Truth About Fat Loss
Despite the science being there to show us what really works, so many female fat loss and nutrition plans are based around principles that don’t deliver results, and pseudoscience that just doesn’t stack up.
Your typical female is told to do two things to lose weight –
1. Drastically slash calories
This is usually done by minimizing carbohydrate intake, cutting down on fats, eliminating processed foods and alcohol completely, and even banning whole food groups such as grains, gluten or dairy.
2. Start doing lots of cardio
(And we mean LOTS of cardio.)
The theory is that cardio burns calories, and so any woman who wants to drop body fat needs to pound the treadmill, take up jogging, dedicate themselves to evenings on the Stairmaster, or spend hour upon hour on an exercise bike.
This isn’t the case. You’ll be amazed how little exercise you need. Once you’re doing the right type of exercise that is.
Before we move on, and I go into how we’ll get you to lose fat faster than you ever imagined, as well as doing it safely and sustainably, so you experience no ill-health effects, and maintain all the progress you make, let’s just look at why the above methods don’t work.
You Slashed Calories and Upped Your Cardio?
Initially, doing this will bring about results.
The weight on the scale will definitely go down, and you may even look a little leaner.
This is because you’ve created a calorie deficit.
A calorie deficit is where you’re burning more calories than you’re eating, so in order to survive and to have a supply of energy, your body turns to its stored fat for fuel.
No matter what type of diet you do, you have to have a calorie deficit to lose weight. You can eat as healthy or as clean as you like, but if you’re eating more calories than you burn, you won’t lose an ounce.
Even if you’re surviving solely on chicken breast and broccoli, while it would be hard to over-eat these, it’s still theoretically possible to gain fat if you’re not in a deficit.
So you’ve been ‘dieting’ for a few weeks, and seen the scale move down, your clothes feel loser and you might even have seen some changes in the mirror, but pretty soon, a few things happen.
For one, your hunger levels will be through the roof. This is because typical weight loss diets restrict your food intake so much, that you’re ravenous, almost 24/7.
Combined with this, you’ll also be getting huge cravings. Because you’ve probably banned most tasty foods, your body’s pleasure sensors have gone into overdrive, and you’re craving something delicious.
Also, it’s not just fat you’ll be losing.
Much of the initial weight you lose when dieting and training like the above isn’t body fat at all. If you’ve gone the low-carb route, then your body’s stores of carbohydrate will be significantly lower, which in turn reduces your water weight. Plus, because you’re in such an aggressive calorie deficit, your body can only burn fat at a certain rate, and so instead of relying on fat for fuel, it’s burning up muscle too.
Now, you might be wondering why muscle matters if you don’t want to be a bodybuilder, but we’ll cover that very soon. First I want to talk a little more about how detrimental the common way of doing things is.
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