C at night rest rest
3) Expand into a 4 day per week weight training schedule.
This allows you to spread out your weight training work over the course of 4 days, thus lowering the total volume of each workout. In doing so it would be easier to fit cardio onto the end of the workout. An example:
weight rest weight rest weight rest weight
training workout A + cardio
training workout B + cardio
training workout C + cardio
training workout D + cardio
As you can see above, you have plenty of options here. Any of these outlined schedules are an acceptable way to combine weight training and cardio into your week.
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The reason I recommend performing 3 weight workouts followed by cardio is because it is the most practical method for most busy individuals to implement. Using the alternative schedules above will have you in the gym many more times in the week, and twice on some days, which can be a struggle for many to consistently stick to over the long run.
The final issue Id like to briefly touch on is the idea of combining both HIIT (high intensity intervals) along with regular aerobic style cardio.
I definitely believe that HIIT style cardio is the most effective in terms of the overall effects on fat loss and cardiovascular fitness. But that doesnt necessarily mean that you have to eliminate longer duration cardio altogether, especially if it involves activities that you enjoy such as cycling, walking or swimming.
You can still include longer duration cardio exercise as a supplemental part of your workout plan or include it if you find that 3-5 sessions of HIIT is simply too draining for you. HIIT cardio, while extremely effective, is definitely more stressful to the body as a whole. Some individuals may not even be able to tolerate 3 HIIT sessions on top of their weight training workouts.
If the HIIT sessions are too much for you at 3 times per week, or if you would simply like to include aerobic activities as part of your plan, then by all means go ahead.
For example, you could perform 2 HIIT sessions and 2 regular aerobic sessions into your week. Or you could try 3 HIIT sessions and 2 aerobic sessions. It really depends on you and how much training youre comfortable with and able to handle.
An aerobic session should last anywhere from 30-60 minutes and should be performed at a steady pace (no intervals) all the way through.
Although the intensity level of this type of session will be lower than its HIIT counterpart, it should by no means be easy and should still be challenging to perform. If you ranked your
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intensity level from 0 (no work at all) to 10 (100% effort), these types of sessions should fall into a difficulty level of about 5-7.
Here are some examples of what your weekly schedule could look like with aerobic cardio thrown into the mix:
Option #1 Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight training workout A + HIIT cardio rest weight training workout B + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio weight training workout C + HIIT cardio rest aerobic cardio
Option #2 Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight training workout A HIIT cardio weight training workout B aerobic cardio weight training workout C HIIT cardio rest
Option #3 Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: Day6: Day7: weight training workout A + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio weight training workout B + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio weight training workout C + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio aerobic cardio
Option #4 Day1: Day2: Day3: Day4: Day5: weight training workout A + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio weight training workout B + HIIT cardio aerobic cardio weight training workout C + HIIT cardio
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Day6: rest Day7: weight training workout D
These are just some ideas for you. Youre not strictly limited to following what Ive outlined above.
Every persons recovery ability, individual schedule and goals are highly individual and unique. For this reason youll have to test and tweak based on your own situation to see what works best for you and what youre able to comfortably handle.
Wrapping It Up
Well, that brings us to the end of the cardio section. You should now have a pretty clear picture in your head of what an effective cardio workout looks like, and should have a good list of ideas as to how you can implement cardio into your workout plan based on your individual situation and goals.
Well cap this off with a short review of this section, and then well move on to the final section and discuss the topic of progress tracking.
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Maximum Fat Loss Cardio Review

- Although cardiovascular exercise on its own is probably overrated as a fat burning catalyst, it should still be included in your program if you want to see the best possible results.
- While most people typically stick to long duration/low intensity forms of cardio, this approach is actually far from optimal in terms of stimulating fat loss. Although steady-pace cardio burns a greater percentage of fat during the session, high intensity/low duration cardio burns a greater net amount of fat.
- Shorter cardio sessions in the range of 15-25 minutes produce a large spike in the fat burning metabolism that forces the body to expend calories for many hours following the session. Not only is this method far more efficient in terms of your overall schedule, but it will yield far more dramatic fat burning results as well.
- In order to gain the positive benefits of cardiovascular exercise without over training yourself, stick to performing 3-5 cardio sessions per week. Begin by performing 3 sessions and gradually increase the number until you find your own personal sweet spot.
- Cardio sessions can either be performed immediately following your weight training workouts (as long as the total exercise time does not drift beyond 60-70 minutes) or on your resting days.
- The most effective way to structure your individual sessions is through the use of high intensity intervals. Interval-based cardio allows you to put forth the greatest amount of total intensity and energy expenditure, and also serves mental benefits as well. Use the guidelines laid out in the interval section to determine what types of intervals you will use based on your experience level.
- Always perform a very light, moderately paced warmup for 5 minutes prior to your cardio session followed by a 5 minute cooldown at the end.
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- Do not worry about the calorie readings on the machine or about reaching a specified target heart rate. Both of these factors are largely irrelevant. Simply focus on putting forth a hard, focused effort during each session and strive for improvement reach time.
- Stick to cardio exercises that minimize the risk of injury and that do not require very much skill to perform. The most highly recommend machines include the upright stationary bike, recumbent bike, treadmill and strairclimber.
- Follow the same pre and post-workout nutrition guidelines for cardio as you do for weight training.
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Section #4: How To Track Your Progress

Weve now covered all of the different aspects of structuring a proper fat burning program, from nutrition to weight training to cardio. By now you should have a pretty thorough understanding of each of those concepts and you should be able to combine all of this information into a concrete, step-by-step plan that you can begin implementing.
Theres just one more major topic we need to discuss before you get started, and that is the issue of tracking your progress.
After all, if you dont have an objective way to measure the changes in your bodys composition, how will you know if your program is even working? You always need an objective way to track the effects of your nutrition/exercise routine so that you know if youre moving in the right direction or if you need to make adjustments.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose body fat is failing to monitor their progress. They end up spinning their wheels without any idea as to whether their program is actually working, and the entire process becomes far less efficient as a result.
In this section Im going to outline the 5 major factors that you should pay attention to on a weekly basis. Combining and analyzing all 5 of these factors should give you a pretty good idea as to how fast youre progressing and whether or not making adjustments is going to be necessary.
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Progress Tracking Method #1: Changes in Body Weight
The way the majority of individuals measure their progress is simple: they step on a scale every day to see if the number is going up or down.
While checking your overall body weight on a scale is one way to track your improvements, relying on this number as your sole tool is a huge mistake!
Let me explain
Tracking your overall body weight does not take your body composition into account, and changing your body composition really is the underlying goal of a properly structured fat burning program. Your goal is not merely to lose body weight. Your goal is to lose body fat, while maintaining or possibly gaining muscle.
What would happen if you were to lose muscle mass while maintaining your body fat levels? The number on the scale would continue to fall. Youd weigh less, but in reality youd be taking yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them.
Or what if you were to lose body fat while gaining muscle mass? The number on the scale would barely budge, yet youd be seeing the best change in body composition possible.
On its own, without any additional factors taken into account, body weight means very little. So, forget about all of the ideal weight charts and BMI charts that try to tell you what your body weight should be based on your height or age. These are incredibly misleading simply because they ignore the factor of body fat percentage altogether.
An individual weighing 220 pounds at 6% body fat would obviously be in far better shape than someone weighing 150 pounds at 18% body fat. Yet an ideal weight chart would classify the
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220 pound person as obese, and would represent the 150 pound person as being in the proper range. You can see how this doesnt really give you any useful information.
So what is a body weight reading good for? And why is it included as a progress-tracking tool?
First of all, as a general statement, if your goal is to lose body fat, then your body weight should be on a steady downward decrease. The only successful situation where your body weight would stay the same or increase is if you were to see a simultaneous gain in lean body mass while losing body fat. For the vast majority of individuals this is not realistic, and will usually only be seen in those with extremely rigorous programs and much higher than average genetic capacity.
Most individuals following a proper fat burning program will see a drop in their body fat coupled with a slight decrease in lean body mass. For this reason, the number on the scale should be steadily going down. If the number is staying the same or increasing, then most likely something needs to be adjusted.
The major reason why body weight is important is because it is one of the variables that needs to be taken into account when calculating overall body fat mass and lean body mass. As youll discover shortly, these calculations are the most accurate ways to determine if your program is heading in the right direction.
When weighing yourself, heres some points to watch for:
- Use the same scale each time since the weight readings among different scales can often vary by quite a few pounds.
- Weigh yourself at the same time of the day. Its best to weigh yourself in the morning before consuming any food or drink. Your body weight will often fluctuate quite a bit at later periods depending on the volume/type of food youve eaten.
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Progress Tracking Method #2: Changes In Body Fat Percentage Progress Tracking Method #3: Changes In Lean Body Mass
These are definitely the two most important factors to keep track of. Your goal is to lose body fat while maintaining/gaining muscle mass, and keeping track of your body fat percentage is the only real way to determine if youre doing this effectively. The main drawback is that it can often be difficult to get an accurate reading.
There are many different methods that can be used to measure body fat levels. Im not going to go into a lot of detail on all of them since most of them are not practical or realistic for most individuals. For example, is it really realistic to have yourself dunked underwater every week in an expensive underwater hydrostatic weighing tank? Probably not.
For the vast majority of you out there, I would simply recommend making use of skin-fold measurements as a means of determining your body fat percentage. Most of the body fat that youre concerned with losing is located directly underneath your skin. By pinching and measuring the thickness on different sites of your body with a caliper you can get a pretty reliable reading as to your overall body fat levels.
While there is always going to be a margin for error regardless of what method you use, skin-fold measurements are the most practical and realistic way for you to go about it. You can have this measurement done either by a professional, or you can perform it yourself at home.
If youre going to use this method, I have to tell you that getting an absolute, correct measurement is not the most crucial thing. What is most important is that you measure yourself in the same way each time, and that you observe whether or not the readings are changing relative to each other over time. As long as there is a relative improvement in the measurements, then youll know that your body fat is decreasing regardless of whether the objective body fat percentage reading is correct.
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Once you have obtained a body fat percentage reading, you can then combine this percentage with your overall body weight in order to determine your body fat mass and your lean body mass. Lean body mass simply refers to any form of body weight that is not fat. This includes muscle tissue, glycogen, bone, water, etc.
The formula to determine lean body mass is simple:
1) Multiply your body weight in pounds by your body fat percentage. This will give you your fat mass in pounds.
2) Subtract your fat mass from your body weight. This will give you your lean body mass in pounds.
Heres an example
Well use an individual who weighs 200 pounds at 16% body fat.
200 X 0.16 = 32 200 32 = 168
This individual has 32 pounds of fat mass and 168 pounds of lean body mass.
Pretty simple, huh?
Once youre able to do this, your goal is simple: drop your fat mass while maintaining as much lean body mass as possible.
As I said before, this is the most important reading of all as it directly tells us what our change in body composition is. If your body fat mass is on a steady decline while your lean body mass is only decreasing slightly, then youre on the right track.
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You can also see why these factors are only reliable when used in combination with eachother. If we only ever measured our body weight, we wouldnt be able to determine our body composition. If we only ever measured our body fat percentage, we wouldnt be able to determine our changes in lean body mass. Its only when we combine body weight numbers AND body fat percentages and track them over time that can we get a clear reading on the overall picture and measure our progress, or lack of it.
I recommend that you make these measurements and calculate these readings once a week.
If you start obsessing about it too much and start measuring every day or even every couple of days, youll quickly drive yourself crazy. You might even get discouraged, because when you measure yourself too often, the changes will be so small that you will hardly notice them.
Once a week is a long enough time gap to allow for measurable changes to occur, and its a short enough time gap to ensure that youre staying on top of the numbers you need to know.
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Progress Tracking Method #4: Changes in Body Part Measurements
Heres another tool to have in your bag of tricks when measuring progress. If youre trying to lose body fat, then most likely youre aiming to lower your overall body size as well.
In order to determine if your body shape is actually changing, you can use a basic measuring tape once per week to check on all of your major body parts.
These are the body parts I would recommend measuring:
- Chest - Waist - Hips - Upper arm - Thigh
If you want to get really detailed you can also measure your forearm, calf and neck. However, these body parts will most likely not show any significant change in measurement from week to week. As an overall guideline Id stick to the 5 body parts listed above.
Remember that taking measurements is only one extra factor to be used in combination with body fat/lean body mass changes, since on their own they dont tell us the whole story. For example, you could lose muscle mass and maintain body fat and still see a decrease in measurements. Or alternatively, you could lose body fat and gain muscle and see the measurements stay the same or possibly increase.
Dont obsess about your measurements, but you can still include them as part of your overall progress tracking plan.
To get the most accurate reading, always take your measurements at the same time of the day.
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The ideal time would be first thing in the morning, with your muscles cold (cold meaning that they are not pumped up from a workout) and unflexed.
In addition, make sure that you measure around the same area of the body part every time, as the readings can change significantly depending on how high or low you measure.
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Progress Tracking Method #5: Changes in Appearance
This is what it really all comes down to, right?
If youre like most individuals, then your ultimate bottom line goal in losing body fat is to change the way you look. For this reason, we should certainly use our changes in appearance as a gauge for our progress.
There are 3 ways I would recommend using this tool
1) Appearance In The Mirror
Want a simple way to gauge your improvements? Look at yourself in the mirror!
Youre the one who is motivated to make this change and youre the one who sees yourself every day, so the mirror can be one useful tool in watching your physical progress.
However, you should be very cautious when using this method for the simple reason that our perception of our own body is often distorted from the way that others view it. Since these changes in our body will happen at such a gradual pace, it can often be hard to notice just how much were actually progressing when we see ourselves every single day.
In addition, were often very hard and critical of ourselves, and this can lead to a distorted perception. We often believe we are fatter than we really are, or that were making no progress when in fact we are changing for the better. Anorexia and The Adonis Complex (reverse anorexia typical in male bodybuilders) are good examples of this.
For this reason, the mirror should be used in addition to the following
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2) Before/After Pictures
This is a great way to get a more objective look at how our body is changing over a set period of time. Since we see ourselves in the mirror every day, its often hard to notice the subtle changes that take place. With before/after pictures, we can directly compare our appearance over longer periods of time.
I would recommend taking a picture of yourself once every 1-2 weeks (once a week is ideal) in order to track your appearance. As with other measurements, be sure to take your photos at the same time of day (morning is ideal). Be sure that all other conditions remain the same as these can have a big impact on how the photo appears. Use the same distance away from the camera and the same lighting.
Trust me, there is nothing more motivating than being able to look at a before/after picture of yourself to see how far youve progressed. I would highly recommend using this method of progress tracking; youll be glad that you did!
3) Objective Opinions From Others
Because our own perception of our body is often distorted, getting a 3rd party perspective from another person can be extremely valuable.
This doesnt mean that you have to actively go out and ask people if they think youve lost weight. Most of the time theyll simply answer yes to make you feel good. What Im saying is that you should pay attention to compliments and comments that you receive from others, as they will often have a clearer picture of the changes in your body as compared to your own.
If a person you havent seen in a few weeks or months asks you if youve been working out, then you can almost certainly be sure that your appearance is changing in a significant way.
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By using a combination of all 5 of these progress tracking factors (body weight, body fat percentage, lean body mass, measurements and changes in appearance) you should have a pretty clear picture of whether or not your program is working.
Just remember that on their own, none of these factors can really give you an accurate reading. Body weight on its own means nothing without body fat percentage. Measurements on their own mean nothing if you dont know what is happening to your lean body mass. Its the combination of all 5 factors that determines just how well you really are doing.
I highly recommend using these tools to track your progress. If you dont have an objective way to gauge your changes in body composition and appearance then youll never really know if your plan is succeeding. You could end up wasting a lot of time and effort by continuing to follow a plan that isnt producing results.
By measuring your results youll know if adjustments in your training or diet are necessary. Youll also have a baseline that gives you a way to measure the effects of any new variables that you introduce to your program.
For example, if you decided to increase your protein intake by 5% and lower your carbohydrate by 5%, you would obviously need a way to concretely measure the effects of that change. Accurately tracking your body composition is the only real way for you to know if that change is producing a positive result.
I would suggest objectively measuring your results, including body weight, body fat percentage, lean body mass, measurements and pictures, once per week.
This is a long enough period of time to notice measurable results and its frequent enough that youll be staying on top of your progress. Any more often than once per week and youll be measuring too frequently. Measuring too often will simply frustrate you as the changes will be minimal. If you go too long without measuring these factors, youll be missing out on potential
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opportunities to adjust your approach if the measurements show that youre not getting good results.
While were on the topic of tracking progress, Id like to answer one of the biggest questions that a lot of you have probably been wondering
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How Much Progress Can I Expect To See, And In What Time Frame?
First of all, you need to understand that every individual will see progress at a differing rate. Although we all have the same basic physical makeup, underneath the surface there are many subtleties and small differences that affect how quickly you can burn fat and build muscle.
Some of us have a great genetic capacity for making changes to our body composition quickly, while others will have to put forth more time and effort to see the same result. This is just the way it goes and there is no way around it. You cant change the genetic cards you were dealt; the only thing you can do is to make the best of them.
Just as some of us are naturally better artists, naturally better athletes or naturally better at math, some of us are naturally more or less inclined to burn fat and build muscle.
That being said, anyone can see a significant physical change as long as they are willing to put forth the effort and be patient with it. The main difference is simply in the time frame and effort that it will require to get there.
That all being said, we can still establish some rough guidelines to give you a basic idea as to how long it will take you to reach certain goals that you may have. The way that we can figure this out is by going back to the equations that we outlined in the progress tracking section for body fat mass and lean body mass.
First, we need to determine roughly how long it takes for the body to burn a specific amount of fat. This varies greatly from person to person and depends on their genetic capacity and just how strict their training/nutritional approach really is.
As a general rule, we should expect to be able to lose roughly 1-2 pounds of fat per week.
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We can roughly figure this out based on the fact that there are 3500 calories in a pound of stored body fat.
A caloric deficit of 500 calories per day would produce a weekly caloric deficit of 3500 calories, which would be equal to a pound of body fat. Of course it is not this cut and dry, since we cannot expect the caloric deficit that we create to stimulate 100% of the energy production from fat (inevitably a small portion will come from lean body mass) and also because well be creating a further deficit through exercise.
Generally speaking, a caloric deficit of 500-1000 calories daily (through a combination of diet and exercise) is realistic. This would result in a 3500-7000 weekly caloric deficit, which would roughly translate to 1-2 pounds of body fat.
Regardless of your genetic capacity and commitment to your program, you should be falling somewhere into this range of losing 1-2 pounds of fat per week. Losing more than 2 pounds of fat is not realistic without triggering a famine response from the body which will cause you to gain that fat back anyway. Losing less than 1 pound of fat per week usually means that adjustments should be made to your approach.
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What Is A Reasonable Body Fat Percentage To Strive For?
At the end of the day, its really your own individual choice.
Just as some bodybuilders desire greater levels of muscularity than other bodybuilders, just how lean you desire to be is also your own choice and is a matter of personal preference. Some people want to be as ripped and shredded as they can possibly be, while others would be perfectly content to just remain at an average level. If you are aiming to lose body fat for cosmetic reasons, then its your own decision as to how far you want to take it.
What we can do is establish a rough maximum and minimum based purely on health reasons. Then we can define a basic middle ground where most individuals should strive to be. There is obviously such a thing as an unhealthy maximum of body fat, and there is also an unhealthy minimum.
A healthy amount of body fat varies depending on whether you are male or female. Females store greater percentages of body fat due to evolutionary reasons.
According to the most recent statistics, the average levels of body fat are as follows:
Male
Aged Up To 30 = 9-15% Aged 30-50 = 11-17% Aged 50+ = 12-19%
Female
Aged Up To 30 = 14-21% Aged 30-50 = 15-23%
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Aged 50+ = 16-25%
As youll notice, as people age, their percentages of body fat typically increase as well. This is partially due to the loss of muscle tissue that occurs as we age. When we lose lean body mass, our overall body weight drops while body fat remains the same or increases, thus increasing the total body fat percentage.
In order to have your body fat fall into the healthy range, males should typically aim to keep their total body fat percentage below 15%. Females should strive to keep their body fat levels below 21%.
Just as having too high a level of body fat is unhealthy, its also unhealthy to have body fat levels that are too low.
Body fat serves many vital functions in the body. When body fat levels are too low youll be at risk for potential health problems. Keep in mind that were talking about a body fat percentage that is maintained over the long run rather than temporary drops that are used for bodybuilding or fitness competitions.
In order to keep yourself in the safe zone, men should aim to keep their body fat percentage above 7% for the majority of the time, while women should aim to keep it above 12%. This places our ideal healthy range at the following:
Men: 8-14% Female: 13-20%
As long as you are within that basic range, you wont be placing yourself at risk for health problems related to body fat levels that are either too high or too low.
Where you decide to place yourself within that range is really a cosmetic choice and is up to you. If you want to be as hard and lean as possible, then get your body fat down to the very bottom
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of that range. If being ripped is not a concern to you, then just aim to be somewhere in the middle. No one can tell you exactly how high or low to go but yourself.
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What Should I Do If Im Not Seeing Results With The Program?
There is nothing more frustrating and discouraging than putting together a workout and nutrition plan, following it to a T, and not seeing any measurable changes in your body composition. You might feel lost, angry, or confused, and begin to feel as if the whole thing is simply a big failure.
First, let me say this If you follow the guidelines that I have put forth in this program, you are almost certainly guaranteed to see a positive change in your body. Theres just no way that you could follow the nutrition and training methods as I have described them and not see a drop in your body fat levels. These guidelines are so effective and so positively backed by science and reasoning that unless you have been given the extreme short end of the stick in the genetics department, you definitely WILL see positive changes.
So if you do begin measuring your progress and notice that your body fat simply isnt budging, dont start to haphazardly change things.
Instead, sit down and be honest with yourself
Are you creating a proper deficit of calories through your diet? Are you eating 5-7 small meals daily spaced 2-3 hours apart? Are you making the proper protein, carbohydrate and fat food choices? Are you drinking plenty of water? Are you doing an adequate job of avoiding processed and refined foods? Are you sticking to your weight training and cardio schedule as outlined? Are you training with a hard, honest effort each time you enter the gym?
These are just a few of the many questions you can ask yourself.
Most likely youll be able to identify one, two or more holes in your program that deep down you know you arent implementing to your fullest potential.
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If 10,000 people had successfully used a recipe to bake a chocolate cake, and you then followed the same recipe but were unsuccessful, would you blame the recipe? No, youd go back and look at where you went wrong.
The fat loss recipe outlined in this package DOES work, and it WILL work for you if you follow it properly. If you arent seeing results, double check to ensure that youre following the recipe as it is described.
So before you change a single thing, go back and make sure that youre doing everything youre supposed to be doing in the first place. If youre not, then fix those holes immediately and continue. If you can honestly say that youre following every step the way it has been described and you still arent seeing the results you desire, here is a list of 8 factors that you can manipulate and test
1) Increase your cardio frequency.
Rather than making the typical jump of simply cutting more calories, first try increasing your activity level.
Are you performing 3 cardio sessions weekly right now? Try increasing it to 5 and see what happens. Are you performing 5 already? Then start doing cardio every day. You might have a fat burning metabolism that needs a bigger kick in order to really get going and burn the amount of fat you desire.
2) Increase your exercise intensity.
This applies both to weight training and cardio. Its possible that you just plain arent pushing yourself hard enough in the gym.
If youre after serious results, then get serious in the gym. Assuming you have no training limitations such as injuries, try revving up the intensity and putting forth more effort during your
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training sessions. Your body will not build muscle or burn fat unless you give it a good reason to do so.
3) Lower your caloric intake.
If increasing your activity level and intensity doesnt do the trick, try creating a bigger caloric deficit through your diet. Dont go overboard on this! We dont want to place our body into a starvation state as this will simply work against us.
Begin by reducing your daily caloric intake by around 100-200 calories and then measure the changes in your body. Sometimes this small amount can make all the difference between maintaining our weight and losing it.
4) Increase your meal frequency.
Grazing is always better than gorging. If you have your meal structure set up at 5 meals daily, try cutting down on the portions, lowering the intervals, and instead start consuming 7 meals daily. This will raise your fat burning metabolism even further and can help to kick start further fat loss.
5) Stop cheating on your diet.
Its fine to indulge yourself once in a while and enjoy that cheat food in order to keep yourself motivated over the long run. But if youre not seeing the results youre after, cut out the cheat foods altogether and do your best to stick to only the recommended food choices Ive outlined.
If youve been cheating more than you should be, then all of those extra calories could easily be adding up and could make the difference between fat loss and fat maintenance.
6) Increase your water intake.
This is such a simple change and anyone can do it. While a low water intake on its own probably
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isnt the reason youre failing to lose fat, it could be one part of the overall combination that is holding you back. Jack up your water intake; its not going to hurt you.
7) Get more sleep.
I havent discussed proper sleep in this book yet, so this is a perfect opportunity.
Does the amount of sleep you get each night have any effect on fat loss? It certainly does, and here are a few reasons why:
- Sleep has a direct effect on your performance in the gym. Even a slight deprivation in sleep can have a significant impact on your strength and intensity levels. - A lack of sleep will hinder your bodys ability to build and repair muscle tissue. - Less time asleep means more time awake, which will generally force you to consume more calories. - Sleep deprivation triggers an increase in a hormone named grehlin, which causes you to feel hungrier. - Sleep deprivation reduces the output of leptin, a hormone that suppresses the appetite. - Sleep deprivation increases cortisol secretion. - Sleep deprivation lowers the output of testosterone and growth hormone. - Sleep deprivation causes an increase in insulin resistance.
If youre serious about changing your body composition, I would recommend that you get at least 7-8 quality hours of sleep each night. If youre one of those people getting by on 4-5 hours, a lack of sufficient sleep could very well be one of the factors that is holding you back.
8) Change your macronutrient ratios.
Ive outlined a starting point ratio for you of 45% carbs, 35% protein and 20% fat. You might want to make some adjustments to those ratios, and heres some suggestions for you to try:
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Lowering your carbohydrate intake: - 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat
OR
35% carbs, 40% protein and 25% fat
Lowering your fat intake: - 50% carbs, 35% protein, 15% fat
OR:
- 55% carbs, 35% protein and 10% fat
Of course there are an endless number of ways you could adjust and tweak this, but in general, lowering your carb intake or lowering your fat intake (or both) is the best place to start.
Try tweaking by 5% at a time, and then measure the weekly results to see if there is any reasonable change.
By using a combination of the guidelines Ive outlined in this program with the 8 testing factors above, there is absolutely no reason why you should not be capable of reaching your goals within at least an average time period.
Ive given you a big toolbox to work with, and if you throw in the white towel because of a lack of results, its quite simply because you arent working hard enough!
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Wrapping It Up
Wrapping It Up
Heres where I turn it over to you.
Weve reached the end of this manual. Youre now equipped with literally everything you need to know to take your body from where it currently is, to where you want it to be in the future. You have the tools and the knowledge, and it is now up to YOU to implement them.
All of the reading, researching and analyzing in the world wont do a thing unless you translate it into a plan that you carry out on a consistent basis. The fact that you have read through and reached the end of this book shows me that this is something you truly want, and that its not merely a passing thought or a daydream.
You actively searched for the information, you found it, you absorbed it in detail, and now it is simply a matter of doing it.
By reading through this book you now understand:
- how many calories you must eat daily - how many meals you should consume and how far apart you should space them - how many grams of protein, carbohydrates and fats you should consume - which food sources to eat and which ones to avoid - how to combine your foods to form proper meals - specific times in the day when you should pay close attention to your nutrition - the importance of your water intake and how much you should drink daily - how to structure an effective muscle-building workout - how to structure an effective fat-burning cardio workout - how to combine your weight training and cardio into a weekly training plan - how to properly chart and interpret your progress each week
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Wrapping It Up
- how to make modifications if your results are inadequate
Plus, you now understand a whole host of the smaller details in between.
But, as Bruce Lee said:
Knowing is not enough; we must APPLY. Willing is not enough; we must DO.
Its time to make this a reality.
Its time to take all of this information and translate it into real-life action.
You know how to structure a proper fat burning nutrition plan, and now its time to actually follow it.
You know how to perform an effective weight training session, and now its time to actually get into the gym.
You know how to execute an efficient cardio workout, and now its time to get on that treadmill.
Thats all there is to it. Consistent action.
I want you to close your eyes right now and envision the body that youd ultimately like to achieve. Take a look at yourself; lean, defined, confident, healthy, energetic, attractive and strong.
It looks pretty good, doesnt it?
Im here to tell you that you can achieve that body! If you are willing to put in the time and effort to get there, it is simply a matter of WHEN rather than if.
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Wrapping It Up
Theres only person who can stop you from reaching your goal, and that is you, yourself. Burning fat and getting into shape is an inner battle that is fought against yourself.
Is it going to be easy?
Of course not!
Nothing that is actually worth having is going to come easily. If youre really serious about achieving that ultimate physique, its going to take patience and hard work.
One of the biggest failings of many of the so-called fat burning solutions out there is that they try to portray the entire process as if its just a walk in the park.
Its simply not true, and thats something that youre going to have to accept and battle through.
Its going to take some hard focus and perseverance to make a serious change in your body. There will be times when youll question whether or not you can really keep going.
There will probably be times when youll feel like giving up and quitting.
This is the reality of it for everyone. Only those who can fight through it and battle against their natural urges to quit will ultimately succeed in the long run.
And believe me, the satisfaction of being in great shape is worth the price many times over!
Next time youre tempted by that bag of chips or that slice of cake, just remember that NOTHING tastes better than being in the best shape of your life.
Next time you have the urge to lie on the couch and watch TV rather than jumping on the treadmill, just remember that nothing feels better than looking in the mirror to see a hard, healthy, sculpted body reflected back.
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Wrapping It Up
Its all within your control. You are the creator of your own reality, you are the center of your reality, and you have all the power in the world to change it.
Learn to love the challenge. Dont view your fat burning program as a quick-fix, a hurdle or something that you just want to get over with. It doesnt work that way. It must become a way of life and something that you naturally carry out on a day-to-day process.
Its a constant challenge of setting goals and reaching them, testing your boundaries and blasting into new zones of achievement. Every time you reach a goal, there will always be a new one waiting to challenge you further.
So learn to love it, and learn to embrace the joy of the challenge.
The satisfaction that you obtain from your program will come as much from the journey itself as from the joy of reaching the final destination. But in truth, there really is no absolute, ultimate destination, as youll always be striving to improve yourself further.
So what are you waiting for?
This is it.
The place is here and the time is now.
Its time to take all of that knowledge youve absorbed and put it into action.
Its time to light the fire, time to kickstart the engine, to get the snowball rolling
Remember: you are in complete control! You are the master of your destiny. This is your body, and your life, so make the best of it!
Congratulations on your decision to make this change. I wish you the best of luck with your fat
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Wrapping It Up
burning and muscle-building adventure.
I have absolutely no doubt that as long as you truly want it, you will get there.
I sincerely thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing about your success.
Heres to your new body!
www.HowToBurnFat.com
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The Truth About Burning Fat

Your Complete Step-By-Step Guide To A Lean, Defined & Healthy Body

The Truth About Burning Fat

Copyright & Disclaimer

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

Section#1: Optimum Fat Burning Nutrition

18 20 32 35 41 44 47 51 55 66 70 83 98 111 115 135 147

Section#2: Highly Effective Weight Training

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

194 195 196

Section#3: Maximum Fat Loss Cardio

Section#4: How To Track Your Progress

234 236 236 239 241 245 247 250

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

Get it? Got it? Good!

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

It means that one more person has been saved!

That all ends right here, right now!

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

So lets set the record straight once and for all

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

Ill probably be one of the first people to tell you that.

A bit scary, huh?

It is scary, but luckily this wont be you.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

I will not do that.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

You want a result, and thats what I intend to give you.

There are NO breakthrough secrets. (At least not yet)

As I said before, it is up to us how complex we choose to make this topic.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

This is just one of many possible methods.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

I then realized that that is not true.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

If thats not a quick-fix, then I dont know what is.

Being lean and in shape requires a change in your lifestyle.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

That is the very definition of efficiency.

No really, I mean that.

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved

The Truth About Burning Fat

Section #1: Optimum Fat Burning Nutrition

Section #1: Optimum Fat Burning Nutrition

Here they are

2008 - www.HowToBurnFat.com - All Rights Reserved