As I said before, getting fit and healthy is 90% diet and 10% exercise. So I can’t
stress enough how important it is to eat clean. There is so much conflicting
information out there at the moment it can be so confusing and difficult to
know what the right foods to eat are. Last year I came across Wendy Chant who
is a nutrition and exercise expert. She
brings science to a very common language, so it’s easier to understand why to
do things; they make sense. I have summarised her findings as I believe it’s
important to learn how the body works in order to gain optimum health.
ULTIMATE SURVIVOR
Fat loss is not only losing fat for the right reasons but
losing fat efficiently. Anyone can lose fat. Starve yourself, eat only protein,
work out six hours a day-all of these ill advised attempts will have the same
result: less fat. But will it stay off? NO, because no matter what you do to your body, the
ultimate survival machine, it will adapt and find a way to put fat back on as
it continually evaluates and responds to your fad diet of the month.
When you diet your body’s balance is off. The body sees
imbalance as a threat to survival. The body immediately seeks balance and in doing so,
adapts to even out your intake and expenditure. The adaptive response
is better known as the dieters “plateau” where the scale doesn't move even
after continued attempts to lose weight. Now you see why plateaus are common.
It’s simply not in your body’s best interests to lose weight.
One thing you must understand is that your body is a
survivor. The body disregards our own wants and needs for the betterment of our
survival. This is why diets don’t work.
FUEL FOR THE BODY
PROTEIN
Protein is
essential for maintenance, repair, and growth of all body tissue. Protein also
supports lean mass in the body, such as muscle ,bone and structure. If we
compare the body to a car, protein is like fuel for that car.
FACT #1: Protein is Responsible for Muscle Maintenance, Repair and Growth
The body uses the protein in the body in the above order.
FACT #2: Protein Burns More Calories
You can count on burning up to five times as many calories
when you eat protein as when you eat fats or carbohydrates
FACT #3: An Active Person’s Body Needs 1 Gram of Protein for Every Pound of Lean Body Weight
It’s important to consume just enough protein, and not too
little or too much. Too much protein is counterproductive; the body can’t use
it all at once, so the rest goes to the kidneys for processing, and the spill
over gets broken down into fat.
FACT #4: Protein
helps you maintain a positive nitrogen balance around the clock
Nitrogen balance is so important. Nitrogen is a by-product
of proteins break down in the body. Nitrogen is literally the thing that makes
your muscles hard and firm. When the nitrogen level in your muscle has a
positive balance, your muscles are firm, harder and healthier. When muscle has
a negative balance, because of poor protein intake, your muscle is unhealthy
and “squishy”. When your muscle is unhealthy, your body is more likely to use
it for energy, which is the last thing you want. So when the muscle is healthy, the body won’t turn to muscle
for energy, because it’s harder to burn. It will turn to fat instead, because,
as always, the body follows the path of least resistance. Don’t make it easier
for your body to rob muscle for energy.
FACT #5: You
need quality proteins at each meal
Unlike carbohydrates, which are quickly utilised and almost
immediately processed for energy, protein doesn’t last throughout the day. As a
result, you have to keep taking in quality proteins throughout the day.
Otherwise, your body will want to shed poor muscle tissue instead of fat. Eggs
are the number one protein source. When you eat eggs, 100 percent can be used
by the body towards a positive nitrogen balance for maintenance, repair and
growth of the muscle.
FACT #6: Eating
Protein Helps you Burn Fat
Protein promotes a glucagon response in your body. Glucagon
is the fat burning hormone; it aids us in releasing and unlocking fat by making
it usable for the body. As you take in protein, you’re increasing glucagon.
FATS
Inside your body, fats are the oils that lubricates the many
systems needed to get through your day. Fats have gotten a bad rap lately. The
truth is that we need fat in our diets. Like oil in your car, fat doesn’t get
used quite as often as protein. This is a great way to think of fat in the
diet. We need it, just not so much of it. The more natural a fat is, the more
healthful and less harmful is it for you. The most healthful fats are
polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. These are mostly found in natural
foods. In avoiding fat, be careful that you don’t eliminate fat,
even saturated fat. Something that has saturated fat doesn’t mean that it’s
necessarily bad. When it comes to fat, it all comes down to quality. You need
fat because it protects your immune system and lubricates the body parts. It
also aids in the digestion of foods and keeps your immune system fit and ready
to do battle against sickness and disease.
CARBOYDRATES
Carbohydrates have also gotten a bad rap these days. Despite
the prevalence of “low-carbohydrates” diets- and the way they are perceived as successful
by many short term dieters-carbohydrates are actually vital to the human body.
The primary function of carbohydrates is for energy usage and storage. Carbohydrates
can also be used as a coolant for the human machine.
HOW YOUR BODY USES AND STORES ENERGY AND EXCESS FAT FROM CARBOYDRATES
Stage
1: Immediate Energy Needs
When the body needs energy, it doesn’t want to mess around
with auditioning new sources of energy. The body’s go to source for energy is
carbohydrates. That’s because there is no waiting around. Carbohydrates are
immediately available for energy. Digestions begin in the mouth and carbohydrates
are quickly made available for energy needs or stored for later use.
Stage
2: Storage in the Muscle and Liver
While the digestion of carbohydrates starts immediately in
the mouth the rest continues in the small intestine. The energy that isn’t used
immediately by the body goes to storage. Your body stored carbohydrates as
glycogen in the muscle and liver as a source of energy for movement and daily
function.
Stage
3: Storing Fat/Spill Over
When energy intake is continually abundant with little or no
expenditure of that energy, muscle and liver stores overfill and your body
stores excess and unwanted energy as fat.
It is
important that we understand these three processes in order to understand how
the body works and how you can manipulate the way the body works so that it can
start burning fats instead of carbohydrates.
SO WHAT IS THE KEY TO FAT LOSS?
Key
1: Protect and Support Muscle
Our bodies don’t like muscle. For every pound of muscle on
your body, you burn twenty to thirty calories in the course of a day without
activity. For every pound of fat, you burn just four or five calories. In other
words, with more muscle, you burn more calories. So since you burn more calories with more muscle, when there
is an energy deficit, your body would rather shed muscle as its first source of
energy. But it can’t if the muscle is protected. The only way to get your body
to burn fat instead of muscle is to make it easier for the body to do so. The
easier we can make it for the body to go grab fat, the more likely it is to do
so.
To do this we need to protect and support our muscles by exercising
with resistance training and by eating the proper foods for muscle maintenance, repair and growth.
Key
2: Level Blood Sugar
Increased levels of blood sugar promote fat storage.
Balanced sugar levels make the body capable of using stored fatty acids as a
source of energy. Foods either absorb quickly, at a relatively high rate, or
slowly, at a low rate. The more quickly a food gets absorbed, the more likely it
is to be stored as fat. That’s because these readily available sugars send a
signal to your body to release insulin. In turn, insulin sends a message to
your fat cells: “Hey there is too much sugar clogging up the bloodstream. Your
fat cells start absorbing all the excess sugar to get it out of your
bloodstream.
Key
3: Create an Energy Deficit
You can’t
lose weight without a reason for your body to go get that excess fat you have
stored.
Think of it this way: Your body likes to have energy in the “bank”.
Its an energy hoarder, it doesn’t like to “spend” energy. The safest way for
the body to store energy is in the fat cells, so if we don’t create an energy
deficit, there will always be plenty of fat for the body to store up and save for later. We have to create an
energy deficit so that the body dips into its savings account and spends some
of that fat.
Calorie Reduction
By reducing the amount of calories you eat, you can provide
less energy for the body to store. When we create an energy deficit, the body
must look to fat sooner for an energy source. We can’t be in a constant calorie
deficit as the body will adapt to it. By alternating not only the amount of
food you eat but also the types of macronutrients you make sure that the body
never gets a chance to adapt.
Exercise
It is important to alternate calorie reduction with
exercise. Exercise also uses energy, so we can create a second type of energy
deficit. Think of the energy (glycogen)
we store in our muscles as the body’s current account and fat as a savings
account. The more we reduce calories and exercise the less energy left in the body’s
current account that it has to take from the savings account.
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Next week my two housemates and I are going to start a 6 week challenge of clean eating and exercise and see what results we get. I will post our progress along with our exercise regimes and food log. I want to show you that this works for both men and women!
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