Fat Loss

Fat loss is probably the single most common reason why people take up sports or an exercise regime! A little less bodyfat is definitely something everyone wants! Having excessive bodyfat not only reduces a persons physical attractiveness, it also can lead to many other health problems and a much lower quality of life.

Obesity in Singapore
In Singapore today, the obesity rate is currently around 20%, which is practically 1 in 5 people! Besides the abundance of really good food, everyone is spending too much time being seated, from the 7 year kid attending hours of extra classes a day to the people in the workforce who need to work late all the time. This "sitting" time eats into the play time for the youth and the exercise time for the adults. Furthermore, by the time the "sitting" hours are over, people are just too stressed or mentally exhausted to even consider exercising. The stress levels further promote fat gain, and the consumption of delicious food to de-stress dive headfirst into your fat stores! To add to the problem, virtual entertainment is readily available here, and more kids play computer games instead of doing sports. It seems like the sedentary life is being instilled in them from a young age.

How to loose fat
Like building muscles, most people's fat loss efforts are usually based on assumptions. This more often than not results in the person becoming fatter in the end. Here are some common fictions and facts.

Fiction: If I starve myself and eat as little as possible, I'll loose fat.
Fact: If you starve yourself, you actually lose muscle rather than fat. Let me give you four reasons:
Reason 1: When you starve, your body prepares itself for a period of famine by minimizing the usage of bodyfat for energy. This is the body's way of maximizing its stores during periods of starvation to lengthen the organisms survival. This will result in your body breaking down muscle tissue and converting the protein from them into carbohydrates via a process called Glucogenesis. This is why you loose muscle and not fat when you starve yourself.

Reason 2:
The loss of muscle actually causes a reduction in your metabolic rate. The lower your metabolism gets, the less bodyfat your body will be able to burn.

Reason 3:
Research has shown that your body will only be willing to burn bodyfat for energy if there are carbohydrates present. Lets use this analogy where carbohydrates refer to income and fats refer to savings. "I am alright with using my savings because I have a steady income" as compared to "I shall be thrifty and not touch my savings as my income is low." If there is no incoming energy, your body will be unwilling to use up the energy stores which happen to be bodyfat!

Reason 4:
The after effect! Starving yourself is not a sustainable way of life. The longer you do so, the weaker and more sick you will get. The moment you start eating normally again, your body will be so accustomed to starvation that it will immediately prepare for more periods of famine. It will store a larger portion of your meals as bodyfat. Your metabolism, which was reduced by stress hormones and presence of less muscle fibers will further allow more calories to be stored as fat. In the end, you will end up gaining more fat!

The solutions
Eating smaller portions more frequently
Don't skip meals! Have smaller portions for your meals instead, and don't go without food for too long. Having something small every 3 to 4 hours will be optimal! Your body will break down your food into the smallest molecules before absorbing and disseminating them. Only the excess calories per meal will be stored as fat. By eating smaller serving sizes, you are reducing or eliminating the excess calories which will eventually be stored as fat. Eating every 3 to 4 hours will prevent that starvation mode from kicking in, preventing your body from storing more calories as fat!

Understand the Glycermic Index of food
Glycermic Index (GI) of food is basically a measurement of how fast foods break down and becomes blood sugar in your body, from a scale of 1 to 100. The lower the GI, the healthier the food. Reason being, when food breaks down slowly, there will be less excess calories at any one point of time during digestion. Less excess calories means potentially less calories available to be stored as fat! Also, slow digesting foods keep your body provided for longer periods, delaying the starvation mode!
Generally, food with a GI of 55 and below are considered healthy. Grains, oats, pastas and carrots are some good examples of low GI food. Also, understanding GI may be the key to prevention of diabetes. Diabetis is when your pancreas stop producing insulin, or produce too little of it. Insulin is the hormone that absorbs and disseminates sugars in your body. High GI foods break down very fast, causing your pancreas to work harder to produce more insulin within a shorter time. Keep putting such pressure on your pancreas for years and one day, they will fail! Low GI food on the other hand, break down slowly, and your pancreas work less hard, aiding in their longevity.

Exercise I have seen several people who tried to loose weight solely by dieting. Most of them failed. Yes, proper dieting is crucial to fat loss, but exercise plays a major role too. Dieting works by reducing the caloric inputs to your body, exercise works by increasing your output of calories, and also by forcing your body to use much more bodyfat from your fat stores. For optimal fat loss, I recommend doing both cadio for a minimum of 30minutes, and weights training at least 3 times a week.
Here is an extract from my "Abs" post about cadio:
"Run alot" is an advice commonly given to those who want to get lean. Its not just running that helps burn bodyfat. Any cadio exercise when performed for a sufficient period will suffice. The idea is to keep your body mobile until you use up all your blood sugar (immediate source of energy), causing your body to burn bodyfat once blood sugar runs out. Running, cycling, swimming, skipping, stair climbing, rowing and boxercise are some examples of cadio exercises. A typical cadio workout is to go to a gym and run about 30 to 40mins on a treadmill, then immediately get on the stationary bike for another 10 to 20mins. Cadio can also be done after weights training. You will be pretty tired to begin with, but the upside is alot of blood sugar would already have been burnt during the weight training! Your body will go into fat burning faster! Note that cadio on its own is not the most effective means to loose bodyfat. A diet is the most important aspect of all this. Cadio speeds up the process. If you burn 500 calories for example, but consume 1000 extra calories, you'll still gain bodyfat. Its all in the diet."

Weights Training
The first thing that will go through many peoples mind on hearing about weights training is "I don't want to have bulging muscles, I won't do weights!" Trust me, that won't happen, at least not too easily. You will need to go to the extremes of weights training and dieting, and do those for YEARS before you develop bulging muscles. However, weights training WILL speed up your progress A LOT!! When you do weights training, you will develop a small amount of new muscle. This new muscles require extra calories to exist, and will cause a considerable increase in your metabolism. You will end up burning extra calories even while you sleep due to the new muscle tissues. Also, weights training has been shown to increase a persons metabolism for a few hours after the workout! Just imagine the possibilities when you combine the effects of weights training with cadio!

So to sum it up, eat SMALLER PORTIONS more FREQUENTLY throughout the day, choose more LOW GI FOODS, do your CARDIO and do your WEIGHTS TRAINING to achieve FATLOSS!!I decided to deviate a little from bodybuilding and post about fat loss, as obesity is on the rise. I know many people who have tried to loose weight, but have taken the wrong approaches and gave up as a result. I hope you find this post useful. If you were one of those who gave up, I hope this will encourage you to go for it! If you are just starting out, I hope this will give you a head start! I wish you guys all the best!! Remember, if you are fighting the war against fat, I'm on your side! LETS GO!!