How to mess up your diet part 2.

Last month we touched on 3 great ways to reduce the positive benefits derived from all your hard work and positive fat-loss outlook, basically, the best ways to really mess up your diet. I only mentioned 3 of the main protagonists in the last article, but believe me, there are far more ways to stop fat-loss in it’s track and send you into a spiral of dieting depression.

Anyway, without further ado, here are mistakes 4, 5 and 6.

4) Fear of fat!!

This problem is not as great as it once was. Slowly and surely, dietary fat is beginning to be replaced by processed carbohydrates as the nation’s number one enemy in the war against fat-loss. However, you would be amazed at the amount of dieting athletes who still think that low (even zero) fat diets are the best way to lose body fat. There are a few massive problems with low-fat diets, still recommended by various TV diet gurus. Firstly, an omission of dietary fat dictates that the daily calories are derived from other nutrient sources…namely carbohydrates. I still get people telling me that so and so recommend eating as much pasta and rice as you want, because they are both very low fat. While that may be true, the amount of calories from carbohydrates in both these foods (along with bread) cause blood sugar to rise dramatically and illicit a huge surge of insulin (not to mention the net calorie content of a bowl of pasta or rice). Whilst insulin can be an extremely anabolic hormone when controlled, consistent spikes of the hormone throughout the day will render your dieting efforts useless. If you are one of those individuals hell bent on eating a low-fat, high-carb diet, then forget about losing fat, it won’t happen.

5) Not keeping a training/diet log

Only the very experienced and/or genetic elite can afford not to keep a dieting log. By simply writing out a sample daily diet, broken down into carbohydrate, fat and protein grams, you can go a long way towards ensuring constant, consistent fat-loss.

If you rely on the “a handful of this and a handful of that” approach, you are setting yourself up for failure. By pre-empting your calorie-intake for the coming weeks, you can easily deduct an exact amount of calories from any chosen nutrient group throughout the full dieting period. For example, if the fat-loss comes to a halt, you can simply deduct 50 grams from your carbohydrate intake, over 6 meals. A very insignificant, almost unnoticeable deduction, but one that will be sure to make a huge difference.

6) misplaced calorie intake.

Whilst is may seem logical to spread a calorie intake of 2500 cals evenly over 6 meals, the best results will come if you practise precision timing.

For example, start the day with your highest, or second highest-calorie meal. In the morning your metabolic rate is primed and ready for action, you’ve been fasting for 5-8 hours and need to re-fuel for the coming day. Your second or even largest meal should be taken post workout. The amount of trainers I know who refuse to believe that calories taken after a gruelling workout have very little (if any) chance of making their way to fat cells, is astounding.

Providing you’ve worked your ass off in the weights room for at least 30 mins, you need, in fact it is essential that you take in some instantly absorbable liquid calories. As glycogen stores have been exhausted, you should be looking to drink at least 50-100 grams of glucose or maltodextrin (or a blend of the two). As High GI carbohydrates such as these are needed to elevate insulin levels, take advantage of this instant elevation by allowing amino acids to be dragged into the muscle cell. To do this, make sure to add at least 30-60 grams of whey protein isolate to the carbohydrate beverage. This meal should be taken within 15 minutes of workout completion and along with your breakfast, should be the two highest-calorie meals of the day.

As the day tails off and evening comes along, your metabolic rate slows down. Therefore any big-calorie meals eaten at this time, have a fair chance of being stored in the un-wanted areas (fat stores)

By avoiding the mistakes outlined in this and the previous Nu-skool knowledge, you will be taken a huge step in ensuring that fat-loss remains constant and your efforts and hard work will ultimately be rewarded.

For more expert info and on-line chat, visit me at my natural training forum

On uk-muscle.com.

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