HOW TO LOSE FAT WITHOUT LOSING MUSCLE: A COMPLETE GUIDE

How to lose weight  or fat and not muscle: A complete guide

Well you often hear people saying they want to lose weight or they want to lose fat. However, both terms have same meaning that is they want to lose fat as none of us certainly want to lose muscle. I am a strong believer that without doing hours of your own personal research and education it can be next to impossible to ever get to the bottom of information that is thrown at us. In this article, I shall try to give you “what to do and why to do” version of weight loss or fat loss. This article will offer you some important suggestions to lose fat and build a retain amount of muscle mass. Well you won’t need a Ph.D. in exercise physiology or chemistry to understand this either. However, losing actual body fat takes longer, because the only way to burn excess body fat is to create a calorie deficit and that can be much trickier that it sounds.

Here are a few things to consider when weight loss (fat) is your primary goal while retaining muscle:

1. Be in calorie deficit:

The process of gaining muscle or losing weight/fat is solely depend on the factor that how many calories you consume per day to the number you burn per day. If you wish to lose fat then your calories intake must be lower than what you are burning and vice-versa in muscle gaining phase.

     There are two ways to create a caloric deficit. You can either eat fewer calories or you can eat the same amount of calories and increase your activity level to burn more calories. Since we're looking for fat loss without muscle loss, that activity should focus primarily on strength training and less cardio training.

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So, for successfully losing fat without losing muscle you need to be in a calorie deficit and you need to emphasize on strength training over cardio when you're in such a deficit in order to maintain your muscle, which, is what gives you that sexy and athletic shape.

       Last, it's important to note that just because you need to create a caloric deficit doesn’t mean that you have to starve yourself or eat an incredibly low calorie diet as was used in the study discuss above, which involved obese individuals. So the goal in order to achieve fat loss without muscle loss, is to be in a caloric deficit without starving yourself, make sure that your diet delivers plenty of protein and focus your exercise efforts on performing regular strength training.

2. Include fasted cardio in the morning:

         Fasted cardio in the morning is optimal because the body is in catabolic state, insulin levels are bottomed out, hormone sensitive lipase (the fat cell releasing enzyme) is fully active while lipoprotein lipase (the fat storage enzyme) is dormant. GH is still coming off its overnight high, a major fat burning hormone. At this time there is less glucose in your blood stream to be burned, vs. after having just ate a meal, leaving fats as the go-to substrate. Keep the session under 45 minutes.

3. Drink water before meal

          Water is an appetite suppressant, drinking it before meals can make you feel fuller, therefore reducing the amount of food you eat. Preload 16 ounces of water 30 minutes before meal. You have heard the benefits of drinking warm water first in the morning helps in losing weight. Moreover, you can replace calorie filled drinks with water if you feel water tastes boring just add a slice of lemon. A glass of warm water with a slice of lemon is one of the best recipe for weight loss.

3. Track your Carbohydrates:

When in a calorie deficit, you must consume less calories from carbs sources as they are considered as fuel for the body hence you cannot completely neglect or remove carbs from your diet. In simple words don’t consume when you don't need them! The best times to give yourself larger portions of carbs is when you first wake up and before and after workouts, as you can be sure it will be put to use and be burned off, not stored as fat. However, if required consume no more than 25-35 grams in other meals if you must have more carbs based on your job and or lifestyle and even then, make them high fiber vegetable based carbs. Give yourself the proper carbohydrate fuel to get the day started, get through a workout and the carbs to recover from the workout, that's it. However you should stay away from trace carbs or sources like starches, sugar, sodas etc.

4. Don't starve yourself:

     Letting you starving causes loops to enter the diet; you get impatient and look for anything to eat. It's human nature when you feel starved. Even if it's the right thing to eat, you end up eating way too much of it. Eat often enough to stay full even if it's lots of veggies and water.

5. Eat Citrus Fruits:

      Eat citrus fruits if you must eat fruits as they are acidic and raise insulin less than most typical fruits (exception of pineapple). Plus they contain flavonoids such as naringin, found in oranges and more so in grapefruit which also help with fat loss by extending caffeine's effects. Do not eat grapefruit with prescription meds as it may have negative side effects. Kiwi, mango and strawberries also fit the bill as good citrus fruits. 

7. Protein Before Bed:

      Around 45 to 60 minutes before bed, eat casein protein whether in the form of powder or cottage cheese (2% fat or less) to fight late night hunger cravings; its void of sugar, low carb (lactose) and high protein, plus its got calcium which can help you sleep. Your body does not just turn off your digestive system at night. If calories are controlled during the day and exercise is intense enough, you will process and use foods like this even at night.

8. Weight Training to retain Muscle:

Maintain some form of weight training at least 3-5 times a week or your body won't have a single reason to hold lean muscle, it will burn muscle faster than the recession is burning away at the stock market, even more so if you're doing substantial amounts of cardio each week. Do some compound movements like squats, deadlifts, bench presses,etc in order to maximize your fat loss process as well as it will help in retaining muscle. However, focusing only on oo much cardio and no weights means a soft skeleton body in no time.

9. HIIT Training To break the Plateaus:

If long duration steady state cardio (45+ minute session) stops working, throw in a shorter High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 01 to 02 times in a week and go with that as a plateau buster.

10.    Refeed Rather Than Cheat:

      When you really feel like you're hungry all the time and weight loss is not keeping up, "refeeds" are far more effective then cheat meals or cheat days at kick starting your metabolism. However, those reefed days does not mean to consume lots of junk or empty calories. Refeeds are just a single very high carb meal of slow and medium digesting carbs.

11.    Pop some vitamin D

                           In the busy lifestyle and hours of job sitting at a place leads  to people deficient Of Vitamin D cause lot of health issues. This vitamin itself has number of health benefits including fat loss. Supplementing vitamin D daily may help you drop pounds. Research suggested that vitamin D appears to boost the effectiveness of leptin, a hormone that signals the brain that you're full. Because it's difficult to get D from food, Shalamar Sibley, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at the university, says you may need to take a vitamin D3 supplement. 

12. Add Caffeine

               Caffeine is a substance commonly found in coffee, green tea and cocoa beans. It’s also a popular ingredient in commercial fat-burning  Supplements and for good reason. It can help boost your metabolism and help your body burn more fat. Research shows that caffeine can temporarily boost your metabolism by up to 16% over one to two hours. In addition, several studies have shown that caffeine can help your body burn more fat as fuel. However, this effect appears to be stronger in lean people than obese people. Unfortunately, consuming caffeine too often could make your body more tolerant to its effects. To reap the benefits of caffeine, you don’t need to take a supplement.Simply try drinking a few cups of strong coffee, which is an excellent source of caffeine with many health benefits.

13. Sip green tea

This healthy brew acts like a diet drug in a mug, but without the negative side effects. A review of studies concluded that regularly sipping green tea can help you drop pounds. This weight loss is the result of EGCG, a compound known to reduce fat absorption. Experts say that drinking three to five cups of the regular or decaf variety every day may help you lose weight.

Conclusion

         These rules only work when adhered to in the strictest sense. If you give the rules 100% compliance you will get 100% of the effect. If you give a sad effort then you get sad results. I don't mean to be blunt but I do mean to be honest and straight forward. Results only come to those who do what it takes to get them, not to those who look for short cuts and magic pills.