The science of losing body fat and performing at your best
If you don’t eat regular, then you will slow down the body fat burning process.
This happens because you put your body into starvation mode, meaning your body is likely to hang on to body fat, and start to eat into the lean muscle you have built up on your body, which further slows down your metabolism.
One pound of muscle tissue burns 35-50 calories a day, one pound of fat burns around 2, so you can see how leaner more muscular individuals stay lean, and overweight individuals stay that way until they start to exercise enough, weight train and not eat in excess of what they need.
No food lasts fully in your system for more than 4 hours, so if you eat every 3-4 hours, you will keep your energy supply constant, and this will also stop your blood sugar dropping, which means that you will not go hungry and not have the hunger pangs that will make you pig out on foods you don’t normally eat, or make you overeat in any one particular meal.
So if you’re eating breakfast, this is a vital start to kick off your metabolism for the day. If you don’t, then your body will stay in starvation mode and slow down your metabolism (the rate your body burns calories each day).
So its weetabix, shredded wheat, or porridge best of all for your start to the day with no sugar, use dried fruit as a sweetener.
You can have eggs on wholemeal toast with no butter. As you get rid of your sweet tooth, you will soon be able to try egg whites, which mean you avoid the saturated fat of the yolk. Whole eggs are still fine though.
Try a mid-morning snack 3 hours later with one or two pieces of fruit perfect to keep energy supplies good, or try some cottage cheese (onion and chives flavoured as an example) on one piece of wholemeal toast.
Lunch would be chicken/turkey/lean beef or any fish as long as its not in sauce or battered. Try and include vegetables with lunch and a good carbohydrate source such as brown rice, wholegrain pasta or new/sweet potatoes.
If you have a packed lunch, use pitta breads with the protein sources (chicken/turkey/lean beef), or wholemeal bread with little or no butter.
Another alternative would be a Tupperware box with wholegrain pasta and a protein that stretches over a couple of meal times, so you make more than normal that will last you. This would be perfect when you are at work and you have little time to eat, so you can eat every 3 hours as you work, put some vegetables such as tomatoes in there to give it some nice flavour.
If you don’t then you will likely binge when you get home and overeat when you hit the fridge, whilst waiting for your main meal.
Plus if you don’t eat regular, your workout energy will be non-existent and your workout performance really low.
Make sure you have a mid-afternoon snack, this keeps you energy supplies high, and again makes sure you don’t develop massive hunger pangs that can destroy your good intentions later on.
Your evening meal will be similar to the lunch choices I discussed earlier, I can never over-emphasise the importance of vegetables in one’s diet to keep your health right at its higher levels.
Try not to eat late if possible, but the mid-morning snacks would be wise choices if you are working late. If you have followed what I have said, you will not need to eat late anyway, because you would have eaten several times in the day by then anyway.
Try and drink 1.5-2 litres each day to keep you fully hydrated, keep your performances at optimum levels and keep burning body fat at your maximum rate.
Keri Mckibbin Personal Training-tel 07968 980808
