Category Archives: fat
Melt away health harming belly fat with a nutrient-rich diet
To comprehend the health risks of midsection fat, it is important to understand the different varieties. Subcutaneous fat is found just under the skin of the hips, buttocks, thighs and abdomen; whereas visceral fat is deep inside, surrounding the vital organs in the pelvis, abdomen and chest. This second type of fat can be extremely harmful to health. According to Kristen Hairston, MD, “We know that a higher rate of visceral fat is associated with high blood pressure, diabetes and fatty liver disease.”
Belly fat burning foods
Monounsaturated oils are especially effective in diminishing abdominal fat. A study at the Reina Sofia University Hospital in Spain observed a group of overweight individuals who were put on four different diets for a month. All ate the same amount of calories per day, but had varying ratios of carbohydrates and fat. The researchers found that the group who consumed monounsaturated fats had the best results in losing extra weight around the midsection – even without exercise. Good sources of monounsaturated fat include avocados, nuts, seeds and olive oil.
Dark chocolate is also rich in this slimming fat. Research has shown that when men consumed 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate two hours before a meal, they ate 17 percent fewer calories compared with those who consumed milk chocolate. Organic, raw chocolate that contains at least 70 percent cacao is optimal.
Soluble fiber found in vegetables, fruit and beans target abdominal fat as well. According to a study at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, fiber intake directly affects midsection fat. Participants reduced visceral fat 3.7 percent over a five year span simply by consuming an additional 10 grams of soluble fiber per day. Those who also included moderate exercise had a total fat loss of 7.4 percent.
Another belly fat blasting food is coconut. A study in the journal Lipids found that coconut oil reduced abdominal obesity. The double-blind clinical trial involved 40 women between the ages of 20 and 40. Each group received either soy bean or coconut oil dietary supplements during the 12-week period. All participants adhered to a balanced diet and walked 50 minutes each day. At the end of the study, a decrease in total body mass was seen in both groups, but only the women who consumed coconut oil saw a reduction in waistline circumference.
Sources for this article include:
“Delicious, fatty foods that will help you lose weight” Mike Oliva, News Room Jersey, July 19, 2012. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from: http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com
“Effects of dietary coconut oil on the biochemical and anthropometric profiles of women presenting abdominal obesity” Assuncao ML, Ferreira HS, do Santos AF, Cabral CR Jr, Florencio TM, Lipids, 2009, Jul:44(7):593-601. Epub 2009 May 13. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19437058
“Soluble Fiber Strikes a Blow to Belly Fat” Science Daily. June 27, 2011. Retrieved on August 1, 2012 from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110627123032.htm
“Flat Belly Diet Cookbook” Liz Vaccariello, Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, 2008 Rodale Inc.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036872_belly_fat_nutrients_fat-burning_foods.html#ixzz2467tOTBP
10 Easy Ways to Lose Weight Without Starving
You can stage a coup on calories without ruining your life or eating a single rice cake: Just follow this simple advice.
The no-diet, no-workout plan that is better than running 5 miles a day! Check out The Lean Belly Prescription.
Way #1
Always Eat a Man’s Breakfast
No more Lucky Charms—you want some protein and fat. Scrambled eggs and a few sausage links will keep you fuller longer than an airy doughnut will.
Way #2
Eat More!
We’re talking three good snacks and three healthful meals. But what do you serve during the bowl game if you can’t have chips and dip? Mixed nuts—especially almonds—will satisfy your craving for something crunchy while helping to build muscle.
Way #3
Just Say No to Starches
Foods like pasta, white bread, and potatoes make you fat. If you must have pasta, make yours whole-wheat. Same goes for bread, and swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes. Just don’t eat too much!
A perfect example of a great swap are these crispy sweet potato fries. You’ll never go back to regular potatoes.
Way #4
Lift Weights
Yes, you have to hit the gym, and no, lifting beer cans during happy hour doesn’t count. The muscles you build will not only improve your performance, they’ll stoke your metabolism so you burn calories long after your workout is over.
Way #5
Think Before You Eat
Don’t just stuff your face with the stale cookies left over from the holidays, eat what tastes good and what’s good for you. Take your time eating; you’ll stay fuller longer.
Here are 7 ways to harness your hunger from a grumbling stomach.
Way #6
But Have Fun Once in a While—or Once a Week
Stifle those cravings for too long, and you’ll be miserable and might fall off your new plan forever. Just splurge reasonably—two slices of pizza, not the whole thing.
Way #7
Go Low-Carb
It’s the easiest way to drop weight fast. The cravings are hard at first, but it gets easier—especially when you see the results.
Way #8
Run Intervals
It’s easier to alternate between hard and easy running instead of going for a long run—especially if you don’t like running. Plus, you’ll be done faster and burn more fat.
Break your speed limits by boosting your speed with intervals. You’ll not only get faster, but your gut with flatten in no-time.
Way #9
Never, Ever Drink Sweetened Soda
But go ahead, have a glass of wine now and then. Low-carb beer is fine, too, in moderation.
Way #10
Don’t Fear Fat
It makes you feel full, helps control your appetite, and your body needs it.
Of course, some fat is good while others are bad. See How Fat Attacks, and how you can make it work for you.
2 Ways to Lose Fat, Only 1 Way to Get Ripped
It’s that time of year, when even the most anti-cosmetic guy thinks a little bit less about his lifting totals and a little bit more about how he looks in his spandex lifting suit.
If that just made you throw up in your mouth, or made you want to punch me in the face, you don’t have to keep reading.
Then again, maybe maintaining your functional lean muscle mass and strength while dropping some non-functional fat will allow you to perform better in a lower weight class, thus giving you a competitive advantage.
At the very least, it could help you improve your health profile, prolong your career – and maybe even your life – if that type of insignificant stuff matters to you? Unless of course, you’re still just a teenager at heart that thinks immortality awaits everyone.
We’re all fighting an uphill battle in Y2K America. Every human being shares a common problem, and current statistics prove only a very small percentage are able to overcome it.
Fat Loss Nemesis
Your biggest enemy in the war against body fat may be the one that you’re not even aware of – it is you, or more accurately, your internal instincts.
Make no mistake about it – human beings are preprogrammed to overeat.
There was no portion control for most of our existence. When you had access to food, you ate it, and stocked energy reserves to prepare for times when you didn’t have access to it.
Going crazy at an all-you-can-eat buffet is not weakness or a cheap way to bulk up. It’s simply a survival instinct. That may be cool during the off-season, but it’s a liability when trying to cut the fat.
In an environment where resources are limited, and food is real and scarce, this natural tendency to overeat leads to survival.
In an environment with unlimited access to highly refined, fake foods, it leads to chronic overeating, and the health and body fat struggles associated with living on the wrong side of excess.
I don’t care what the ADA says the arbitrary serving size of a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles is (3/4 cup), human instinct dictates it’s the whole damn box.
When you combine the natural evolutionary instinct to overeat with the following:
- Refined foods that have weak effects on the hormones that regulate appetite and energy intake.
- Unlimited access to those foods (The 5 AM mocha and muffin run to the 3 AM post-drinking taco truck stop).
You have yourself one big, modern problem – an obese country with biomarkers of health that resemble the zombie apocalypse in an episode of The Walking Dead.
When analyzing the root causes of this problem, it becomes clear there are two different ways you can lose fat and get on the right side of the energy balance equation.
Fast Loss Strategy #1 – The Food Choices Route
I don’t want to beat a dead horse. I’d rather indulge my inner Francophone and eat it. I mean, look at the nutrition analysis and essential fatty acid profile of 1 pound of raw horsemeat:
97g protein
0g carbohydrate
6.5g saturated fat
7.3g monounsaturated fat
1,632mg omega-3 fatty acids
1,315mg omega-6 fatty acids
But alas, horsemeat is not available in my city yet. I’d have to pull up stakes and move to Quebec and kick it with Coach Thibaudeau. Sadly, that would also require swapping my striped Hotskinz unitard for a throwback Quebec Nordiques jersey. Sorry Thibs, not going to happen.
For now, I’ll have to settle for kicking that dead horse one more time.
Improving your food choices is the healthiest and easiest (after a rough transition phase) way to lose fat. It’s also the most sustainable approach for the long-term.
If you hate counting calories, calculating macronutrient percentages, measuring and tracking foods, etc., your only choice is to start making better food choices. It’s way too instinctual and easy to overeat refined foods.
It’s much harder to overeat real foods. I’d argue it’s almost impossible. Without any tracking or measuring, I’ve had female clients struggle to eat 1200 calories a day and male clients had a similar problem getting 2000 calories a day when cutting out all refined foods, and only eating real, natural foods.
They couldn’t believe how so much food volume led to so few total calories. That’s the beauty of real food.
Here’s the thing: fat boys like to eat (they used to call me Baby Sumo, so I’m not trying to be a jerk).
A client of mine called me last night complaining about having to eat too much for dinner. What was on the menu?
It was 3/4 pound of top round steak and 2 pounds of potatoes. Remember, my overall approach is to eat lighter during the day and eat the majority of calories and carbs at night – which allows us, at least once a day, to satisfy that natural urge to feast like a beast.
That’s a crap-load of food to eat; yet it’s still less than 1500 calories. No late night, starvation-induced binges here.
This guy couldn’t lose weight when he was on his ketogenic, unlimited fat diet pouring oils on everything. Why?
Refined oils are much easier to overeat than real food, so he was always in a caloric surplus despite treating carbs like rat poison.
On his new plan, he’s lost 50 pounds.
Simple Eating Templates
- If you’re sedentary, eat like a caveman: animal proteins, vegetables, whole fruits, whole food fats (nuts, shredded coconut, avocado), and muddy pond water.
- If you’re active, follow the patterns of a Japanese village-style diet, which simply means adding in some low sugar, gluten-free starches to the above caveman diet to support anaerobic training: sweet potatoes, potatoes, or rice.
Now I’m sure I’m going to get some nit-picker saying something like epidemiological research shows no culture has a universal diet and food intake varies across geographical locations, etc. My response?
- When was the last time you got laid? Seriously? And Palmela Handerson doesn’t count.
- “Themed” approaches to eating aren’t meant to be 100% historically accurate dogmatic scrolls. They’re simply educational tools to give people simple templates to remember.
The bottom line is that emphasizing lean proteins, vegetables, whole fruits, whole food fats, and a select few starch foods if you strength train is good advice regardless of historical era or geographical location.
Fat Loss Method #2 – The Portion Control Route
Here’s the tough love reality: 90% of the foods available to us these days aren’t that great for either body composition or biomarkers of health. That’s why people are always shocked, or even offended, when I give my honest opinion about certain food choices.
They suck.
If I didn’t list it, I don’t like it. And the list is relatively small. But remember, I’m not the be-all-end-all of nutrition. To paraphrase the Dude, well, that’s just my opinion, man.
And for a lot of people, a full-blown real-foods diet may seem too restrictive or extreme.
There are some people out there who just don’t want to eat better, despite their knowledge of the health effects of food. It’s mind blowing to me. But I get it at some level – refined foods and sugar have drug-like effects. Like any addict, we scour the earth for justifications for including them into our plans.
Some people just aren’t going to give up their cereals, wheat bread sandwiches, fruit juices, high n-6 cooking oils and salad dressings, pastas, etc., no matter what. Fair enough.
Fake Foods and Real Instinct Don’t Mix
If you think you can take an instinctual approach to eating while making less-than-ideal food choices, you’re in for a rude, belly fat awakening. See beaches and poolsides everywhere.
Because it’s so easy to overeat refined foods, you’ll have to do the ol’ measuring, calorie counting, macro-calculating, and tracking thing if you have any real shot at dropping a visually significant amount of body fat.
My ears are already ringing from all the complaints.
Quit whining. Damn, am I talking to a T-Man or my Auntie? If you don’t want to eat real foods, you’re going to have to measure your fake foods.
I like to make fat loss as easy as possible for people, but you can’t be completely lazy and expect to achieve goals. If you refuse to fight one battle, you’re going to have to fight another one. You can’t win a war from the sideline.
Besides, all it really takes is one extra step. If you’re on a carb-based diet, is it backbreaking to pour your cereal or pasta into a measuring cup first instead of directly into a bowl?
If you’re on a low carb, fat-based diet, how hard is it to pour salad dressing into a tablespoon measurer instead of directly onto the salad, or count out twenty-four almonds?
I’ll even help you. I have two nuts for you right here for you to get started with.
For most foods, especially the energy nutrients (added fats or carbs) that are the most important to measure, it takes an extra 10 seconds to get an exact measurement, instead of just winging it.
Portion Precision Tactics
Here are some thoughts about how to implement this process in the real world. It’s not as hard or inconvenient as you think:
- Buy a couple sets of measuring cups (1/4 cup to 1 cup) and teaspoon/tablespoon measures.
- Use measuring cups as serving spoons instead of traditional serving utensils, particularly for starch foods and added fats like nuts.
There’s no need to weigh your meats, poultry, and fish on a scale. Simply buy these foods one pound (16 oz.) at a time and cut them up according to your dietary needs.
If you’re supposed to be eating 3 oz. servings cut into 5 pieces, 4 oz. servings = 4 pieces, 5 oz. servings = 3 pieces, 8 oz. servings = 2 pieces. It doesn’t have to be exact; we just want the right range. Food scales seem a bit excessive to me.
- Pour oils, dressings, and condiments into teaspoon or tablespoon measures before cooking or topping food.
- When you don’t have access to measuring cups and spoons, like eating at a friend’s or at a restaurant, you’ll have to eyeball portion sizes.
4-6 ounces of meat, poultry, or fish is about the size of the palm of your hand or a deck of cards. 1 cup of starch is about the size of a closed fist or a baseball. 2 tablespoons of dressing is about 2 spoonfuls, or about 1/2 of most of the cups they use for the “dressing on the side.”
- No need to measure non-starchy vegetables (broccoli, lettuce, spinach, onions, etc.) unless they’re cooked in butter or oil. Plain vegetables are pretty much free foods that can be eaten in unlimited amounts.
Halftime Report
The first half summary is really simple. To lose fat you can either:
- Make better food choices.
- Start measuring your crappy food choices.
For health, and overall ease of the program, I prefer route #1. You’re always going to be hungry trying to diet on refined foods, and your biomarkers of health probably aren’t going to be great either.
The Lethal Combination – The Only Get Ripped Method
Now all of that’s for losing some fat – a relatively easy process, right? The problem is with summer coming up, the approaches to just lose some fat start to get marketed as effective approaches to get ripped. I respectfully disagree with that.
Getting ripped is a whole different ballgame in a completely different stadium than just trying to lose some fat and get healthier. It’s an athletic endeavor that needs to be treated as such.
The only way I know of for most people to achieve this higher-level goal is to combine fat loss strategies #1 and #2. You must make good choices and measure/track your food intake so you consistently hit targeted calorie and macronutrient numbers.
Extreme fat loss nutrition is all about details – portions and ratios. It’s about a well thought-out plan based on science that gives our body exactly what it needs without any excess.
Why do you think there are serving sizes and measuring cups in your Surge® Recovery containers? Because the people that use Surge® are most likely advanced athletes with more advanced goals, not just average goals.
And advanced goals require way more details and precision.
Don’t Follow the Exceptions to the Rule
Many fitness professionals proclaim that you don’t need to count calories or macronutrients to get ripped. Really? Those are generally the ones who are:
- Blessed with great genetics, and could do whatever they want and would still be in shape.
- The drug enhanced, that still have to work hard, but have a lot more leeway than the average dude.
- Have never been ripped. Trust me, there are plenty of fitness experts, dieticians, and PhD types who write about getting ripped because they know it sells well, but have never successfully gone through the process themselves.
Theory is different from real world application and results. What looks good on the chalkboard doesn’t always end up looking good in the streets.
I’m not interested in theory or opinion. I’m interested in real world results. And if you look at the diet plans of the most ripped people on the planet – bodybuilders – you’ll see that they all measure their food. Whether they’re as natural as grass-fed beef or a Salisbury steak TV Dinner is irrelevant.
Eight ounces of this, 1 cup of that, 2 tbsp., etc., are used for the good food choices that make up the bulk of their diet. If you’re serious about reaching elite leanness, follow their example.
Saying you can’t learn anything from bodybuilders is just as ignorant as saying you should learn everythingfrom them.
Because of the negative association with the extreme chemical experiments that have become bodybuilding, the industry as a whole seems to have this subconscious need to dissociate from anything related to its core principles. Anything even remotely resembling old school bodybuilding methods gets blasted. This is ridiculous.
The truth is, measuring food is a bodybuilding habit that will serve you well in your get-shredded efforts.
Arguments Against Purely Instinctual Eating
We’ve used caveman, village, and farmer-style eating as templates to help people lose fat. But these demographics were eating simply to survive.
Modern athletes are eating and training for much more than just the fulfillment of the general life cycle. They’re trying to reach the pinnacle of physique development, and “get ripped.”
If you want to reach peak condition and ultra-low body fat percentages, then certain sports nutrition principles must creep their way into a 100% natural or instinctual eating plan.
And sports nutrition is all about numbers, calculations, and details.
Look, I get it. I have a genetically elite colleague who is about as honest as it gets, and he always says to me, “People don’t get it Nate, I could do anything and be ripped. I don’t need to measure anything, especially doughnuts. But that’s not what I recommend to other people.”
While we’d all like to dream that could be us, and a lot of us use those ‘exceptions to the rule’ as examples of why we don’t need to do certain things, the reality is, it’s not.
Simple Summer Shredding Tips
I’d rather go outside and look at some bikini babes than continue writing, so let’s wrap this thing up.
Debate could go on forever about what the best plan is to get ripped. Who cares? It all needs to be tested and refined in the real world, for you personally, anyway.
Here’s a decent starting point, assuming you strength train 3 or more days a week:
- 12 calories/pound of lean body mass.
- 1-1.5 grams of protein/pound of lean body mass.
- 20% calories dietary fat mostly as byproduct of protein sources and maybe some Flameout™.
- Remaining calories to carbs.
- Have a cheat meal/re-feed meal once a week.
- Choose the meal frequency pattern that’s most functional and sustainable for you.
- Aside from your peri-workout nutrition, I think the easiest plan is to eat lighter during the day and eat the majority of calories and carbs at night.
- Try measuring your foods and making sure you’re consistently hitting the above recommendations before you think you need some crazy, triple-carb rotating, ketogenic cycling diet to get ripped.
Chances are you just need to be better with the basics.
Until next time, enjoy your summer loving! It happens so fast.
12 Reasons You’re Not Losing Fat | How to Build Muscle, Gain Strength & Become a Better Athlete
1) You’re Eating Too Many Carbs
This should be pretty obvious to most people by now, but there are still the old die-hards out there who swear that everyone should be consuming two grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight every day while maintaining a low fat intake. Load up on whole grains and fruit while cutting down on healthy, essential sources of fat like grass fed beef they’ll tell you.2) You’re Eating Carbs at the Wrong Time
3) You’re Eating Too Much Fat
4)You’re Not Eating Enough Protein
In my experience it’s usually only females who are guilty of this but guys can make this mistake on occasion as well. The average female who can’t lose body-fat usually eats a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with an egg. One… single… egg.5) You’re Drinking Too Many Protein Shakes
6) Your Liver is Over Stressed
7) You’re Eating Nuts
8) You’re Eating Fruit
“What?! You’re telling people not to eat fruit!? Everyone knows that it’s impossible to get fat from eating too much fruit!”9) You’re Not Training Heavy
10) You’re Overdoing Cardio
11) You’re Not Running Sprints or Doing Sled Work
12) You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep
The Fat-Loss 4 Workout Protocol
My friend and strength coach extraordinaire Alwyn Cosgrove once told me that when choosing a topic for an article to think of what people ask about most often.
Considering Alwyn has an annoying tendency to be right almost all the time, clearly I should start writing more about fat loss.
Some experts want you to believe that losing fat is just a simple math problem: eat less and exercise more. While we all would prefer a simple, concise approach that even Sarah Palin could fit on the palm of her hand, anyone who’s been at this a while will tell you that there’s a lot more to getting lean than just that.
Food choices matter. Recovery matters. And maintaining, even gaining muscle as opposed to losing it, matters big time.
In this article I’m going to divulge a battle-tested fat loss protocol I developed, one that I’ve used for several years to help athletes and physique competitors lose fat and maintain muscle.
It’s effective but also extremely versatile, and can be used in virtually any setting, regardless of space or equipment limitations.
However, it’s not easy – and if you apply yourself accordingly, you may catch yourself wondering why the heck you’re putting yourself through this.
The answer of course, is that if getting ripped were as easy as Grade 4 math, everyone in junior high and beyond would have a six-pack.
What is the Fat Loss 4 Workout Protocol?
The name “Fat Loss 4” isn’t just a catchy tagline. It also represents the most important aspects of this workout formula.
A Fat Loss 4 workout is four exercises, performed back-to-back in a circuit style, for a total of four minutes.
There are two basic components to the FL4 protocol: three strength (local muscle conditioning) exercises and one total-body cardiovascular (central conditioning of the heart and lungs) drill.
Fat Loss 4 Exercises
The four exercises making up a Fat Loss 4 (FL4) circuit are:
- Upper body pushing or pulling
- Lower body quad or hamstring dominant (squat, deadlift, lunge, etc.)
- Torso/core
- Cardio drill
The beauty of the FL4 protocol is its simplicity and versatility. You can plug in virtually any exercise you like, provided it fits the category.
That said, I’ve found that certain exercises seem to work better than others. You’ll find some of my favorites later in this article.
How long is a FL4 circuit?
A FL4 circuit consists of four minutes of work with one minute of rest, for a total of five minutes.
Each strength exercise is performed for 30 seconds, with 15 seconds rest between exercises.
For example:
Upper body (pushing or pulling) exercise x 30 seconds
Rest 15 seconds
Lower body exercise x 30 seconds
Rest 15 seconds
Core/torso exercise x 30 seconds
Rest 15 seconds
Cardio exercise 90-105 seconds (That’s 1:30 – 1:45)
Ideally, you’ll only rest 15 seconds transitioning from strength to cardio, which would put you at 2:15 when starting the cardio drill (and leave you with 1:45 to do cardio).
Sets and Rest
After you’ve completed a full four-minute circuit, you’ll rest for one minute. We typically perform 2-3 rounds of a given FL4 circuit for a total of 10-15 minutes. (Two rounds is a total of 10 minutes; three rounds is a total 15 minutes.)
Intensity of an FL4 Workout
There are two intensities to consider in the FL4 protocol:
- The total intensity of the entire circuit.
- The working intensity of each exercise within a given circuit.
During the strength exercises within a circuit, you should be able to complete the entire 30 seconds of work with good form and a consistent, controlled tempo.
On a scale of 1-10 (10 being working very hard), you should be at a 7 or 8 at the end of each strength exercise.
On the cardio exercise, we’re after a pace that gets you to about 80% of your max heart rate.
By the time you’re about to begin the next round of an FL4 circuit, you should feel mostly recovered. Basically, if you can get out a full sentence without huffing and puffing, you’re good to go. But if you’re still sucking wind after your 60-second rest between circuits, you need to reduce the intensity of the cardio.
Sample FL4 Workouts
Designing a workout is easy once you understand the formula.
I’ve found it works well to change the strength movements every 2-3 rounds, although as mentioned earlier, I like to keep the cardio drill the same throughout the workout. So although the strength moves may change, the cardio remains constant.
Here are a few sample FL4 circuits.
FL4 Circuit #1
Push: Push-back push-ups
Lower body: BB front squats
Torso/core: Landmine rotations
Cardio: Treadmill run (Run pace – between a light jog and all-out sprint.)
FL4 Circuit #2
Pull: Compound rows
Lower body: Step-ups (alternate legs)
Torso/core: Stability ball knee tucks
Cardio: Treadmill run (Run pace; between a light jog and all-out sprint.)
FL4 Circuit #3
Push: Dumbbell uppercuts
Lower body: Barbell or trap-bar deadlifts
Torso/core: Dumbbell plank rows (aka Renegade rows)
Cardio: Treadmill run (Run pace; between a light jog and all-out sprint.)
Varying your FL4 Workouts
After performing 2-3 rounds of the same exercises, change the strength exercises and perform a new circuit for another 2-3 rounds while keeping the same cardio drill.
Sticking with the same cardio drill helps develop a consistent workout rhythm, while changing the strength moves every so often creates variety while serving to minimize localized muscle fatigue.
What exercises work best to use in an FL4 workout?
The great thing about FL4 is that it’s “plug and play.” You can insert just about any appropriate upper body, lower body, core, or cardio exercise you like and get great results.
However, there are a few movements I’ve found work exceptionally well with both my athletes and general fat loss clients. Here are my top five moves to try when designing your FL4 workouts.
Top 5 Pushing Exercises
Standing two-arm cable press
Angled barbell press and catch
Top 5 Pulling Exercises
Compound rows
Band alternate arm speed rows
PowerMax 360 arm circles (out to in)
Top 5 Lower Body Exercises
Weighted sled or tire drags (forward or backward)
Barbell Zercher or front squats
Barbell or dumbbell reverse lunges
Dumbbell step-ups
Top 5 Core/Torso Exercises
Stability ball knee tuck
Barbell rainbows
Dumbbell plank rows
Medicine ball tight rotations
Top 5 Cardio Exercises
Jump rope
Shadow boxing (only if you have some basic boxing/kickboxing ability)
Treadmill
Agility ladder
Although this methods works, I’ve found circuits run smoother with either purely bilateral actions or with alternating limb actions like lunges, where you switch legs on each rep.
I also recommend sticking with compound strength movements instead of smaller, single-joints actions. This should be obvious, but compound strength movements create a better metabolic training response than single joint actions as they involve more muscle mass.
Why Does the FL4 Protocol Work?
There are four reasons why this protocol works so well for losing fat and keeping muscle:
1. It’s total body.
The more muscles you work, the more energy you must use, meaning the more calories you burn both during the workout and for several hours after through Excessive Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).
2. The sequencing creates a cardiovascular effect.
FL4 blends local muscle conditioning (through strength moves) with central conditioning (heart and lungs) to create a comprehensive metabolic workout.
During any strength exercise, your body pumps more blood to the working muscles. By following an upper body exercise with a lower body exercise and then a torso/core exercise, you’re constantly changing where your body must increase blood flow. Doing this creates a cyclic blood flow effect, forcing your body to increase its cardiovascular output.
Finishing each sequence of upper/lower/mid-body exercises with a burst of total-body cardio exercise extends this cardiovascular effect even longer.
3. The sequencing allows for intensity.
Along with using your total-body, the other key to maximizing metabolic cost is working at a consistent high intensity. The F4L is sequenced so that when fatigue begins in a specific muscle group, the exercise is switched to train a different group of “fresh” muscles. By the time you return to the original muscle group on the next circuit, it’s been several minutes, giving your body time to recover sufficiently.
4. You won’t lose muscle when you’re using muscle.
Since there’s a heavy component of strength training involved in the FL4 Protocol, we haven’t seen any losses in muscle size or strength. Although you’re not using maximal weights, you are training with higher volumes, another effective way of creating intensity.
I also don’t suggest using FL4 as your only training method. Blending it with some basic strength training and bodybuilding helps ensure the muscle you’ve worked so hard to achieve is maintained while focusing on losing fat. You’ll see how this is accomplished in the sample weekly training splits below.
Weekly FL4 Training Splits
Here’s a few sample three, four, and five-day training splits showing how to incorporate the FL4 protocol with other strength and bodybuilding methods.
Three-Day Split
Monday – Push & FL4
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A | Bench press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B | Shoulder press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| C | FL4 circuits | 6-8 rounds | * |
Wednesday – Legs/Hips & FL4
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A | Deadlifts (Trap bar or barbell) | 5-6 | 4-6 |
| B | Single-leg squat (Bulgarian or free standing) | 3-4 | 6-8* |
| C | FL4 circuits | 6-8 rounds | ** |
** total of 30-40 minutes
Friday – Pull & FL4
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A | Chin-ups or pull-ups | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B | Single-arm dumbbell row (dumbbell or barbell) | 3-4 | 6-8* |
| C | FL4 circuits | 6-8 rounds | ** |
** total of 30-40 minutes
Four-Day Split
Monday – FL4 circuit workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| FL4 circuits | 9-12 rounds | * |
Tuesday – Push/Pull strength workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A1 | Bench press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| A2 | Bent over row (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B1 | Shoulder press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B2 | Pull-ups or lat pulldowns | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| C1 | Skull crushers (dumbbell or EZ bar) | 3 | 10-12 |
| C2 | Biceps curl (dumbbell or EZ bar) | 3 | 10-12 |
| D | Dumbbell farmer’s walk | 4-5 | 1 min. |
Thursday – FL4 circuit workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| FL4 circuits | 9-12 rounds | * |
Friday – Legs/Hips/Abs strength workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A1 | Deadlift (trap bar or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| A2 | Stability ball weighted crunch | 4 | 6-8 |
| B1 | Lunges or step-ups (alternate legs) | 3-4 | 6-8* |
| B2 | Band rotations | 3-4 | 15-20** |
| C1 | Leg extension | 3 | 10-12 |
| C2 | Hamstring curls (seated or lying on Swiss ball) | 3 | 10-15 |
| D | Dumbbell farmer’s walk | 4-5 | 1 min. |
** each side
Five-Day Split
Monday – FL4 circuit workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| FL4 circuits | 9-12 rounds | * |
Tuesday – Push/Pull strength workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A1 | Bench press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| A2 | Bent over row (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B1 | Shoulder press (dumbbell or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| B2 | Pull-ups or lat pulldowns | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| C1 | Skull crushers (dumbbell or EZ bar) | 3 | 10-12 |
| C2 | Biceps curl (dumbbell or EZ bar) | 3 | 10-12 |
| D | Dumbbell farmer’s walk | 4-5 | 1 min. |
Wednesday – Legs/Hips/Abs strength workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| A1 | Deadlift (trap bar or barbell) | 4-5 | 6-8 |
| A2 | Stability ball weighted crunch | 4 | 6-8 |
| B1 | Lunges or step-ups (alternate legs) | 3-4 | 6-8* |
| B2 | Band rotations | 3-4 | 15-20** |
| C1 | Leg extension | 3 | 10-12 |
| C2 | Hamstring curls (seated or lying on Swiss ball) | 3 | 10-15 |
| D | Sled or tire drag | 4-5 | 30-40 yards |
** each side
Friday – FL4 circuit workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| FL4 circuits | 9-12 rounds | * |
Saturday – FL4 circuit workout
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | |
| FL4 circuits | 9-12 rounds | * |
Conclusion
Is the FL4 protocol the only method of losing fat while keeping the muscle? Absolutely not! But in my business it’s proven to be a safe and effective way to get virtually any client in record shape, fast.
The beauty of FL4 is its elegant simplicity. In my experience, when clients can easily wrap their heads around what they’re being instructed to do and why, they “commit” more and as such, get superior results.
On the other hand, excessively complex systems filled with pseudoscientific strength training jargon just yields the dreaded “deer in the headlights” look and subsequently, sub-optimal results.
This powerful fat loss weapon is now locked and loaded in your training arsenal. All you’ve got to do is use it!
The Fat Loss Hierarchy
The Fat Loss Hierarchy
“Well, it depends on the rest of the diet.”
That’s been my answer for most of the questions I’ve received. It’s not because I’m being lazy or blowing people off, it’s just the honest truth.
It seems as if our information-overload era has caused beginners and advanced athletes alike to focus way too much on the extras of dietary programs and not enough on the basics. This isn’t good.
Tweaks and theories and out-of-the-box dietary protocols might make for interesting LiveSpill discussion, but they’re all just the proverbial icing on your gluten-free cake. You must first understand – and then implement – the major steps necessary if you’re ever to achieve your “get shredded” goals.
Let’s take a step back from the fine print and look at the bigger fat loss picture – the fat loss hierarchy, if you will.
The order goes like this:
- Food choices
- Total calories
- Essential nutrients
- Supplements – Part I
- Energy nutrients
- Meal frequency
- Food/macronutrient distribution
- Supplements – Part II
A very successful friend of mine often quotes the slogan “Productivity in 11 Words”:
In that spirit, let’s start with step one to help you become more efficient with your fat loss approach.
#1 Food Choices
Notice I said food choices, not macronutrients, because infinitely more important than the low carb versus low fat debate is the refined food versus real food debate.
If people just cut out refined stuff, ate real foods (animal proteins, vegetables, whole-food fats, natural starches), and paid attention to absolutely nothing else, they would improve their health profile and lose body fat. Would it be enough to get them T Nation-style ripped? No. But it would take them a good percentage of the way.
Let’s say making this change would get them inside the Red Zone. Virtually every other nutritional topic is about whether you make that extra effort to get the touchdown or just settle for a field goal.
I place food choices ahead of total calories for two reasons:
I care about achieving physique enhancement goals, but I also care about health.
These goals do not have to be mutually exclusive, as many uninformed athletes or non-athletic scientists would have you believe.
It seems that there are two extremes in our industry. On one end, you have many bodybuilders and fitness girls who will follow extreme training, diet, and drug protocols to achieve a freak physique, unknowingly (or knowingly) compromising their long-term metabolic, hormonal, mental, and overall health.
On the other end, you have many “life-extensionists” who obsess over improving every decimal point in their biomarkers of health, but leave any thought of physique enhancement behind.
I don’t care if I make it to 120 years old if I have to live and look like a goblin to do so.
It’s not an either-or situation – you can improve your health and improve your physique at the same time. The food choices we make can merge those two goals. You might not end up looking like Ronnie Coleman or living as long as Yoda, but you’ll do okay on both fronts.
If total calories are controlled, you can lose body fat while still eating Ding Dongs and Ho-Ho’s, but what’s that doing to your internal health? As the late, great Serge Nubret once said, “Every sickness comes from food.”
The average American male now has a fat ass, a limp dick, low T, and ten risk factors for CVD due to shoving refined garbage into his cake-hole every day. It’s not typical, nor desirable, to require a laundry list of prescriptions to turn the little mushroom into a big mushroom for four hours or longer, let alone live and function normally. How does that make any logical sense?
The answer to America’s health problems and obesity epidemic – and the majority of your fat loss questions – is quite simple: cut out refined foods and just eat nature’s foods, in their unaltered state. Nuts (fat) are better for you than high fructose corn syrup (carb), but equally so is a potato (carb) better for you than refined vegetable oil (fat). That’s my stance, and I’m sticking to it.
I care about the sustainability of a plan.
Any plan can work for the short-term when motivation is high. However, it’s virtually impossible to stay in the relative calorie deficit necessary for fat loss (step #2), at least for any meaningful length of time, if you’re making poor food choices.
In other words, you can’t cut calories while eating crap and expect to stay the course.
This is where point systems or other calorie counting diets fail. You’re not going to be able to stay on a diet plan for long eating low-calorie lasagna, fudge cake, or “snack packs.” Fake foods like this are just empty calories with no functional nutrients. They have no effects on satiety or hormones that regulate appetite and energy intake.
You’ll feel constantly hungry, deprived, and miserable dieting on these foods. Eventually, you’ll wake up next to a few empty doughnut boxes left over from an uncontrollable binge. As motivation declines, the time between these binges will get shorter and shorter until one day you realize that you’re eating crap just about every day and completely give up on your fat loss plan.
That’s why people yo-yo on and off these plans. They’re not sustainable.
On the flipside, it is almost impossible to overeat if you’re consuming only real foods. I’ve had clients struggle to net 2000 calories a day when they cut out all refined foods (including oils) and ate only lean proteins and vegetables (including potatoes and yams).
Nature’s foods are nutrient dense, high satiety foods, and you’ll have a much easier time maintaining a calorie deficit if you emphasize them. You’ll also get more nutrients out of 2000 calories of real food than 4000 calories of manufactured food. This is extremely important when operating in a calorie deficit.
#2 Total Calories
In the Great Macro Debate, the second most important step in the fat loss process seems to have been completely lost amongst physique dieters everywhere – total calories. No miracle combination or drastic cutting of any macronutrient can circumvent the law of thermodynamics.
Did we not learn this lessen in the Low Fat era? You can cut your fat intake to zero, but if you’re eating above your total calorie limits with refined carbs, you’re going to get fat.
Today’s low-carbers are making a similar mistake. I don’t care if you haven’t touched a carb since Brigitte Nielsen was hot, if you overshoot calories by eating unlimited fat, you won’t get lean.
This brings me to something every low-carber needs to understand: being in a state of ketosis itself doesnot ensure fat loss.
Ketosis is simply an altered physiological state in the human body. When carbs are extremely low, glycogen becomes depleted, The body will then use a greater percentage of fatty acids to fuel the body and use ketones to fuel the brain. It’s merely a shift in fuel dynamics. The body is running on fat metabolism, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to burn more body fat, although that’s what you might infer.
The other rules of body fat loss still apply, not just the metabolic condition your body is in. Ensuring you’re in a relative calorie deficit is still the most important step in winning the fat loss war.
In low carb, unlimited fat and protein diets, you can still enter a state of caloric excess. And even though your body has shifted to burning a greater percentage of fatty acids as fuel, it will simply obtain fatty acids and ketones from the abundance of dietary fat you’re taking in if you’re in caloric excess.
It will not be forced to tap into internal body fat stores as a reserve fuel. Instead, the excess calories will be stored as body fat, regardless of whether insulin levels are constantly kept at a low level.
Why then, do people so easily dismiss total calories and cling to low fat, low carb, or low common sense diets?
Telling people to make proper food selections and control calories is boring. There’s nothing sexy about it. There’s nothing innovative or cutting edge in it. In a world full of technological advances, to tell someone to follow sound, sensible, and basic principles almost seems archaic and uninformed. There has to be a new revolutionary way that’s easier, more efficient, and pain-free, right?
“Macro-bashing” plays to people’s desires. These plans seem like they require more discipline – you have to eliminate certain food groups. “No carbs today, Dude.” But these diets actually require less discipline. They demonize a certain nutrient and point to it as the cause of all of our body fat problems. Eliminate that nutrient, and you can eat as much as you want of everything else.
That’s what people really want to hear, isn’t it? You can eat as much of “X and Y” as you want, as long as you don’t eat “Z.” Eat vegetable oil, cream, and cheese to your heart’s desire as long as you don’t have that carb gram from a carrot stick. In a world of overindulgence, the lazy want to be able to gorge on something.
I’m not saying it can’t or won’t work, but for the majority I’ve seen, it doesn’t. If you’ve banished carbs to the Underworld, yet are still struggling with fat loss and are looking for answers, now you have one – controlling calories is still king.
#3 Essential Nutrients
The food we take in can be broken down into two broad categories: essential nutrients and energy nutrients.
Essential nutrients are necessary for normal metabolic, hormonal, enzyme, and immune system functioning. They provide the base ingredients necessary for building and maintaining the body’s structural components, including skin, hair, and muscle tissue.
Essential nutrients can’t be produced by the body and must be obtained through the diet. Thus, their intake should never be compromised regardless of your efforts to cut calories for fat loss. We’ll be cutting energy nutrients, not essential nutrients.
The foundation of any complete diet plan should be lean, animal-based protein foods and vegetables, not “zero carb pizza” or “low calorie cookies” or any other BS food that makes you feel like you’re doing something good for yourself.
Animals and plants provide us with the essential nutrients and micronutrients we need, in the right amounts and ratios that Mother Nature intended. They were the basis of the diets we evolved from. It makes sense that they should be the foundation of a modern diet geared towards optimizing health and improving body composition.
#4 Supplements Part 1
You need to worry about covering your essential nutrients before you worry about the extras. In other words, before you worry about fat burners and hormone boosters, you need to make sure you’re not deficient in any essential nutrients. In my mind, this is the best use of targeted supplementation – more so than looking at them as miracle pills or magical cures that can make up for a crappy diet.
I want to be clear, you can obtain all the essential nutrients you need from whole, unrefined foods. The problem is in today’s modern, fast-paced, on-the-go society; it rarely works out that way.
If you struggle to meet your essential amino acid/protein needs because you’re not in the fitness industry and don’t live by a kitchen, it’s much smarter to down some BIOTEST BCAAs or a Metabolic Drive® Low Carb protein shake than eat fast-food junk. If fish isn’t your thing, Flameout™ is a fantastic way to cover your EPA/DHA needs.
On a side note, flaxseed oil is a scam. It has to go through several inefficient chemical conversion processes in the body to yield the beneficial EPA/DHA. Stick with cold-water fish or fish oil supplements.
Plant foods supply our bodies with vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. If you’re a carnivore, Superfoodmay help you fill in the gaps.
There is a hierarchy for everything, and the theme is to take care of the basics first. Otherwise, the extras are meaningless.
#5 Energy Nutrients
Beyond accounting for essential nutrients, all other food intake is simply a source of energy.
Changing your body composition comes down to varying your energy nutrient intake. We set essential amino acid and essential fatty acid needs and never go below these base levels. All other food intake is just a source of energy. Dietary fat is an energy source just as carbohydrates are an energy source.
There’s no mystery to fat loss. We need to reduce energy intake enough to create the calorie deficit necessary (step #2) to force our bodies to tap into an internal reserve fuel source, namely body fat. This can be accomplished by reducing carbohydrate intake, reducing fat intake, or both.
In other words, protein and vegetable intake remains constant, carbohydrate and fat intake can go up or down as needed. We simply manipulate those macronutrients based on our current status, body type, and physique goals.
Many obese, sedentary, and insulin resistant patients have improved insulin sensitivity, blood sugar control, biomarkers of health, and lost a large percentage of body fat on low-carb/Paleo plans.
However, many bodybuilders and fitness athletes step on stage peeled to the bone following carb-based/sports nutrition-type plans.
Who’s right? The fact that people have achieved outstanding fat loss results with such different methods suggests that they’re both right. Scientific research and anecdotal evidence can be found to back each one up as well.
I’ve recommended both approaches to different types of clients, based on the situation, as I’m a staunch believer that various diets have worked for various athletes.
I know it seems earth shattering in today’s anti-macronutrient climate, but even a balanced diet (i.e. Zone or Isocaloric Diet) can work.
Anyone who tells you differently is either selling you something or is so caught up in the dogma of a system that they can’t see outside of it.
Now I do believe that each one is more efficient than the other for specific demographics, and I think that’s where the confusion comes in. The reasoning behind my belief has to do with exercise physiology and fuel dynamics.
I think sedentary and insulin resistant/obese populations respond better to low carb diets, and anaerobic athletes respond better to carb-based diets.
Tapping Out!
There’s more to talk about, but alas, time is money and I’ve had a triangle choke on your computer time. I’ll be devoting future articles to meal frequency and food distribution, because there’s so much to talk about.
But remember, those are lower down on the hierarchy for good reason. Meal frequency doesn’t matter until you take care of rules #1-4, starting with making optimal food choices that nourish your body. Everything else is subordinate to that, and for good reason.
Start with Step #1.
The Samurai Diet: The Science & Strategy of Winning the Fat Loss War
Available now on Amazon.com
Fats Made Simple by John Meadows, CSCS – 7/11/2011 Our acceptance of dietary fat has come a long way. Just a few short years ago, Fats Made Simple
Fats Made Simple
Our acceptance of dietary fat has come a long way. Just a few short years ago, athletes, bodybuilders, and health nuts alike set aside their differences in agreement that every low-down dirty member of the oily “9 calories per gram” gang should be rounded up and hanged at sunset from the tallest tree.
Thankfully, times have changed. Health authorities today accept that monounsaturated fats can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and the essential fatty acids alpha-linolenic acid (omega 3) and linoleic acid (omega 6) are required just for life itself. Even the once-vilified saturated fat is now being re-classified as “not so bad after all,” considering it’s necessary for proper cell membrane function.
It’s not just about boring ol’ health and wellness, either. According to warrior nerd Dr. Lonnie Lowery, a low fat diet can lead to a 10-15% drop in serum Testosterone and an increase in SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin), a protein that binds to Testosterone, rendering it ineffective. So not only is less T being made, whatever’s left is being increasingly bound up, gagged, and whisked away to an unmarked government office for “reeducation.”
So an extra tablespoon or two of oil is a good little T booster, especially if you’re not into fatty cuts of meat or seafood, or swell up like a puffer fish at the very sight of eggs or nuts.
The trouble is, certain fats are better to cook with, while some are better used as a topping. Others have extra nutrients that make them nutritional powerhouses, to borrow an overused phrase.
Let’s examine what oils you should be using and why. I’ll give each a “squat rack rating” with 4 squat racksbeing best. First, I’ll describe the considerations I took in ranking the oils.
Ranking Considerations
Usefulness for Cooking
The more saturated a fat is, the less likely it is to go rancid when used in cooking. Rancidity means that the fat is breaking down chemically due to oxidation and ingesting these fats is the reason we see increased rates of heart disease and atherosclerosis. To avoid eating rancid fats, you should cook with oils higher in saturated fat.
The chart at the bottom shows the percentage of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats in various oils, which should help make choosing a good cooking oil easier. For example, coconut oil would be a good choice for cooking as it’s 91% saturated fat, whereas safflower oil shouldn’t be used as it’s 75% polyunsaturated.
Do not let oils reach their smoke point during cooking. The smoke point is where the oil reaches a temperature at which it starts to break down rapidly. The oil may turn darker in color, get thicker, or even start to stink. Obviously a higher smoke point is best for cooking purposes, but rather than break out the trusty thermometer, just use a more stable oil to cook with.
Usefulness as a Topping
When I say a topping, I mean to add to a shake, drizzle on top of a salad or meal, or just drink like a fatty acid shooter. You can even use that gold-rimmed shot glass you stole from TGI Fridays.
Since you shouldn’t cook with highly polyunsaturated oils due to their fragile state and propensity for oxidation, this is the perfect way to get your EFA’s – especially if you’re not a fan of fatty fish like wild Alaskan salmon. This is also a great way to add monounsaturated fats.
Ratio Rationale
Evaluate the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. Cutting-edge nutrition authorities now advise a 3:1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fats, a radically different approach from the 20:1 ratio found in the typical Western diet. To reach this ideal ratio, oils too heavy in omega 6 should be avoided as they promote an inflammatory environment.
By the way, in case you believe that arterial plaques are mostly saturated fat, here’s some fatty facts for you: Over 50% of arterial plaque is polyunsaturated, while only 20% is saturated fat.
Any Additional Powerhouse Nutrients?
This is where you have to look beyond the poly, mono, and saturated percentages. Some oils contain high levels of natural antioxidants, while others contain virtually none. Some strengthen the immune system and promote healthy skin, while others are pro-inflammatory and can lead to degenerative disease.
Top 6 Oils
So without further ado, here are my top 6 oils and their “squat rack ranking.”
Red palm oil. Most pundits say to avoid this oil; I couldn’t disagree more. The oil has a very unique, reddish-orange color due to it being loaded with carotenoids including alpha carotene, which is even more cancer protective than beta carotene. To put this in perspective, palm oil has 300 times more carotenoids than tomatoes! Interestingly, even though Vitamin A levels can get too high (which is rare), this isn’t true for their precursors, the carotenes.
It doesn’t stop there. The Vitamin E in red palm oil contains all the tocopherols and tocotrienols. Evidence continues to mount that the tocotrienols are very powerful antioxidants, possibly even stopping LDL oxidation. You can even cook with this oil as it’s very heat stable. I like to add a tablespoon or two onto my eggs in the morning.
Coconut oil. Another very misunderstood oil. Early studies concluded that it raised triglyceride levels but failed to mention that the studies used hydrogenated or refined versions.
Unrefined coconut oil is almost all saturated fat, and a great deal of the fat is medium chain triglycerides, which are sent to the liver and converted into quick energy. Interestingly, farmers in the 1940s used coconut oil as a feed, thinking all the saturated fat would help their cows put on weight quickly. It didn’t work. The cows were all active and lean, and went on to win “most ripped” at the heavyweight class at that year’s Mr. Olympia. Not surprisingly, the idea was deemed a failure.
What I like most about coconut oil is its lauric acid content. This fat, typically only found in breast milk, is a powerful immune system strengthener and is part of the reason breastfeeding is so healthy for infants. There’s a huge body of evidence showing lauric acid to be a great anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial substance as well.
Macadamia nut oil. This oil is a powerhouse. It has even more monounsaturated fat than olive oil (85%), with a large portion being oleic acid. This is important because that particular fatty acid helps to incorporate omega 3 fatty acids into cell membranes. Experts Mary Enig and Fred Pascatore have documented how these fats lessen the need for EFA’s. Lastly, it’s also a very stable oil to cook with and can withstand temperatures as high as 410 degrees.
Extra virgin olive oil. America’s darling, and with good reason. There’s a mountain of evidence showing that EVOO raises “good” cholesterol or HDL due to its high amounts of oleic acid. This is my preferred oil for salads, but don’t be afraid to just drink it or put it in your shakes. You can cook with it on low heat, although it’s not as heat stable as the more saturated fats out there, or even as stable as other monounsaturated fats like macadamia nut oil.
Hemp seed oil. This oil actually has the ideal balance of omega 6 to 3 (57% omega 6 and 19% omega 3) and even has GLA in it. Don’t cook with it, but feel free to toss it in shakes or on salads.
Walnut oil. This oil is a great salad topper. 59% of it is omega 6, 16% is omega 3, so it’s not far off from the ideal ratio, either. Unfortunately, it has a really low smoke point, so stick to using it with salads.
Honorable mention
Avocado oil. This oil has an extremely high smoke point of 520 degrees and is loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids (70%). However, the taste is a little odd, even for those diagnosed with avocado fetishes.
The Crappy Eight
These oils weren’t allowed to participate due to their horrendous omega 6 to 3 ratio. Do NOT consume these oils.
| Oil | Omega 6 to 3 ratio | Oil | Omega 6 to 3 ratio |
| Safflower oil | 78 to 1 | Peanut oil | 34 to 1 |
| Sunflower oil | 69 to 1 | Pistachio oil | 31 to 1 |
| Corn oil | 59 to 1 | Pumpkin seed oil | 20 to 1 |
| Sesame oil | 45 to 1 | Soybean oil | 11 to 1 |
The Franken-trio
These popular oils were chased out of town by angry villagers armed with pitchforks and torches for having a “Frankstein-ish” genetic manipulation to them.
- High oleic safflower
- High oleic sunflower
- Canola oil
The Raw Stats
| Oil | Monounsaturated % | Polyunsaturated % | Saturated % | Smoke Point |
| Avocado oil | 70 | 10 | 20 | 520 |
| Almond oil | 78 | 17 | 5 | 420 |
| Canola Oil | 54 | 37 | 7 | 400 |
| Coconut oil | 7 | 2 | 91 | 350 |
| EVOO | 76 | 8 | 16 | 375 |
| Flax seed oil | 19 | 72 | 9 | 225 |
| Grape seed oil | 17 | 71 | 12 | 400 |
| Macadamia nut oil | 85 | 6 | 9 | 410 |
| Peanut oil | 47 | 29 | 18 | 320 |
| Hemp seed oil | 12 | 80 | 8 | 330 |
| Red Palm oil | 40 | 10 | 50 | 450 |
| Rice bran oil | 48 | 35 | 17 | 490 |
| Safflower oil | 13 | 75 | 12 | 225 |
| Sesame oil | 42 | 45 | 17 | 350 |
| Sunflower oil | 23 | 65 | 12 | 225 |
| Walnut oil | 25 | 56 | 18 | 320 |
Conclusion
We all have our favorite foods, but as you go about your clean-eating ways, don’t be afraid to swap in a few other healthy choices from this list. Much the same as with the foods in your diet, a little fatty acid variety will provide you with a broader spectrum of nutrients, so don’t get stuck on using just one oil.
I hope you enjoyed this, and maybe even learned a thing or two!
Countdown to a Lean Belly
By: Travis Stork, M.D.
How did they do it? That’s the first question anyone asks when they see a friend or colleague who’s lost a lot of weight, or remade their body into a healthier, leaner version. How did they do it?
Well, it’s no mystery. In fact, one of the most important and intriguing studies ever conducted was put together by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) back in 2006. This is our tax dollars at work, and I’d say we got our money’s worth.
The pages of the study—its catchy title is “Dietary and Physical Activity Behaviors Among Adults Successful at Weight Loss Maintenance”—take all the world’s weight-loss theories and compare them to what works for real people in the real world. It looked at people who won the fat war by losing at least 30 pounds and then keeping the weight off using strategies that will work for you, too.
Keep in mind: It wasn’t a 100 percent success story. The CDC studied 2,124 people, and only 587 of them actually lost the weight and kept it off. But those who succeeded used many of the same strategies, the strategies outlined here.
And for even more ways to revolutionize your diet and get lean for good, check out The Lean Belly Prescription by Dr. Travis Stork. It’s filled with simple strategies that will help you lose weight the same way you gained it: By making easy lifestyle choices that will transform your life—for the better.
Lean-Belly Strategy #1
Pay Attention to What You Eat
Mindless eating is excessive eating. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts discovered that people who watched TV while they ate consumed nearly 300 more calories than those who dined without an eye on the tube. You need to pay attention to the messages your stomach is sending to your brain; if the TV is blaring, you won’t see the “slow” and “stop” signs.
Lean-Belly Strategy #2
Slow Down
Fast eaters become fat people. If you consciously stop to take a breath between bites, you can cut your food (and calorie) intake by 10 percent, according to researchers at the University of Rhode Island. Special bonus: You can do this in social situations—Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Marge’s—and nobody will even notice. That is, until you show up next year minus 20 pounds of flab.
Lean-Belly Strategy #3
I Said Slow Down!
It takes 20 minutes for the news that you’ve had enough to eat to travel from your gut to your brain. The reason: Hormones that trigger the “I’m full—stop!” sensation are at the end of your digestive tract, and it takes a while for digested food to reach there. If your mouth is filled with conversation, it won’t be so full of food. Talk more between bites, and weigh less when the conversation/meal is over.
Lean-Belly Strategy #4
Beware the “Healthy” Menu
If you order the stuff that’s supposed to be good for you, you’re likely to underestimate a meal’s calorie total by more than a third, according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research. The restaurants know that; now you do, too. So be especially aware when ordering “healthy,” and make sure you have a “to go” box handy to carry leftovers home.
Lean-Belly Strategy #5
Beware the Community Chest
Always serve snacks in a bowl or dish, and put away the packages. Never eat from the bag or container. That way you won’t ever eat an entire bag of something in a single sitting.
Lean-Belly Strategy #6
Beat Hunger with Your Mind
Have a craving even though you ate just an hour ago? Before you indulge your mystery hunger, here’s how to test whether your appetite is real or not: Imagine sitting down to a large, sizzling steak. If you’re truly hungry, the steak will sound good, and you should eat. If the steak isn’t appetizing, it means your body isn’t actually hungry. You might be bored, or thirsty, or just tempted by something you don’t need. Try a change of scenery: Researchers at Flanders University in Australia found that visual distractions can help curb cravings.
Lean-Belly Strategy #7
Redecorate, Repack, Remember
If you don’t have a countertop fruit bowl, buy one so you can grab a peach, banana, pear, or other piece of fruit on your way out the door in the morning, to munch on during your commute. (Plus, it’s fun to throw the core out the window.) Plan a 10 a.m. apple-a-day break. Toss an orange in your briefcase to help you past the mid-afternoon lull (otherwise known as Temptation Time). Make fruit part of your entourage, and it will beat up lesser foods.
Lean-Belly Strategy #8
If You Can’t Bear to Eat Vegetables, Drink Them Instead
That’s right, you could have had a V8—as long as it was the low-sodium variety. It has pureed tomatoes, beets, carrots, celery, spinach, lettuce, parsley, and watercress, and 8 ounces supplies two of your five recommended daily servings of vegetables. It also heats up nicely as a base for soups.
Lean-Belly Strategy #9
If You Can’t Bear to Eat Vegetables, Hide Them in Your Pasta Sauce
And no, neither you nor the kids will notice. Using a fine grater on your food processor, grate 2 cups total of onions, garlic, carrots, beets, and zucchini (or any combo thereof), then sauté the microscopic vegetable bits in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add 4 cups of basic marinara sauce and simmer to an anonymous tomato flavor.
Lean-Belly Strategy #10
If You’re Not Yet Drinking Smoothies, Why Not?
Have you read the label of your fruit juice? Lots of sugar (however “natural” it is) and not much fiber, which means it’s a carb bomb when it hits your bloodstream. Not so with a blended smoothie, because ingredient number one is whole fruit, making the sugar content drop and the fiber climb.
Two tips: Use frozen fruit; buy it by the bag in your store’s freezer section. And buy a wand mixer and a small pitcher so you can mix your smoothie in the same container you drink it from; it’s much easier than washing out a blender. Almost any fruit-and-berry combo will do, but you can start with this recipe: 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 banana (peeled ones freeze well), 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 2 tablespoons whey powder (it’s in the supplements aisle in the grocery store), 1 cup 2% milk, and 1 cup water.
Lean-Belly Strategy #11
Buy Smaller Dishes
According to the food scientists at Cornell University, people tend to eat as much food as will fit on their plates. That’s where “duh!” overlaps with dangerous. Over the past 100 years, our plates have grown, decade by decade. And we also know that the nation’s obesity rates have grown exponentially in that time as well. No, it’s not a coincidence. If you dine off of smaller plates, you’ll grow smaller, too. Shoot for 9 inches in diameter, and you’ll be on your way.
Lean-Belly Strategy #12
Drink out of Skinny Glasses
As have gone dinner plates, so have gone drinking glasses. And if you fill the newly cavernous ones with any kind of sweetened beverage, you’ll overindulge in calories. But here’s a smart tip: We tend to gauge our drink sizes by how tall, not how stout, our drinking glasses are. So if you buy tall, skinny ones, you’ll think you’re drinking more even though you’re drinking less.
Lean-Belly Strategy #13
Never Eat from the Box, Carton, or Bag
Those same clever food scientists at Cornell did an experiment in which they gave one set of moviegoers giant boxes of stale popcorn and another set smaller boxes of stale popcorn. The big-box people ate more than the small-box people. The theory: You gauge the amount that’s “reasonable” to eat by the size of the container it’s in. Put two cookies on a plate, put a scoop of ice cream in a bowl, or lay out a small handful of potato chips on your plate, then put the container away; you’ll eat far less of the treat.
Lean-Belly Strategy #14
Limit the Fried Stuff
Fun fact: Fast-food burgers and chicken from KFC and McDonald’s are the most frequently requested meals on death row. It kinda makes sense. The inmates won’t be around to suffer the aftermath. Fried foods are packed with calories and salt, and that crunchy, oily coating beats down any nutritional qualities that whatever is entombed inside might have.
That said, eating one piece of fried chicken won’t be, um, a death sentence, if it’s surrounded on the plate by generous helpings of vegetables and you follow with fruit—not more fat—for dessert. What’s more, the fat in the chicken will help you absorb the fat-soluble vitamins in the veggies.
Lean-Belly Strategy #15
Eat the Good Stuff
Make sure your diet is filled with healthy fats in the forms of fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines), fatty fruits (avocados), extra-virgin olive oil, eggs (among the healthiest foods known to humankind), and healthy-fat snacks (nuts are nutritional powerhouses and keep you feeling full). I even give bacon in moderation a green light; at only 70 calories per strip, it carries big flavor and belly-filling capabilities.
Lean-Belly Strategy #16
Wear Your Milk Mustache with Pride
Milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheeses all contain slow-to-digest protein and healthy fat, so they can be excellent belly fillers. And studies have suggested that the calcium in dairy products may aid weight loss. Make them part of your diet and you’ll find the cow elbowing aside lesser members of the food kingdom.
Lean-Belly Strategy #17
Eliminate Sweetened Beverages
If you’re going to follow only one piece of advice in this article, make it this one. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: Drinks with added sugar account for nearly 450 calories per day in the average American’s diet. That’s more than twice as much as we were drinking 30 years ago. If you’re looking for a way to cut unnecessary daily calories to help you lose a pound a week, wean yourself from the overload of sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages.
No, artificially sweetened sodas are not okay. Even if they have few calories or no calories, they maintain or increase your taste for highly sweetened foods, so you seek out the calorie payload elsewhere. Worse yet, they crowd out the healthy beverages. My prescription: Out with the bad, in with the great—in taste and nutrition.
Lean-Belly Strategy #19
Reduce Your Intake of Food Prepared Away From Home
When you let somebody else prepare your food—especially if it’s a teenager in a paper hat—you lose control over what you eat. And the fast-food companies, being what they are, encourage all of your worst eating habits by stuffing their products with crave-inducing ingredients like unhealthy fats, sugar, and salt. If you can stay out of the drive-thru, you can shrink your calorie intake every day.
Lean-Belly Strategy #20
Keep a Food Diary
Clearly, this weight-loss technique isn’t for everybody. It’s a hassle to write down every little thing you eat, day after day. But it’s strikingly effective for those who do it. My advice: Try it for a week so you can get a handle on how many sodas you drink and under what circumstances, when you’re most likely to veg out with a bowl of chips in front of the TV, and when your dessert cravings strike. That will help you identify your dietary danger zones and lead you to strategies that save pounds.
But it wasn’t just dietary changes that helped all those folks lose all that weight. Becoming active was another enormous factor in leading the successful losers into the promised land of the lean (but not hungry): exercising for 30 or more minutes per day, and adding physical activity to daily routines. Clearly, these are Lean Belly Prescription kind of people. And that provides a great segue to talking about the activities that these “successful losers” used to shed fat and keep it off .
Here’s why it’s so important to keep both healthy eating and exercise going as your one-two punch against belly fat. A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology reported that when people chose healthier foods and combined that benefi t with exercise, they torched 98 percent of their weight directly from their fat stores. People who changed their diets alone were much more likely to break down muscle for fuel, and that’s a big problem. Muscle is one of your prime metabolism boosters, so it will help you burn fat for up to 24 hours after a workout. So let’s tackle the activity list, and give you strategies to make the most of it.
Lean-Belly Strategy #21
Walk for Exercise
I consider that great news. Is there a simpler exercise than walking? Is there a better way to incorporate talking with friends and loved ones into your fitness plan? Is there anything else that gets you out among your neighbors at a pace that lets you say hello? And is there anything that makes your dog happier than your saying the magic word walk?
A study from the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada (a lovely place for a walk, mind you) found that largely sedentary people who wore a pedometer for 12 weeks increased their total steps by 3,451 a day, to about 10,500. By walking more, they also lowered their resting heart rates, BMIs, and waist measurements. Once you start paying attention to footsteps, you’ll find ways to bank the extra strides. Thirty here, 300 there, 1,000 after dinner, and suddenly you’re walking away from your old weight. Why not start right now? The closer you pay attention, the more you’ll walk. And the more you walk, the greater the temptation will be to mix in an even bigger calorie burner: running.
Lean-Belly Strategy #22
Lift Weights
I suspect that for 81 percent of you, the picture that just flashed in your mind was of a no-neck Bulgarian weight lifter straining as he hoisted a steel beam over his head in the last Olympics. I know that isn’t you.
But you should still be taking advantage of the weight lifter’s advantage: Muscle is the all-night convenience store of fat burning—it never shuts down. Not only do you burn a ton of calories while you’re actually exercising, but there’s also a big afterburn effect that kicks in. Your body has to expend energy to cool you down and repair the small tears in muscle fibers that happen when you lift. (Don’t freak out. If you lift reasonable-size weights, you won’t tear muscles, you’ll just push the muscle fibers hard enough to make them grow.)
Lean-Belly Strategy #23
Exercise Regularly
Believe it or not, “none of the above” is a legitimate option when it comes to physical activity, because there’s nothing magical about running or weight lifting or even walking. They’re just the most common activities people choose in order to add more activity to their days. The only one that’s important to you is one that a) you enjoy, b) fits into your life well enough that you can do it most days, and c) allows you to up your energy expenditure.
You can do that by adding three 15-minute walks to your day or by scheduling 2-hour bike rides on weekends. Or simply by walking more, standing more, lifting more, and sitting less.
Just look at your whole day as an opportunity to make the smart choices that will help you lose weight and feel better. Achieve that, and where might you be next month? Or next year? Some place far better than where you are today!
10 Easy Ways to Lose Weight Without Starving
Way #1
Always Eat a Man’s Breakfast
No more Lucky Charms—you want some protein and fat. Scrambled eggs and a few sausage links will keep you fuller longer than an airy doughnut will.
Way #2
Eat More!
We’re talking three good snacks and three healthful meals. But what do you serve during the bowl game if you can’t have chips and dip? Mixed nuts—especially almonds—will satisfy your craving for something crunchy while helping to build muscle.
Way #3
Just Say No to Starches
Foods like pasta, white bread, and potatoes make you fat. If you must have pasta, make yours whole-wheat. Same goes for bread, and swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes. Just don’t eat too much!
Way #4
Lift Weights
Yes, you have to hit the gym, and no, lifting beer cans during happy hour doesn’t count. The muscles you build will not only improve your performance, they’ll stoke your metabolism so you burn calories long after your workout is over.
Way #5
Think Before You Eat
Don’t just stuff your face with the stale cookies left over from the holidays, eat what tastes good and what’s good for you. Take your time eating; you’ll stay fuller longer.
Way #6
But Have Fun Once in a While—or Once a Week
Stifle those cravings for too long, and you’ll be miserable and might fall off your new plan forever. Just splurge reasonably—two slices of pizza, not the whole thing.
Way #7
Go Low-Carb
It’s the easiest way to drop weight fast. The cravings are hard at first, but it gets easier—especially when you see the results.
Way #8
Run Intervals
It’s easier to alternate between hard and easy running instead of going for a long run—especially if you don’t like running. Plus, you’ll be done faster and burn more fat.
Way #9
Never, Ever Drink Sweetened Soda
But go ahead, have a glass of wine now and then. Low-carb beer is fine, too, in moderation.
Way #10
Don’t Fear Fat
It makes you feel full, helps control your appetite, and your body needs it.
FROM FAT TO FIT 