Showing posts with label 5 small meals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5 small meals. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

How to Lose Weight Like the Competitors in Fat March and Biggest Loser

For many seeing shows like Fat March of the Biggest Loser can be an inspiration to start their own weight loss program. The problem lies in once you are excited to start now what. It can be hard for the average watcher to understand what is important and what achieves results from watching the show. It is easy to say eat well and exercise on a regular basis though what does that really mean. Losing weight doesn't have to be overwhelming if you understand the basic principles from the shows and apply them to your lifestyle.

The first biggest change for most people's diets which is vital is eating 5 small meals. The personal trainers talked about in Fat March about how until people create the habit of eating throughout the day nothing else matters. Eating small meals trains your body to burn fat and shuts off your body's ability to store fat.

In Fat March we got an up close and personal experience of what happens when you don't eat five small meals. One of the fat marchers took all his food and ate it all at once. This spiked his blood sugar which then your body stores the food as fat. Once your body stores the food as fat you get low blood sugar which is the crashing that most people feel around 3 pm from too much food at lunch. During Fat March because the competitor was doing a ton of walking he passed out from too low blood sugar and had to go to the hospital. Most people don't understand how negative not eating 5 small meals is because they don't have as serious instant consequences because they are sitting at their desk working when their blood sugar drops.

Until you start eating 5 small meals your body will be in a constant roller coaster of eating too much and storing fat into your fat cells. The good thing is that if today you eat 5 small meals you body will today start to burn more energy and go in the right dirction.

So what do I want in my 5 small meals?

The Biggest Loser show does a good job of showing cooking for good healthy meals. The goal of each meal is to get complex carbs for energy, lean protein to rebuild muscle tissue, and fruits or vegetables for nutritional value. The size is relative to your metabolism, as you get a faster metabolism your portion will increase not decrease which is why starving to lose weight doesn't work. For most Americans take your lunch cut it in half and eat the other half 3 hours later.

Yes you do need to eat carbs. Carbohydrates are your major source of energy from food. When you don't eat carbs even if you eat protein your body will go into a starvation response and store fat and burn muscle for energy. Complex carbs are stored in the muscles cells and are rice, pasta, grains, and potatoes.

One reason many fad diets cut carbs is because carbs absorb water. If you cut carbs out of your diet you will lose weight immediately. You may think that is good though your weight loss is only water. Most fad diets do this knowing that people want to see instant results on the scale and cutting carbs can 5-15 pounds of water out with in a week. Because of poor diet habits and too much consumption of caffeine drinks, it is estimated that 75% of Americans are in a constant state of dehydration. Which means for the average American who adds carbs back to their diet they may gain 5 pounds of just water back right away. This healthy and their bodies were unhealthy everyday from a lack of later. If you cut carbs it doesn't matter how much water you drink, you don't have the carbs to absorb it. Low carb diets that drink a lot of water go to the bathroom more often.


Find personal trainer, fitness, and nutrition information you are seaching for at LiveLeanToday.com. LiveLeanToday.com has a full library of diet, exercise, and supplement information.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Understand Your Metabolism and Unlock Your Weight Loss Results

Have you ever seen an ad for the next latest and greatest weight loss program or diet pill, only to see in fine print that this person also ate a balanced diet and did regular exercise? The other common complaint all the time is "I workout hard everyday and I don't lose a pound." Does this sound like you? The key to achieving health weight loss and keeping it off for a lifetime is understanding your metabolism.

When you think about weight loss you want to think in terms of a diet fitness program. The problem many people do is they only focus on one aspect which leaves them always falling short of their goals.

What is metabolism any way?

Your metabolism doesn't have to be confusing. Let's break your metabolism down in to two aspects. First, is your body's ability to break down food that you eat and convert it into energy or store it. You can store fat in your fat cells though you do store carbohydrates in your muscle cells to be used as energy later. The second is the rate at which your body produces energy, or do you have a fast or slow metabolism? The other key part to your metabolism is what you are burning for energy.

Your metabolism wants small amounts of food at regular intervals throughout the day. Typically every 2-3 hours is a good time to eat. This isn't eating the average American meal 5 times a day, more cutting your meal in half and eating that amount throughout the day. When we go longer than 3 hours between meals are body starts to store the food we do eat as fat, and can burn away muscle tissue for energy instead of using your food. When you eat 5 small meals a day you train your body to use fat as your main fuel source. A proper metabolism burns 70% fat as its main source of energy all day long. Just think while you are working sitting at your chair you are burning fat.

It is through exercise that we raise our metabolism up. The amount of calories we burn is not as important as the rate at which we burn calories. If burning 3500 calories worked than all the walkers at the gym would be the thinnest people. You typically see runners much thinner than walkers and that is because running burns calories at a greater rate and raises up your metabolism. You burn more calories by raising up your metabolism the entire day than you can in any workout.

Cardio interval training is considered one of the best ways of raising up your metabolism. Interval training is short burst of high intensity follow by short durations of low intensity and then repeated. People after doing an interval workout burn more fat as a source of energy for the entire day after than any other form of cardio. You only want to do one interval workout per week as over doing it creates over training and a drop in results.

Combining exercise and eating 5 small meals and you will unlock your weight loss potential. This not only the fastest ways to lose weight these habits work for the rest of your life to have more energy and keep the fat off your body.


Find personal trainer the fitness and nutrition information you are seaching for at LiveLeanToday.com. LiveLeanToday.com has a full library of diet, exercise, and supplement information.