In this article there is nothing I can do that would be more effective than what I would have done before. But after 5 years of doing the same thing, and even though being more aware of some foods that burn fat and build muscle at the same time, I still do the same thing.
I just want to be clear and concise on a few things, before we go into how many calories you should be eating, or which exercises you should be doing. As with any diet, it’s not the number of calories you consume that’s most important, it’s what they’re used for that really matters. And using that equation will pitfalls you in the long run, so I’d like to share with you a few applications of the free famous food pyramid below.
To lose fat, most application of the food pyramid is based off of eating foods that are low calorie/low fat and high protein/high complex carbohydrate. Eating those foods will typically classify a certain category of foods as a carb based food. As you can see, by convention all foods that are classified as carbs are also classified as fruits and vegetables, which are all good to eat, by the way.
But what this arbitrary categorization basically means is that you should eat almost no bread, no process foods, no processed meats, and certain types of salads and other foods that people typically class as not foods related to fat burning. The main guns are fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which when combined with lean protein, can beaturised as a carb that is actually useful for fat loss.
I have been publically saying for years now that you must eat less carbs resulting in more lean protein, and that recently I’ve seen some studies that back up what I’ve said. But the issue here is that we still haven’tulsion the amount of each food that we should eat to get the type of results that we want. Imagine trying to run a marathon with no gas, water or fuel? You’d get tired and quit before the end.
My friend Phil Ventmond, who is a seasoned endurance and marathon runner, has written a very helpful article about all the things that he learned from taking a low carb diet in the final stages of his triathlon career. Here is a brief summary of his thoughts:
I found that before the race, I drank about 1 liter of water for every mile I was over 26. This lasted about 80 miles. On average, I must have drank about 1 liter of water per hour. My pre-race preparation consisted of about 250 g of carbohydrate per day – mainly between 6 and 8 glasses of water a day. I didn’t exceed this amount of water for any reason what so ever. During the race, I simply drank 250 to 300ml of water per hour. That works out to about 5 to 6 litres of water per day.
The larger the person, the longer the time interval between drinking water before a run and drinking water during a run. I’m 5’11” tall and have always had trouble keeping my head up and being alert all the time. On a long race like a 50 mile I would definitely have needed more water.
Phil also says that he uses a lot of caffeine prior to a run. This is obviously good news for the coffee lover, but is it necessarily a good idea? Luckily for us athletes, caffeine doesn’t seem to be particularly good before a long race. I’m sure that most people would agree that coffee gives you a bit of a kick, so long as you don’t drink too many of those, but I’d personally rather have a bit of water than a caffeine drink.
I’ve often wondered why the sports drink has been developed, especially since so many people have become big meat eaters. It seems logic would dictate that something which is naturally good for your heart should be improving your performance. Unfortunately, it seems that this is not the case. Actually, the opposite seems to be true.
Many sports drinks have been formulated to counteract the effects of a heavy meat diet. Many think that they have a lot of fat and carbohydrates and will aid in weight loss. Again, much of this information is incorrect. Actually, the sugars and fructose in the drinks are never broken down in the body because they are just gone, so you’ll never get the fat burning properties that those other drinks have.
The drinks that are made of natural sugars break down in the body just as they would any other sugar drink. For that reason they are not as effective for weight loss. Actually, the company that makes them, says that their drinks areinking your bodywhich is really kind of a oxymoron.
Since I stopped drinking a lot of sodas and ‘
About The Author
Helena Eater
How much does the quality of food really matter? If you eat food that tastes good, your life will be better. If you eat food that tastes bad, your life will be worse. The difference between good and evil is partly subjective: what tastes good to me might taste bad to you. The difference is also partly objective: what restaurants I think serve good food might serve lousy food to you. But if we stick to objective measures — measures such as how much weight people gain or lose — we can cut through some of the subjectivity.
