I bet you’ve heard this one before – a calorie is a calorie. So eating 100 calories worth of Cheezy Poofs is the same as eating a half-cup of cottage cheese, because they are both roughly 100 calories, according to this logic. Well, as I have mentioned before, nothing could be further from the truth.
In a 1957 (!) study, three groups of people were put on low calorie (1000 calorie) diets. The first group ate 90% of their calories in fat, the second group ate 90% of their calories in protein, the third group ate 90% of their calories in carbs. Guess which group actually gained weight, despite only taking in 1000 calories per day? Yep, the carb group. The other two groups lost between 0.5 to 1.0 pound per day!
Several studies have been done since, all coming to the same conclusion – low carbohydrate diets result in significantly greater fat loss than low fat or low calorie diets. In fact, in several of the studies, the low carb groups were consuming more overall calories than the high carb groups and losing more fat.
So low carb diets become the next entry on the list that we started last time of most effective fat burning techniques:
- Eating more often (shooting for 6 small meals per day)
- Resistance training
- Interval cardio
- Low carbohydrate diets
One last item on the list to be added next time…
For fat loss to occur, you must burn more calories than you take in. I can just hear the thousands of “no duhs” being muttered as you folks read this shocking revelation! However, there are several components to creating a calorie “deficit” (not just eating less), and using them all together will be the most effective. Plus, you won’t be starving yourself like you usually do when you diet.
My dear sweet Grandma (may she rest in peace) struggled with her weight her entire life. I always got a good chuckle when she would say to me, “Matthew, I wish I could lose weight like you. I don’t understand, I hardly eat anything at all.” I never wanted to challenge my 70-something year old Grandma on the scientifically impossible statement she made. If you are taking in less than your body requires, you will lose weight, end of story. If your body could gain weight from eating nothing, you’d be on Dr. Phil, Oprah and the Today Show tomorrow!
So, how do you create this calorie deficit? It is a combination of watching your intake with anaerobic training (the interval-style training) and resistance training, both of which burn calories not only during activity, but also after, as long as 36 hours after completion! When you eat less and burn more, you have achieved the magic fat loss formula.
For a fat loss diet that creates a calorie deficit easily and without hunger, check out my new book The Burrito Diet!
This was one of the e-mails from my newsletter at leanstate.com It is the opposite of everything you have ever heard about the most effective way to burn fat, and it took me a LONG time to finally get through my thick skull. Remember, it is NOT about the calories you burn while exercising, it is about the calories you burn when you are NOT exercising.
No, I’m not suggesting you sink all of your money into every fat loss product imaginable. In fact, you can go into this kind of debt without spending a nickel. I’m talking about oxygen debt, and it is critical to fast and efficient fat loss!
Traditional “cardio”, where you do long bouts (45 minutes or more) on a treadmill or an elliptical machine at a moderate pace has always been the recommendation of doctors and trainers. Why? Because at a moderate pace your body is using stored body fat for energy. You’ll often see this referred to as the “fat burning zone.” So, why is burning body fat a bad thing? Have I finally lost my mind?
Your body is a pretty complicated engine, so when the fat is being burned, it says “well, I better save up some fat for the next time we go through this.” So, what does it do? It uses your lean muscle tissue to help preserve fat. Now, that doesn’t sound right, does it?
Confused? It’s really quite easy. You don’t exercise to see the results that happen to your body during exercise – all of the magic actually happens after, not during, exercise. So, while you rest and recover, your body is burning the fat. Yeah, baby!
Intervals, which are short bursts of exercise followed by recovery, don’t use fat as their energy source. During interval training, your body will call on carbohydrates which are stored in your muscles. The effort that your body needs to go through to replace the carbohydrates stored in your muscle is much more intense, therefore it needs to call on the stored body fat for up to 24 hours after you’re done. So, would you rather burn fat for 45 minutes or 24 hours?
Back to oxygen debt – this is how you can judge the proper intensity of your interval training. Simply put, your interval needs to be of a high enough intensity that, when you stop and start recovery, that you are left panting. This means that your body is asking for more oxygen than you currently can provide.
You can also monitor yourself with a heart rate monitor. If your interval was intense, your heart rate will actually bump up when you stop before heading downward.
In 20 minutes or less, you’ll be revving up your fat burning engine like never before. At some point I’ll share some of my favorite interval workouts with you. But for now, even if you’re just walking outside, crank up your intensity for 30 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of recovery at a slower pace for 20 minutes total.
