Nutritional Advice on How To Achieve a Great Weight Loss

Forget cardio, forget weights - the way to lose body fat (NOT weight) is simple - you need to take in LESS calories than you need. Do this day in and day out and you WILL lose body fat

Preparation:

First thing you need to do is measure yourself:

• Arms
• Thighs
• Waist
• Hips

Take photos front, side and back too.

Get someone to help so it's accurate or do it yourself very carefully. Note all these measurements down with a tape measure.

You really need to work out your body fat - stay away from Tanita scales or similar as they can really give skewed results depending on the oil on your skin, the fluid in your body etc. etc. The best way is to use calipers - if you can't do this yourself get someone to do it for you. There are several on Amazon and other sites that take the measure electronically and give you a reading. They are about £15 or £20 but worth it.

Once you have your body fat % (Don't worry if you can't do this - see below) then we can start working out stuff!

The Numbers

Be patient - you can do it!

Weigh yourself and convert it to pounds. If you weigh yourself in stones/pounds then remember there are 14 pounds in a stone. So, if you are 12 stone 10 pounds you are 12x14+10 = 178 pounds.

Now we need to work out your LEAN weight - this is the weight without body fat.

Example - you weight 165 pounds and your body fat is 25% = your lean weight is therefore 165 - (165x 25%) = 165 - 41 = 124 lbs

Another way to work this out is to take your % figure (e.g. 25 in our case) off of 100. So:
100 - 25 = 75

Then take your lbs in weight (165 in our case) and multiply by 0.75 = 124

Don't know your Body Fat?

Then use 10% for now and see further notes later on. So, if you were 165 lbs then take off 10% (16 lbs) to get to 150 lbs

Lean Weight And What to Do With It

Now you have your lean weight you can work out what calories you should be using:

Multiply Your Lean Weight By 12

Eg:
Your lean weight is 125 pounds.
Multiply by 12 = 1500 calories

This should be approximately 200 calories LESS than what you need - this will result in fat loss!

Remember - this is NOT a hard and fast rule - use common sense!!

If you don't know your body fat use 10% off your weight in lbs and then multiply by 12 to get your daily calories. If you don't shift fat quickly then drop by another 5% until you do.

What to Eat is As Important as How Much You Eat

Think like a caveman or cavewoman! If it doesn't run, fly, swim or grow then you should really avoid that food!

Eat whoelgrain breads/cereals NOT white breads/cereals is a GOLDEN RULE!

Anyway - you need to eat from 3 Food Groups:

• Proteins (fish, eggs, meat)
• Carbs (fruit, veg and wholegrains like bread)
• Fats (olive oil, fish)

You need to split your calories equally between each food type:

To do this you need to know what you eat and how much it weighs!!! So you need to use a ...

FOOD DIARY

The MOST important tool for losing weight in our opinion. Use www.fitday.com or UK equivalent - they tend to be free for basic functionality.

once you have created your own personal foods as you go along you will soon be simply adding what you eat on the fly really quickly.

Book down EVERYTHING - including the milk in your tea/coffee - you will be surprised how much carb is in milk over several cups in a day!

WORKING OUT FOOD SPLITS

1g protein = 4 calories
1g carbs = 4 calories
1g fats = 9 calories

So, take our women at 165 lbs with 25% body fat. Her lean weight is 124 lbs. We multiply by 12 to get 1488 cals a day - lets round it to 1500 for ease of numbers

Example: Daily Calories 1500
We want:
500 calories of Protein
500 calories of Carbs (good carbs please!)
500 calories of Fats

500 Calories of Protein - divide by 4 cals/g = 125g of Protein per day
500 Calories of Carbs - divide by 4 cals/g = 125g of good Carbs (whoelgrains) per day
500 Calories of Fats - divide by 9 cals/g = 55g of Fats per day

There is your goal per day!!

EXERCISE/NON-EXERCISE DAYS

You should really be exercising 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes each time. You may want to consider WEIGHTS as the best form of exercise to be honest because:
▪ Weights tone you better than cardio
▪ Cardio causes muscle loss and can cause fat retention!
▪ Weights burn off more calories
▪ Weights CARRY ON burning calories for upto 24 hours after you've stopped exercising
▪ For every 1lb of muscle you add your body burns off 60 cals+ a day just to maintain it!

Exercise Days - stick to the figures above

Non-Exercise Days

You don't need as much carb as carb is an energy food. So, drop your carbs to half and increase your fats to make it up.

So, in our example above with a calorie day of 1500 calories:
125g of Protein (500 calories)
65g of Carbs (260 calories)
82g of Fats (740 calories)

You still need the calories otherwise your body will go into starvation mode and start eating muscle and storing fat - so we keep it up with the fats on non-exercise days

How Often To Eat

Eat a good breakfast, eat again mid morning, eat at lunchtime, eat mid afternoon, eat an evening meal and eat an evening snack.

Try and keep your carbs earlier on in the day and around exercise times.

Eat 6 times a day so you don't get hungry and go into starvation mode!

KEEP A TRACK OF IT ALL WITH YOUR FOOD DIARY

Remember you are trying to achieve a GOOD BALANCED DIET with a CALORY DEFICIENCY of around 200 calories per day.

This will give you a deficit of 1400 per week. You need around 3000 to lose 1lb BUT DON'T BE PUT OFF - it will NOT take you 2 weeks to lose a pound on this diet. By eating more healthily, cutting out processed foods, eating more protein, less carbs you will actually burn off a LOT MORE CALORIES than 200 a day.

Many people following this will lose 3 or 4 lbs a week for the first few weeks!

CHEAT MEALS

Allow yourself 1 cheat meal a week - no more! So, that Chinese takeout or pizza or fish and chips - just once a week.

ALCOHOL?

WAnt to lose weight? Then the alcohol has GOT TO GO - not forever - but until you meet your weight. 5 glasses of wine is like 1000 calories! So one good session with friends and you've gained all the calories lost in the past 5 days - not really worth it? If you think so then you should not bother reading on!
Or - treat a few drinks with friends ONCE A WEEK as your cheat meal - but don't have both!

EXERCISE:

IF you don't do any now DON'T DO ANY AT ALL! At least for 2 to 3 weeks. Get used to eating well and healthily first. Then introduce exercise. We are great believers in weights (even if just body weight exercises like squats and push ups etc)

If you want a good resistant exercise regimen that's good fun you might want to try a balance ball routine like this one, featured on our Sport and Fitness Products pages.

SUPPLEMENTS - CAN THEY HELP?

Yes they can - Acai Berry has shown to have great fat burning properties. CLA and Green Tea are also shown to help improve the creation of lean weight (muscle) - a great combination.

We love to brag about our products, and the acai berry capsules are no exception! Take a look and see for yourself.