When most people decide that they want to lose weight, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat. The same applies to people who say they don't want to lose weight, but just want to look "more toned". Think about it -- what's a more toned body, if it's not one with less fat, and more muscle? Now, although many people (women especially) shy away from the idea of building muscle, the fact is that more muscle is essential for anyone wanting a leaner, healthier looking body. The problem is, losing fat and building muscle at the same time isn't easy.

Although there are numerous factors affecting the rate at which you build muscle and lose fat, the reason why losing fat and building muscle at the same time is so difficult is because of the different demands they impose on your body.

There are many opinions on how to loose fat. Often however within all the confusing and often conflicting information it is difficult to see the wood from the trees. So, before trying the latest fat loss supplement, fad diet or training aid - make sure you master the fundamentals first - in the long run it will save you a lot of time and money...

Don't Get Caught Up In Details - Mastering the Fundamentals is the greatest investment you can make in yourself.

Calorie Deficit + High Protein + Structured Training = Maximum Fat Loss & Muscle Preservation

1) Calorie Deficit - The only consistent way to loose weight is to have a calorie deficit (i.e. burn more calories than you consume).

2) Calorie Deficit & Fat/Muscle Breakdown - The body corrects the calorie deficit by breaking down fat and muscle reserves (both of which are considered stored forms of energy). As bodybuilders, we are only interested in loosing fat, and keeping as muscle as possible.

3) Nutrition and the Ratio of Fat To Muscle Breakdown - The problem is that you can never loose ONLY fat whilst dieting, muscle catabolism is inevitable. Good nutrition and exercise is the key for ensuring that your body burns the maximum amount of fat for every bit of muscle burnt.

4) Macronutrients & Training - What has been known in irondom since the ancient greeks is that selective variation of the macronutrients (i.e. Low Carbs, High Protein and Low/Moderate Fats) combined with an effective resistance and aerobic exercise program is the best method for ensuring maximum fat loss and muscle preservation whilst in a calorie deficit.

5) Quality and Frequency of Macronutrient Intake - If in a calorie deficit, it is all the more crucial that you are strict with your diet. Once your body goes into 'starvation mode' - it is an uphill struggle to shift that fat!! The essentials are to split calorie intake over 5-6 small but frequent meals, keep fat intake low but quality high, eat natural foods - avoiding processed & refined foods, eat more natural complex carbs, lots of fruits & vegetables, and eat lean proteins with each meal. By controlling and manipulating the quality and quantity of your macronutrient intake you will find your fat loss efforts being significantly accelerated.

5) Building Muscle - For the time lets not confuse the issue, this article is just about fat loss - whilst holding onto as much muscle as possible. Of course the underlying human physiology and principles are still the same as for when we want to add more muscle, however the training and dieting strategy is sufficiently distinct. Hence building muscle warrants a separate article.

Its time to get back to basics boys and girls. You DON'T NEED 100's of different diets, 6000 different ways to do cardio, a multitude of supposedly optimal training strategies and a wagon full of supplements to loose weight. All you need is one thing - A CALORIE DEFICIT.

Think of the body as a huge steam engine, kind of like the 'Royal Scotsman'. The furnace of the steam engine is where we burn the coal to keep the engine running. Your body has a furnace too, but instead of burning coal, it burns food.

The result of burning either coal or food is a chemical conversion from potential stored energy to raw 'active energy'. This active energy is the form that is used by our bodies to do useful work, such as repairing skin and hair cells, fighting infection, walking, and muscle repair and building. Without going into detail, the basic point to realise here is that each body requires a certain amount of energy to function, and if we don't provide the body with enough energy when it needs it, it won't be unable to do all the work that we need it to do. This energy requirement is known as the Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR for short.

In periods of calorie restriction our body doesn't just stop functioning - this is against our very genetic code. The bodies first priority under ANY circumstance is preservation and sustainance of life. There are many ways that it quickly adjusts to the calorie deficit allowing 'life-essential' work (e.g. 1000's of essential processes incl. respiration, repair of skin/hair cells, fighting of infection) to continue.

1) Adjustment of the BMR - the body works to lower its basal metabolic rate so that it is in line with the expected caloric intake - and hence not as much energy is needed as before to perform its essential operations. The BMR is reduced by selectively slowing down repair and development processes. Muscle hypertrophy (increase in the number of fibres), and to a lesser extent repair of damaged muscle tissue, are lower priority process and hence are significantly affected in periods of calorie restriction - that is why it is so hard to build muscle when your calories are too low. On the other hand, it is also worth noting that when the calorie intake exceeds the energy requirement, i.e. the BMR, then although there is a favourable environment for development of new muscle, any calorie surplus beyond that which the body uses is converted and driven into our fat reserves for later re-use in periods of calorie restriction.

2) Tapping of Stored Energy Reserves - Fat is the bodies primary stored energy reserve. Millions of years of human evolution and natural selection have resulted in the ability to store and use fat as a reserve form of energy. It taps into these fat reserves when food (and hence input calories) are scarce. However, as well as fat, which the body breaks down and handles quite efficiently - muscle is also considered a reserve form of energy. Often when the body requires energy it takes from both stores, the ratio depending on a number of factors such as diet, exercise, body temperature and exercise intensity.

In essence by controlling our diet and exercise program, we can control whether we gain or loose weight and also what proportion of weight gain/loss is in the form of muscle/fat. However regardless of the details the fundamental basis for weight management is in carefully controlled calorie manipulation.

The amount of calories or 'stored energy' in food can be determined from the make up of its macronutrients (i.e. carbs, protein and fat). Each macronutrient, has a specific 'energy weight' - which we refer to as its calorie content. It is the sum of these macronutrient calorie contents that determines how many calories the food contains.

So for a portion of food that has 20g carbs, 10g protein and 5g fat would mean that there are 165kcal (165 calories) contained therein. It is the case that different foods have different characteristics, some have high protein and low fat, some have high carbs and high fat and so on... To balance and control your diet it is essential that you are able to appreciate the quality and quantity of each macronutrient that you are puttig into yourself.

For a comprehensive list of foods along with their macronutrient breakdown, see:

Example Meal Plan 1 - This is an example of calorie control for a male aged between 25-40. He is looking for a balanced healthy diet with a little loss of fat. His bodyweight 180lbs and expected BMR is 2700 calories (calculated from ####). He decides to go with a moderate calorie deficit of 700 calories combined with a balanced program of 35% calories from protein, 35% from Carbs and 30% from Fat. This should ensure steady loss of fat along with good preservation of muscle tissue.

		PROT	CARB	FAT	CAL
Meal 1	·MET-Rx MRP · Frozen fruit - 250 grams (8.8 ounces)	44g	42 g	3g	375
Meal 2	Wholegrain bread - 4 slices· Canned tuna (packed in water) 100 g	40g	46g	5g	372
Meal 3	Baked potato - 300g· Cheddar cheese (reduced fat) - 50 g· Butter- 10 g	22g	47g	16g	422
Meal 4	2 small tortilla wraps· Skinless chicken breast (pre-cooked weight) -130 g· Hazelnuts - 20 g	36g	32g	20g	454 ·
Meal 5	Lightly grilled salmon fillet (pre-cooked weight) -130g· Mixed vegetables - 250 g · Extra virgin olive oil - 10 ml	29	18	25	419

	TOTAL	171g	184g	69g	2041
	Total % Calories	684/2041 =34%	736/2041 =36%	621/2041 =30%

The diet is for slow consistent fat loss and muscle preservation and should be adjusted depending on your goals. For example for quicker fat loss, we would keep the calories constant (if we go too low we will start loosing muscle), and increase protein to say 300g whilst decreasing carbs and fat accordingly.

The bottom line Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect your diet to contain the "perfect" blend of nutrients every single day. However, combine a diet that provides a suitable number of calories with the right balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat for your plan and - together with a suitable exercise plan - you'll be able to shed those uncesseary pounds while avoiding the loss of muscle that plagues virtually everyone who tries to lose weight.

Use the nutritional resources mentioned to design your own meal plan, or for some more example meal plans (for someone wishing to drop fat whilst preserving muscle) click here.

The concept of BMR - basal metabolic rate is your furnaces way of telling you how many calories the body needs to keep moving. The body calculates its BMR depending on how much lean muscle mass it has, its expected level of activity and any additional requirements from other demands placed on it (e.g. illness or injury).

Once your body begins to feel that this calorie requirement will not be met, it goes into something called panic or 'starvation' mode.

Your bodies first priority is to keep your engine running, at ALL costs. In the absence of sufficient calories, it begins to panic and first resorts to tapping into its own energy reserves (enter - FAT & MUSCLE). Once this supply exhausted it then starts on cartilage and basically progresses to anything else that it can burn - eventually shutting down every process apart from your brain (which is the last thing to go). This pecking order is established and intelligently geared to ensure survival for as long as possible. This process has been experienced to a greater or lesser degree by anyone who have been through an extreme calorie deficit for a prolonged period of time.

Of course as these people will testify, it is extremely difficult to make serious inroads into your reserves - the body is just too smart to allow this to happen and as soon as it detects starvation will begin to optimise and intelligently shut down any energy consuming non-essential for life activities.

This we refer to as the period of 'calorie adaption' or BMR adjustment. ells your furnace to slow down it needs to keep it is beginning to panic. It begins to detects

the body burns calories and creates energy for all the millions of chemical reactions that are going on inside us. Sometimes these chemical reactions translate to

KNOW YOUR CALORIES The most important dietary factor in fat loss is not how many grams of carbohydrate, protein or fat you eat, the most important factor for fat loss is calories. Eat more than you burn each day and you will store fat. Eat less than you burn each day and you will lose fat. It’s just that simple. Where the calories come from is important too, but unless you understand the calorie concept, nothing else matters. I'm appalled at how many people stuck at plateau’s who claim to sincerely want to lose body fat who admit they haven't a clue how many calories they eat: “But I just count portions.” Get serious! If you don't have the faintest idea how much you're eating, how can you expect to make any progress? Did it ever occur to you that your ONLY problem might be overeating! Do you realize that too much of anything gets stored as fat? That's right - even if you're eating nothing but "natural and healthy" foods, if you eat too many of them, you're still going to get fat. Portion control, my friend, portion control! On the other hand, maybe you're under-eating and slowing down your metabolism. There's a fine line.

o diet, 34 ways to do cardio, 101 ways to lift weights and 79 supplements to take. But they still don't have a clue how to start. You stuff your brain with so much information it feels like it's going to explode, but then you never do anything about it. You're like a deer stuck in headlights. Sound familiar? I call this the "paralysis by analysis" syndrome.

While it is possible to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously, the truth is, you can't build a lot of muscle and lose a lot of fat at the same time. Rather, your chances of success are far greater when you focus on one of two goals. Lose fat while preserving muscle mass. Gain muscle while keeping your body fat levels under control.

Much of the misinformation in this area comes from magazine adverts claiming how easy it is to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously -- but only if you use their latest food supplement. For example, here are the claims from a recent advertisement for a well-known meal replacement. "In the last 28 days, I've gained an additional 9lbs of granite-hard muscle and slashed an extra 12lbs of ugly bodyfat." Is this kind of rapid "transformation" really possible? Well, one pound of fat contains roughly 3,500 calories. Twelve pounds of fat contains 42,000 calories. So, to lose 12lb of fat in 28 days, you'd need to create a daily energy deficit of 1,500 calories. To expect to gain nine pounds of muscle at the same time, is, quite frankly, ludicrous!

Fat and muscle loss as a proportion of total weight loss in subjects consuming above 1000 calories daily Initial Body Fat Muscle Loss Fat Loss 22lb (10kg) 50% 50% 66lb (30kg) 17% 83% 110lb (50kg) 15% 85% These findings illustrate just how clever your body is. Given an abundance of energy in one "depot" (such as fat), your body will draw more fuel from that area. Overweight women, for example, have been shown to burn 25% more fat than their lean counterparts during 90 minutes of exercise [3]. So, the bottom line is that the higher your initial body fat content, the more severe your diet can be. In other words, the more fat you have to start out with, the greater the caloric deficit you can sustain without worrying about losing muscle.

However, check out figure 2 again, and you'll see that once initial body fat content gets below 33lb (15kg), muscle loss in response to a low-calorie diet rises very quickly.

Starting their diet, person A creates a daily deficit of 1000 calories, leading to roughly two pounds of fat loss per week. Because they have a higher initial level of body fat, person A can afford to create a greater daily caloric deficit, without worrying about losing muscle. Person B, on the other hand, has a low initial level of body fat. As you learned earlier, it's very easy to lose muscle if you create a large caloric deficit with such a low body fat percentage. Conversely, a more moderate daily caloric deficit of 400 calories allows person B to lose roughly three-quarters of a pound of fat per week, while preserving as much muscle tissue as possible.

It's is a common misconception that beginners seeking fat loss should start with aerobics and lose the fat first before adding weight training. Unfortunately, the best you can hope for from diet and aerobics alone is to become a "skinny fat person." You may lose weight, but you'll have a poor muscle to fat ratio and a "soft" appearance.

Obviously, weight training is the key to developing strength and muscle. Weight training is anaerobic and burns carbohydrates (sugar). Cardio is aerobic and therefore burns fat. So it seems logical to focus on aerobic training for fat loss. What few people realize is that weight training also increases fat loss, although it occurs indirectly. .

However, something interesting happens "beneath the surface" when you lift weights. Weight training increases your lean body mass - aerobic training does not. Low calorie dieting and aerobic training without weight lifting can make you lose lean body mass. If you lose lean body mass, your metabolism slows down, and this makes it harder to lose fat. If you increase your lean body mass, you increase your metabolic rate and this makes it easier to lose fat. With a faster metabolism, you'll burn more body fat all day long - even while sitting at your desk doing nothing! Don’t neglect the weight training – it’s an important piece of the fat loss puzzle.

Aerobic exercise doesn't prevent muscle loss In the real world, when most people try to lose weight, they lose muscle as well -- even when they exercise. A good example comes from a recent study performed at West Virginia University [1]. A group of twenty subjects were assigned to one of two groups for 12 weeks: Aerobic exercise combined with a low calorie diet. Resistance exercise combined with a low calorie diet. The aerobic exercise group lost muscle, as well as fat. However, muscle mass was preserved (but not increased) in subjects training with weights.

How do you choose between Stairmaster, Lifecycle, Yoga, Kickboxing, Elliptical machine, jogging, swimming, etc.? Any exercise is better than no exercise so stop over-analyzing: just pick something that you are happy with and start.

A good example of the importance of physical activity comes from a trial of overweight women taking part in a weight loss program for 18 months. Individuals averaging 280 minutes of exercise each week maintained a weight loss of almost 29 pounds. This was far greater than the 14 and 8 pound weight losses shown with 150–200 and 150 minutes of exercise per week, respectively. Moreover, individuals averaging approximately 280 minutes of exercise each week didn't gain any weight from 6 to 18 months of the study. In contrast, those exercising for only 200 minutes each week gained weight during the same period. This study shows clearly that increasing the amount of time spent exercising aids weight control, simply because the longer you spend exercising, the more calories you burn. In other words, it doesn't really matter how long you exercise, as long as you're burning a minimum number of calories each day. Of course, this minimum number will vary from person. However, members of the National Weight Control Registry, a group of people who have lost an average of over 60 pounds and kept it off for at least six years, report burning at least 2,830 calories per week — or just over 400 calories per day. Remember that this doesn't have to be in the form of structured exercise. Several short bouts of physical activity lasting just 10 minutes are equally as beneficial as one long bout.

Begin the process. You can always fine-tune your program as you go. Naturally, it's better to aim and then fire, but its better to fire and then adjust your aim later than not to fire at all. You can't win a battle by hiding in the trenches.

Fundamentals of Nutrition and Dieting

Part 1- Macronutrient Intake whilst in Calorie Deficit

This series of articles is intended to be an introduction to the essential principles behind dieting and nutrition. Whether you are a complete beginner or a more advanced bodybuilder, these principles remain the same.