Why do you always hear that 2 pounds per week is the maximum amount of fat you should safely lose? If you train really hard while watching calories closely shouldn’t you be able to lose more fat without losing muscle or damaging your health? What if you want to lose fat faster? How do you explain the fast weight losses on The Biggest Loser? These are all good questions that I’ve been asked many times. With the diet marketplace being flooded every day with rapid weight loss claims, these questions desperately need and deserve some honest answers. Want to know where that 2 pounds per week rule comes from and what it really takes to burn more than 2 pounds of fat per week? Read on.

Why Only 2 Pounds Per Week?

The truth is, two pounds is not the maximum amount you can safely lose in a week. That’s only a general recommendation and a good benchmark for setting weekly goals. It’s also sensible and realistic because it’s based on average or typical results.

The actual amount of fat you can lose depends on many factors. For example, weight losses tend to be relative to body size. The more body fat you carry, the more likely you’ll be able to safely lose more than two pounds per week. Therefore, we could individualize our weekly guideline a bit by recommending a goal of 1-2 lbs of fat loss per week or up to 1% of your total weight. If you weighed 300 lbs, that would be 3 lbs per week.

Body Weight Vs Body Composition

Weight loss is somewhat meaningless unless you also talk about body composition; the fat to muscle ratio, as well as water weight. Ask any wrestler about fast weight loss and he’ll tell you things like, “I cut 10 lbs overnight to make a weight class. It was easy – I just sweated it off.”

You’ve also probably seen people that went on some extreme induction program or a lemon juice and water fast for the first week and dropped an enormous amount of weight. But once again, you can bet that a lot of that weight was water and lean tissue and in both cases, you can bet that those people put the weight right back on.

The main potential advantage of any type of induction period for rapid weight loss in the first week is that a large drop on the scale is a motivational boost for many people (even if it is mostly water weight).

Why do you hear so many diet and fitness professionals insist on 2 lbs a week max? Where does that number come from? Well, aside from the fact that it’s a recommendation in government health guidelines and in position statements of most nutrition and exercise organizations, it’s just math. The math is based on what’s practical given the number of calories an average person burns in a day and how much food someone can reasonably cut in a day.

How Do You Lose More Than 2 Pounds Per Week?

Can you lose more than 2 lbs of pure fat in a week? Yes, although it’s easier in the beginning. It gets harder as your diet progresses. How do you do it? My rule is, extraordinary results require extraordinary efforts. An extraordinary effort means a particularly strict diet, as well as burning more calories through training because you can only cut your calories so far from food before you’re starving and suffering from severe hunger.

Simply put, you need a bigger calorie deficit.

If you have a 2500 calorie daily maintenance level, and you want to drop 3 lbs of fat per week withe diet alone, you’d need a huge daily deficit of 1500 calories, which would equate to eating 1000 calories per day. You would lose weight rapidly for as long as you could maintain that deficit (although it would slow down over time). Most people aren’t going to last long on so little food and they often end with a period of binge eating. It’s not practical (or fun) to cut calories so much and in some cases it could be unhealthy.

The other alternative is to train for hours and hours a day, literally. People ask me all the time, “Tom, how is it possible for the Biggest Loser contestants to lose so much weight? Well first of all they’re not measuring body fat, only body weight. Then you have the high starting body weights and the large water weight loss in the beginning. After that, just do the math – they’re training hours a day so they’re creating a huge calorie deficit.

But without that team of trainers, dieticians, teammates, a national audience and all that prize money, do you think they’d be motivated and accountable enough to do anywhere near that amount and intensity of exercise in the real world? Would it even be possible if they had a job and family? Not likely, is it? It’s not practical to do that much exercise, and it’s not practical to cut your calories below a 1000 a day and remain compliant. If you manage to achieve the latter, it’s very difficult not to rebound and regain the weight afterwards for a variety of physiological and psychological reasons.

For Fast Fat Loss: Less Food Or Harder Training?

Trainers are becoming more inventive these days in coming up with high intensity workouts that burn a large amount of calories and really give the metabolism a boost. This can help speed up the fat loss within a given amount of time. But as you begin to utilize higher intensity workouts, you have to start being on guard for overtraining or overuse injuries.That’s why strict nutrition with an aggressive calorie deficit is going to have to be a major part of any fast fat loss strategy. Unfortunately, very low calorie dieting has its own risks in the way of lean tissue loss, slower metabolism, extreme hunger, and greater chance of weight re-gain.

My approach to long term weight control is to lose weight slowly and patiently and follow a nutrition plan that is well balanced between lean protein, healthy fats and natural carbs and doesn’t demonize any entire food group. To lose fat, you simply create a caloric deficit by burning more and eating less (keeping the nutrient density of those calories as high as possible, of course).

But to achieve the extraordinary goals such as photo-shoot-ready, super-low body fat or simply faster than average fat loss, while minimizing the risks, I often turn to a stricter cyclical low carb diet for brief “peaking” programs. I explain this method in chapter 12 of my e-book Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (it’s my “phase III” or “competition” diet).

The cyclical aspect of the diet means that after three to six days of an aggressive calorie deficit and strict diet, you take a high calorie / high carb day to re-feed the body and re-stimulate the metabolism. Essentially, this helps reduce the starvation signals your body is receiving. It’s also a psychological break from the deprivation which helps improve compliance and prevent relapse.

The higher protein intake can help prevent lean tissue loss and curb the hunger. A high protein diet also helps by ramping up dietary thermogenesis. A high intake of greens, fibrous vegetables and low calorie fruits can help tip the energy balance equation in your favor as fibrous veggies are very low in calorie density and some of the calories in the fiber are not metabolizable. Healthy fats are added in adequate quantities, while the calorie-dense simple sugars and starchy carbs are kept to a minimum except on refeed days and after (or around) intense workouts.

There’s No Magic, Just Math

In my experience, a high protein, reduced carb approach in conjunction with weights and cardio can help maximize fat loss – both in terms of increasing speed of fat loss and particularly for getting rid of the last of the stubborn fat. It helps with appetite control too. But always bear in mind that the faster fat loss occurs primarily as a result of the larger calorie deficit (which is easily achieved with sugars and starches minimized), not some type of “low carb magic.” If your diet were high in natural carbs but you were able to diligently maintain the same large calorie deficit, the results would be similar.

I’m seeing more and more advertisements that not only promise rapid weight loss, but go so far as saying that you’re doing it wrong if you’re losing “only” two pounds per week. “Why settle” for slow weight loss, they insist. Well, it’s certainly possible to lose more than two pounds per week, but it’s critically important to understand that there’s a world of difference between rapid weight loss and permanent fat loss.

It’s also vital to know that there’s no magic in faster fat loss, just math. All the new-fangled dietary manipulations and high intensity training programs that really do help increase the speed of fat loss all come full circle to the calorie balance equation in the end, even if they claim their method works for other reasons and they don’t mention calories burned or consumed at all.

Beware of The Quick Fix

Faster fat loss IS possible. My question is, are you willing to tolerate the hunger, low calories and high intensity exercise for that kind of deficit? Do you have the work ethic? Do you have the supreme level of dietary restraint necessary to stop yourself from bingeing and putting the weight right back on when that aggressive diet is over? Or would you rather do it in a more moderate way where you’re not killing yourself, but instead are making slow and steady lifestyle changes and taking off 1-2 lbs of pure fat per week, while keeping all your hard-earned muscle?

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Remember, 1-2 pounds per week is 50-100 pounds in a year. Is that really so slow or is that an astounding transformation? You don’t gain 50-100 pounds over night, so why should anyone expect to take it off overnight? Personally, I think short-term thinking and the pursuit of quick fixes are the worst diseases of our generation.

If you want to be one of those “results not typical” fat loss transformations, it can be done and it may be a perfectly appropriate short-term goal for the savvy and sophisticated fitness enthusiast. It’s your call. But when you set your goals, it might be wise to remember that old fable of the tortoise and the hare, and buyer beware if you go shopping for a fast weight loss program in today’s shady marketplace.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach

On a recent episode of the Oprah show, one of the guests was a 51 year old man with the heart of a 20 year old. He’s been following a calorie restriction plan and they said he might be one of the first people to reach 120 years old by following this plan. There have been stories both in the lay press and scientific press about calorie restriction for years and it has been a frequent talk show topic on other many other TV shows. However, before you cut your calories in half in hopes of adding another decade onto your life, you’d better get the other half of the story they didn’t talk about on Oprah.

I’ve seen a lot of strange things in the health field, and although calorie restriction (CR) is the subject of serious and legitimate scientific study, I consider CR to be one of those strange things. Of course, that’s because I choose a different lifestyle – the muscle-friendly Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle lifestyle – but there’s more than one reason why I’m not a CR advocate:

Hunger while dieting is almost always a challenge. There’s some hunger even with conservative calorie deficits of 15-20% under maintenance. Prolonged hunger is one of the biggest reasons people fall off the weight loss diet wagon because it’s unpleasant and difficult to resist. This is why pharmaceutical and supplement companies spend millions of dollars on researching, developing and marketing appetite suppressants. Yet CR advocates put themselves through 30-50% calorie restriction on a daily basis as a way of life in the hopes of extending life span or health.

Practitioners of CR follow a low-calorie lifestyle, but technically, they are not in a chronic 30% calorie deficit. That would be impossible. What happens is their metabolisms get very slow (that’s part of the idea behind CR; if you slow down your metabolism, you allegedly slow down aging). So a 6 foot tall man who would normally require nearly 3,000 calories to maintain his weight, might eventually reach an energy balance at only 1800 or 1900 calories. This is not just due to a ‘starvation mode’ phenomenon, that’s only part of it. It’s primarily because he loses weight until he is very thin and his smaller body doesn’t need many calories any more.

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Does caloric restriction really extend lifespan?

The biological mechanisms of lifespan extension through calorie restriction are not fully understood, but researchers say it may involve alterations in energy metabolism (as mentioned above), reduced oxidative damage, improvements in insulin sensitivity, reduction of glycation, modulation of protein metabolism, downregulation of pro-inflammatory genes and functional changes in both neuroendocrine and autonomic nervous systems.

Mouse studies on CR go back as far as 1935 and monkey studies began in the late 1980’s. So far the results are clear on one thing: caloric restriction does increase lifespan in rodents and other lower species (yeast, worms and flies). Studies suggest the life of the laboratory rat is 25% longer with CR (even longer with aggressive CR). Primate studies are still underway and humans have been experimenting with CR for some time. In primates and humans, biomarkers of aging show signs of slower aging with CR. This makes many proponents talk about this CR as if it were a sure-thing, already proven through double-blind randomized clinical human trials.

The truth is, there is NO direct experimental evidence that you will live longer from practicing CR. Due to the length of human lifespans, we will not have the necessary data for at least another generation and perhaps multiple generations. Even then, it will still be highly speculative whether CR will extend human life at all and if so how much. We can only estimate. I’ve seen guesses in the scientific literature ranging from 3 to 13 years, if CR is practiced for an entire adult lifetime.

Jay Phelan, a biologist at UCLA is skeptical. He says the potential life extension is on the lower end of that range and the increase is so small that it’s not worth the semi-starvation:

“There is no current evidence that lifelong caloric restriction leads to increased lifespan in primates. It’s certainly tantalizing that things like blood pressure or heart rate look as though they are a lot healthier and I believe they are. Whether or not this translates to a significantly increased lifespan, I don’t know. I predict that it doesn’t.”

I don’t quibble qualitatively with their results. Yes, it will increase lifespan, but it will not increase it by 50% or 60%, it won’t increase it by 20% or 10%, it might increase it by 2%. So if you tell me that I have to do something horrible for every day of my life for a 2% benefit – for an extra year of life – I say no thanks.”

Is prolonged caloric restriction unhealthy?

When caloric restriction is practiced with optimal nutrition (CRON), it is not inherently unhealthy. Actually, it appears the reverse is true. First, the weight loss that comes with the low calories produces improvements in the health markers, as you would expect. Second, the meticulous choice of food from CRON practitioners, where they pick high nutrient foods and avoid empty calories means that they are making healthy food choices. Third, advocates say that the CR itself improves health. I wonder, however, how much does CR improve health independent of the weight loss and the optimal nutrition?

By losing fat and maintaining an ideal body composition (the fat to muscle ratio) and eating high nutrient density foods, I propose that even at a more normal caloric intake, you will get very significant health and longevity benefits. I also propose that gaining muscle in a natural way (no steroids) will increase your quality of life today and as you get older.

Aside from the fact that we are not lab rats, the truth is, none of us knows when our day will come. We could get plucked off this physical plane at any moment and have no control over how it happens. My belief is that we should make our lifestyle decisions based on quality of life, not just quantity of life. That includes our quality of life today as well as our anticipated quality of life when we are older. Maybe we ought to be focusing more on “health span” than life span.

Downsides of calorie restriction for life extension

One fact about calorie restriction that they often don’t mention on these talk shows is that the benefits of CR decline if you start CR at a later age. This was discussed in a research paper from the Journal of Nutrition called, “Starving for life: what animal studies can and cannot tell us about the use of caloric restriction to prolong human lifespan.” The author of the paper, John Speakman from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said that the later in life you begin to practice CR, the less of an increase in lifespan you will achieve. Even if the CR proponents are right, if you started in your late 40’s or mid 50’s for example, the benefit would be minimal. If you started in your 60’s the effect would be almost nonexistent. Essentially, you have to “starve for life” to get the benefits.

While some CR proponents claim that they aren’t hungry and they cite studies suggesting that hunger decreases during starvation, Speakman and other researchers say that hunger remains a big problem during CR – especially in today’s modern society where we are surrounded with convenience food and numerous eating cues – and that alone makes CR impractical:

“Neuroendocrine profiles support the idea that animals under CR are continuously hungry. The feasibility of restricting intake in humans for many decades is questionable.”

Let’s suppose for a moment that CR is totally legit and the claims are true. Many of the proposed benefits of CR come at the expense of what many of us are trying to do here: gain and maintain lean body mass. One spokesman for CR is 6 feet tall and 130 pounds. Another poster boy for CR is 6 foot tall and 115 lbs. Measurements of rodents under CR not only show large reductions in skeletal muscle but also bone mass.

I am not suggesting that these CR practitioners are anorexic, a concern that has been raised about CR when practiced aggressively. However, they are losing large amounts of fat-free tissue and that is plainly obvious for all to see when you look at their bony physiques. I am not imposing my body standards on others, but 115 to 130 lbs at 6 foot tall is underweight for a man by any standard. Furthermore, researchers say that at the body mass indices sustained by most voluntary CR practitioners, we would expect females to become amenorrheic. “One thing that is completely incompatible with a CR lifestyle is reproduction” says Speakman.

With that kind of atrophy, I have to wonder what their quality of life will be like in old age. While many people struggle with body fat for most of their adult lives, I’m sure almost everyone knows an elderly person who wrestles with the opposite problem: they are seriously underweight and they struggle to eat enough and maintain lean body mass.

My grandmother, before she passed away, was under 80 lbs. We could not get her to eat. She was weak and very frail. I have reported many times about the research showing how most overweight people under estimate calorie intake and eat more than they think or admit. In elder care homes, the research has often showed the opposite – the patients over estimate how much they eat. They swear they are eating enough, but they arent and they keep losing dangerous amounts of weight. With underweight, atrophied seniors, weakness means less functionality and lower quality of life and a fall can mean more than broken bones, it can be life-threatening.

Life extension with more muscle

While there is a commonality between CRON and the way I recommend eating (high nutrient density, low calorie density foods), in most regards, CR is the opposite of my approach. In my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program, we go for a higher energy flux nutrition program, which means that because we are weight training and doing cardio and leading a very active lifestyle, we get to eat more. Because we are so active and well-trained, the eating more does not have a negative effect as it would on a sedentary person, who might get sick and fat from the additional calories. We active folks take those calories, burn them for energy, partition them into lean muscle tissue and we enjoy a faster metabolism and extremely high quality of life.

As a bodybuilder, CR is not compatible with my priorities, but hypothetically speaking, if I were to practice a lower calorie lifestyle, I wouldn’t follow an aggressive CR approach. I’d probably do as the Okinawans do. They have a very simple philosophy: hari hachi bu: eat until you are only 80% full. While this does not mean there is a carefully measured 20% calorie deficit, it’s consistent with what we practice in the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle lifestyle for a fat loss phase, and avoiding overeating is certainly a smart way to avoid obesity and health problems. Incidentally, the Okinawans eat about 40% less than Americans, and 11% less than they should, according to standard caloric intake guidelines, and they live 4 years longer than Americans.

If someone is being “sold” on CR by an enthusiastic CR spokesperson, or simply curious after watching the latest TV talk show (where they are looking for controversial stories), it’s important to know that there is more than one side to the story. If you carefully read the entire body of research on CR, you will see that the experts are split right down the middle in their opinions about whether CR will really work. CR for humans remains highly controversial and there are no guarantees that this will extend your life.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health in Baltimore, MD put it this way:

“Because it is unlikely that an experimental study will ever be designed to address this question in humans, we respond that “we think we will never know for sure.” We suggest that debate of this question is clearly an academic exercise.”

In closing, let me go back to one of the original questions I was asked: “Can the BFFM food plan also be thought as a longevity lifestyle, but with more muscle mass?” Absolutely beautifully said! That’s precisely what Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is.

I believe that by making healthy food choices but doing so at a higher level of calorie intake and expenditure, that we can fend off sarcopenia – the age related decline in muscle mass that debilitates many seniors – while enjoying a more muscular physique, greater strength, and a less restrictive lifestyle. Most gerontologists agree – by making simple lifestyle changes that include strength training and good nutrition, you can easily turn back the biological clock 10 years without going hungry.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach

Most people are eating a poison every day without giving it a second thought. This substance can increase belly fat and consuming even small amounts (2% of total energy intake) is consistently linked to coronary heart disease. The research also says that this stuff can increase visceral fat, contribute to insulin resistance, increase risk of type 2 diabetes, increase bad cholesterol, decrease good cholesterol, trigger systemic inflammation and adversely affect almost every cell in your body.

What substance could be so harmful that it causes all of these health problems and yet is so prevalent in our food supply that most people are eating dangerous amounts every single day? This industrially manufactured ingredient is called Trans fatty acids (TFA’s).

TFA’s are not found in nature, with the exception of some ruminant-derived TFA’s in certain dairy products (usually contributing less than 0.5% of total caloric intake). TFA’s come mostly from the industrial hydrogenation of vegetable oils, which alters the natural cis configuration of the oils to the trans configuration. If you see “partially hydrogenated” oil in the ingredients list of any food product, then it contains TFA’s.

TFA’s have been studied for decades, but were largely ignored until the past several years. Research papers linking trans fats to heart disease date back to the 1970’s. In 1994, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to put trans fats on food labels (didn’t happen until 2006). Since 2006, TFA’s have thankfully received a decent amount of publicity when they were in the news regarding new food labeling laws and the banning of their use in restaurants in some states.

New studies have been published in the past year confirming the dangers of TFA’s. Four recent studies indicated 24, 20, 27 and 32% higher risk of myocardial infarction (MI) or CHD death for every 2% energy of TFA consumption isocalorically replacing carbohydrate, SFA, cis monounsaturated fatty acids and cis polyunsaturated fatty acids, respectively.

TFA intake in the United States still averages 2-3% of total energy intake, 4% in some developing countries where fast food is being introduced and as high as 8-10% in certain subgroups (who eat large amounts of baked goods, fried foods, pastries, doughnuts, etc). The government recommended maximum is 1% of total energy intake (2 grams!). Some experts say there is NO safe level of TFA intake.

Legislation has been enacted in some states banning the use of TFAs in restaurants. It was big news New York. As of 2008, 11 cities and counties have adopted regulations to restrict TFA use in restaurants. However, industrial TFA use is still widespread and lots of people are still scarfing them down every day.

If Trans fats are so dangerous, why is their use so widespread? Dietary fat expert Udo Erasmus put it this way: “TFA’s are a food manufacturer’s dream: an unspoilable substance that lasts forever.” TFA’s are cheap and for countless food products, they can prolong shelf life, allow easy transport, provide solidity at room temperature (to make spreads), and increase suitability for commercial frying.

Although most people have heard of TFA’s, the bad news is that this increased awareness has not been enough to translate into behavior change.

A study recently published in the Journal of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) found that in 2007, 73% of Americans knew that TFA’s increased risk of heart disease, compared to 63% in 2006. However, the bad news is that 79% of Americans could not name 3 foods that contain trans fats. 46% of Americans could not name any sources of trans fats on their own.

“Knowledge about food sources of fats remains low” says Robert Eckel, professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado.

Public health messages have been raising awareness, but they haven’t been enough. “TFA’s are bad for you.” Ok, so now what? What you really need are some simple behavior guidelines and a list of foods to eat very infrequently if you eat them at all.

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Here are some good places for you to start.

4 Ways to Avoid Trans Fatty Acids

1. Eat mostly foods that do not have a label. At the risk of stating the obvious, if you don’t eat anything that comes in a box or package with a label, then you won’t ever consume manmade TFA’s. If your diet consists primarily of fruits, fibrous vegetables, root vegetables, beans, legumes, brown rice, unprocessed whole grains, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish and lean meats, you’re home free.

2. Watch for label loopholes. WARNING: Food companies are lying to you on their product labels to make you think their foods are TFA-free. The front of their package may say “ZERO grams of trans fats,” and yet there is hydrogenated oil listed in the ingredients. How could that be? There is a label loophole where the government allows companies to claim zero trans fats if there is less than a half a gram per serving. So the food companies sneakily manipulate their serving sizes until the servings are so small that the TFA content falls below the per serving limit.

3. Read ingredients lists. The primary source of TFA’s is partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. In particular, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed and palm oils are frequently hydrogenated. Your first step then, is to read food labels on any packaged products and look at the ingredients list. If it contains partially hydrogenated oils, it contains TFA’s.

4. Avoid foods that contain TFA’s most of the time. TFA’s are commonly found in baked goods (bakery), fried foods and packaged convenience foods, especially:

cookies*
crackers*
biscuits*
pastries*
pies*
doughnuts*
packaged frozen foods (breaded chicken, breaded fish, etc)
corn chips
potato chips
packaged popcorn
some breads
frostings
french fries (fried potatoes)
taco shells
margarines and spreads
shortening
some salad dressings
some candies
some artificial cheeses

* major food sources for American adults

In 2002 when I published the first edition of my ebook, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, I warned my readers of the dangers of trans fatty acids. I was not the only one either. Years ahead of the 2006 law requiring trans fats to be listed on food labels and the 2007-2008 restaurant TFA bans, numerous health professionals were already warning people to stay away from TFA’s.

Not enough people heeded the warnings, while meanwhile, politics and commercial interests delayed legislation. No doubt, skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease can be largely linked to the continued use of these artificial fake food additives. In the US alone, 1,700,000 new cases of diabetes, 233,600 diabetes-related deaths, 600,000 myocardial infarctions and 451,300 coronary heart disease-related deaths are reported every year.

A campaign for better education and lifestyle change is worth supporting. As researchers from Harvard said, “A comprehensive strategy to eliminate the use of industrial TFA in both developed and developing countries, including education, food labeling, and policy and legislative initiatives, would likely prevent tens of thousands of CHD events worldwide each year.”

For a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and for better long-term compliance, I’m rarely in favor of tagging any foods as totally “forbidden” or to use words as strong as “poison” in describing foods. But if there are any exceptions, trans fats are one of them.

If you are unable or unwilling to eliminate TFA’s from your diet completely, then you would be wise for the sake of your health and your family’s health, to keep foods containing TFA’s to a bare minimum and avoid eating any TFA-laden foods on a daily basis.

Last, but not least, be on guard, because history tells us that when one harmful food additive is banned, it is often replaced with another, which is sometimes even worse. That’s why item #1 on my list of four ways to avoid trans fatty acids is the best way to avoid anything that is harmful to your health.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach

You may have heard (or, heh, realized), that it’s more difficult for women to lose fat than men. Immediately most people think it must be estrogen or hormonal issues. But perhaps the biggest factor is NOT hormones, but the simple fact that women are usually smaller and lighter than men.

When you have a smaller body, you have lower calorie needs. When you have lower calorie needs, your relative deficit (20%, 30% etc) gives you a smaller absolute deficit and therefore you lose fat more slowly than someone who is larger and can create a large deficit more easily.

For example, if my TDEE is 3300 calories a day (I’m 5′ 8″ and moderately to very active), then a 20% deficit is 660 calories, which brings me to 2640 calories a day. On paper, that will give me about 1.3 lbs of wt loss per week, rather painlessly, I might add.

If I bumped my calorie burn up or decreased my intake by another 340 a day, that’s enough to give me a 2 lbs per week wt loss.

That’s hardly a starvation diet (Ahhh, the joys of being a man). For smaller women, the math equation is very different.

If your total daily energy expenditure is only 1970 calories, even at a VERY high exercise level, then a 20% deficit for you is only 394 calories which would put you at 1576 calories a day for (on paper) only 8/10th of a lb of fat loss/wk.

If you pursued your plan to take a more aggressive calorie deficit of 30%, that puts you at a 591 calorie deficit which would now drop you down to only 1382 calories/day.

That’s starting to get fairly low in calories. However, you would still have a fairly small calorie deficit. In fact, I would get to eat almost twice as many calories as you and I’d still get almost twice the weekly rate of fat loss!

What this all means is that women who are petite or have a small body size are going to lose fat more slowly than larger women and much more slowly than men, so you cannot compare yourself to them.

It’s great to be inspired by our success stories, but if you’re looking for someone to model yourself after, choose one of our success stories of someone your body size and wt, rather than the folks who started 100 lbs overweight and were therefore easily dropping 3 lbs a week.

ONE POUND a week of fat loss is much more in line with a realistic goal for someone of a smaller body size. Overweight people can lose it faster. The best thing you can do is to be extremely consistent with your nutrition over time.

Suggestion #1: Weigh and measure all your food any time you feel you are stuck at a plateau, just to be sure. When your calorie expenditure is on the low side, you don’t have much margin for error.

Suggestion #2:  Take your body comp measurements with a grain of salt, especially if you are using Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) scales (they are a bit wonky) and remember that body comp testing is seldom perfect. Pay attention to your circumference measurements, how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror and in photos as well.

Suggestion #3: You might actually want to take fewer refeeds – once a week instead of every 4th day, or even just once every 10-14 days, so you can get a larger weekly deficit.

Suggestion #4: You may want to take 2 or 3 of your long cardio sessions on the treadmill and switch them to intense intervals or ANY other type of activity that has potential to burn more than 362 calories for an hour’s investment of time, or perhaps that equivalent calorie burn in less time. No need to add more days of cardio or more time – get the most out of the time you are already spending.

Suggestion #5: If you do intervals, don’t make the workout too brief (ignore the advertisements for those “4 minute miracle” workouts, etc.), or you may burn fewer calories than you were before! In fact, you might even try the method where you do HIIT
for 15-20 min, then continue for another 30-40 at slow to medium intensity. Increasing total calories burned should be your focus.

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Dropping only ONE pound per week (or less) may seem excruciatingly slow, but it’s actually the same type of thing I do. As a bodybuilder, I go from lean to extremely lean when I diet and I don’t expect more than a pound a week during contest cuts.

You are in a similar situation, even if not competing. Even if you get a half a pound a week fat loss, if you get that progress every week, that’s what you’re looking for – steady progress – even if slow.

It’s entirely possible that you HAVE been making progress, only very slowly. With the way water weight and glycogen levels can fluctuate (and lean mass may increase), a half a pound or pound fat loss in a week could have been easily masked… and therefore, missed. That’s one of the drawbacks of going by the scale alone.

Understand the calorie math I explained above and be patient, watching for slow and steady progress, paying special attention to the trend over time on your progress chart.

Keep after it – the persistence will pay, I promise!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

Want to get Abs and Lose Weight?.

The answer to the age-old question of “What is the best ab workout for losing belly fat is?”… Well actually it’s None! Believe it or not ab exercises alone will not give your body enough of a response to generate fat loss or a flatter stomach.

Many fitness professionals and nutrition specialists, often get asked what are the best types of exercises and workouts for losing belly fat to bring out a visible six pack. The problem is that most people with excess belly fat are looking to try to uncover their abs by searching for some “miracle abdominal workout” that is going to slash the fat off their abs in no time. Click here for more information on Mike Geary abs.

The thing is they are approaching the problem in entirely the wrong way! The truth is that you don’t lose stomach fat by doing ab workouts!

What you are looking to do is to try to flatten your stomach and bring out 6-pack abs by concentrating your efforts on the right workouts that will reduce your body fat for good not just trying to get good looking abs!

If I were to choose an answer as to what the best exercises are for losing belly fat, my answer would include full body exercises such as the following: various forms of squats, lunges, deadlifts, clean & presses, snatches, swings, presses and pulls, mountain climbers, sprinting, etc.

These types of full body exercises would encompass a much higher percentage of the workouts instead of abs exercises directly targeting the midsection. The way you combine those full body exercises into a strategic workout that maximizes your metabolism is also very important.

Don’t get me wrong… it is recommend to do a certain amount of exercises that directly target the abs and core, but these should be only a small fraction of your program as your time is better spent focusing on the full body exercises that stimulate the greatest hormonal and metabolic changes within the body. By doing it this way there will be a side effect of indirectly working your entire midsection even though you are not specifically targeting the abs. Follow this link for more on lose the belly fat.

Keep in mind that the most important factor for losing belly fat to see your abs is actually in the nutrition arena. No matter how hard you workout, if your diet is full of junk, then your abdominals will be covered with ugly fat. Nutrition is without a doubt the “king of getting a six pack”.

So to clear this up once and for all…

Don’t waste time on doing sit ups, leg raises, crunches and using all those ab fad gadgets in your efforts to obtain the perfect six pack. Instead, focus on high intensity full body lifts using combination multi-joint exercises all strategically combined into highly effective fat loss workouts. Couple that with a healthy diet full of natural unprocessed whole foods as close to their natural state as possible, and those elusive six-pack abdominal’s will be yours in no time!

For more information on developing your abs, click here – Bodybuilding Programs.

For some reason it seems that the hardest spot on the body to lose excess fat is in the belly. Even though you are doing everything you need to do as far as working out and proper nutrition, but the fat around the lower midsection is often impossible to get rid of. Below you will find some tips that will help you lose belly fat and look fantastic. Go Here For Some Great Tips on Weight Loss

If you are going to lose belly fat, then there are a few things you will want to remember.

How to do it

So you may be thinking, oh great he is going to say let’s get to the gym. Wrong! If you want to lose belly fat then you are going to have to cut out all processed sugars out of your diet e.g. Candy bars. Click Here For Foods That Promote Weight Loss Eating foods and drinks that are high in sugar will cause you to store energy and it will typically goes right to the belly.

Make sure that you go through all of your cupboards and get rid of all those foods that are unhealthy and can promote belly fat. I know it can be really hard if you have a sweet tooth. But If you are truly desirous of losing belly fat though, you will see that it is absolutely essential.

Through most of the day you are walking around and you will be burning fat off of your thighs, legs and gluts but your belly really doesn’t get that same treatment.

If you are ever going to lose belly fat then you will have to exercise alongside of having good eating habits. There are some awesome exercises that you can do to promote weight loss in the belly region, for example doing bodyweight exercise training in 5 – 3 minute intervals will absolutely kick your butt. Some people suggest doing crunches, sit-ups, etc. but that is a joke if you are truly going to lose belly fat then you need to be focusing on cardio type exercises. Want Some Non Traditional Cardio Exercises? Click The Link

Remember, if you want to lose belly fat then you are going to have to be dedicated and motivated. You cannot slack here, the big reason why is, if you do you will gain back any weight that you might have already lost. Following a strict diet and exercise regimen is something that you are going to have to take very seriously and make a major part of your life.

It will be hard at first, to adjust to your new eating and habits. But with a little bit of persistence you will adjust and adapt to it. Then as time goes on, you will notice that your body is finally used to all of this stuff and you will begin to feel and look great.

Looking to get Six Pack Abs

If your looking for the answer to the ultimate abs question – what is the best exercise to get a flat stomach? then the answer is… None! Believe it or not Ab exercises alone will not give your body enough response to generate fat loss or a flatter stomach.

Many fitness professionals and nutrition specialists, often get asked what are the best types of exercises for losing stubborn belly fat to bring out visible six pack abs. Most people with excess abdominal fat are looking for that “magic” cure to uncover their abs or to rid themselves of the stomach flab fast. Click here for more information on the truth about six pack abs.

The thing is they are approaching the problem in entirely the wrong way! You don’t lose stomach fat by doing ab workouts!

The problem is that focusing most of your time and effort on abdominal exercises and abs workouts to try to flatten your stomach and bring out 6-pack abs is simply wasting your time from doing the correct workout programs that will actually reduce your body fat for good!

If I were to choose an answer as to what the best exercises are for losing belly fat, my answer would include full body exercises such as the following: various forms of squats, lunges, deadlifts, clean & presses, snatches, swings, presses and pulls, mountain climbers, sprinting, etc.

These types of full body exercises would encompass a much higher percentage of the workouts instead of abs exercises directly targeting the midsection. The way you combine those full body exercises into a strategic workout that maximizes your metabolism is also very important.

It is recommend that you do a certain amount of exercises that specifically target the abs, but these are only a tiny part of the programs you should be pursuing as your time is better spent focusing on the full body exercises that stimulate the greatest hormonal and metabolic changes within the body. In addition, a side-effect of working out using mostly full body multi-joint combo exercises are that you indirectly work your entire midsection even though you are not specifically targeting the abs. Follow this link for more on lose belly fat fast.

Bear in mind how important it is to consider nutrition for devveloping abs. No matter how hard you workout, if your diet is full of junk, then your abdominals will be covered with ugly fat. Nutrition is without a doubt the “king of getting a six pack”.

So Let’s be clear about this…

Don’t spend hours doing sit ups, leg raises, crunches and using all those ab fad gadgets in your efforts to obtain the perfect six pack. Instead, focus on high intensity full body lifts using combination multi-joint exercises all strategically combined into highly effective fat loss workouts. Couple that with a healthy diet full of natural unprocessed whole foods as close to their natural state as possible, and those elusive six-pack abdominal’s will be yours in no time!

For more information on developing your abs, click here – muscle building programs.

We eat food to keep our body healthy and fit. But as soon as we start eating food for taste and not for health then our body shows the results in the form of weight gain and obesity. It is said expressly as long as we eat food not meant or made for our body then it will be very difficult to maintain a healthy weight. It is very important to have a desired weight in order to keep yourself fit and active.
 
 There are many natural weight loss diets expressly people follow to loose weight. But it should be kept it mind that no miracles happen, the weight will reduce gradually violate any kind of diet. Natural weight loss diet helps in reducing weight slowly and a person note healthy also from inside. It is a combination of a healthy diet and lots of exercise. These natural diets contain some substances specifically increase your metabolism and besides reduce the stress level. Your craving for food also gets reduced with these natural weight loss diets.
 
 Natural weight loss seconds are easily handy in the market. These range have a perfect combination of all the nutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, fats and vitamins. All these nutrients are present in these natural diet products so as to provide the right amount of nutrition to our body. Some of the natural diet products are as follows:
 1. Citrus Autranium- It contains natural properties that improve in the proper functioning of stomach and liver. It to boot improves the gastrointestinal functions. It has no effect on our central system and heart unlike some conjointly natural products.
 2. Garuna – It contains small compounds similar to caffeine but it doesn’t affect our body system harshly like caffeine. It Protects energy and increases the metabolic rate of body. It also helps in burning excess fat from the body hence reduce weight.
 3. Gotu kola – it also helps in promoting metabolism and increasing the energy levels.
 4. Green tea – Green tea contains antioxidants that help in weight loss and the proper functioning of the body.
 5. Bladderwrack – It contains iodine that helps in natural weight loss and balancing the body metabolism.
 Along with these natural weight loss products it is deeply necessary to follow some weigh loss tips also that are listed below:
 a. Daily physical activities should be increases in order to burn fat at a presto rate.
 b. Consume protein drinks and herbal drinks on behalf of of aerated drinks.
 c. Weight loss methods to eat healthy and nutritional food rather then starve.
 d. Start eating whole food products like whole-wheat bread, unpolished rice, organic foods and vegetables.
 e. Don’t eat saturated fats, sugary food items and carbohydrates is good Weight loss advice .
 
 Quick Weight Loss Diet Tips, supplements and Weight Loss Information for Getting Started. Energy needs and weight loss.

It’s not easy to burn belly fat, but easy to get. Ugh! There are few things as stubborn as belly fat, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many sit ups or crunches you suffer through it sticks. Is the flat stomach you used to have a thing of the past? Not necessarily.

The truth is it takes more than sit up and crunches to burn belly fat. Exercise alone will not get rid of the belly fat that covers your abdominal muscles. No one wants to hear this, but to start getting rid of and burn belly fat you have to start burning off more calories than you take in. Yup, eat less and get more exercise.

Here’s a couple ways to get started:

Eat Low Fat and Low Calorie

One of the best and easiest ways to start burning belly fat is to start eating a low fat, low calorie diet. You don’t have to starve yourself or give up your favorite fun food, just think before you eat and make healthier choices. For example, go ahead eat dessert, but maybe make it low calorie ice cream rather than fully loaded! There are some good ones out there to choose from and they taste great!

Start thinking about adding more whole grain breads and pasta to your daily diet, and cut out some of the red meat and replace it with fish and poultry. Cut down on high calorie butter and replace it with oil, but use less of that as well. There are many low calorie butter type products in your grocery store. Find one you like.

And eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They are low in fat, taste good and filling. You don’t like fruits and vegetables? Hmmmm, how’s that belly fat workin’ for you?

Get out there and get some exercise

In addition to eating fewer calories you’ll need to get 20-30 minutes of regular exercise that raises your heart rate. Yes, you’ll have to do some sit up and crunches but even walking at a brisk pace for 20 to 30 minutes a day will get the process started. And twenty to thirty minutes is maybe twice around your block. Everything in life is more fun and easier with a buddy, especially exercise, so grab one and get started.

The best way to burn belly fat is get regular exercise (20 to 30 minutes) and eat a low fat, low calorie diet. If you make a plan, stay focused you’ll burn belly fat before you know it.

what you just learned about burn belly fat is just the begining. To get the full story and all the details, check us out at
burnbellyfat236.xanga.com/703260993/ways-to-burn-belly-fat-8211-it8217s-not-hard-and-can-be-done/

It’s not easy to burn belly fat, but easy to get. Ugh! There are few things as stubborn as belly fat, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many sit ups or crunches you suffer through it sticks. Is the flat stomach you used to have a thing of the past? Not necessarily.

The truth is it takes more than sit up and crunches to burn belly fat. Exercise alone will not get rid of the belly fat that covers your abdominal muscles. No one wants to hear this, but to start getting rid of and burn belly fat you have to start burning off more calories than you take in. Yup, eat less and get more exercise.

Here’s a couple ways to get started:

Eat Low Fat and Low Calorie

One of the best and easiest ways to start burning belly fat is to start eating a low fat, low calorie diet. You don’t have to starve yourself or give up your favorite fun food, just think before you eat and make healthier choices. For example, go ahead eat dessert, but maybe make it low calorie ice cream rather than fully loaded! There are some good ones out there to choose from and they taste great!

Start thinking about adding more whole grain breads and pasta to your daily diet, and cut out some of the red meat and replace it with fish and poultry. Cut down on high calorie butter and replace it with oil, but use less of that as well. There are many low calorie butter type products in your grocery store. Find one you like.

And eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They are low in fat, taste good and filling. You don’t like fruits and vegetables? Hmmmm, how’s that belly fat workin’ for you?

Get out there and get some exercise

In addition to eating fewer calories you’ll need to get 20-30 minutes of regular exercise that raises your heart rate. Yes, you’ll have to do some sit up and crunches but even walking at a brisk pace for 20 to 30 minutes a day will get the process started. And twenty to thirty minutes is maybe twice around your block. Everything in life is more fun and easier with a buddy, especially exercise, so grab one and get started.

The best way to burn belly fat is get regular exercise (20 to 30 minutes) and eat a low fat, low calorie diet. If you make a plan, stay focused you’ll burn belly fat before you know it.

what you just learned about burn belly fat is just the begining. To get the full story and all the details, check us out at burnbellyfat236.xanga.com/703260993/ways-to-burn-belly-fat-8211-it8217s-not-hard-and-can-be-done/