Methods of getting feedback and using them for your advance!

Pilots and ship captains use compasses, gyroscopes, radar, radio beacons and geographical
and astronomical landmarks as their methods of feedback on the way to destination. Your
optimal method to measure progress is body composition test. However, the more ways you
have of measuring your results, the better.


Here are 10 different ways to measure your progress:


1) Photographs
2) Total body weight
3) Muscle mass
4) Body fat percentage
5) Fat weight
6) Other people’s opinions
7 Skinfold thickness
8) Measurements
9) How you look in the mirror
10) Clothing sizes & the way clothes fit

Methods such as the mirror and photographs are good feedback methods, but they can be
distorted by your limited self-perceptions. Other people’s opinions are useful too, if the feedback
is really honest, and they're not just being nice to avoid hurting your feelings. All these methods
have value, so use them all. However, the best measurements of your progress must be objective,
such as body fat percentage, the skinfold calipers or a scale, they don’t lie.


Adjust your program and methods according to your weekly results


It's rare that you'll ever move in a constant and linear path in the direction of your goals.
Often you will zig-zag your way to success, kind of like sailing to headwind. If you're working
hard enough, you will see progress every week, but your progress rate will often vary.
On one week you may lose 0.5% body fat, the next you may lose 0.6% and the next only 0.4%.
If you have a bad week, you might not make any progress.

Don’t let this zig-zag pattern of fat loss dispirit you. Don't ever panic over a one-week
fluctuation. The progress over time is much more revealing and more important. You should
imagine your progress chart as a lot like the stock market. The market goes up and down
in the short term, but in the long run, the trend is always upwards. If you are persistent and
you stay focused on the fundamentals and if you continue to make daily investments in your body
and health, your progress chart will always make it's way in the direction you want.

Just as you need faith in long-term investments in the market, you must have faith 
in long-term investments in your body, without getting too emotional about your present 
results. If you look only at one small part on your body composition progress chart, you're liable to
give up or make unfortunate and rush decisions. Keep looking at the big picture, keep watching the
trends and always keep working daily on the basics.


Why some people get off to a slow start


Many of us see the results immediately just by cleaning up their nutrition and beginning a consistent
workout program. Others might have more difficulties reaching up to “takeoff speed.” Like the airplane
that uses nearly half its fuel just to get off the ground, overcoming inertia and gaining momentum
are not an easy task. But, you should remember that when you reach the cruising speed, it's very easy
to maintain that speed and to stay on the course!

One part of this is psychological, the other is physiological. Psychologically, if you’re off to a slow
start, you just haven’t given yourself enough time to develop habits, which are necessary to get you
into “auto pilot mode,”, or "cruising speed". Therefore, you could be unconsciously making poor food
choices or missing workouts by sheer power of old negative habits. Reviewing my older posts will help
you overcome the old conditioning. Just keep at it!

But then physiologically, you may suffer from a slow metabolism, especially if you’ve gone on and
off crash diets for years or you haven’t developed any muscle with weight training. A slow metabolism
can be sped up, but it takes some time. If your metabolic rate has slowed down as a result 
of past bad habits, be patient; it will gradually increase in time by following the nutrition 
and training guidelines presented at this blog!

Also keep in mind that fit people burn body fat easily than unfit (eg. overweight) people. The higher
your starting level of cardio fitness (as measured in oxygen consumption, also known as  VO2 max),
the more fat you’ll burn when resting (and also during exercise). And the leaner you are to begin
with, the more calories you’ll burn at rest and during exercise. If you’re out of shape and carrying a
lot of body fat, it’s going to take time to develop momentum. So again, i can't emphasize this too much;
Be patient!

These facts of physiology may be discouraging at first because it’s similar like the rich getting richer
and the poor staying poor. As with building wealth, you must make consistent, gradual investments in
your body. With consistency your lean body mass will increase from weight training, your metabolic
rate will increase and multiply its efficiency like compounding interest in your bank account.
Be patient; you’re about as likely to get “ripped” overnight as you are to become a millionaire overnight. Never give up if you get off to a slow start!


The first thing you need do if you hit a dead end


You should be seeing some kind of positive result every single week. If you’re getting no results after
seven days, look back over the past week and ask yourself – honestly; “Am I consistently doing what
I know I should be doing – every day - or have I been cheating or slacking off? Have I put in my 100%
effort or didn't I try hard enough?” Have I been consistent in my nutrition and exercising habits every
single day? Have I been eating perfectly one day, then eating junk the next?

Losing body fat is the result of consistently applying the basic laws of nutrition and training - every day.
If you notice you didn’t give it your all, don’t beat yourself up, just simply re-focus and recommit for the
next week. Re-reading and re-writing your goals will also help. Plan your exercise and nutrition strategy
for the next week in advance; schedule the workouts right in your daily planner. Then go back to work
with renewed motivation and enthusiasm.

If you faithfully followed your program 100% (except for planned, allowed cheat days), and you still got
nowhere, that’s your signal to make adjustments to break your fat loss plateau.


How to break a fat loss "dead-end"


The first step in breaking plateaus, or dead-end, is to stay positive and focused on your goal.
Decide and focus on where you want to go, not on where you are or where you don't want to go.
A bad week is not a setback or failure, it is feedback. If you have a week with bad results, be like
Thomas Edison and say, “This is great! I’ve learned another way that doesn’t work.”

When you look in the mirror and see no change in there, and you still keep the faith, knowing that in
time you will get where you want if you stay on the course, that’s the difference between those who
succeed in the end and those who fail. The losers - the unsuccessful ones - they get frustrated after
a few weeks with slow results and throw their arms up in the air. They quit. And still grumbling
about how they tried “everything” and it didn't work.

Often times when you hit a dead end, it means you need to work harder and change your approach:
You should crank up the intensity and frequency of your training. You also need to “tighten up”
your nutrition. The amount of effort it requires to develop a lean body is often underestimated.
Most people have been so brainwashed by the media and advertisements for weight loss scams 
that their perception of the amount of work required is very very distorted. It really takes hard work
to get lean and if the effort you’re putting in it isn’t working, then quietly (without complaining) accept
the fact that you need to work harder.

Let's take an example: You’re doing 20 minutes of cardio training per session, so you can increase
the duration to 30 minutes. If you’re doing 30 minutes, you can increase it to 40 minutes and so on.
If your heart rate during the exercise is 130, you can push it up to 140. If you’re eating only 3 meals
per day, you can speed up metabolism by dividing them into to 5 or 6 smaller meals. If you’re having
a cheat meal 2 or 3 times a week, you can drop to only one cheat meal a week. Basically, reaching
peak condition means that you train harder and keep your nutrition clean!


Know when to push harder and when to let the body get some rest


Without saying, doing more and doing it harder is not always the best way to go. Sometimes when
you’re “stuck in the mud,” pushing on the pedal even more just digs you deeper in the mud. If you’ve
been on an extremely intense and hard training schedule for a long period of time, your plateau
could be due to over-training syndrome.

If you suspect over-training is the cause of your plateau, then the best thing to do is take a rest.
Taking 3-7 days off from high intensity training might be exactly what you need. If you’re severely
over-trained yourself, you may also need to cut back on your volume and slowly work your way back
up after your brief layoff.

Don’t worry about your results dropping - but even if you do, the rest is like taking one step back to
get ready for two steps forward. Once your system has recovered itself, you’ll easily be able to thrust
your results to a new peak.

Adaptation syndrome is also a frequent cause of fat loss stops. Adaptation occurs because your body
can easily get accustomed to a training or nutritional program that has been repeated for a long time. At
this point, continuing with the same stimulus will no longer will result in an improvement. The only way to bypass the adaptation syndrome is to change your workouts frequently.

The body will adapt to any weight training or cardio program very quickly. To avoid that, you should
change at least one variable in your training program every four to twelve weeks. The better and fitter
you get, the more quickly your body will adapt and the more often you should change. Your cardio
program should be changed any time you’ve hit a plateau in fat loss.

Almost any change will work. And luckily, the training variations are literally endless. With weight
training you can use new work outs, different set/rep schemes, changes in tempo, shorter rest times,
change a grip or stance width and so on. In your cardio workouts, you can change the type of 
exercise you use, the intensity, the duration, the frequency, steady state vs. interval, or the 
time of day. As you see, it's very easy to break this kind of plateau so you should really 
remember to vary the exercises!

Another common cause of fat loss dead-ends: Your calories are too low and your body has gone
into starvation mode. Once your body goes into that mode, no amount of increased training will help.
The only way to get out of starvation mode is to eat more. If your caloric intake has been at very low
level for a long time and you suspect the starvation response is to blame, the best thing you can do is
to raise your calories temporarily.

But remember to keep your food quality “clean” (don’t eat a lot of junk food), just eat more of the
same good foods you normally would eat. Depending on the degree to which you have slowed your metabolism, you might need a brief 1-3 day raise in calories before dropping back down
(remember my older post, the zig-zag method), or you might need to raise your calories for longer period.

One proven way to give a sluggish metabolism a boost is by using the Zig-Zag-method of dieting: that is,
eat one to three days of higher calories and higher carbs followed by one to three days of lower calories
and lower carbs. On the low calorie/low carb days, you lose body fat rapidly, but before your body can adapt, you raise the calories back up, which increases your metabolic rate and keeps you out of starvation
mode.

That's all for today, but tomorrow I will give you 10 in depth methods on how to vary your nutrition
and exercise plan. Very useful ones to help you get back on track if you've hit a dead end with fat loss!

7 step program to help you achieve your fat loss goals!

As promised on yesterday's post, here's the 7 step program to help get your fitness (this could
be applied to all kinds of goals! But we'll focus on getting leaner and fitter on this blog =)) goals achieved.
And thus, let's begin;

1) Know your result 

Decide where you want to go and what you want to be. By now you should have already
written down your goals and put them on a list! If you didn’t do that, I suggest you then 
stop reading right now and go back and do the goal setting exercises! Nothing else 
you read in this blog can possibly help you if you haven't clearly set your target. 

You might try a technique here and a principle there, but ultimately you’ll end up blundering
around because you don’t have direction to go, purpose or motivation that comes from having
written goals.
If you don’t have any idea where you’re going, that’s exactly where you’ll end up – nowhere!


2) Know your starting point


It’s not enough to know where you want to go; you also need to know where you are at the
beginning. That's because then you can chart the right course to your destination. Once you’ve
written down your goals, you need to establish your starting point with measurements.

The most important measurements are your body fat percentage and muscle mass.
Your body fat percentage, total body weight, fat weight and muscle mass should all be
recorded in the first row of your progress chart.


3) Design a plan of action


The most efficient and effective way to choose a plan of action is to learn from those who have
already achieved what you want to achieve. Learning suggests that instead of re-inventing
the wheel, you “plug into” a proven formula that already exists! You follow those who have
done the "recon" and gone before you. You find someone who has achieved what you
want to achieve, do what they did, and you’ll get the same result, it's really that simple!

Trial and error can be a long and painstaking process to do by yourself, that's why learning
from the experts is the safest and smartest way to go. If you want to lose body fat permanently,
would it make sense to model the 95% of the population who lose weight and gain it back?
Of course not! Yet that is exactly what most people do! Going with the herd mentality, they do
what everyone else does, only to end up one of the 95% who fail.

Someone once said that if you follow the herd, you’re going to step in a lot of shit. So as it
seems sensible, I suggest you don’t do that. Instead, copy those who have mastered the art
and science of permanently losing fat while keeping your muscle mass. No one fits this description
better than natural bodybuilders and fitness competitors.

Keep in mind though, the NLP doesn’t claim that modeling will allow anyone to become  Arnold Schwarzenegger
or a Miss Fitness World. This would imply that every one of us have the same genetic potential.

What modeling the experts will do for you is letting you reach the upper limits of your own genetic capabilities in the shortest period of time using a system that has already been proven to work.
It allows you to become the best YOU can be! It also allows you to become your best with
the easiest way, avoiding all the trial and error process.

Because no one else has exactly the same body type or physiology than you do, you will
always have to go through some degree of experimentation with yourself, no matter how
tested your program is. However, all people who successfully lose body fat have certain things
in common.
The basic principles apply to everyone; there are laws of fat loss just as there are laws
of gravity and physics. People who get lean and stay lean have acknowledged and mastered
these laws. You can learn these laws yourself and master them yourself.

A chef produces gourmet dishes over and over again by using the same recipe. A recipe
is a proven mixture of ingredients, that when combined in the right sequence and amounts,
produces the same delicious dish – each and every time.

This program is your “recipe” for sure-fire fat loss. The techniques you’re reading about
will provide you with a guaranteed and tested plan that has already been proven to work
by the leanest athletes in the world. If you use the same recipe, it will work for you too – every time.


4) Act on your plan consistently


You can have the best goals and the best plan in the world, but if you don’t act on
it, you won’t achieve anything. A goal without action is worthless. Faith without action is
dead. An affirmation without action is delusion. The bottom line is that you have to take action,
get off your butt and get in the gym!

Work at it! Deserve it! Earn it! Sweat blood! Nothing worth having ever comes without hard effort –
don’t ever forget that! It takes hard work and consistent action every - single - day. You have to do something every day to move you closer to your goal. Whether it's resting, stretching or exercising.


5) Learn to know if what you are doing is working or not. 
    If it’s working, keep doing it! (no matter what anyone 
    else tells you!)


After you’ve put your plan into action, you need to work on learning the to know if your program
is working. We could call this the “Sensory Acuity”. It's a NLP term used to describe your ability
to see, feel and notice even the smallest changes in your body.

Simply,  it means; pay attention. As long as you are paying attention, it’s ok to make mistakes.
Wally “Famous” Amos once wrote:
“Mistakes are natural. Mistakes are how we learn. When we stop making mistakes, 
we stop learning and growing. But repeating the same mistake over and over is not 
continuous learning – it’s not paying attention.”

The only person who makes no mistakes is the person who plays it safe and never tries anything
new. You must not be afraid of mistakes, as long as you don’t make the same one twice.
Some people have been making the same nutrition and training mistakes for 10 years and
they are STILL wondering why they won't get any results.

Needless to say, you need to be smarter than that. If you’re not paying attention, you may continue
to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. When someone asks you, “Is your program
working?” And your reply is, “I don’t know,” then you’re not paying attention and you need to focus
on developing better sensory acuity.

Your program is either working or it’s not. There’s no middle ground here. Ask any physicist:
Nothing in the universe stays the way it is. Everything is growing or dying; creating or disintegrating.
You are either moving forward or backward. You need to keep chart of your progress towards your
goal in writing and pay attention to the direction you’re heading – and if it’s the wrong direction, change
course, and quickly!

Elite bodybuilders and fitness competitors have developed incredible sensitivity to
the way they look and feel. They have the uncanny ability to notice even the tiniest
difference in their bodies when they change their nutrition or training programs. Then
they can decide whether this change was effective or not. Without this kind of sensitivity
to your results, your program could be working and you might not even notice. Or even
worse, it might not be working – and you don’t notice!


High levels of sensory acuity won't develop overnight. It is a science and an art that takes
a little time and some trial and error to develop, but anyone can master it.
You simply have to know what to look for and then pay attention. Ultimately, you need to
learn how your own body responds and then be able to make your own adjustments. You
must become expert of your own body

Coaches and trainers are helpful tools, but no one knows your body like you do. Once you’ve 
locked onto a winning strategy and you’re getting the results you want, don’t change a 
thing! Have the strength to stay your course, no matter what anyone tells you!


6) If it’s not working, you must try something else!


The moment you realize you aren’t making any progress, you must immediately adjust your
approach. But remember! Don’t ever get discouraged and don’t quit! If you didn’t get the
result you wanted – you didn’t fail; you succeeded at producing a result. You have only failed if
you quit. You must develop tireless persistence!

Use the feedback you receive as a lesson. Find ways to learn from it. Mistakes are OK
when you are noticing them and learning from them. Once you see that what you’re doing
isn’t working and you recognize it as nothing more than feedback, then try something
different. On my later posts, you’ll learn about the many options you have for changing your
strategy when things aren’t going in the way you planned.


7) Be resilient in your approach and be persistent


Keep an open mind and be flexible. Be willing to adjust your approach as many times as
necessary until you have reached your goal. Be willing to try as many different things as
necessary for as long as it takes. Do not do what it takes for your training partner, or your
neighbor, or your spouse or anyone else. Do what it takes for YOU.

Motivation guru Anthony Robbins once told the story of a man at a seminar who
was extremely frustrated with his lack of results in his business. The befuddled
businessman said he had tried “everything” but nothing worked. Here is the exchange that
went on between the two of them:

Robbins: "You've tried EVERYTHING???"
Attendee: "Yes, I've tried absolutely everything!"
Robbins: "Tell me the last HUNDRED things you tried,"
Attendee: " I haven't tried a hundred things."
Robbins: "OK, then just tell me the last FIFTY things you tried."
Attendee: "I haven't tried fifty things."
Robbins: "Alright then tell me the last DOZEN things you tried."
Attendee: (getting somewhat embarrassed) "Well, I haven't tried a dozen things."
Robbins: "I thought you said you tried EVERYTHING! So tell me then, how many things
HAVE you tried?
Attendee: (shrinking back into his seat, embarrassed), "Two or three."

Now ask yourself - and be honest – have you quit prematurely? How long have
you been working at losing body fat? How persistent have you been? How many different
training and nutrition strategies have you tried?

If your first plan doesn’t produce the results you want, the number of training and nutritional
strategies you can experiment with is virtually unlimited! Don’t be too infexible or rigid in your
approach. Be pliable. It’s necessary to have an action plan, but don’t get too clinched to your plan.
The more options you have at your disposal, the greater your chances will be for success. Leave
yourself room to improvise.

In developing the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee worked hard to quantify
and formulate a philosophy for self-defense and personal growth. His formula was: 1)
Research your own experience, 2) Absorb what is useful, 3) Reject what is useless, and 4)
Add what is specifically your own.

Beware of “gurus” who declare, “It’s my way or the highway.” There is no single best way
which will work for every one of us. By studying, reading and copying others, you can quickly
master all the principles and laws that regulate your body composition. Once you’ve absorbed
these basic laws, then through persistence, action, dedication and sensory acuity, you can go
on to evolve your own “personal formula.” Your personal formula is based on your unique body
type and the way you respond to various combinations of nutrition and training.

By bypassing all stilted styles and systems, you’ll no longer be bound by a particular way of
doing things and thereby gain the freedom to reach your highest potential. Successful people all
have certain things in common. “Success leaves clues”. Model successful people, but instead of
limiting yourself to a single way, model from many successful people. Take a little from here, a little
from there, keep what works, and throw away the rest. “Be a student, not a follower.”


So there's the formula, which will help you get and keep yourself propelling towards you goals!'
Tomorrow I'll continue on ways of getting feedback from your results. I will also scratch the
surface on things like how to break the fat loss plateau and knowing when to rest and recover
Until then!

How to use performance feedback to help you achieve your goals

First off, here's 2 quotes which summarize this topic very accurately:

"If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. If what you
are doing is not working, do something else.”

"Realize that there is no such thing as failure. Keep this in mind and you will achieve
all that you conceive in your mind. You never fail, you simply produce results.”

And a little example about performance feedback:
We could imagine a plane, starting to make it's way to it's destination on rough and windy
conditions. The liftoff is always the hardest; there's a lot of controlling and stabilization to be done
to the plane by the pilots. Despite of the problems in the beginning, they get above the clouds,
and after that it seems like smooth sailing.

But the thing is, plane still doesn't go perfectly straight. After just a little while the winds up high
affect the plane's course, diverting it off of it's trajectory. But, using a variety of different
feedback systems such as radar, radio beacons, geographical landmarks and  such, the
navigation equipment picks up the slight change in course. That's when the pilots step in.
They make small adjustments so that the plane is again going to the right direction. And that is
what happens on every flight, all the way from the beginning to the destination.


How to use performance feedback to lose body fat


I told you that analogy because it fits perfectly for fat loss. The process of losing
body fat is a lot like the takeoff and flight of an airplane. For some people it takes a long time
to “get off the ground.” Instead of being patient and waiting out the storm, they quit before they even
get to takeoff speed. Others get off the ground, but as soon as they hit any turbulence, they quit
and “land the plane.” Some people even manage to start coasting comfortably towards their
destination, making substantial progress. But the minute they find themselves off course, they
too join the quitters instead of simply adjusting their direction.

Each of these people made the mistake of considering their results as failure.
Because they believed they had failed, they gave up. How would it be if a pilot “quit” every
time there was a delay, turbulence, or a slight deviation in the plane’s course? No one would
ever get anywhere! The key to your success in losing body fat starts with a mental imaging:
There is no such thing as failure - only feedback; only results.

“Everything looks like a failure in the middle. You can’t bake a cake without
getting the kitchen messy. Halfway through surgery it looks like there’s been a murder in
the operating room. If you send a rocket toward the moon, about ninety percent of the
time it’s off course – it “fails” its way to the moon by continually making mistakes and
correcting them.” - quote

If you measure your body fat and there’s no change (or it has even increased), you shouldn't
consider it a failure – you have simply produced a result. As long as you’re taking action, whatever
result you produce is “performance feedback..” It may not be the result you aimed for, but it’s still
valuable feedback. You’ve learned something: You’ve learned one way that doesn’t
work. Mistakes are said to be the best teachers!

If you want to produce a different result, you simply need to try a different approach.
One definition of madness is continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result.
Thomas Edison tried thousands of experiments to find a filament that would burn in the electric
light bulb. When asked what it felt like to fail so many times, Edison said he didn’t fail:
“If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged,
because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. Just because something doesn't
do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.”

You’re always going to get some kind of results. It’s how you interpret your
results that will determine whether you’ll reach your final destination or not.
Like the pilot, or Thomas Edison, you need to gather feedback and change your 
course the instant you notice you’re not heading in the right direction (while learning in the process).

At the most simple level, the changes you’ll make to your training program consist of eating less
or exercising more. However, from what you have learned about the body’s defenses against
starvation, you know that eating less only works to a point.

That’s why increasing the volume or intensity of your activity is almost always the best option when
you’re not getting the fat loss results you're after. Even increasing activity only works to a point,
because over-training and adaptation can set in, so you need other options – and the more options
you have, the better. And I'll be telling you about all these options later in this weeks posts.
All things being equal, the person with the most options is the one most likely to succeed.


The fat loss success system that's failproof


In 1976, John Grinder, a linguistics professor, and Richard Bandler, a
mathematician, developed a new field called Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Initially designed as a tool for psychotherapy, NLP blossomed into a much broader
science focused on communication and personal excellence. NLP teaches you a process
for discovering patterns of human excellence and then duplicating those results through a
procedure called modeling.

NLP also teaches you how to “run your brain” and think effectively so you can achieve any
result you want. It teaches you how to communicate with yourself. Perhaps most important,
NLP teaches you how to use feedback to unfailingly guide you to your goals.

Based on the principles of NLP, I have learned a seven-step fat loss formula that is
100% guaranteed to help you reach the goals you have set yourself. The system cannot fail
– you can only fail to use the system. Think of this system as your own personal “missile guidance system.”

And those 7 steps are the agenda of tomorrow's post, so be sure to check back then!
Keep the fit going!

8 simple ways to stay out of the starvation mode and lose your fat permanently without dieting and starving yourself

In order to lose fat permanently, you must give up the entire concept of dieting on very low
calories to lose it. You’ll never lose weight permanently with low calorie diets – it’s nearly
impossible. Temporary dieting can only produce temporary results. You need to use other
methods.
And that said, here's eight methods you can use to lose fat permanently while staying out
of the starvation mode.


1. Instead of "diet" mindset, introduce yourself to "habits"


The first step towards your new lean body has more to do with your mindset than it does
with nutrition or training. You have to change your entire attitude towards these factors.
Instead of adopting the mindset of “diets” (short-term) you must adopt the mindset of
“habits" (long term).

A habit is a behavior that you perform automatically without thinking or putting any effort on it.
Once a habit is firmly established to your everyday life – doesn't matter if it's good or bad - it takes
a lot strength to break it. To describe it, it would be like trying to swim upstream against the current.


The entire concept of “dieting” for fat loss is distorted. When you say you’re
“going on a diet” the implication is that it’s a temporary phase and at some point
you’re going to have to come off the diet. With this kind of attitude, you’re setting yourself
up for failure right from the beginning. Permanent fat loss won't be achieved by going on and 
off diets. It can and will only be achieved by adopting new exercise and nutrition habits that you
can maintain for the rest of your life!. 

Depending on your goal, you may need to make your nutrition plan more or less restrictive
at certain times, but you need to maintain a baseline of  healthy eating habits to which you stick
for the rest of your life. Usually you’ll eat the same foods all year round. When you want to
lose body fat, all you need to do is cut a little off of those same foods and exercise
a lot more.

The best way to get rid of unwanted habits such as poor nutrition or inactivity is by replacing
them with new ones, and not attempting to overcome them with sheer willpower.
We could think about this scenario: To cover up a bad paint job, you need to lay over a new paint
that is thick enough so the old paint disappears. The new habit then takes over as the old one is
forgotten away in the subconscious mind.

Good nutrition habits may not be easy to form, but once you’ve formed them, they are
just as hard to break as the bad ones you had. One expert put it this way:
"The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat  the act we
strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds
us irrevocably."

At the beginning, there will be a period where starting the new habit feels somewhat uncomfortable.
But the key is to be patient! Everything is difficult at the start. For a new habit to become
permanently entrenched into your nervous system, it could take months. However, the
base of nutrition and exercise habits can be formed in just 3 weeks - 21 days.

That’s why it’s so important that you give 100% total effort and commitment for at least the first
3 weeks! Once those 21 days have passed, you'll already be leaner and you'll be on your way to
making your new habits as effortless and natural as brushing your teeth or taking a shower!


2. Keep your muscle mass at all costs


One of the most important factors in turning your body into a “fat-burning machine” is to build
and maintain as much muscle mass as possible. Muscle is the bodybuilder’s secret weapon to fat burning! Muscle is your greatest friend on this matter. The more muscle you have, the more calories
you burn, even at rest. With more muscle mass, you burn extra calories even while sleeping.

With a higher lean body mass, the calories burned during exercise are greater. If you put two
people side by side on a stationary bike, one of them with 90 kgs of lean body mass and the other
with 75 kgsof lean body mass, the person with 90 kgs of lean body mass will burn more calories
from the exact same workout.

The most efficient way to burn extra calories and lose more body fat is to gain more muscle.
That’s why weight training is an important factor in the fat loss equation.


3. Use only a small calorie deficit.


To lose body fat, you must be in negative calorie balance. You can create a calorie deficit
by increasing exercise, by decreasing calories or with a combination of both. The most efficient
way for fat loss is to decrease your calories a little and increase your exercise a lot. The
recommended guideline is to reduce your calories by 500 to 1000 less than your maintenance level.

For example for a female whose calorie maintenance level is 2100 calories per day, then a 500 calorie deficit would put you at 1600 calories per day.

And if you’re a male with a calorie maintenance level of 2900 calories per day, then a 500
calorie deficit would put you at 2400 calories per day. In one week , that's 3500 calories minus.

In a kilo of fat there's approximately 7000 calories, so (in theory), a 500 calorie per day deficit
will result in a loss of  about 0,5 kgs of body fat per week. It follows that a 750 calorie deficit would
produce a loss of about 75 per week and a 1000 calorie deficit would result in close to 1 kgs lost.

But because of the way the weight regulating mechanism works, fat loss seldom follows these
calculations so airtightly, so don’t tangle up in them. An emphasis on exercise with a small
reduction in calories is the best approach. 500 to 750 calorie deficit under your maintenance
level is usually enough. Add weight training and aerobics into the mix and this
will produce as close to 100% fat loss as possible.

An alternate (and preferred) method is to set your calorie deficit as a percentage of your
maintenance level. 15-20% is the recommended starting calorie reduction for fat loss.
This is considered a small calorie deficit and just that small calorie deficit is the key to
losing fat while maintaining muscle.

For example, with a 2000 calorie maintenance level, 20% would be a 400 calorie deficit,
which would put you at 1600 calories per day. With a 2600 calorie maintenance level,
a 20% deficit would be 520 calories. That would put you at 2080 calories per day.

The reason why this percentage method is superior is because using an absolute number
like 500, 750 or 1000 calories as a deficit instead of a percentage deficit might drop your
calories too low into the danger zone. To illustrate this, if you are a male with a 3500 calorie
maintenance level, a 750 calorie deficit to 2750 calories per day is only a 21% drop (a
small, safe and acceptable deficit.)

However, if you are a female with an 1800 calorie per day maintenance level and you cut
your calories by 750 per day to 1050 calories, that is a severe 41% cut. Using the percentage
method is more individualized and appropriate for everyone.

At times, an aggressive calorie deficit greater than 20% may be allright, but calorie cuts
greater than 20% are much more likely to cause muscle loss and slow down your metabolic
rate. If you do use a calorie deficit greater than 20%, then it’s wise to raise calories
at regular intervals using the “zig-zag method” (Which i covered on my earlier post).

This will trick your body and prevent your metabolism from slowing down when you happen to
have a large calorie deficit. Always remember to start with a small deficit. In other words,
cut calories out slowly. It’s better to start with a small deficit and then slowly increase towards
your maximal deficit than to make a sudden drop in calories right away. The body cannot be forced to
lose fat, you need to coax it.

Based on what you now know about the body’s weight-regulating mechanism, the
optimal amount to decrease your caloric intake for fat loss is as little as possible, as long
as you still keep losing body fat.


4. In fat loss, use exercise rather than diets to burn the fat


To lose body fat, there must be a calorie deficit. Such are the laws oft energy balance.
However, there’s more than one way to create a calorie deficit. One way is to decrease your
caloric intake from food. The other is to increase the amount of calories you burn by exercising.

Of the two ways to create a calorie deficit, burning the calories is much superior approach.
This is because large calorie deficits cause muscle loss and  trigger the starvation response
in your body. Ironically, many people do the opposite: They slash their calories to starvation
levels and exercise too little or not at all.

This causes a loss in muscle mass and wakes up the starvation mechanism.
Controversial as it seems, the most effective approach to fat loss is to eat more
(keeping the calorie deficit small) and let the exercise burn the fat away. You must not
starve yourself! You just have to choose the right foods and make exercise
a permanent part of your lifestyle.

So we might ask ourselves, why would anyone resort to starvation diets when they can burn
fat more efficiently through exercise? Perhaps they believe that eating more food and
working out at the same time will “cancel each other out". Maybe they are afraid of the
hard work involved in exercise. There's also a false belief going around that cardio exercise
will make you lose muscle, and thus they're avoiding it.

But contrary to belief, aerobic exercise combined with weight training - is the only
fat loss method that allows you to create a calorie deficit and burn fat without slowing
down the metabolism.

Here are some very good reasons why exercise - not dieting - is the best method of
losing body fat:

-Training – aerobic and weight training - boosts your metabolic rate.

-Training will create a caloric deficit without triggering the starvation mode.

-Training is good for your health and heart. Dieting is usually harmful to your health.

-Training, especially weight training, signals your body to keep your muscle and not
  burn it for energy. Dieting without exercise can result in over 50% of the weight loss
  to come from muscle mass.

-Training increases fat-burning enzymes and hormones in your body.

-Training increases your cells sensitivity to insulin so that carbohydrates are easier to burn
  for energy and stored as glycogen rather then being stored as body fat.

5. Establish your minimal calorie requirements (maintenance level) and never drop below them – ever

One way to make sure that you never trigger the starvation response is to find out the minimum
amount of calories you can eat without slowing your metabolism. Then, use that as your bottom
calorie number. Because nutrition can be quite different for everyone, it’s difficult to set an absolute
single figure for everyone in general as a minimal calorie requirement, but the American
College of Sports Medicine has suggested some guidelines.

The ACSM recommends 1200 calories as the minimal daily calorie level for women and 1800
as the minimum for men. They have also recommended a maximum deficit of 1000 calories below maintenance level. The 1000 calorie maximum deficit is good advice, but it’s just a guideline.
Sometimes a 1000 calorie per day deficit can be too much.

People with low bodyweights or low activity levels will have relatively low daily calorie needs,
so 1000 below maintenance could be a little overkill. For example, it’s not uncommon for a female
to require only 1800 calories per day to maintain her weight. If she were to drop 1000 calories off
this already quite low maintenance level, this would bring her to a dangerously low 900 calories per day. 1200 should be her rock bottom number, and a small 20% deficit of only 380 calories would be
very ideal (1520 calories per day).


6. Eat frequently and don't skip meals!


I will explain the importance of small frequent meals more deeply on my future posts, but for now,
let it be known that the body might interpret missed meals as starvation. Here's an example:
You eat lunch at 11:30 and dinner at 18:30. If you would skip breakfast for some reason the next
day, that’s 17 hours without food! This sends a signal to your body that you are starving, even if
your lunch and dinner are good and large meals.

Your goal should be to eat approximately every three hours. Make scheduled meal times and
follow them. Regularity in your eating habits is crucial in weight loss. By eating smaller portions
more frequently, you’ll eat more food than you’ve ever eaten before and you won't be starving
yourself. Many people have said that by starting to eat eat more than they’ve ever eaten,  they still
have gotten leaner than they’ve ever been before.


7. Don’t stay in a calorie deficit for long


I bet we all know that one person who always seems to be on a diet. The odds are also good
that although these dieters may achieve some small success in weight losses, they are among the
95% that always gain it back. Then, with the failure of the last diet in mind, they quickly hop
on to the latest “extra-super-diet” and repeat the cycle.

When fat loss stops or begins to slow down after being in a negative calorie balance, most people
panic and cut down their calories even more! Sometimes this may work and it breaks the plateau.
More often though, it digs you into an even deeper metabolic downfall. The best thing to do
is to raise your calories for a couple of days or even for a few weeks.

Your body’s weight controlling mechanism works both ways: It can decrease your rate of
energy consumption when there is a calorie deficit, or it can also increase the rate of energy
consumption when there is a calorie surplus. When you eat more and frequently, your body burns
more calories. A temporary increase in calories when you have hit a dead end in fat loss will give a
“spike” for your metabolic rate. It sends a signal to your body that you are not starving and that it’s ok to keep burning those pesky calories!

This process of raising your caloric intake up and down is known as “cycling” your calories
(also known as the “zig-zag” method). In general, the lower you go down with calories, the
more important it is to take periodic high calorie days.


8. Make your goal to lose weight at a rate of 0,5-1 kgs
per week. And be patient!


The best way of losing fat permanently without losing you muscle is to lose weight slowly with
focusing on exercise rather than cutting calories severely. In my posts on goal setting, I already
made the suggestion to lose no more than 1 kilos per week.

Let’s elaborate a little on the logic behind that recommendation. In the ACSM’s position statement on “Healthy and unhealthy weight loss programs,” The ACSM recommends losing weight at a maximum
rate of 1 kgs per week. This 1 kg figure has become almost universally recommended as the standard
guideline for safe weight loss. Why? Because, of course, you can lose more than two pounds of weight
per week, but losing fat over 1 kilos per week is highly unlikely. Even at that rate, it’s difficult to lose 100% body fat with no loss of lean body mass.

There are cases of fat loss with greater than one kilos per week on numerous occasions, but this is
the exception that makes the rule. Usually this only happens when someone has a large amount of
weight to drop. But the more slowly you lose weight, the easier it is to maintain your important muscle
mass and keep the fat off, permanently. It’s better to lose only 0,5kgs of pure fat per week than it is
to lose one kilo per week with half from muscle and half from fat.

Bodybuilders also usually set their goal to lose weight at a rate 0,5 - 1 kilos per week. Losing
only a single pound a week may seem like an excruciatingly slow and painstaking process,
however, this is one of the secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models and one of the most crucial
keys to permanent fat loss. Why would you want to lose weight faster if you know you’re going to lose muscle and there’s a 95% chance that all you just lost will come back right away?

How should you react if you lose more than 1 kilo per week? It depends; everything is relative to
the individual. If you have very much of fat to lose, then losing 2 kgs a week is safe and
acceptable during the beginning. But make sure it's not water or muscle weight you're only losing.

And as you get closer to your long-term goal, you can expect the weight loss to slow to half - one
kilos per week. For most people, losing more than a kilo per week signals that you should actually
eat more! This may be hard for you to accept, but if you're losing more than the recommended
amount, you’re also losing muscle with the fat.
Don’t let the temporary confidence boost from a large drop in scale weight sabotage your efforts
in the long run. Remember to be patient! Don’t ever confuse weight loss with fat loss.

Why low calorie diets can actually make you even fatter in the end?

Today i will make one quick post about how dieting can actually make you fatter.
I'll start right away with an example of how a low calorie diet would affect a real world dieter
physiologically and psychologically, and can actually make you fatter!
So, let's get down to business:

Suppose our typical dieter would be a male who weights 100 kgs and has 20% body fat.
His goal is to lose 10-15 kgs.
Before dieting:
20% body fat
20 kgs fat
80kgs lean body mass


Like most people, our dieter assumes that the best way to lose the body fat is to starve it,
so he goes on a 1500 calorie per day diet. In the 1st week he loses, let's say 2,5 kgs. and is
very happy with his results. The second week he loses 2 kgs. Weeks 3-6 he loses 1,5 kgs per
week. The total weight loss is 10,5 kgs lost.
Our dieter now weighs 89,5 kgs and he continued to lose weight with a steady pace without
coming to a dead end (although the weight loss did slow down during the last weeks). Judging
by the scale alone, we could say he has succeeded in his goal.

But, if we take a little closer look on this, however, we find that he has not been
so successful after all.
After the diet
89,5 kgs.
16% body fat
14,3 kgs. fat
Lean body mass 75,2 kgs.
Weight loss: 10,5kgs.
Fat lost 4 kgs.
Lean body mass (muscle) lost 6,5 kgs

By judging his success in terms of body composition instead of only weight loss, it is clear
that he has failed. About 60% of his weight loss came from lean body mass. The drop in
lean body mass also has led to drop in his basal metabolic rate so he is now burning even
fewer calories each day than what he was when he started. This has set him up for a relapse.

Now when this (temporary) diet is over,  he goes off his diet. Few people have the desire or
willpower to stay on low calories for long periods of time. On a strict calorie and or foodrestricted
diet, almost everyone falls of the wagon sooner or later. After a long time with low calories,
his body produces hormones which trick him into "greed" eating by triggering severe cravings and hunger.

Even if he doesn’t binge and he simply goes back to his normal style eating again, his
body isn’t burning calories as efficiently as before the diet. That's why the number of calories
which used to maintain his weight now causes him to gain it. As the days and weeks go, the weight
sneaks back on until he finally gains back all the fat he lost, and usually a bot of extra as well.

6 weeks after the diet:
100 kgs.
22% body fat
22 kgs fat
Lean body mass 78 kgs.

Now he is back at 100 kilos where he started, with only one big difference: He has less muscle,
more fat, and a slower metabolism than when he started. And because he has damaged his
metabolism it will now be gradually even harder for him to lose weight.

That's why you should really stay clear of diets that introduce very low calories. You just end up
feeling tired and drowsy all day because of lack of energy. And as we established on the example,
they can actually make you fatter! I will  continue on this subject, and tomorrow I will discuss on
how to avoid the starvation mode and lose fat permanently without starving! I will give yo eight
strategies to avoid these pitfalls!

7 Reasons why to stay away from very low calorie diets!

The results of extremely low calorie dieting are actually automatic and unavoidable. The
responses are metabolic, hormonal, and psychological in nature, and they include: slower
metabolism, muscle loss, increase of enzymes and hormones which speed up fat storing,
decrease of enzymes and hormones which burn fat, increased appetite, increased chance of regaining weight you've just lost, and decreased energy and work capacity.

Here's 7 reasons as to why to stay clear of those "miracle diets" they advertize almost everywhere.

1. They slow down your metabolic rate

The first thing that happens during a severe calorie deficit is a slowed down metabolism. The
lower your calories, the slower your metabolism becomes. Simply said; when you eat less calories, your body burns less calories. When you eat more calories, your body burns more calories.

I read this great analogy on how our metabolism mechanism works, when put in simple form:
Let's say you’re earning 4000$ a month, but your boss suddenly cuts your paycheck to
2500$ a month. Of course, you will try to live the same lifestyle on 2500$ a month as you did on
4000$ a month. Soon enough, you have to adjust and save money, and change your
lifestyle.

The same is true with a calorie intake that is simply too low. When calories are cut below
maintenance level, the body will adopt and slow down its metabolism, so it becomes nearly
impossible to lose fat even on low calories. This metabolic slowdown is well researched.
When calories are restricted extremely, your metabolism slows down by about 20-30%.
With severe calorie deficit, some research have shown that resting metabolism can slow down
by as much as 45%!
Thinking in calories, if you have normal calorie consumption 3000 calories a day, that would drop to just 1650 calories per day! That explains why, after long periods of low calorie dieting, you can eat
very little food and still not lose weight. This also explains why it is so difficult to lose
those last 5 or 10 kilos.




2. Very low calorie diets make you lose muscle


The most dramatic effect of the low calorie diets are the loss of muscles.
Once the starvation mode comes into action, your body starts looking for ways to save
energy. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. Getting rid of it is the body’s way of
decreasing energy consumption. And it’s simple for your body to use muscle for energy.


This process is known as Gluconeogenesis – converting muscle into glucose. This includes
muscles, internal organs, and even your heart muscle! Studies have shown that very low
calorie diets without exercise will always cause 40 - 50% of the weight loss to come 
from lean tissue (muscle). Many diets, especially low carbohydrate ones, cause large losses
in water weight. Between the loss of water, glycogen and muscle, fully 75% of the weight you
lose on such plans is not fat!

The initial weight loss on most diets can be very deceiving, giving you the illusion of fast success.
Even with exercise, if a diet is too restrictive, much of the weight loss will still
be lean tissue and water weight.


3. Very low calorie diets increase activity of fat-storing enzymes and on the contrary 
decreases the activity of enzymes that burn fat


The main fat storing enzyme is called Lipoprotein Lipase. When you drop your calories
very low, your body will produce more of that Lipoprotein Lipase and less of those enzymes
which are burning the fat. Simply put, when you don’t eat enough, your body changes its
chemistry to make it easier to store fat in the future.


4.  Low calorie diets decrease output of thyroid hormone.


The Thyroid gland is largely responsible for the regulation of your basal metabolic
rate (the rate at which you burn calories at rest). When your body notices an extreme
reduction in calories, there is a corresponding reduction in the output of active thyroid
hormone (T3). The result is a decrease in your metabolic rate and that leads to fewer calories
burned.


5. Very Low calorie dieting increases the chance of rebound weight gain 
A.K.A The Yo-Yo-effect


Almost everyone loses weight when they start a very low calorie diet, but it never takes
long before your body catches on and starts saving and hoarding energy. That’s when you hit a
"plateau", dead end. Once you come to a dead end, it becomes increasingly harder to keep
losing weight even if your calories are already extremely low.

This lack of continued results, combined with hunger cravings, usually causes people to give
up out of sheer frustration. They quit their diet, the weight sneak back on and their body fat
ends up right back where they started. Only now they have lost muscle and by that they have
a slower metabolism. With a slower metabolism, what used to be a maintenance level now
becomes a surplus, and the weight comes automatically back on.

Most people gain back all the weight they just lost, and many gain back even more, leaving
them even fatter than when they started. This up and down pattern of weight loss and weight
re-gain is commonly known as the “yo-yo-effect”, and sadly it often continues for years or even
for an entire lifetime. With each repeated cycle of dieting, your metabolism becomes less and less
efficient and you can actually in a way become progressively fatter while eating less food.


6. Very low calorie diets increase your appetite and cravings.


When your body sinks into starvation mode, this normally triggers increased appetite and
hunger cravings in an attempt to get you to eat more food. These hunger and cravings can be
so strong that you are in the verge of greediness. It’s near impossible to stay on a diet when
you are ravenously hungry and all you can think about is food. Few people have that much
willpower.


7. Very low calorie diets decrease your energy levels and working capacity


Very low calorie diets leave you tired, drowsy and unable to sustain high levels of
activity or intense exercises. Dr. Lawrence Lamb, nutrition specialist, points out that
“The first sign of under nutrition is the loss of energy and the inability to sustain prolonged
physical work. There is a direct relationship between calories consumed and the physical
work a person can do.”

If you have no energy to exercise, you’re going to feel lousy and seriously compromise your
results. The ability to do hard cardio training and weight training is critical for your long-term
success at fat loss.

That's all for today! Tomorrow i'll continue with this same topic, and tell why dieting can actually make you fatter! And 8 ways to avoid the starvation response of your body and losing fat without dieting or deprivation! Until then!

Why over 90% of the usual diets fail when you are trying to slim down?

Cutting calories backfires you. The more you cut, the more your body clings onto its fat stores as decreased calories produces the starvation response, where the body tries to “survive” and hold onto its calorie reservoir known as fat.

Diets sparsely Work

Most conventional diet programs call for extremely low calories. Any time you restrict calories dramatically, you will lose weight. So if your only criteria for success is losing weight, and you don’t care where the weight comes off from, or how long it stays off, in that sense you could say that “all diets work.”

There are two big problems with this approach. Firstly, the weight loss from very low calorie dieting almost never lasts. About 90% of the people who lose weight with diet programs can’t keep it off. The other problem is that most of the weight you lose with extremely low calorie diets is muscles, not fat. If you want to permanently lose fat without losing muscle (like you should), then it would be more appropriate to say “diets

never work.”

Research proves that diets never work in the long term. If they would work, how can you explain the obesity problem in the western world today? And why it is getting worse and worse day by day? 

According to statistics, almost 69% of the adults are overweight in the United States. And Over 37% are clinically obese, which means that they are at risk for one or more of over 25 health problems that are associated with excess body fat.

Despite the fact that there are more diet programs and weight loss products available than ever before, obesity has continued to rise. There’s a scientific reason why most diets fail. Many people make the 

mistake of trying to starve the fat with extreme diets. However, because your body has a complex defense mechanism to protect you from starvation, it’s nearly impossible to permanently lose fat with very low calorie diets. 

As soon as your body notices there's a food shortage, these defense 

mechanisms start to work. Your body is simply too smart for the very low 

calorie diet approach to ever work.

Why Eating Less Doesn’t Always Work

When you eat more calories than you burn, your body will store the excess as body fat. If you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose fat. Simple mathematics, ain't it? Unfortunately, not quite. If fat loss 

would be as simple as calories in versus calories out, then how could you explain why some obese people eat less than fit people, yet they still can’t lose any weight/fat? And how would it be possible for someone with a 2300-calorie maintenance level to eat only about 1000 calories a day, and they won't be losing any weight?

Using the mathematical approach, if you cut out 1000 calories per day from your maintenance level, that will add up to a 7000 calorie deficit in one week. There are about 7000 calories in 1 kilo of body fat, so in theory, cutting out those 1000 calories a day should produce a weight loss of 1 kilo per week. In reality fat loss rarely works out with such mathematical manner.

When a you start to cut calories, weight loss generally occurs rapidly. But it never takes long before weight loss slows down, and then eventually comes to a complete stop. Why, you might ask? How come is it that you don’t lose 25 kilos in 25 weeks or 50 kilos in 50 weeks with a 1000-calorie deficit?

The explanation is actually quite simple: Over thousands of years, humans have developed a weight-regulating mechanism that recognizes when there’s a food shortage and decreases energy expenditure to “protect you.” This survival mechanism is known as the “starvation response.”

The Starvation response

You may have heard probably stories about people getting lost in the mountains or at sea for months with no food at all (only water), or being confined in a prisoner of war camp for years with only tiny amounts of

food. What makes surviving possible in these situations is your body’s remarkable ability to slow down calorie burning.

When your body notices calorie deprivation it says to itself, “It looks like this is all the food we’re going to be getting for a while, so we’d better stop burning up so many calories and start saving our energy. This

way we’ll be able to survive longer on the little amount of nutrition we have.” The starvation response has been developed largely because of exposure to extreme environmental conditions like droughts, natural disasters and food shortages. Furthermore, there were no supermarkets tens of thousands years
ago. If people wanted to eat, they had to either grow or kill their food.

It was likely at those times, that a man didn’t know when the next meal was coming and may actually have only eaten once or twice per week.The starvation response evolved in humans to ensure the survival of the 

species. That's why your body can’t tell the difference between dieting and starvation. 

This feature of human evolution is a blessing if you’re stranded out with no food. During periods of starvation, the body slowly begins to "feed off itself", burning fat stores, muscle and yes, even 

internal organs for energy. If your body continued to burn calories at its normal rate, your limited reserves of stored energy would be finished quickly and you would die very soon after your food supply was cut off. 

This response keeps you alive longer. Unfortunately for most of us, this same life-saving mechanism will work against you when you’re trying to lose weight, because your body can’t tell the difference between dieting and starvation! Cutting calories extremely always awakens your bodys starvation
mode. There’s little to nothing you can do to stop this from happening other than to avoid too extreme calorie deficits!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'll continue with the same subject, and give you 7 very good reasons why to stay away from extremely low calorie diets!