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We start by knowing our body. This means we have to know why we got fat. Bloodwork can help us understand... How is your morning fasted blood glucose? If it is too high you have insulin resistance. This will mean that post meal insulin rise will be more pronounced and stay elevated longer to dispose of blood sugar. One tool is to take blood glucose readings at intervals following differently constructed meals. The fat loss goal requires insulin to subside post meal so that you may be in a state where the body can look to its own stores for energy. Blood glucose level is a proxy for what is happening.
You need to know your A1c level to determine if you are becoming diabetic. There is a distinction that needs to be made between diabetes requiring medical intervention such as gluberide, glucophage meds or insulin and insulin resistance that can be helped with certain glucose disposal agents such as vanadyl sulfate.
You will not lose much fat if insulin remains active for much of the time because insulin hinders lipolysis. Exercise or growth hormone induced lipolysis will not be effective because this effect will be countered by insulin's lipogenic effect.
You need to know your triglyceride level. If it is high then you need to figure out why. If it remains high you are likely to have fat redeposition in and around organs in the core including the heart. For body sculpting purposes this is also not desirable this fat deposit shifting. One reason triglycerides can be high is if you cortisol levels are high. Stress is a huge factor in fat loss resistance or fat gain because it can bring about high fats in the bloodstream and storage of fat in adipose tissue around the core. If this is a problem then the overall level of cortisol needs to come down. High impact exercise such as the routine you are doing may raise the stress hormone. If your problem is related to over exercise this can be fixed by backing off, getting some rest and changing the routine. There are some things you can do to help reduce cortisol besides removing the stress such as use of phosphidyl serine.
The pectin/guar/ph powder I talk about has a positive effect on lowering the glucose load of a meal. It slows the speed of transit and reduces blood glucose rise and insulin spikes. You want to lower both the amplitude of the insulin spike and the length of time it is active if fat loss is the goal. This is perhaps its best use, but obviously hunger control is a very positive effect as well.
I know you are in a hurry to pull fat off but the truth is that you have to trick the body to pull off a pound or two per week. It is not realistic to expect more. In fact the body will penalize you for it. That's why no matter how motivated you are you can not use all of the tools early on. The rule is you use only what is needed to average a pound or two (about half a kilo) a week fat loss. That means there is progression the first of which is to clean up the diet. No fried foods, few processed foods, no fast food, more raw veggies and you learn that apples are more filling then candy bars. What follows is usually only a small drop in calories, enough to get you below maintenance. This is adjusted as you lose weight of course. You rely on activity for fat loss. You rely on the absence of insulin. The activity will create a demand for energy that you supply with your own fat in a slight excess over what you put in for food.
To this end you need to have optimal thyroid activity. This takes us back to symptoms and blood work. Do you have symptoms of under active thyroid? Fatigue, fat gain, depressed mood, etc., etc. You first look at the thyroid panel. If it is abnormal then a doctor may be able to treat you. If it is normal but you still believe you have thyroid problems for reasons beyond what I listed then you test for antibodies and reverse T3. If the former is abnormal then a doctor can remedy but if the latter is abnormal you pretty much are on your own. However the reason for high reverse T3 would need to be eliminated.
After you have a good feel for diabetes, insulin resistance, cortisol and thyroid you will want to know where your sex hormones are. If your estrogen levels are high it is because you have a lot of aromatase activity. As you get leaner and lose the fat you will have less and less but for now it can cause an imbalance and contribute to you holding too much fat. There are subtle ways to approach the Problem with natural inhibitors. If the problem is significant then there are also the drug AIs. If testosterone is abnormally low it may be difficult to lose fat and hold muscle. In fact much of the fasting you do may catabolize more muscle then fat. This is an important but over emphasized area in my opinion. Still if you are an aging man it plays a significant role in your body shape. Remedying other problems can increase testosterone. If the levels are very low and your DHEA levels low there is a good chance supplemental DHEA can benefit the estrogen to testosterone ratio. Otherwise it may contribute to the imbalance. This is a significant topic upon which I barely touch. However I believe it should take a backseat to all else I discuss.
Once we know our body in the sort of ways I describe and after we have remedied areas that can be a problem we can move forward on a protocol. The protocol only involves getting fat loss moving in the right direction with cleaning up the diet and being active. The important part is not to be overly aggressive or you will plateau to easily. My favorite exercise is hiking. Nothing beats that for fat loss as long as the metabolism is normal and proper eating with insulin under control and slight caloric deficit. It is the uneven terrain, climbing here and there and steady movement that benefits you. High impact exercise in my opinion can be detrimental. You can create nice circuits in the gym to duplicate hiking's benefit. The real lazy way to gauge success is fat loss. If you are losing more then two pounds per week you are not doing it correctly and you will stall too quickly and the stall will be prolonged.
How you design the continuing protocol centers on two concepts. One you want to stay engaged and be excited to continue. Two you want to toggle. The former requires you to take periodic breaks from being too strict and guess what so does the latter. I can detail several plans but really one needs to figure it out for themselves for several reasons. The primary one is when you do so you will then almost always be able to recover from a stall. The secondary one is that almost no one respects knowledge given freely. People abuse knowledge given freely. How? By constantly asking "what else you got?" when they have been given extremely valuable tools with which they can adapt and achieve success. But most never get around to fully utilizing those tools. They never exhaust them.
You need to know your A1c level to determine if you are becoming diabetic. There is a distinction that needs to be made between diabetes requiring medical intervention such as gluberide, glucophage meds or insulin and insulin resistance that can be helped with certain glucose disposal agents such as vanadyl sulfate.
You will not lose much fat if insulin remains active for much of the time because insulin hinders lipolysis. Exercise or growth hormone induced lipolysis will not be effective because this effect will be countered by insulin's lipogenic effect.
You need to know your triglyceride level. If it is high then you need to figure out why. If it remains high you are likely to have fat redeposition in and around organs in the core including the heart. For body sculpting purposes this is also not desirable this fat deposit shifting. One reason triglycerides can be high is if you cortisol levels are high. Stress is a huge factor in fat loss resistance or fat gain because it can bring about high fats in the bloodstream and storage of fat in adipose tissue around the core. If this is a problem then the overall level of cortisol needs to come down. High impact exercise such as the routine you are doing may raise the stress hormone. If your problem is related to over exercise this can be fixed by backing off, getting some rest and changing the routine. There are some things you can do to help reduce cortisol besides removing the stress such as use of phosphidyl serine.
The pectin/guar/ph powder I talk about has a positive effect on lowering the glucose load of a meal. It slows the speed of transit and reduces blood glucose rise and insulin spikes. You want to lower both the amplitude of the insulin spike and the length of time it is active if fat loss is the goal. This is perhaps its best use, but obviously hunger control is a very positive effect as well.
I know you are in a hurry to pull fat off but the truth is that you have to trick the body to pull off a pound or two per week. It is not realistic to expect more. In fact the body will penalize you for it. That's why no matter how motivated you are you can not use all of the tools early on. The rule is you use only what is needed to average a pound or two (about half a kilo) a week fat loss. That means there is progression the first of which is to clean up the diet. No fried foods, few processed foods, no fast food, more raw veggies and you learn that apples are more filling then candy bars. What follows is usually only a small drop in calories, enough to get you below maintenance. This is adjusted as you lose weight of course. You rely on activity for fat loss. You rely on the absence of insulin. The activity will create a demand for energy that you supply with your own fat in a slight excess over what you put in for food.
To this end you need to have optimal thyroid activity. This takes us back to symptoms and blood work. Do you have symptoms of under active thyroid? Fatigue, fat gain, depressed mood, etc., etc. You first look at the thyroid panel. If it is abnormal then a doctor may be able to treat you. If it is normal but you still believe you have thyroid problems for reasons beyond what I listed then you test for antibodies and reverse T3. If the former is abnormal then a doctor can remedy but if the latter is abnormal you pretty much are on your own. However the reason for high reverse T3 would need to be eliminated.
After you have a good feel for diabetes, insulin resistance, cortisol and thyroid you will want to know where your sex hormones are. If your estrogen levels are high it is because you have a lot of aromatase activity. As you get leaner and lose the fat you will have less and less but for now it can cause an imbalance and contribute to you holding too much fat. There are subtle ways to approach the Problem with natural inhibitors. If the problem is significant then there are also the drug AIs. If testosterone is abnormally low it may be difficult to lose fat and hold muscle. In fact much of the fasting you do may catabolize more muscle then fat. This is an important but over emphasized area in my opinion. Still if you are an aging man it plays a significant role in your body shape. Remedying other problems can increase testosterone. If the levels are very low and your DHEA levels low there is a good chance supplemental DHEA can benefit the estrogen to testosterone ratio. Otherwise it may contribute to the imbalance. This is a significant topic upon which I barely touch. However I believe it should take a backseat to all else I discuss.
Once we know our body in the sort of ways I describe and after we have remedied areas that can be a problem we can move forward on a protocol. The protocol only involves getting fat loss moving in the right direction with cleaning up the diet and being active. The important part is not to be overly aggressive or you will plateau to easily. My favorite exercise is hiking. Nothing beats that for fat loss as long as the metabolism is normal and proper eating with insulin under control and slight caloric deficit. It is the uneven terrain, climbing here and there and steady movement that benefits you. High impact exercise in my opinion can be detrimental. You can create nice circuits in the gym to duplicate hiking's benefit. The real lazy way to gauge success is fat loss. If you are losing more then two pounds per week you are not doing it correctly and you will stall too quickly and the stall will be prolonged.
How you design the continuing protocol centers on two concepts. One you want to stay engaged and be excited to continue. Two you want to toggle. The former requires you to take periodic breaks from being too strict and guess what so does the latter. I can detail several plans but really one needs to figure it out for themselves for several reasons. The primary one is when you do so you will then almost always be able to recover from a stall. The secondary one is that almost no one respects knowledge given freely. People abuse knowledge given freely. How? By constantly asking "what else you got?" when they have been given extremely valuable tools with which they can adapt and achieve success. But most never get around to fully utilizing those tools. They never exhaust them.
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