Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Wendy Chant, MPT, SPN, is a certified personal trainer and a specialist in performance nutrition. She holds a bachelor of science in medical sciences and nutrition science. A champion body builder, she opened her own training center, ForeverFit®, in 1998.

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CONQUER THE FAT-LOSS CODE

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Chapter One

What does it really mean to conquer the fat-loss code? You're about to find out. Here are the real "meat and potatoes" of how you're going to reprogram your metabolism to melt fat and lose weight—forever. A big part of the program is to understand the body's seventy-two-hour/forty-eight-hour response pattern to eating. Yes, there is a specific pattern to how your body responds to what you eat, and 72/48 is the code for losing fat.

How do you beat this code? The 72 refers to your body's response to food intake. Every seventy-two hours, your body analyzes the energy you take in and calculates how it can reserve as much of that energy as possible to allow it to function as it should. The 48 refers to your body's response to energy expenditure. Every forty-eight hours, your body slows certain functions, or readjusts the amount of energy it uses, so that it has enough in reserve to keep functioning based on what it thinks you'll expend. To survive, your body has to keep the amount of energy it takes in and the amount of energy it expends in balance. The secret to conquering fat loss is to manipulate where your body gets its energy, and we're going to trick it into using fat as its energy source.

Macro-Patterning to Manipulate Energy Stores

Now that you know the secret to the fat-loss code, you should also understand another concept called macro-patterning. This is the process of manipulating energy stores so your body can use all its excess fat, as well as the food you eat, much more efficiently as immediate energy and not store fat.

Macro-patterning means carefully regulating and alternating protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake to combat your body's adaptive response to your eating patterns; this allows you to manipulate something called glycogen. Glycogen is just a fancy word for the stored energy that comes from carbohydrate consumption. Your body automatically chooses carbohydrates rather than fat as its main source of energy because carbohydrates are instantly available.

Remember, your body is a machine with many operating functions, and if food is its fuel, what happens when you're not eating? Where does it go to get fuel, and what does it use once it gets there? Your body is still functioning even when you're not putting food in your mouth, and the next source of fuel it taps into is the glycogen stored in your body's muscles and liver. Only when glycogen stores are low—from reducing carbohydrates or creating an energy deficit through exercise—will your body find and use excess fat for fuel. Understanding the 72/48 code lets us manipulate and reduce glycogen stores in the body and use excess fat.

Remember, the minute your body thinks you're on a diet, it will do anything and everything it can to hold on to as much fat as possible because it knows you're going into starvation mode. Your brain will send the rest of your body a signal to conserve energy for the coming dry spell. That means it shuts down body temperature, reduces the absorption rate of food, and slows down your metabolism, all with the intention of storing more fat so it will have plenty of energy "just in case."

By focusing on good nutrition and macro-patterning, you can trick your body into using fat as an energy source and feel great while doing it! With my new meal plans, you also take fat loss to a more advanced level, forcing your body to "melt" fat more efficiently and stop its automatic conservation of fat.

Macro-Patterning and Food Plan Cycles

By macro-patterning using food plan cycles, you will lower glycogen levels a few days a week just enough for your body to use fat as a source of energy, and then you will replace those stores so your body doesn't think you're starving yourself. If your body perceives starvation, it will store fat. It's kind of like sleight of hand; from time to time you have to trick your body into thinking it's not losing fat when it actually is. These cycles continually repeat themselves during an eight-week period (see Part 2 for your personalized eight-week cycle).

So how do you trick your body? By alternating your meal plans on various days to change your carb, fat, and protein intake and stop your body's adaptive response. As you will see when I lay out the meal plans for you, each cycle consists of certain "cycle days" that tell you how to eat on that specific day. For example, there is carb-up day (D), carb-down day (C), baseline day (B), grapefruit day (GF), zero starch day (ZS), cheat day (CH), and so on. We'll get into more detail about the different days when I give you an overview of specific meal plans.

Some of you may be beginners at code cracking, and others may have already completed the eight-week program in Crack the Fat-Loss Code. Either way, understanding the code is the first step to conquering it. So whether you're a newbie or a veteran, you'll find that my program and advance meal planning will help you begin, continue, and maintain your fat-loss journey.

Using Supplements for Optimal Fat Loss

Now that you understand how to conquer the code, I'll show you how to maximize fat loss by combining supplements with macro-patterning. Few people consider the role vitamins, minerals, and other supplements play in taking off fat. However, the human body has specific controls to regulate such factors as metabolism, muscle mass, and body fat, so the more often your body runs at peak performance through supplement use, the more effective it will be at maintaining these factors at appropriate levels.

Often when people reach for a pill or capsule to regulate their weight, they are looking for a quick fix or swallowing the latest weight-loss fad. But supplementation is the act of restoring your body's natural balance so it can do what it needs to do naturally. Three supplements are especially helpful in helping control your body's fat stores: L-carnitine, lipotropics, and green tea.

L-Carnitine

L-carnitine is known as a fat-loss transporter. The primary function of the amino acid carnitine is to facilitate the transport of fatty acids from a cell's cytoplasm across the mitochondrial membrane to the interior of the mitochondria, where fat burning takes place. Without carnitine as a carrier, the fatty acids remain in the cytoplasm (think of it as in storage), and you won't lose as much fat. L-carnitine (from natural and/or synthetic sources) is taken as a supplement because our bodies are unable to get it in enough of the quantities needed from food we take in, thanks to changes such as the decline of grass-fed cattle and other impurities in our food supply. Take L-carnitine prior to and immediately after exercise, especially when you exercise in the morning. It is best in liquid form (read the label instructions for the correct dosage).

Lipotropics

Lipotropics or fat emulsifiers are scientifically engineered to assist in the breakdown, distribution, and burning (oxidation) of fatty acids. The active ingredients actually accelerate the fat-burning process by breaking down fat cells into smaller particles (emulsification) to be used as fuel during exercise.

Take lipotropics prior to and immediately after exercise, especially when you exercise in the morning. It is best in liquid form because quick absorption is key to its effectiveness. (Read the label instructions for the correct dosage.)

Green Tea

Metabolic enhancers provide the body with a "spark" that aids in the production of heat once fat is transported and has been emulsified. This is like the fireplace in your house—the place where fat is taken to be burned and produce heat. This is where we also get the term fat burning. Green tea is a great metabolic enhancer. In extract form, it has been shown to heat up your body's core temperature by 4 percent, which can mean a loss of six to eight pounds monthly without a change of diet. Beware of soft drinks that are "green tea flavored," as these aren't potent enough to promote fat loss. Instead, look for an extract that is concentrated specifically for fat loss.

Look for extracts you dilute in water and drink as you would a soda; green tea may be taken once or twice daily. Since you are helping your body increase its core temperature, I suggest that you cycle on and off this product. For example, note when you start using the product, take it until the package is used up, and then stay off of it for as long as you were taking it; this is one cycle. Repeat it until you achieve your desired results.

Before using any supplements, always check with your doctor to make sure there will be no interactions with other prescription or over-the-counter medicines you may be taking.

When taking fat loss to the next level, you not only need to apply the principles you've learned about macro-patterning; you also need to understand how to use exercise in combination with a specific food plan to maximize results and make your body into a real fat-burning machine. I'll cover how to apply exercise efficiently in the next chapter.

Chapter Two

Now that you understand the basics of the fat-loss code, let's take it to the next level. I'm going to show you how to melt fat more efficiently by exercising less. Many people assume that all exercise leads to fat loss, but do certain types of exercise do more? Just as foods are not created equal, neither is exercise. Experts and exercisers alike have missed the fact that the relationship between fat loss and exercise is a twofold process. Here's the secret!

Applying Exercise to a Specific Food Plan and the Importance of Timing

In this section, I'll show you what types of exercises to apply to the food plans I'll give you in Part 2. They say, "Timing is everything," and nowhere is that more appropriate than when it comes to setting up an exercise routine. This goes way beyond asking whether you are a morning, afternoon, or evening person. What I suggest here is something I refer to as a "fitness lifestyle," a philosophy that takes into account that the body is designed for balance. You can't just work out all you want and eat everything in sight or eat less because you don't exercise; to live a true fitness lifestyle and receive maximum health benefits while still losing fat, you need to achieve a balance between how you eat and when you move.

To get this balance, code crackers must understand that to lose fat efficiently they must apply exercise at the precise time based on their food intake. The real secret to diet and exercise is that fat loss needs the specific timing of exercise.

You may have read in other diet books that if you want to lose weight, you need to make sure you exercise to burn more calories than you consume. If you eat 500 calories, then go to the gym and run on the treadmill long enough to burn 500 calories, that equates to 0 calories. So no worries about storing fat, right? Wrong! This theory is incredibly flawed. Using a simple "calories in, calories out" equation fails to take into account the dynamic, challenging, and complicated systems of the human body. It also completely discounts the law of adaptation. That's right; you need to manipulate glycogen stores so they decrease.

The best part about manipulating your body's energy stores is that, ultimately, you can get it to store less fat altogether. When you manipulate glycogen stores over a long period of time, your body takes what it's eating and uses it to sustain energy levels—instead of storing it as fat. Remember when I explained how macro-patterning meal plans affect glycogen levels, forcing the body to melt fat? Well, applying certain types of exercises and timing them correctly will efficiently target those fat stores as well.

The secret is to include two types of exercise in your fitness regimen: aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic (weight training). Now we are going to look at how to apply exercise to your food plan and time your exercises so that you maximize your results by more than 80 percent. Just think, you'll actually have to exercise less!

The Two Types of Exercise: Aerobic and Anaerobic

Exercise is a broad term. People see someone working up a sweat and call it exercise, but what kind of exercise is it specifically? There are two types, and both have very specific benefits and rules when it comes to weight loss.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic literally means "with oxygen." Aerobic exercise, or cardio, is defined as activities in which oxygen from the blood is required to fuel the energy-producing mechanisms of muscle fibers. Examples are walking, running, cycling, and long-distance skiing. For purposes of fat loss, you will use cardio to produce heat and keep your metabolic fires burning.

Anaerobic Exercise

Anaerobic means "without oxygen." Anaerobic exercise, or weight training, is defined as highly intense, short-term activities in which muscle fibers derive contractile energy from stored internal compounds without using oxygen from the blood. Examples include short bursts of all-out effort, such as sprinting or weight lifting. Because anaerobic activity takes stored internal glycogen to produce the energy to generate movement, it is a valuable ally in your quest to lose weight.

Understanding the Role of Cardio in Fat Loss

As I said earlier, cardio generates heat and higher metabolism. Doing cardio alone, however, doesn't necessarily equate to losing fat. This is definitely a misconception among many in the exercise community. Every year people make New Year's resolutions or anticipate special occasions where they want to wear something special, like a little black dress. This prompts them to start a weight-loss regimen, and what do they do? They immediately start walking or join aerobics classes because they think that will help them get rid of their excess weight. Sure, you may lose weight from doing lots of cardio, but is it really fat you're losing? Or could it be muscle tissue?

There has always been controversy over how much exercise the average human body really needs. Should you work out twice a week? Three times? Five times? Once a day? Twice a day? Even now experts are constantly updating their opinions as to what and how much is necessary, but I'm going to teach you the science of how to apply cardio—and, in the next section, weight lifting—to your food plan and use timing to maximize your results.

The Two Types of Cardio

There are two main types of cardio routines that are effective for fat loss: the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) method and the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) method.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This method consists of interspersing short bursts of quick-paced, high-intensity exercise within a less intensive cardio routine. An example would be alternating a minute-long sprint with several minutes of straight jogging or, for beginners, alternating a few minutes of jogging with several more minutes of brisk walking.

The HIIT method has recently become more popular in the media thanks to a flurry of research results that have shown its effectiveness when it comes to fat loss. This is encouraging because now more and more people are trying HIIT, but remember that fat loss is also dependent on the levels of glycogen in your body. When glycogen stores are low, HIIT can give you the most "bang for your buck."

You typically perform HIIT for fifteen to thirty minutes at a time. You burn the most calories while performing your chosen activity, such as alternating among sprinting, jogging, and brisk walking. In fact, recent research has shown that this method of exercise also keeps the metabolic rate sparked for longer periods of time even after the activity is over.

I suggest that clients use this type of training immediately after weight training to guarantee weight loss. Yes, I said, guarantee! Remember, weight training uses stored glycogen, so if you perform weight training and use your glycogen stores to provide your body with the necessary energy, then your stores will be low. If you perform cardio immediately after weight training, your stores are so low that your body will have to use excess fat stores to get the energy it needs to do your aerobic workout.

Let's put this in a practical application by applying HIIT to a meal plan. Let's say it's a carb-down day when your stores are already low, then you do some weight training followed by a cardio routine. Wow, talk about fat loss! To further ramp up the benefits of this already highly effective method, I also suggest when doing just cardio that you do your cardio using the HIIT first thing in the morning before eating anything.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from CONQUER THE FAT-LOSS CODEby WENDY CHANT Copyright © 2009 by Wendy Chant. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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