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The Truth About Stubborn Body Fat (part II)
By
Tom Venuto
In
part 1, you learned that
“stubborn fat” is really a misnomer. It’s also a self-limiting belief
that turns into self-fulfilling prophecy. The truth is, when you lose
fat, you lose it all over your body and the first place you’re
genetically prone to deposit it will be the last place it comes off.
Spot reduction IS a myth. Most people simply set themselves up to hit a
plateau before the last bit of localized body fat is gone (which
explains why it appears certain areas are more “stubborn” than others).
In this second installment, you will learn exactly how to get rid of the
last bit of localized fat. It’s NOT complicated! It’s more like common
sense than anything. All it takes is a hard work ethic and a little
patience.
SIX FLAB BUSTING STRATEGIES THAT NO FAT CELLS CAN RESIST
There are six strategies you must use to lose every bit of flab - the
natural way - without plateaus, metabolic slowdown or lingering fat
pockets:
(1) LOSE FAT SLOWLY. Here’s where most of the problems begin:
Most people have no patience. How many times have you been told to lose
no more than two pounds per week? How many times have you ignored that
advice? All the time, right? The American College of Sports Medicine
told you this, your trainer told you this, your dietician told you this,
your doctor told you this, etc. Almost everyone agrees: 2.0 pounds per
week is usually the maximum rate for safe, permanent weight (fat) loss.
But few people want to listen – they’re ecstatic when the scale
registers a 5 or 7 pound weekly loss.
I advise my clients to lose 1-2 lbs per week. Naturally, most go for the
two pounds (and often ask if three is okay). Personally, I go for one
pound per week before competitions. If I lose more than one pound per
week, I eat more. Losing too much weight too quickly always causes
muscle loss, which in turn causes metabolic slowdown.
Don’t ever confuse weight loss with fat loss. You can lose weight
quickly, but you can’t lose fat quickly. If you think you can outwit
Mother Nature and you’re dead set on losing 4, 5, 10 pounds a week,
you’re going to lose fat in the beginning, but not all of it – you will
plateau before the last “fat pockets” are gone. Set your goal to lose
one or two pounds per week, but also set your goal to lose this fat
weight consistently every week. When there aren‘t any plateaus, this
really adds up over time.
2) REFEED REGULARLY– DON’T STAY ON LOW CALORIES
ALL THE TIME. I guarantee you are going to hear a LOT more about the
refeeding concept in the near future. It’s not it’s not a new idea,
however. Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield was writing about this in the late
1980’s! He called it “Zig Zag” Dieting.
“Carbing up”, “Cyclical Dieting,” “zig-zag” dieting, “re-feeding”, call
it whatever you want; to me, it’s so obvious that increasing calories
for a short periods while you’re dieting is the best way to avoid
metabolic downgrade, that I can’t see how anyone would dispute it. But
of course, die hard academics often demand concrete undisputable
scientific evidence before anything is deemed true.
I would suggest you don’t wait for such “evidence” and you begin using
this technique immediately! All you really need to understand is this
basic principle: If staying on very low calories for a long time is what
causes your metabolism to slow down… and if the metabolic slowdown is
the reason you have a difficult time losing that last bit of “stubborn”
localized fat, then it’s only logical that the way to lose the “stubborn
fat” is to avoid metabolic slowdown by not staying on low calories all
the time!
The re-feeding concept can all be boiled down to this simple advice;
just raise your calories every few days instead of staying on low
calories all the time. This is the method smart bodybuilders use to diet
all the way down to low single digit body fat and lose the last fat
pocket without hitting a single plateau.
3) DIET IN “CYCLES” OR “SEASONS” USING “NUTRITIONAL PERIODIZATION”
- CHRONIC DIETING IS DANGEROUS. Everyone knows someone who is ALWAYS on
a strict diet. Maybe you’re one of them. As paradoxical as it seems,
chronic dieting is a great way to get fatter! You see, everything in
life has a certain rhythm or seasonality to it: Winter- Summer. Tide
comes in – tide goes out. Sun goes up – sun goes down. To lose fat for
good, you have to diet in seasons. “All sunshine makes a desert.”
In sports training, a big buzzword is “periodization.” This refers to a
cyclical approach to training, so the athlete peaks at his or her best
performance level on the day of an event, or maintains optimal
performance for the duration of a season.
In periodization training, there is an off-season and an in-season.
Training continues year-round, but the programs are quite different
during these two cycles. The long major cycles are called macrocycles.
Smaller weekly and monthly cycles within the larger cycles are called
mesocycles. There are even tiny day-to-day variations in sets, reps,
poundage, intensity, duration and tempo called microcycles.
Nutrition can be periodized too, and this is another topic I predict
will become very hot in the near future. Re-feeds are like nutritional
mesocycles while the annual seasons are like nutritional macrocycles.
I’ve always claimed that the bodybuilder’s method to fat loss is the
superior one, and isn’t cyclical dieting exactly what bodybuilders do?
Don’t they diet strictly in a deficit for a period of months, then train
for muscle growth for a period of months? Doesn’t a really astute
“physique artist” cycle the calorie levels throughout the year? Of
course. That’s why bodybuilders who use this strategy are the supreme
examples of effective permanent fat loss.
Bulk too long, you gain too much fat and get completely out of fat
burning mode. Diet too long, you lose muscle and downgrade metabolism.
Cycle the two every year in a seasonal fashion, whether you compete or
not, and you have the perfect balance.
Three time Mr. Olympia Frank Zane continued to diet once a year after he
retired, exactly as if he were still going to compete. As a personal
challenge to himself, each year he continued to attempt to beat his
previous best – or at least strive to be the best he could be at any
given time of his life. Smart guy. And now in his 60’s, he has a body
that would make men half his age green with envy.
Cycle your nutrition and your training. Diet strictly at times and relax
your diet at times. Train with everything you’ve got at times, and train
to maintain at other times. Don’t listen to “experts” who constantly
warn of overtraining and say things like “daily cardio is catabolic and
unnecessary.” Daily cardio, as part of a short term fat loss cycle,
supported with the proper nutrition and weight training, is the best way
in the world to lose body fat. Of course you can do cardio daily! What
you can’t do is continue with a high volume of daily training all year
round.
There’s no such thing as a “double winter,” so why put your body through
severe dieting “weather” two seasons in a row? Diet strictly for a
while, then slowly ease back for a while... eat more… relax… then go
back at it even harder, pushing this time for an even higher peak. Be
like the athlete trying to beat last year’s record. And continue with
this approach for the rest of your life.
4) DEVELOP A LONG TERM TIME PERSPECTIVE AND SET LONG TERM GOALS.
If you have a lot of fat to lose and you want to lose it permanently,
you need to set up some long-term goals for your nutritional “seasons.”
Otherwise, your body is going to fight back.
I know dozens of people who did phenomenally well on before and after
“transformation programs,” only to quickly gain back all of the fat they
lost. Do YOU want to diet for 12 weeks, look great for a week or two
then slip right back where you started from, or do you want to get lean
and stay lean?
Here’s the reason so many people gain weight back: They only had a
12-week goal... Short-term time perspective... No long-term goals...
Failure to develop goal setting as a lifelong continuous discipline...
Failure to develop nutritional and training disciplines as habits… All
fatal errors.
Every season or "nutritional macrocycle", you must strive to improve on
your previous best by setting new goals. Goal setting is not an event;
it’s a never-ending process. Isn’t this what any world-class athlete
does? Doesn’t the Olympian strive to beat his record at the last
Olympics? Run faster, throw farther, jump higher? Doesn’t that require a
very long-term time perspective? Can’t you apply this concept in your
own training – even if its just for health, fitness and recreation?
Wouldn’t this keep you motivated for years at a time instead of just
doing ONE “12 week program” and then slipping backwards to square one?
Couldn’t this mindset for constant and never ending improvement in a
seasonal fashion keep you motivated for LIFE? Of course.
5) RE-SET YOUR SET POINT (AKA, TURN DOWN YOUR “FAT THERMOSTAT”).
When I was in college, my body fat usually hovered around 15-16%. (Yes,
I confess… I DID drink my share of beer in college). I lost the “beer
belly,” of course, dropping my fat down to the mid single digits.
However, I always seemed to slide back where I started (16% or so). It
seemed like that was a natural “set point” for me…kind of like my “fat
thermostat” had the dial locked in at 16%.
One day, I finally got wise and I decided to set a LONG TERM GOAL to get
better every year and MAINTAIN a lower off-season body fat every year.
First 14%, then 12%, then 10%, and finally, today, I don’t allow myself
over 9.9% at any time. I refuse to go to double digits and I'll tighten
up my diet or add cardio the second I notice myself slip.
In contest season, I decided that 6-7% wasn’t lean enough, and I strived
to beat that, which I did, hitting 6%, 5%, 4% and eventually as low as
3.4%.
Basically, I raised my standards of what was body fat level was
acceptable to me during the off season and for competitions. I vowed to
improve both.
I disciplined myself and stopped "bulking up." After I made this
commitment, then each year it got easier to lose the fat because I
wasn’t putting myself under prolonged periods of dieting stress to get
there; I was already close, and starting closer every year because what
I had done - unbeknownst to me at the time - was re-set my set point.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the “set point” theory before. This is the
genetically pre- determined level towards which your body fat tends to
naturally gravitate. The good news is, you can lower your set point
through nutritional discipline, increasing your lean body mass, dieting
in seasons/cycles, setting long term goals, and raising your standards
in terms of how much body fat you are willing to carry.
A lowered set point won’t happen over night. It doesn’t happen by the
day or week, it happens by the month and year, and is achieved by
setting higher standards for how lean you’re willing to stay for
prolonged periods of time.
6) WATCH YOUR INTERNAL DIALOGUE: YOU BECOME YOUR “I AM’S”. If you
want to lose body fat, then why would you walk around all day long
saying over and over again, “I cant, I cant, I cant, I can’t lose this
stubborn fat?” Why say, “I’m fat?” Why affirm the negative? Why would
you do that to yourself? Over and over the tape plays in your head…
programming your subconscious… building your belief systems… forging
your paradigms… directing your behavior… creating your own reality.
Why not visualize your ideal and affirm the positive?: “I am getting
leaner and leaner every day!” Do not dwell on your present condition.
Dwell on your future vision. Refuse to use the term “stubborn fat”
again. Never say, “I can’t lose this fat.” Do not
look at localized fat as any different than other fat on your body.
Understand that it was the first place on, and will be the last place to
come off – but it WILL come off – IF you do it the right way.
CONCLUSION
Usually articles on “stubborn fat” discuss “breakthroughs” in
transdermal delivery systems, adrenergic agonists, alpha-2 receptors and
lots of other scientific stuff. I’ve read papers on this subject that
were so scientific, you'd need a medical dictionary to
translate them. The so-called experts list dozens of references and
write overly technical articles for an audience they know damn well has
only a seventh grade reading level and couldn’t give a whiff about
anything except seeing their abs. However, they do it anyways to make
themselves look like almighty, all-knowing “gurus” and to sell worthless
products. The reality is, these really aren’t even articles – they're
advertisements for “spot reducing” gimmicks
Listen; there is nothing complicated or overly scientific about the
process of fat loss – even the last 10 pounds. Sure, there are proven
products such as thermogenic supplements, but they don't work miracles,
nor are they spot reducers. There’s no such thing as spot reduction.
There’s no such thing as stubborn fat – it only appears that way for
lack of understanding about the way the human body and mind work.
To lose fat steadily without plateaus - right down to the very last fat
cell - all you have to do is work with your body’s inherent nature, not
against it. It may not be easy, but it’s simple and 100% predictable.
Embrace the challenge, expect success, use what you've just learned, and
in the long run, you’ll agree that the rewards were well worth the
effort.
About The Author
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural
bodybuilder, personal trainer, gym owner, freelance writer and author of "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle" (BFFM): Fat Burning Secrets of the World's
Best Bodybuilders and Fitness Models.
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