Refurbished Fat Loss Tips, Part I

Reaching back into the email list and came up with some old goodies:



1. DRINK LESS ALCOHOL: No, alcohol alone cannot make you fat; however, it won’t make you lose fat. Alcohol delays the metabolism of fat in the liver, usually at the rate of 1 hour per drink. So if you have 6 drinks or more in a given evening, your liver will slow the rate of fat metabolism to a crawl in order to break down the alcohol you just drank. If you drink more than 6 drinks 4 days a week:
a. That’s 24 hours that your body is not metabolizing fat in a given week, or 4 days a month, or 48 days per year. That’s a lot of fat storage!

2. VARY CARB INTAKE: You don’t fill up your car with gasoline when you don’t take it out of the garage; why fill up on extra carbohydrates on days off? Similarly, you will fill up your gas tank on long road trips; on days when long runs or workouts, you will definitely need to fill up the tank more often with carbs, preferably complex carbs (brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal).

3. DO LESS, BETTER: Squats, Deadlifts, Presses, Pulls, Rotation and Stabilization. Practicing few variations of the 6 Basic movements will yield a more efficient muscular system, and a better synergy and functional cross-over to real life. In addition, they recruit more muscle fibers per exercise than smaller, single joint movements.

4. AVOID MACHINES: There’s a reason a squat rack, barbell and dumbbells are all the best trainers are mostly using at your local gym. They’re more efficient and work the body in a three-dimensional fashion as compared to machines, which force your body to work in exact same range-of-motion on each limb. The actual chances of both limbs being able to work in the same range-of-motion are less than 1%. I don’t gamble, but if I did, my money’s on the simple, efficient, free weights.

5. IGNORE TABLOIDS AND ENTERTAINMENT AS ‘EDUCATION’: The 300 Workout, P90x, Biggest Loser, US Weekly, TMZ and even Shape to some extent. They are all influential on the fitness world in a negative way. Why? They use unrealistic training methods (and in some cases, dangerous and contraindicated) and aim to entertain more so than to train efficiently and safely. Yes, the workouts work and help people lose weight, the problem is that these unrealistic training methods are tried out and believed to be realistic solutions to their weight loss problem. Moreover, losing 100 lbs off of a 400 pound, previously inactive, poor eating individual who is incentived by being seen by millions of people as weak and pathetic versus is easy. Honestly.

It is ALWAYS tougher to get that already active, less than 10% body-fat, almost perfect-eating client to lose 15 pounds, without 5 million people watching? That’s reality.

Part II coming soon...

-Coach Kev