Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

Like most people, one of your primary fitness goals is probably to reduce your body fat. There are easy ways to decrease body fat and there are also things that stop the process cold in it’s tracks. It really isn’t that complicated. You don’t have to train like a bodybuilder to get good results, all you have to do is study their fat-burning methods. You don’t need to take performance enhancing drugs or spend 10 hours a day on the treadmill to control body fat - you just need to understand how the body works. Knowledge is power!

Tell Me About Body Fat

Your body produces and stores fat for times of extreme hunger or starvation. Fat is also an essential and required component of the body for it to function correctly, but most of us carry around far more than we need. There are no health risks to having healthy/low body fat while there are dozens of serious health risks to having too much of it. So what stops you from losing that spare tire? Here are the top three things that prevent you from losing excess body fat:

• Alcohol - Consuming alcohol, except in extreme moderation, will stop every good effort you make to lose fat. There is a simple reason for this and it isn’t the calories in the booze itself. It’s called the ‘cortisol connection.’ Cortisol is a hormone produced when your body registers any sort of stress signal. One of the things cortisol does is it tells the body to store fat for the lean times that may be coming. Alcohol is a poison and creates a flood of cortisol into your bloodstream. Your body doesn’t care if you’re sipping fine Cognac or swilling cheap beer. It’s still poison as far as it’s concerned. Do you dream of a six-pack stomach or a six-pack of cold beer? It’s up to you to decide, but you can’t have both.
• Fasting or Dieting - If your goal is to burn fat, starving yourself will accomplish exactly the opposite of that goal. You will lose weight but most of that weight will be muscle, not fat. The reason again, is cortisol. If you skip meals or eat irregularly, cortisol will be released every time your body gets hungry. Your body then does everything it can to hold onto it’s fat stores, even if it means burning muscle tissue for fuel. Do not diet, and do not skip meals - diets don’t work! At best, you’ll end up skinny and flabby - not a great combo. The most important meal of the day is breakfast. Cortisol levels are highest in the morning because you’ve been fasting all night during sleep. You must eat a good meal as soon as you wake up, to get your cortisol levels down. A bodybuilder getting ready for a competition will eat full meals every 2 hours to encourage fat loss. Some will even wake in the middle of the night to get an extra meal in!
• Fatigue - The third trigger for cortisol is sleep deprivation. If you aren’t getting enough rest, cortisol will be released in response to that stress trigger. It’s really important to get enough quality sleep every night if you want a healthy mind and body. If you can manage it, take a nap during the day.

The Bathroom Scale Lies

Most people who are on a workout program think that the only measure of success, is weight loss. Woman are especially prone to this idea. Please drill this into your head: WEIGHT IS NOT IMPORTANT. What is important is how much muscle you have in ratio to fat. If you begin going to the gym and you’re 185 pounds and you’re goal is to lose 20 pounds of fat, that’s okay. Just know that if you’re exercising, and following my other three suggestions, then you will gain muscle. Your goal should not be an ideal weight but an ideal shape and fitness level. It’s very easy to lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 20 pounds of muscle in a reasonable period of time, but you’ll still weigh 185 pounds. It doesn’t matter when you look and feel great.

These are the things that stop you from losing fat, even if you exercise regularly. Tomorrow’s article will cover a powerful training method to eliminate body fat…