Stupid Version
Eat very little today. In fact, starve yourself as much and as often as possible.
Follow this plan and here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll definitely lose some fat in fact your clothes may fit better as quickly as tomorrow. But, you’ll also lose muscle and when you lose muscle, you lower your metabolism. This means it will be way harder to lost fat (and easier to gain fat) tomorrow. Do this for a few days or weeks in a row and you may have some serious metabolic weaknesses to overcome. It is NOT easy to overcome metabolic weakness and until you do, you will gain fat.
Most people who diet have done this many times in their lives and for that reason people who diet have more body fat than people who don’t. This is tragic, ironic, and true. Without knowing it, most of us practice the art of daily metabolic suicide and eventually it catches up to us.
I used to practice this art on a daily basis. I would wake up almost every morning thinking that I was going to eat only chicken and vegetables. I would try to eat around 1,000 calories per day. Not only did this make my metabolism implode, it also was impossible. I would usually end my days by giving into the insane hunger pangs by eating loads of bad food. In other words, I would starve my muscle by day (WTFreak?) and would feed my fat by night (blah). I’m guessing that some of you have done the same.
Smart Version
Fortunately for all of us, there is a much better way. In order for me to learn how to lose body fat continually, I had to completely change my thinking. I had to switch my mindset from ’starving the fat off‘ to ‘increasing my metabolism as much as possible’. In all honesty this was an extremely difficult transition for me. To increase your metabolism you have to eat more calories and I did NOT want to eat more calories.
Eventually I became tired of failing. I was tired of having a lot more fat than I wanted to have and it seemed like I was only making my situation worse. I embraced a different philosophy and within a few weeks I could tell that it was working. The basic idea was to do everything I could to increase my metabolism as much as possible. I had heard that this would make it harder to gain fat and that my body would naturally decrease my fat storage if my metabolism was high enough.
Basic Concepts Behind Increasing Your Metabolism
- Eating regularly – eating something every three hours (more on this later)
- Eating slightly more calories than your body needs (yes I know how weird this sounds)
- Avoiding high calorie meals (eating more than 600 calories in a single meal will almost always make you gain fat, unless you are genetically advantaged)
- Resistance training/Lifting weights
- Regular activity
Eating Regularly
Skipping meals is a fast-pass to metabolic destruction. Eating often is a fast-pass to metabolic growth. I make sure that I eat something every three hours, even if I don’t have time for a regular meal. If I’m really in a hurry I might have a protein shake or bar but I always make sure that I eat something.
Not only does eating often help you to increase your metabolism, it also helps you to avoid eating dangerously large meals.
If I needed or wanted to gain a lot of fat, I would do it by eating two meals per day. I would skip breakfast to starve my muscle and then I would have a monster meal at around 2:00 in the afternoon. I would then starve myself again until around 11:00 p.m. and I would then have another monster meal. This would help me to lower my metabolism AND gain fat, all in the same day.
If I wanted to lose fat, I would of course need to avoid this type of behavior. I would want to keep each of my meals under 500 calories and I would want to never go more than three hours without eating.
Eating Slightly More Calories Than Your Body Needs
Here’s where it gets difficult for most people. This concept was extremely difficult for me to embrace. We all know that eating too much makes us gain fat and for that reason, it’s hard to eat more. Seems like a catch-22 right? It’s impossible to raise our metabolisms without eating more food but eating too much food makes us gain fat…
Here’s the solution to the catch-22. Let’s say you’re a female whose weight stays stable at 1200 calories per day. You are going to start by eating 1300 calories per day. It would seem like this would cause you to gain fat, right? If you didn’t change anything in your life, this might be the case. However, you’re going to offset the 100 calorie difference by lifting some weights. You can burn around 8 calories per minute lifting weights and this means you can burn off the 100 calories by lifting for 12-13 minutes. The coolest part about that is that lifting weights ALSO raises your metabolism. See where we’re going with this?
The way to really do this effectively would be to do longer lifts to burn more calories. Let’s say you could lift for 45 minutes per day. You would burn more than 300 calories per day and you would raise your metabolism even more. If you lifted for 90 minutes, you would burn more than 700 calories.
The net effect of all of this is a higher metabolism while burning fat in the process.
Avoiding High Calorie Meals
The easiest way to gain fat is by eating high calorie meals. Your body can only use so much food at a time. Eating more than 600 calories in one sitting will result in fat gain for most people. I have eaten as many as 3,000 calories in one sitting and you can imagine how that affected my fat levels. There is no way on earth your body can burn 3,000 calories all at once so it’s going to turn a lot of it into fat.
It’s a lot easier to eat meals that aren’t wicked high in calories if you eat a lot of low calorie foods. Vegetables are definitely the key to my good eating. I like to eat a lean protein like fish, chicken, shrimp, or lean beef along with a whole grain (whole grain bread, whole grain tortilla, whole grain pasta, etc.), and a healthy portion of vegetables. That way I can eat as much food as I want without eating too many calories. I can literally feel my metabolism cranking when I eat balanced, healthy meals with lots of vegetables. When I eat this way I also rarely get hungry because my body is getting everything it needs, without getting smashed by thousands of extra calories.
Resistance Training / Lifting Weights
You can really get your metabolism moving by lifting weights. Guys normally embrace this easily, girls are a tougher sale. However, the end result of lifting weights is the same for guys and girls. It increases your metabolism and helps you to remove fat.
Girls often don’t want to lift weights because they fear getting bulky. Ladies, you can honestly lift all day if you use light weights and do lots of reps. Avoid heavy weights and you will build longer, leaner muscles. Your bodies will look much leaner and smaller even though you will be stronger and more fit.
I am currently lifting six days per week. However, that wasn’t always the case. If you don’t lift weights at all you could make a huge difference by adding even two lifting sessions per week.
Regular Activity
If you rarely move your body, any physical activity will make a huge difference. You can begin by walking and add more strenuous activities later on.
I love playing tennis, basketball, and many other sports. As long as you have control of your diet, physical activity will help you to burn fat. That said, you can be super active and still gain significant amounts of fat if you are eating too many calories.
Cardiovascular exercise can also help you to burn a lot of fat. Running, biking, and other forms of cardio are great for shredding fat. However, you should never sacrifice lifting weights to do cardio because building muscle will have a greater overall effect on your fat levels over time.
The Bottom Line
Most people could lose a ton of fat over time by simply raising their activity level and avoiding huge meals. If you are already close to where you want to be, walking for 30 minutes per day can probably get you there. If you have a long way to go you will need to take a closer look at your diet. Start lifting weights and get rid of the bad foods that are taking your caloric intake to levels that are too high.