Burning fat: A technical guide

This article focuses on the technical aspects of losing fat and creating maximum changes to your body composition over a short period of time.

There are several reasons why someone may want to become stricter about their fat loss goals for a short period of time. When first starting a fat loss program performing a quick 'sprint' to begin losing fat can be motivational and help sustain the change by providing more immediate results. Often those embarking on a weight loss journey encounter plateaus and require a change in strategy to move past those obstacles. Finally, and most often, you may find after losing a large amount of weight that those last few kilograms are the most stubborn and difficult to shed.

Technically, losing fat is simply about consuming fewer calories than are expended. Practically, however, it is more complex. There are many mechanisms at work that can interfere with steady fat loss. Understanding these and how to overcome them is the key to success.

The two major obstacles to consistent fat loss are:

1. Metabolic slowdown - people often find that prolonged periods of restricted nutrition result in a slower metabolic rate, meaning they burn fewer calories at rest and therefore have a harder time shedding fat

2. Overtraining - trying too hard to burn calories through exercise can lead to overuse syndrome, adrenal fatigue, and physical injury

The calories you burn each day are a combination of your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and the activities you engage in. An average BMR may range from 1600 - 2000 calories while an average exercise session may expend an additional 200 - 600 calories. It is obvious that the greatest contribution to calories over time is basic metabolism. Therefore, your training and nutrition should be designed to maximize your metabolic rate.

Here are a few strategies to maximize the process of burning fat:

Zigzag Your Calories

If you begin consuming only 1400 calories per day, your body will quickly adapt through a mechanism called homeostasis and slow its metabolic rate. To avoid this, adapt a strategy known as zigzagging calories. The zigzag approach is straightforward. You start at a higher calorie level and ramp calories down, then start over again. Here is an example zigzag schedule:

Week 1: 1600 calories per day
Week 2: 1500 calories per day
Week 3: 1400 calories per day
Week 4: 1600 calories per day
Week 5: 1500 calories per day

The zigzag slowly drops calories each week to cope with the metabolic slowdown. The fourth week then reintroduces a higher level of calories to allow the body to reset back to a higher metabolic rate. The average over time is still a caloric deficit, but changing the calories from week to week helps keep homeostasis in check.

Consume the Right Foods

Your body must expend calories to digest foods. This is known as the thermic effect of food. In addition, certain foods have been shown to increase overall metabolism. The food that requires the most energy to digest is protein. The food that appears to have a positive impact on overall metabolic rate is omega-3 fatty acids. Therefore, a diet that has a higher ratio of calories from proteins and omega-3 fatty acids may help elevate your metabolism and improve your ability to burn fat.

Vegetables, which are rich in nutrients and fiber, also may increase your metabolic rate. For both health and metabolic reasons, it makes sense to include an abundance of leafy green vegetables in your nutrition program. This may also help stave off hunger.

Build Muscle

Muscle is metabolically active tissue. It requires more calories for the body to maintain a kilogram of muscle mass than it does to maintain a kilogram of fat tissue. For this reason, most effective fat loss programs include some form of resistance training to help maintain and possibly gain muscle tissue.

Open an Account with the Oxygen Bank

It is well known that aerobic exercise burns a high percentage of calories from fat. However, it does not burn as many calories overall as other activities. The body also recovers quickly from light aerobic activity.

Intense training including resistance training and high intensity cardiovascular exercise (such as hill training or sprints) burns a high amount of calories during the activity. More importantly, the intense activity creates what is known as an oxygen debt. The body's processes that are used to generate energy create a greater need to burn oxygen (and fat) as fuel. This causes the body to have an elevated metabolic rate for more than 24 hours after the event is complete as it expends energy to recover from the workout. This effect, referred to as Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen consumption (EPOC) not only helps burn more calories even while you are recovering, but some studies suggest has a greater impact on subcutaneous fat (fat beneath the skin - the visible fat you are trying to get rid of) than other forms of exercise.

Putting it All Together

The strategies outlined in this article address the issue of metabolic slowdown during phases of fat loss. What about the risk of overtraining and injury? This is easily addressed by employing theses strategies in an intelligent fashion. Here are a few tips to put it all together:

1. Zigzag your calories but don't overdo the exercise when you calories are lower. Always take a quality multivitamin to make up for any deficiencies you may encounter due to consuming fewer calories.

2. Adequate protein and healthy fats will not only help your metabolism, but will also improve your recovery. Exercise damages amino acids and protein helps replace them.

3. Consume large quantities of leafy green vegetables. These foods are dense with nutrients but light in calories.

4. Building muscle is important but don't overdo it. Take advantage of EPOC by engaging in short, intense training sessions. If you have to burn additional calories, allow your body to 'actively recover' by adding light cardio later in the day.

5. Just as you have a week with higher calories when you zigzag your nutrition, build in a week where you perform less activity from exercise. This method, known as active recovery, can help you avoid injury and gives your body the break it deserves every few weeks or months.

With the right fat loss strategy in place, you'll be well on your way to discarding those last unwanted kilograms of fat.