Wednesday 7 October 2009

Are You Making These Two Fat Burning Mistakes?

In the politically correct world, the most fat you can lose in a week is about 1 pound.

However, if you play your cards right, you can do a lot better than that. But how much time will it take to achieve a better body?

Don't worry, it's not going to take the hours in the gym per day that you think it will. In reality, it's only a couple of hours per week.

Literally, you can make amazing improvements in just 3 hours per week of structured, high-quality training.

But if you go into the gym without a plan, well, then prepare to get no where no matter how much time you put in.

On the other hand, while you only need to train hard for 3 hours per week, you need to live the for 168 hours per week.

That means at least 90% of your nutrition must be planned (and high quality, whole, natural foods), and you must try to get high quality sleep (at least 7 hours a night).

As for exercise, stick with efficient lifts like squats, lunges, press-ups, and rows. Don't take the easy way out with seated machine exercises. This way, you'll need only 1-2 hours of lifting per week to boost your metabolism.

Combine that with three 20-minute interval sessions per week and your fat loss plan is golden. Then you just have to concentrate on the nutrition.

On the other hand, if you are serious about gaining mass, stick to a 4-day lifting schedule, cut out the intervals, and increase your food intake, but don't use this as an excuse to eat garbage.

So what are the 2 biggest mistakes people make in their quest for fat loss and ultimate abs?

1) Following Politically-Correct, Mass-Production training programs.

Now first, I must give credit to any program that gets someone off the couch and moving. However, don't promise someone "toned arms" by telling them all they need to do are triceps kickbacks with soup cans.

That's just condescending, plain wrong, and a flat out lie, all rolled into one.
Say Au Revoir to the slow-cardio marathon workouts, the light-weight, high-rep lifting sessions, and the endless abs.

This goes for men and women. And if women are scared of weights, at least master your own bodyweight exercises first before giving into the pink dumbbells. You'll get strong, athletic, lean, and a sexy firm body.


2) Following Endurance Exercise Recommendations When You Are Trying To Lose Fat.

Back in the day, all exercise research was focused on improving endurance performance. And all this research trickled down through the media and somehow, strangely enough, got applied to fat loss.

Hence one of the reasons for the long, misguided emphasis on aerobic training and low-fat diets for fat loss.

But you shouldn't overload on carbohydrates if you want abs. That advice is for runners, not for fat loss.

And you shouldn't spend hours doing slow, boring cardio. Again, leave that to marathoners.

Instead, as the new research is showing us, stick to the principles that I follow Turbulence Training principles of high-intensity strength training, followed by interval training, and a high-fiber, high-F&V, moderate protein, healthy fats nutrition program (whole, natural foods, anyone?).

Goodbye cereal bars, elliptical machines, juice, aerobics classes, rice cakes, and long runs for fat loss.

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