How To Get Maximum Results In Minimum Time From Your Fitness Program

with Steve Preston

HOW TO STICK TO YOUR MEAL PLAN

Eating to lose weight
The first nutritional demand of your body is energy. Without adequate energy, your body will convert muscle protein into energy to feed your brain, nervous system and red blood cells. These particular tissues do not possess the metabolic machinery to burn fat. They only burn carbohydrate. When your intake of carbohydrate falls below these tissues demand, the body begins to convert tissue protein into carbohydrate to meet their need. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue. Yes, the scale may say you have lost "weight", but you have lost the very tissue that burns fat. Muscle tissue burns 70% of the fat in your body; so losing muscle sacrifices your ability to burn body fat. In fact, the "weight" you lose on a diet can represent up to 10 to 20% of those pounds in muscle loss.

So how to we prevent this from happening?

1. Your progressive strength training program, to give the muscle stimulation to develop, and prevent muscle loss through calorie deprivation.

2. Eat enough protein. You should be ingesting protein with each of your 6 daily meals.

3. We're cutting out sugars, and saturated fats. You might even be dropping your carbs lower in general (I've talked about doing this with a few of you) but the body will need just enough so that each body system can perform its functions properly.