Day 1 of 7: The Foundations of Fat-Burning, Part 1

Welcome to Day 1 of your Personal Fat Loss Certification Course! Before we begin I would like to cover a few of the ground rules for Course participation.

First, this is not an official certification. It should not be used as a resumé item for a fitness or nutrition position. It carries no weight in the fitness or nutrition profession.

That is not our goal.

Our goal is to become personally certified for fat loss.

What do I mean by that?

I want you to become your own fat loss expert. Granted, there’s only so much we can cover in seven days and three emails. But over the duration of the Personal Fat Loss Certification Course you will probably learn more about yourself — about personal nutrition, fat loss, muscle gain, body composition, and motivation — than most people learn in a college course. I should know: I took them.

Here is your Personal Fat Loss Certification Course schedule for the next 7 days:

1. Day 1: The Foundations of Fat-Burning, Part 1

2. Day 2: The Foundations of Fat-Burning, Part 2

3. Day 3: Is Rapid Fat Loss Possible?

4. Day 4: The Truth About Supplements

5. Day 5: The Six Types of Exercise For Ultimate Body-Shaping

6. Day 6: Myths And Facts About Muscle

7. Day 7: Framing Your Mind For Success!

8. BONUS: Your Radical Fat Loss Blueprint book and Supplement Kit Discount!

Next, this is by no means the “one and only source” for all your nutrition and exercise needs. Throughout the Course I will be recommending further reading from a variety of sources.

Finally, at the end of this Course, you should be prepared to:

1. Make an investment in your SELF — physically, mentally and financially — to do whatever it takes in order to begin living the lean, healthy and energetic life you deserve…

2. Be prepared to dive head-long into a 21-day fast-start fat loss program without the fear of “yo-yo dieting” and with total preparation for a lifestyle program designed to keep the weight loss going…

3. And to share this Personal Fat Loss Certification Course with your friends and family if you find it beneficial!

One final note: The quizzes that come at the end of each day’s lesson are not optional. Consider them mandatory. However, we are on the honor system here. If you take the quiz and do not pass it, feel free to hit the back-space button on your browser and look over the answers you missed. Each quiz will have the correct answers at the bottom (after you take the quiz). Ideally, I would like you to have a perfect score before proceeding to the next day’s lesson. At the end of the Course, I will have done all I can do to ensure you are well-prepared to venture into Radical Fat Loss as well as Lifestyle Fat Loss programs.

If that sounds reasonable, let’s get started!

The Foundations of Fat-Burning, Part 1

There is probably more confusion about the subject of nutrition than any other subject in the world, save perhaps religion and politics! And rightfully so. There are over 100,000 books on nutrition; most of them based on low-diet protocols, “doctor-created” diets that were designed primarily for massive book sales, and the few diets that actually work.

At the heart of nutrition we have five major players:

1. Macronutrients

2. Calories

3. Fiber

4. Water

5. Supplementation

Let’s cover each in detail.

Macronutrients

A macronutrient is a nutrient that the body requires in moderate to large amounts in order to sustain itself. There are three primary macronutrients: Protein, Carbohydrate, and Fat. Alcohol was at one time considered a macronutrient, but it is not essential for survival (contrary to some people’s opinion) and thus no longer classified as such.

Both protein and carbohydrate contain 4 calories per gram, while fat contains 9 calories per gram. This means that fats are more calorically dense. However, they are also more satiating, or filling, so there is a tendency to eat less fat than protein and carbohydrate. You may hear the term “high-fat diet” a lot, but in reality very few diets are higher in fat than in proteins and carbohydrates combined. A high-fat diet is generally considered to be one with anything over 30% of your total caloric intake coming from fats, although I have used much higher-fat diets for athletic purposes (as high as 65%).

Fat is nothing to fear. Fat does not make you fat. Fat does not cause heart disease. But fats should be watched simply because they can be served in teaspoons and tablespoons. As a general rule of thumb, it is wise to watch anything you can eat by the tablespoon, including fats and carbohydrates like sugar, flour and so on. This is overly simplistic, but quite practical in day-to-day fat loss. It’s hard to overeat chicken breasts, carrots and broccoli, but quite easy to add needless calories to each with teaspoons or tablespoons of sugar, butter, and oils.

That said, oils — especially oils high in omega 3 fatty acids — are a very healthy way to satiate yourself and add needed fats to your diet. Excellent sources of omega 3 fats include fish oil, krill oil, olive oil, and foods like salmon and white albacore tuna. A good rule of thumb is this: The higher your fat intake, the lower your carbohydrate intake should be. Both are sources of fuel for the body; fats a long-burning source and carbohydrates a faster-burning source. The body can process both efficiently for fuel, but when combined they can create a bit of a problem when it comes to fat loss. Think of it as putting two different types of fuel into a race car. While mixtures of fuels are used in race cars, usually one type of fuel is dominant. The same goes for fats and carbohydrates. Decrease one as you increase the other.

The question is, which one?

Over the past twenty years of studying nutrition, I have found that by and large carbohydrates of any starchy variety cause most people the majority of problems when it comes to health and weight loss. While some people can lose weight efficiently eating “healthy” starches such as brown rice, yams, and so forth, many still suffer from gas and bloating when consuming these foods in quantity. And many people simply cannot eat them in quantity without adding body fat.

I am one of those individuals. Therefore, I lean toward a lower carb, higher healthy fat, higher protein diet.

Here’s how you can tell if you are a carb-burner or a fat-burner:

1. Do you feel bloated, gassy, or sleepy after eating a higher-carb meal, even if the meal contains healthy carbohydrates?

2. Do you feel more energy after decreasing carbs for 3-4 days and replacing them with healthy fats and proteins?

3. Does your blood pressure or cholesterol levels increase on higher-carbohydrate diets?

4. Are you naturally on the heavy side and find it difficult to lose body fat even on a restricted-calorie diet that includes ample carbs?

5. Do you suffer from skin conditions such as acne, dry skin, or rashes?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you may find that a lower-carb, higher-fat, higher-protein diet will work best for your fat loss objectives. Generally this means your healthy fat intake from animal proteins and/or oils should be about 30-40% of your diet. Protein should be 40%, and carbs in the form of vegetables, and with a few “bouts” of starch (on “Feed Days” as I call them) should round out your profile.

If you are not carb-sensitive, then you can consume a greater proportion of healthy, unrefined carbohydrates in your diet without any difficulties and should aim at keeping your dietary fat below 25%. Protein should still be around 35-40%, and carbohydrates should round out your profile.

Macronutrients should always be staggered to prevent your body from becoming too accustomed to the same dietary intake. Eating the same foods every day can lead to food allergies in some people and, if calories are kept the same, a slowing of the metabolic rate due to a decrease in the thyroid hormone T4.

This is a concept we will cover in the next section: Calories.

Calories

What “is” a calorie, anyway? It’s a word that causes fear in the minds of millions… but a calorie is merely a unit of heat. It’s a measurement of heat; specifically, the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. Pretty harmless when you look at it that way!

What this means for you and your Personal Fat Loss is simply this: More energy and more body heat = fewer calories left over.

Think of calories as money. Let’s say you have $50 a day allotted to spend. Most days you spend about $50; some days you spend a bit more, some a bit less. And that’s exactly what you want to be doing. But let’s say that for a week or two you spend $20 or $30 more every day. What happens to your financial health? It tanks quickly! That’s because there are not enough resources to “fuel” your increased spending.

Your “resources” when it comes to calories include…

1. Exercise

2. Caloric Restriction

3. Thermogenesis, or Increased Body Heat

4. Hormonal Optimization

The more of these you have, the more you can “spend” and still end up in the rich house. Make sense?

Let’s look at each…

Exercise

Obviously exercise burns calories due to increased energy expenditure. However, this does not necessarily mean you are burning FAT calories. Think about it: Your body has multiple sources of fuel. Blood sugar, glycogen (stored sugar in the muscles and liver), body fat (the preferred source for us!), muscle (the NON-preferred source), amino acids, ketones (byproducts of fatty acid breakdown, seen mostly during low-carb dieting)… you get the picture?

So how do we make sure exercise burns mostly fat?

Our first rule of thumb when it comes to exercise is to build lean muscle tissue. This does not mean that you have to become a “bodybuilder” … merely that you need to add muscle to your body in order to burn more calories at rest. Muscle burns about 15 calories per pound just sitting around! Just think about that. If you add just 10 pounds of muscle and remove 10 pounds of non-calorie-burning fat, you’ve just increased your calorie expenditure by 150 calories per day doing nothing at all. The interesting thing is when you USE that extra muscle, which of course you will, during exercise, THEN the calories per pound of lean muscle jump to upwards of 50 per pound, or 500 additional calories burned off just by adding 10 pounds of lean tissue. The vast majority of these calories come from fat, especially at night while you sleep.

Remember, if you remove 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle you may weigh the same… but you will look completely different. Your body will start to take on a more ‘toned’ appearance with more shape, women will see those sexy curves in the right places, and so on.

The other thing we must do to ensure we burn mostly fat is to exercise under our lactate threshold most of the time. The lactate threshold is the point at which your body starts to build up lactic acid at a faster rate than your body can metabolize it. Lactic acid causes the burning sensation in the muscles when weight training. Obviously this is not a “bad” thing at all. In fact you should feel this sensation…but not for a prolonged period of time. Exercising ‘under’ the lactate threshold, or more simply put at moderate levels of intensity for longer periods of time stresses the aerobic system of the body rather than the anaerobic systems which are emphasized above the lactate threshold. Training under this threshold will allow you to burn mostly body fat, while training above it (intense training like sprinting, running for some people, and so on) burns more blood sugar and glycogen.

The ideal mix is this:

1. Weight train to build muscle. The lactic acid built up in weight training is not prolonged for most trainees, and the vast majority of your sessions will be well under your lactate threshold with only brief periods above it.

2. Long duration moderate intensity cardio work, such as brisk walking, jogging (for those in shape), gliding, and so on to burn mostly fat. This is almost twice as efficient when done in a fasting state as your blood sugar is lower. The body can tap into its fat stores much more rapidly in a fasting state.

3. Brief bouts of high intensity training (over the lactate threshold) for greater calorie-burning power, growth hormone increase (growth hormone helps to burn body fat), and heart health.

Put these three together in this order and you have the greatest 1-2-3 fat-burning knock-out punch there is.

If you want more information on how to train this way specifically, I highly suggest picking my my book 7 Minute Muscle.

If you continue on to receive my free book, “The Radical Fat Loss Blueprint”, you will need 7 Minute Muscle to progress past the 21-day RFLB training and dietary protocol. This is a program that anyone can do in just 7-21 minutes per day, depending on your level of fitness and the body type you desire. Plus you can do it in the gym or right at home!

Pick it up here…

Caloric Restriction

This seems to be a nasty phrase to most of us, and for good reason. The first three letters in “DIET” is… well, “DIE”! The body does not enjoy being deprived, either physically or emotionally, for prolonged periods of time. This is why all diets based on caloric restriction ONLY fail.

So why do we have to deal with all of this excess fat to begin with? Fat is both a necessary and nasty genetic left-over from our earlier days on earth. During prolonged periods of famine, the body adapted by shifting into a mode that holds on to body fat for survival. That is why you store body fat to begin with — for survival.

Originally this was mostly subcutaneous fat, or the “love handles”, the hips, and the more unsightly rolls we see. But eventually throughout modern times the body has adapted to become an even greater fat-storing machine. Now the body stores excess fat internally around the vital organs as well. While this was true in days of old, the body’s adaptation has greatly increased since the onset of higher processed food intake. Our insulin levels, thanks to this processed food, are steadily rising. The result is the need for more fat storage — and that fat storage is called visceral fat. This is fat that’s deposited between the organs and the waistline and chest area.

This fat is KILLER. Literally. Subcutaneous fat may not be super-healthy, and it’s certainly no fun to look at, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous as visceral fat. The proverbial “beer belly” and “pear-shaped figure” is ripe with visceral fat.

However, you absolutely must increase your caloric deficit in order to burn body fat. Here is the challenge: Restrict calories too much and you will shut down your fat loss in its tracks. If you do not crack mentally first (most of us do!) then your body will eventually go into “starvation mode”. Yet, if we do not restrict calories enough, we end up gaining weight.

The answer is caloric staggering. Cycling calories up and down throughout the week so that you end up with a caloric deficit at the end of the week but do so by eating more than you need some days and much less on others. The “starvation mode” does not kick in overnight, and we can use that to our advantage. By reducing calories for a few days and then increasing them for a day or so (this is much more specifically covered in my book The Every Other Day Diet, which you can get below) we fool the metabolism into thinking we are not in famine mode while reaping all the benefits of a lowered-calorie diet.

This approach is also highly conducive to fat loss, hormonal health, muscle gain, and mental sanity. Knowing you can eat more in a day or two works wonders for your mental outlook on a diet. The excess calories when used in combination with macronutrient staggering (eating more protein one day, less the other, etc.) and weight training can produce radical body composition changes in a very short period of time. This is THE secret of the fitness pros.

You can learn more about how to apply this principle, which allows you to literally eat your favorite foods while you lose weight, by picking up my book “The Every Other Day Diet” below…

The use of caloric staggering is essential to any diet plan. It keeps T4, or inactive thyroid hormone, elevated. When T4 shuts down from too few calories for too long a period of time, your production of active thyroid hormone, T3, slows down as well. The thyroid gland controls the body’s metabolism and is critical to fat loss. Growth hormone has been shown to increase while exercising on a low-calorie diet, and elevates again after post-exercise re-feeding.

It should also be noted that meal frequency is key to keeping the metabolic rate elevated. Except during times of controlled fasting, it is best to consume smaller meals more frequently, always including some form of complete protein if at all possible. Higher-fat diets allow for less frequent feedings, as fat is satiating. However, if this is your approach, you must consume more protein per feeding than what is normally recommended. Most experts suggest no more than 30 grams of protein per every 3-4 hours. However, several studies have debunked this as pseudoscience, suggesting that the body can process up to 100 grams of protein in one meal if deemed metabolically necessary.

Except during times of intermittent fasting, such as in The Radical Fat Loss Blueprint, I elect to consume slightly higher-fat meals and less frequent feedings (3-4 meals per day) with amino acids rounding out my protein intake. This is more out of convenience than anything else, as I do not believe most people, even bodybuilders, want to eat six-seven times a day for extended periods of time. I know for sure I do not! Nor it is necessary, as evident by my own muscular development.

Do you see how this all fits together? Exercise and nutrition walk hand-in-hand when it comes to fat loss!

But there’s more to the fat-burning equation…. Tomorrow we will cover thermogenesis and hormone optimization, as well as much more.

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