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The Secret of Breaking the
Dreaded Fat Loss Plateau
By Michael Collins
................................................................................
 Take
a look at your hands. Turn them over and take a good look at the
palms of your hands. What do you see? Chances are that if you're
reading this article, you
work out. If you work out, you probably have calluses on
the palms of your hands.
Calluses are part of the body's adaptation
mechanism. The body recognizes extra punishment on the skin cells in the
palms of your hands, and bolsters the protection by adding many more skin
cells to toughen them up.
Keep in mind, the body knows everything that
happens to it. No matter where or when. It knows, and consequently, it
adapts.
Now, I know you're asking what do calluses on
your hands have to do with fat loss?
Hold that thought, this will all come together
in a minute
Every day I get a virtual boatload of email
asking questions about fat loss, and every other topic under the sun related
to fitness. I do my best to get back to everyone, I post the questions
and answers I feel would suit the masses here on the site.
Today I got one from a female in Florida.
Normally I would put this in the
Reader Mail Q and A
section, but I wanted to get a bit deeper.
 Her
question was long, so I'll sum it up with this- she works out hard and
diets. She's doing great, losing a few pounds, tightening up, starting
to see some real progress.
Then she hits the dreaded plateau. Fat
loss crawls to a halt a week or two into her program (pssst... if this
happens to you, order black
book of secrets and we'll show you have to avoid it)
This fat loss plateau is the body's adaptation
mechanism at work, yet again.
Just like when the body sensed something
different happening with the hands, and forming calluses to cope with the
situation, your body will adapt and adjust to your fat loss attempts.
Normally when you're attempting to lose fat,
you'll be taking in less calories. Lets say your average daily calorie
burn is 2000 calories. You also take in a total of 2000 calories each
day. Net result is no weight lost nor gained. You simply stay put on
the scale.
You decide you're going to drop down to 1500
kcal daily for your diet. This is a deficit of 500 calories per week.
On a simplistic view, over a 7 day period, you'll have lost 1 pound of body
weight. Fine.
During that week, your body notices the
changes that are going on. Hmmm.. less calories to deal with.
What's the first thing the body will do here to adapt? It's going to
lower your metabolism! It wants to burn fewer calories and hold on to
what it's got- fat stores.
So, as your body recognizes this, it begins to
adjust. Although you stay on your diet at 1500 calories, the body
starts to burn only 1750 calories daily. So, at this rate, you'll
still be losing weight, but at half the rate as before.
Follow this through to the next week- still
taking in 1500 calories, but now your body has fully adjusted and is now
only burning 1500 calories. No weight lost.
Read that paragraph again
Now do you see how that sucks? You're
eating less, but you're not losing
weight. What's that called?
The Dreaded Fat Loss Plateau
Okay, great!
So how in the world do you break through the
fat loss plateau?
Should you lower calories at this point?
No!
Any fat loss program you're on for a certain
amount of time will result in less fat loss because the body is coping with
what you're throwing at it.
You MUST adjust your program consistently if
your goal is fat loss.
The answer here is NOT to lower calories.
I have many tricks in my bag- all of which I go into in
black book of secrets, but
I'll share the easiest way here.
Cycle your calories!
You can keep the body from adapting to your
diet and slowing fat loss by cycling calories in this manner...
3 days of lowered calorie intake followed by 1
day of slightly greater than normal intake.
Back to the earlier example.
Normal calorie burn for the day was 2000
calories. By taking in 1500 calories per day for 3 days, you're also
creating a 1500 calorie deficit over the 3 day period. On the fourth
day, you'll take in a slightly higher amount of calories- the the tune of
2200 calories.
(For a free Fat Burning Foods Chart
with Calorie Counter enter your name and email below. You'll also
receive a a free subscription to MCNewsletters and our Special Report The
Dark Side of Dieting)
Now you're 4 days into the diet, and you've
lost 1300 calories. The best part? You've reset your body back
to the 2000 calorie per day burning mode.
Day 1- 1500
Day 2- 1500
Day 3- 1500
Day 4- 2200
Day 5- 1500
Day 6- 1500
Day 7- 2200
This pattern is of wide enough variety that
you can cycle it for 3 or 4 weeks before changing any other variables.
Over a 4 week period, you'll have lost 2.5
pounds safely, effectively, and you didn't even notice you were on a diet!
Keep in mind, the
calorie burn and intake is different for everybody. You should
adjust the numbers as such.
There are tons of places on the web where
you can find the real deal on nutrition and fat-burning (like this site
you’re currently reading *ahem).
Want an easy, painless, NO-COST method to
keep abreast of the latest in fat loss, body sculpting, health, and
nutrition? Sign up here for our weekly newsletter
(heck, we even GIVE you something to join – our latest
Special Report: The Dark Side of Dieting.
It details 21 things you probably didn’t even realize were keeping
you from losing those inches).
If you're truly looking to lose weight fast,
we have included a few key workouts that you can use to make your cardio
more effective in black
book of secrets. It also includes 60 other fat loss tips, tricks
and techniques.
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