My Daily Wellness Tip

How To Manipulate Your Diet To Lose Fat & Gain Muscle

Many people think it's impossible to gain muscle and fat at the same time because of the calorie's in vs calories out theory. But that's not completely right. There's one way you can gain muscle and lose fat for the same goal and that's by manipulating your hormones naturally with food and exercise. Many natural bodybuilders diet for a show and gain muscle in the process because they start to time their nutrition right. I'm one of them.

Meal timing has to be one of the most underrated secrets when trying to lose weight while gaining muscle. Like putting a giant log in the fire it chokes the fire and the fire goes out but feed that fire small pieces of wood every few hours and it will burn like crazy. You may think this seems like a lot of work but really it's not.

I regularly eat 7 meals a day at 8,10,12,2,4,6,8. All I need to remember is that I eat at even numbers from 8-8.

But the big secret is not in timing overall calories it's about carbohydrate timing. Carbohydrates produce insulin (the bodies most anabolic hormone) which I've always said is generally something you want to keep low when your trying to lose fat. But if you have carbohydrates at the right time in the day when your tank (muscle) is empty it will not be stored as fat and will actually create an anabolic effect making you synthesis more protein than you would without it. That time I'm talking about is around your workout. Here's an example;

8am - 6g of carbs from veggies

10am - 12g of carbs from veggies

Workout

12pm - Post workout, 50g of liquid fast acting carbs

2pm - 12g of carbs from veggies

4pm - 12g of carbs from veggies

6pm - 12g of carbs from veggies

8pm - 12g of carbs from veggies

This is just one example of how you can time your carbohydrates around your workout to gain muscle while still losing fat throughout the day. 

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The Downfall Of A Sit Down Job

A study with 1579 people found that people who sit down more than 6 hours a day are 68% more likely to end up overweight than those who sit less. Another study showed that people gain on average 18lbs in 8 months after starting a sit down job!!! How crazy is that?

For millions of years our jobs consisted of physical work, hunting, gathering, building. Now we sit on our butts all day. Combine this with nutrition advice for marathon runners trickling down to the average person and you get one heck of a mess. If you have a sit down job and want to control your weight it's crucial that you not only exercise but also watch your nutrition.

The best thing you can do for your nutrition is to lower your carbohydrate consumption (because your going to be storing these as fat sitting down all day) and the best type of exercise you can do is exercise that will use up stored glycogen and build your metabolism up like weight training.

If you can manage these two things you will be able to manage your weight. Good luck!

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Skinny Fat

 
I often come across people that are skinny fat. They are slim but have a high percentage of body fat. This happens because of lack of resistance training combined with poor nutrition and it simply happens with age. The average male loses 6lbs of muscle between the ages 30-50 because of a hormonal decline, that's a whole bicep and tricep. Each pound of fat takes up 18% more space than each pound of muscle with the average male putting on 1lbs of fat every year after the age of 30 so you can see how this ends up with less muscle and more fat.

What typically happens is people start cardiovascular work (running) which is catabolic to the muscle, meaning you lose even more muscle. They may burn fat in the short term but over time and when their body starts to adapt to the stimuli they will start a slow fat gain again now this time with even less muscle and have a harder time losing the fat. Another bad scenario is that they go on a very low calorie restricted diet or a low protein vegetarian diet that again breaks down too much muscle tissue.

The 2 critical moves for these people are; 1. To start resistance training to build muscle and 2. a high protein diet with plenty of good fats to build your hormones.

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Shrink The Change

A big challenge can sometimes be scary and overwhelming. The bigger it is the more impossible it seems and the more chance of getting analysis paralysis to kick in where you wined up doing nothing about it. Like deciding to clean a house after a big party, you don't know were to start. If the change your wanting to make is so big it doesn't allow your emotional brain to act why not shrink the change until it doesn't scare you. If the change is your career, why not devote 20 minutes a night on something on the side, if it's getting in shape why not just start by lifting weights 10 minutes a day.

By shrinking the change it will help you act on the first move and who knows; One move may lead to the next.

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3 Important Factors To Losing The Last Few Pounds

1. Glucagon/insulin ratio  - Glucagon is a hormone that counters insulin (the fat storing hormone) it is released in response to protein foods. Where insulin transports glucose to the fat cell, glucagon takes it out. It's important that when you are trying to lose fat that your ratio of glucagon to insulin is low. More glucagon than insulin means more food will be used as fuel. More insulin than glucagon means more food is stored as fat. So how do you do that? A) You first make sure that your blood sugar is low by not consuming too many carbs. B) and you make sure every meal has a good source of protein. Try to have your protein at least 1-1.5g per pound of lean bodyweight.

2. Adaptation - Your body adapts very quickly to all sorts of things like; calories, macro nutrients, cardio, weight training. You need to constantly surprise it. Switch things up. What I like to do with bodybuilding and figure athletes when their bodyfat loss starts to slow down is to start wave loading where you have higher calories on one day and the next day it's lower. I also like to make sure they are really pushing the cardio hard because many people get tired at this point and start slaking off; we would then add interval sprints alternating days with slow longer duration sessions.

3. Prep - Like my super organized friend once told me "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail". The last bit of fat is always the hardest to get off. It takes dedication and being organized. You need to prepare your meals ahead of time. Write your grocery list, shop, cook, cut, package for the next 4 days. I know this sounds like a lot but if you really want it, you will do what it takes.

(1 of many articles taken from our monthly newsletter)

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Funny Friday - Foods Labels Stand Up Act

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