Lose 15 lbs By March - An 8 Week Fat Loss Guide

By: Kyle Wukawitz

The holidays have finally passed us and the evidence of a rich and festive time is no more self-evident than the cookies, candy, and grandma's pastries that now sit firmly on our hips and thighs. The new year is here and with it comes time for renewal and healthy living, and that includes a good weight loss plan that efficiently removes those pounds gained during the past few months. Contrary to popular belief, losing body fat is not hard and often requires just tiny changes in daily living. It doesn't have to be painful nor laborious if done right. Consistency is key, as developing an environment 'hormonally' conducive to weight loss through simple modifications to the diet is all that is required. Combine that with time spent on a treadmill or other piece of exercise equipment and the weight comes off even faster.

Diet Key To Weight Loss Success

A change in diet is the crucial key to the weight loss puzzle. Diet accounts for roughly 80% of an individual's success and/or failure when it comes to losing weight. The reason being is that thousands upon thousands of years going back to our ancestral caveman days has taught our bodies to become very efficient at processing and metabolizing food. The lean, hard winters and long, arid summers where food was scarce have accumulated within our genetic makeup to produce a very efficient 'machine' that can survive such harsh conditions. As a result, the body doesn't waste anything when ingested as it takes advantage of all food given to itself. Food energy is either used for fuel or saved for times less prosperous. The excess calories that grandma's cookies provides is saved quite literally for the next time you need to run from a saber-toothed tiger – at least as far as your body is concerned. The reason why I highlight the our ancestral past when it comes to losing weight is because I don't want anyone to think that their body has developed a curse or some sort of vendetta against themselves that keeps them from achieving a body that they can be happy with. Quite the contrary, the body's ability to efficiently process and utilize energy is done to keep you alive in well even during the most harsh of conditions. Knowing this can help you become much more successful in the long run.

Although excess calories from any type of food contribute to weight gain, what you eat underlying factor to which overall health and appearance are attributed. As stated earlier, hormones released by the body play a huge part in what your body does with energy as it's consumed. Certain foods produce unique hormones that can either help with weight loss or impede its progress. Your body is a very efficient machine when it comes to energy consumption. It loves carbohydrate for fuel because its metabolism has to do little work to turn it from the food you consume to readily available energy that your muscles can use for movement. If there is any excess carbohydrate in your system your metabolism will send it energy starved muscles to be burned before any other compound, and most importantly before fat. This makes the consumption of carbs something to be limited during any weight loss period as they keep your body from tapping its reserve fuel storehouses – fat cells. The fact that carbs need to be limited in regards to daily food intake doesn't necessarily mean that they need to be shunned altogether. Carbohydrate rich foods contain many nutrients that are vital to the body's overall daily functioning and removing them can actually impede fat loss rather than make it go faster. The goal is to eliminate starchy carbs, carbs that are high in calories and complex sugars and replace them with fiberous ones, that is vegetables and some fruits. Doing this alone can often lead to weight loss without any other change in daily behavior. It's that effective.

Through diet an individual can obtain the internal environment necessary for weight loss to occur by altering hormone balance and thus energy transfer. Eliminate high starchy foods: pasta, rice, breads, and cereals and the body simply has no choice but to switch over to fat burning mode in order to meet its needs. The metabolism senses the energy demand required of itself and begins to pump out hormones that signal the release of fat stores from fat cells and shuttles them off to working muscles. Knowing this can turn a good workout routine into an extremely effective workout routine. Any good weight loss worth its grain in salt will always take into effect above all else as the diet's role in amplifying any physical movement to achieve maximum efficiency. Diet is bar none the ultimate determinate of whether or not one sees weight loss success or they are met with failure.

Increase Metabolism Permanently Through Resistance Training

Working out can accelerate fat burning into the stratosphere if your diet and caloric intake are in balance. An individuals metabolism can really do wonders when it's combined with physical exercise and when the body's hormones are preset to burn body fat before any activity even takes place. By mastering diet and working out on a regular basis losing 15 pounds by march 1 will actually come very easily provided all the necessary steps are taking place and are being done so consistently. Exercise under such circumstances creates an undeniable need for fuel and fat will begin to exit the body rapidly through consumption by hard working muscle tissue. The amount of muscle an individual has on their body combined with the amount of activity all help to determine the rate at which fat loss can occur. Muscle mass, or the amount of lean body tissue performing the work at hand plays a huge difference in total overall calorie consumption. A pound of muscle will burn on average 50 calories a day at rest. A net gain of 5 lbs. of lean body tissue can have a dramatic effect on ones ability to stay lean. Women are often the ones who most shy away from resistance training as a fear of gaining too much bulk sets in. If they were to gain just a few pounds of muscle they would burn a sizable amount of calories overtime that they otherwise would not have without any sort of extra activity. Women simply don't have the hormones and genetics necessary to gain large amounts of muscle so their fears of 'bulking up' are often unwarranted and by avoiding such they really miss out on an opportunity to keep lean more easily. Weight training should be a part of anyone's workout plan if they're truly serious about losing body fat.

Aerobic Training Burns Fat Like Crazy

Cardiovascular exercise is the final piece to any weight loss regimen that can really produce results if implemented correctly. Activities such as running, biking, hiking etc. become extremely effective at melting unwanted pounds of body fat when the body is hormonally 'set up' through diet and burning fat before you ever take your first step or turn over the first pedal on a bike. Depending on the activity, an individual can burn between 500 to 1000 calories an hour, sometimes more. Nearly all those calories consumed will come from fat stores when proper nutrition is realized. The metabolism doesn't have to deal with large amounts of simple carbs in the blood stream that have to be burned off first for fuel. It will also have a much easier time consuming its fat stores considering that muscle is being added which requires more fuel just to exist. Studies have shown that maintaining an elevated heart rate at workload between 55% to 80% of max is most effective at shedding unwanted pounds. An individual's metabolism will usually stay elevated for hours after the activity has ceased and if they are following the diet as described above will continue to burn fat during that entire time. This is where diet and exercise come together to really produce outstanding results. Eating a high carb meal just after a work out will kill any fat burning that's taking place. Going low carb will result in more overall fat loss from exercise.

Consistency Will Produce Weight Loss Results

Losing 15 pounds of body fat by March 1 can be accomplished fairly easily if the guidelines above are adhered to consistently for the next 8 weeks. That's roughly 2 pounds per week which is very doable if carbs are cut and both weight training and cardiovascular exercise become apart of an individual's daily routine. The key above all else is consistency. If choosing to go low carb for a day or two is interrupted by a pizza night or a midnight snack involving ice cream or some other sugary food, the plan simply won't work. Being consistent with the low carb diet will maintain the hormonal balance necessary for sustained fat loss to occur.

Good luck and best wishes for the new year!

Always consult a physician before making any changes to your diet and/or beginning any physical exercise program.