Slimming Lib

Welcome to the first installment of Fat Loss Secrets! So many people ask, “Do I HAVE to count calories to lose fat ?” Well, you don’t HAVE to, but in order to lose fat efficiently, consistently, and to minimize muscle loss, you must keep track of calories!

This installment of Fat Loss Secrets will shed some knowledge of the importance of calories - what they are, why it is vital to keep track of them, and how to determine your daily calorie needs in order to burn fat while keeping your hard-earned muscle!

Put simply, a calorie is a unit of energy used by the body to perform its necessary functions.

In a nutritional sense, calories come from the foods we ingest. When our bodies break down and digest this food, it uses the energy stored in the food (calories) to perform the daily functions necessary for life (metabolic functions). Such functions include everything we do - breathing, walking, exercising, digesting….basically any energy-requiring function that we engage in.

Now that you understand what a calorie is, it is time to apply it to fat loss. There are a lot of fat loss secrets you may read about that promise success, but you will not get far until you realize the importance of caloric intake for fat loss.

You may be familiar with the “calories in versus calories out” idea. This idea states that:

In order to lose weight , you must consume less calories than you burn, and.. In order to gain weight, you must consume more calories than you burn

This is the basic, underlying concept to fat loss. Though it is not really one of the fat loss secrets, it is definitely an idea you must accept in order to complete the fat loss puzzle.

Do you now see why it is important to keep track of your caloric intake in order to be successful? If you fail to do this, you will have no way of knowing if you are eating too much or too little.

Right now you may be thinking, “Well if I starve myself or eat very little then I don’t have to count calories because I know I am consuming less calories than I burn!”

This is a horrible way to think! You see, the “calories in versus calories out” concept applies to overall WEIGHT loss, not fat loss only. If you starve yourself, you may lose some fat, but you will also be sure to lose muscle mass and water . And for optimal fat loss you MUST hold onto as much muscle as possible and stay hydrated.

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. This means that the mere presence of muscle in the body requires energy (in the form of expended calories) to retain. So the more muscle you have and hold onto, the higher your metabolism be, which means the more calories you will burn (even at rest!), and the more fat you will lose!

Put simply: more muscle=more fat loss.

So it’s time to reveal some fat loss secrets!

The key fat loss secret in terms of caloric intake is to adjust your calories at a minimal daily caloric deficit. A daily caloric deficit means that you burn more calories per day than you consume. Likewise, a daily caloric surplus means that you consume more calories per day than you burn.

The idea behind a minimal deficit is that it enables us to burn fat while keeping most, if not all of our hard earned muscle! And by now it is no secret that we must hang onto our muscle in order to keep losing fat steadily and efficiently.

So, you must determine your daily calorie needs based on your own Basal Metabolic Rate(BMR) and Activity Level.

A good starting caloric deficit for fat loss with minimal muscle loss is a 15% defecit. This means that you subtract 15% from your adjusted caloric intake based on BMR and Activity Level.

Thanks for reading this edition of Fat Loss Secrets! Check back soon for more.

Timothy Adams is a natural bodybuilder and freelance writer. If you would like to learn how to determine your daily calorie needs based on YOUR individual body, Click Here to find out MUCH more!

Timothy Adams

Posted by sbalu, on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 6:13 am , under Slimming Tips . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.