Body Fat Guide

What You Need To Know To
Get Rid Of Unhealthy Body Fat Forever!

Body fat… Nasty, clumpy, disgusting body fat…

What images does this term bring to your mind?

If you're like me, even thinking about body fat brings a cringe to your face. Most people are strikingly aware that they are carrying too much fat on their bodies, but they are not really sure where to begin when it comes to getting rid of that unwanted body fat.

In order to get your fat loss program moving in the right direction, I have compiled the body fat guide, a comprehensive resource to help you not only understand why body fat is bad for you, but also what you can do to get rid of it forever!

What is body fat and where does it come from?

Body fat is created when an excess of calories (energy) is consumed over an extended period of time. The human body is extremely efficient when it comes to ensuring your survival. Thousands of years ago, humans did not have access to the variety and quantity of foods that we enjoy today. It was not uncommon for humans to go for days with out any food at all!

Learn more about body fat and weight loss here!

In response to these "tough times", the human body developed the ability to store excess energy, (body fat), in reserve. Consequently, when extra calories are consumed, your body stores this extra energy as fat deposits. Men typically store the majority of their body fat around their mid section. Women typically store their body fat around their thighs and rear.

Although it can be a contributing factor, body fat does not merely come from consuming too much dietary fat…

Body fat appears when an excess of calories from any of the major nutrient classes, (protein, carbohydrate, fat), is consumed. In order to put this into perspective, lets take a look at the calorie content of each of the major nutrient classes.

Each gram of protein and carbohydrate contain 4 calories.

Each gram of fat contains 9 calories!

Armed with this information, it's easy to see why consuming foods high in dietary fat can lead to excess body fat.

What people typically have a difficult time understanding, is that you can also increase your body fat by consuming an excess of calories from carbohydrates and protein.

How many calories should I consume to burn body fat?

The amount of calories that you need to consume each day will depend on a variety of factors that are unique to each individual.

Some of these factors include age, activity level, fat loss goals and unique metabolism. As I stated earlier, in order to lose body fat, you will need to consume less calories than you are expending.

To illustrate this point, think of you body as an energy, (calorie), bank.

Every piece of food that you eat is a deposit into your calorie bank. Every activity that your body performs throughout the day, from simple tasks like breathing and blinking, to more complex tasks like exercise and physical labor, withdraws calories from your "calorie bank".

If you are expending the same amount of energy that you are consuming, you will not gain or lose excess body fat.

If you put an excess of calories into your calorie bank, you will gain weight and body fat.

In order to lose body fat, you will need to create a calorie deficit.

In terms of our example, if you want to lose body fat, you will need to consistently overdraw the energy funds from your calorie bank.

There are only two healthy was to put your calorie bank into a calorie deficit.

The first way to create a calorie deficit is to track how many calories you are eating and decrease this amount steadily over time.

It is not a good idea to cut your calories in half, completely eliminate an entire nutrient class from your diet, or eat nothing but protein shakes and supplements.

All of these strategies have been proven ineffective for long term fat loss.

Yes, you may lose some quick body fat by utilizing these techniques, but you are more than likely to gain it all back and them some over time.

As far as permanent fat loss goes, it is a much healthier idea to slowly reduce your caloric intake by decreasing your daily caloric intake somewhere in the range of 100-500 calories. This should eliminate enough calories that you will be able to burn some body fat within a week, yet not so much that you make you fat loss program impossible for you to stick with.

The second way to create a caloric deficit is to add physical activity / exercise to your daily routine.

Any physical activity that you engage in that you were not performing before, will cause you to burn fat. As far as burning calories goes, regular cardiovascular exercise performed at a medium to high intensity a few times per week, will typically do the trick.

While it is possible to burn calories through other forms of exercise, such as weight lifting, pilates, yoga etc.

It seems to be easier for most people to concentrate on one form of exercise in the beginning. As the conditioning of your body improves, so will your recovery time between workouts. This will allow you to progress to the next step, and create a comprehensive fat loss workout where you combine different modes of exercise to burn even more calories.

Do not think that you have to add 3 hours of jogging to your life!

This is simply not the best way to structure your program. Assuming that you are healthy and have medical clearance to perform exercise, I would recommend a minimum of 20 minutes of cardiovascular activity, performed at a medium level of intensity 3-4 times per week.

This should burn enough calories that you will begin to see some fat loss after about 2 weeks.

I recommend spacing your workouts, so that you are allowing your body enough time to recover from each exercise session. Scheduling your workouts for every other day, should allow for adequate recovery from this type of exercise.

The best approach to a sound fat loss plan will be to combine the power of limiting you caloric intake with the fat burning effects of regular exercise.

This will allow you to meet somewhere in the middle, thereby not requiring you to cut too many calories from your diet, or requiring you to spend endless hours exercising to achieve your fat loss goals. When used in combination, you will also get the added benefit of improved health that accompanies sensible eating and regular exercise.