Lose The Fat

It's important to firstly understand that the body you want will not come overnight. Think, how long did it take you to get to where you are now? Chances are this has happened over many years and gradually crept up on you.
Don't dispair it won't take years to lose it, however it also will not drop off in weeks like some diets claim.
You will have an initial burst of weight loss but this will mostly be water weight due to the change in your lifestyle and maybe a loss in lean muscle mass depending on which diet you have tried in the past. By using the tools at MyBodyCalc you can eat what you want as long as you keep within the total calories required and keep to the correct ratios of Protein > Carbs > Fats.

All this work is done for you, all you need to do is add the foods you have eaten from our extensive database and also add any cardio work you have done for the day.
The more you exercise, the more you can eat. It's that simple.So now you know you have a basic understanding of how and why we get fat, lets take a look at how you lose it. We will first cover the obvious which is burn off more calories than you eat.

In VS Out

Food in versus calories out, in other words if the calories from your food you ingest are greater than the calories you burn off then you will gain weight, and the same follows if you burn more than you take in, you will lose weight. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong.
If all you want to achieve is lose pounds off the bathroom scales then to a certain extent this route would work for you. But we want to lose fat.

Burn the fat

You've all heard the expression Burn the fat, Well thats exactly what you have to do in order to lose your excess fat. It has to be burned off, in other words you must perform your chosen excersise in a way that raises your heart rate enough to start burning the calories from fat as opposed to carbs or protein. Only then will you start to see astonishing results from your work. Your optimal heart rate for fatloss is worked out by subtracting your age from 220 for males or 226 for females, this is your maximum heart rate, the optimal fat burning zone is 60-70% of this. Another good rule of thumb when trying to find your fat burning zone is to use the talk test. If you can't talk during excersise then your working too hard, if you find it extremely easy to talk during your excersise then your not working hard enough.

BMR

BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. A calculation used to determine the amount of calories you need per day in order to keep at your current weight. This calculation is based on Sex, Height, Weight, Age and activity level. The first stage in using our tools is calculate your BMR. We then alter your calorific needs by a pre-determined rate and this is the number of calories you will see. From then on everything you eat is taken from this number and every cardiovascular exercise you do is added to this number.

It's important to weigh yourself once a week and update your weight in your profile, that way we can adjust your calorie needs accordingly.

Ratios

Ratios of Protein > Carbs > Fats are also an important part of helping you achieve your goals. We advocate you take 30% Calories from Protein, 40% Calories from Carbs and 30% from Fats. This would be your default setting, however since we are all different, if you have found a better ratio for you then you can always override this.

Foods

Choose the foods you eat wisely.

For protein a general rule of thumb is white meat, fish, eggs, beans, pulses and lentils.

For carbs try switching your white carbs i.e. bread, pasta and rice into the brown wholemeal version.

And finally fats, Fatty fish, Nuts, Peanut Butter, Olive Oil, Avacados and Sunflower Oil to name a few.

Above is only intended to give you a general idea, It is in your interest to do a little research on the foods you choose to eat. It's the only way you will succeed in creating your perfect diet while staying happy doing it.

Use the mirror, not the scales

To truley measure your results, the scales can be your worst enemy. The scales could tell you that you lost a stone in a week but the mirror can tell you that the stone you lost was mostly muscle mass and water, not fat.

The purpose of this site isn't to help you shed the pounds but to shed the fat. We can all go around telling our friends we have lost this much and that much but to truley appreciate the work and effort you are going through to get your perfect body what we want is to give our friends the WOW factor.

With what you have learned so far, lets move on to some must do's in order to get that body you have always dreamed of.

Never skip breakfast

The word Breakfast literally means Break Fast In other words, you have been asleep for eight hours or so and therefore Fasting.
It is the first meal of the day and more importantly it is the meal that will kickstart your metabolism. Failing to eat this important meal will put your body into what is called Starvation Mode Your body won't know when it is going to get some food to turn into energy from, and will start the process of holding onto your fat stores while in turn breaking down muscle stores to turn into useable energy. So grab your favourite cereal or a few slices of wholemeal toast and kickstart your metabolism.

Drink plenty of water

Drink at least six glasses of water per day, drink a glass of water before each meal and you will feel less hungry, it also has the added benefit of transporting all your nutrients around your body keeping you healthy and hydrated.

Eat little and often

Try to aim for six smaller meals per day. This is because your metabolism will keep on racing right through to bedtime.

Glycemic Index Chart

The glycemic index, or glycaemic index, (GI) provides a measure of how quickly blood sugar levels (i.e., levels of glucose in the blood) rise after eating a particular type of food. The effects that different foods have on blood sugar levels vary considerably. The glycemic index estimates how much each gram of available carbohydrate (total carbohydrate minus fiber) in a food raises a person's blood glucose level following consumption of the food, relative to consumption of pure glucose. Glucose has a glycemic index of 100.

Basically, the lower the GI number, the better the food is at helping you achieve your goals. View a copy of the chart Here Opens in a new window.

Finally Exercise

Now your diet is hopefully in order its time to get your body moving. It's a personal choice how you choose to exercise. You may prefer running out in the open, Using the treadmill at your local gym or a trip down to the swimming baths. When you use our tools at MyBodyCalc it couldn't be simpler to work out the calories you have burned for the day, Simply search our database of exercises, enter the time spent doing that exercise and we do the rest. It really is that simple