Lowering and Maintaining Low Body Fat
Method 1: The Cheat Day
Method 1: The Cheat Day
There are ways of lowering and maintaining low levels of body fat. One of these methods requires one day of the week as a cheat day where you can eat virtually anything you want including your favorite foods that you have left out of the diet. Anything within reason can be eaten including sugars and fatty foods. This cheat day serves two purposes. One, is it helps you to stick with a certain eating plan due to the fact that you know on this day you can satisfy any cravings or temptations that you may feel on the calorie restricted days. The second purpose of the cheat day is that it stops the normal dieting plateau which normally occurs with calorie restriction. The dieting plateau is brought about from the set point mechanism that is mentioned earlier in this article that physiologically regulates your bodyweight by adjusting the intake and expenditure of energy so that a specified amount of body fat is maintained.
The main problem with calorie restricted diets is it puts the body into a starvation mode which invokes hormonal processes mentioned above, to slow the metabolism and increase hunger to maintain current body fat levels which in turn leads to the dieting plateau. Once this happens, getting rid of that last bit of body fat is very near impossible.
You will find that when first starting on a new dieting phase that bodyfat is lost quite quickly along with water weight, but as more body fat is lost the body will initiate the starvation response which in turn lowers leptin levels to drop sharply which increases the appetite, and a reduction of energy expenditure. The cheat day will curb the starvation response by tricking the body into thinking that more food is now available and bring the body out of the starvation mode. This will allow a continued loss of body fat over the next few weeks or months.
The increased leptin production brought on by the cheat day elevates the metabolism and keeps hunger at bay for longer periods of time. To get the most effect of the elevated leptin production plenty of carbohydrates are needed particularly the non fibrous carbohydrates such as pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, cereals etc. This is one time that the high glycemic foods that you have been strictly avoiding are the best foods to eat; you can even eat your favorite sugary foods like pastries, biscuits and other glucose laden snacks.
But as mentioned previously above you can "virtually" eat anything that you want, but not in massive amounts. Protein intake should be kept at 1g per pound of body weight; fruit should be kept to a minimum. An increase of calories of 50% of your current dietary intake is the maximum that you should go to as any increase over this amount may increase bodyfat levels. You may find that as fat levels get low that a more regular refeed day is required due to the lower the bodyfat level the more the body will resist further fat loss by further reducing leptin production. In this situation a cheat day may be required every five or six days.
Weight training is very important in increasing and maintaining your muscle mass. The reason why we lose muscle tissue when dieting, even though protein intake is high, is hormonal and the reason why we can't gain muscle without overeating again is hormonal. And it is leptin that controls these hormones with the exception of insulin. Both insulin and leptin are both affected by glucose. Increased leptin also results in preferential liver glycogen resynthesis; it also increases testosterone levels and increases in growth hormone, and blunts cortisol release.
Method 2: Calorie Cycling
Another method that is used to achieve low levels of body fat and eliminating dieting plateaus is by cycling the intake of calories. Calorie cycling will also keep leptin levels high and again confuse the body into not allowing the normal starvation mode dieting plateau.
This type of dieting requires effort in the planning of food and calorie intakes, but never gives the body chance to get into the starvation mode. There is a limit to the amount of extra calories you can ingest, and should remain at approx 300 more or less calories than the normal daily intake.
An example would be that if your required calorie intake is 2000 calories per day then a 3 day cycle would give; day 1 would be a reduced intake to 1700 calories, day two would mean an increase up normal levels of 2000 calories, and day 3 would be an increase up to 2300 calories. The cycle would then continue for the next three days, day 4; 1700 calories, day 5; 2000 calories, day 6; 2300 calories. The average intake over the three day cycle is still the normal 2000 calories. This cycle would continue until your desired body fat level is reached. When coming off this type of dietary manipulation it is recommended that increase in calories is in small increments only to stop any hormonal reactions.
You can find more about fat loss secrets in
http://fatlossbiblebook.blogspot.comAnass Qasem
http://fatlossbiblebook.blogspot.comLowering and Maintaining Low Body Fat
By: Anass Qaem
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