Tweaking Your Fat Loss Diet

Tweaking Your Fat Loss Diet
=====================
Hey Ray, I keep forgetting to book an appointment to sit
down to try and lose more fat off my tire, so I'll try and
type out my diet thoughts here. It's going to get long
winded but here it goes. I'm sitting at 195lbs down from
242lbs after reading your book, and of course it's not good
enough for me. I have been eating the same portions and
food since day 1 when I set up the meal plans for 226lbs.
Here's my game plan, let me know of it makes sense or not
please.

- Doing the wild rose cleanse this week starting Thursday.

- At this point changing portions to adjust to 195lb BBE
calculations but up the protein from .8/lb to 1g/lb. Not
a lot of change for my diet actually for the cleanse except
for fish instead of poultry, plan to keep protein levels
high just using fish (likely lots of salmon), everything
else is a match, or close to it anyway.

- When I am done the cleanse and go back to poultry,
cottage cheese etc, I am looking at a few changes. The
carbohydratess are a no brainer, just cut back a bit. For
proteins I eat a pretty standard set of foods: Meal 1 -
cottage cheese 2- chicken / turkey 3- chicken or
salmon 4-chicken / turkey 5 & 6- burgers or pork chops,
just something other than chicken or turkey. My thoughts
are to keep the daily proteins the same except maybe more
emphasis on turkey, but change the night meals to white
fish or some type - crab, cod, halibut, stuff like that
with very low fat contents, or should I be switching
everything to white fish to try and cut fat from the diet?

- Still have a protein shake at 10 am and eat ice cream at
night (usually an ice cream bar) Ice cream is because I
found myself getting dizzy a lot and realized it was lack
of sugar, have felt a lot better since starting this.
Anything I can do different as I realize its not the best
thing for attaining a 6 pack!

Work outs: Going to start running 3 miles, 2 or 3 days a
week before work (this assumes I can drag my butt out of
bed) to see if I can get things moving some more, otherwise
I am fairly active in the evenings, more so when my
shoulder smartens up. Thoughts?

Thanks again, Mack

From Ray:

First I think you should start looking at body fat
percentages now instead of the scale. I saw you the other
night and you are getting really lean. I don't know if you
have a certain number you want to see on the scale, but if
not, I would be more concerned with body composition than
getting that scale to go down any more. After all, do you
want to fight at 160 lbs and 10% body fat or 190 lbs and
10% body fat? Just a choice so let me know.

Now on to the diet. The cleanse is going to make you feel
awesome after and I think you will see great benefits from
it. So that is a go. As for the BEE calculations, I
wouldn't drop as low as 195. I would only go for a 210 for
now. Big changes usually cause the body to freak out and
rebel. You don't want that, you have to just tease it a
little and not totally tick it off.

With your activity level, I would not decrease the
carbohydrates for the increase in protein. This is my
opinion but I feel that if the carbohydrates are not
available then your body is going to go after the protein
next since it is not the macronutrient that is needed for
survival, fat is. So it is extra muscle you are after, then
add the protein on top but don't decrease your
carbohydrates right now. Not for an athlete.

As for fat, you do not want to cut it out totally. Fat
should be at least 15% of your calories. You need this for
hormone production buddy. I like the way you cycle your
protein sources, keep that up and I would actually go for
more fatty meats at night along with fibrous carbohydrates
if fat storage is a concern. If that makes no sense to you
then we can talk about the science on that later.

As for the ice cream at night, this is weird. You are
considering cutting back on carbs for the sake of increased
protein but then eating ice cream at night for the sugar
you need. See what is happening there? This is another good
reason why you need to keep your carb intake at the present
levels or even bump them up just a bit. You only need to
add a few grams of complex carbs here and there and the
light-headedness will go away. Try some oatmeal with a
banana any time you need a sugar/carb fix. It will break
down fast at the start and slow burn on the end from the
banana and oatmeal combo.

Now for the extra activity. I know you know the math of fat
loss. 3500 calories per pound of fat is the magic number.
Now how many calories are you in deficit when you calculate
your classes, gym sessions and good eating. If you are in
deficit then the extra running should only be because you
like it or need to improve your performance in running.
Doing excess work to burn calories can throw you into
overtraining really fast. Watch yourself. I think you are
doing enough activity already with the MMA, my class and
the gym. If anything I would go with sprints in the morning
if you must go for a run. 10 sprints for 100 yards with 30
seconds rest in between.

Hope that helps buddy! Keep going, your looking great!

----------------------------------------------------
Ray L Burton is a personal trainer and author of the best
selling internet ebook titled, Fat to Fit - The Journey.
You can learn more about exercise and wieght loss at
http://www.buildingbodies.ca and read more about his weight
loss book at http://www.fattofitbook.com