3 Things To Use NOW To Stop GAINING Fat‏

My top  three strategies that I employ with my clients to put the breaks on their fat  storage curve are Intolerances, Transfats and Sugar. Which one I hit them with  first varies depending on their lifestyle and diet, and I recommend that for the  first week you concentrate on just one; get to grips with it, adapt to it, and  then progress – trying to do a complete lifestyle and eating pattern overhaul is  often a short-lived endeavour.

Each point is as  equally valid as the others, so decide for yourself which is the biggest  let-down for you and plan out how to tackle it. On that, by the way, I strongly  recommend using a little NLP trick with your goal setting: write your goals in  the present, definitive tense; so rather than saying “I will not eat chocolate”  change it to “I do not eat chocolate”. It’s a tiny point, but a  gem.

1 – Intolerances

The top 4 most likely are Gluten/Wheat, Dairy, Alcohol, and Legumes,  almost in that order (there’s not a lot between the first two, though I would  say Wheat Gluten is at the top of the pile).

The  reasoning here is simple: what goes into your stomach is not necessarily what  gets digested into your bloodstream, and your fat cells (adipose tissue) also  act as a safety mechanism, storing anything your body percieves as harmful until  your liver can get round to cleansing it.

Note that  an intolerance, or sensitivity if you prefer, is not an allergy – an allergy  puts you in hospital, and intolerance is often mistook for wind, bloating,  excema, bags under your eyes, fluffy mouth, and a whole range of other stuff you  don’t really notice until it’s gone.

2 –  Transfats

Now some of these sneaky buggers can be  hard to spot, others are more obvious. Contained in a sausage, for example, are  processed and de-natured fats (or lipids, as they will be called from here on)  and are pretty obvious as being on the avoid-list.

Margerine and non-butter spreads are very definitely on the list,  despite the health claims on the packaging. Don’t even get me started on this:  butter is the only butter. Yes, it’s high in fat, but it’s natural, you can  digest it, and if it comes from cows/goats that have been grass fed and allowed  to get some sunshine it will be a source of omega-3 fatty acids, which actually  help you lose fat stores.

A somewhat less obvious  example to think about would be cooking with extra virgin olive oil; EVOO is a  polyunsaturated omega-6 chain lipid that is a total wuss. Heat it above about  thirty degree centigrade and it will mutate into a transfat, heck leave it out  in the sunshine for a half hour and it will mutate. Only consume it cold, and if  you want to cook with olive oil for vegetarian/taste reasons, only use raw  unfiltered oil and try not to cook above 160 degrees in the oven.

Transfats, hydrogenated fats, fats from vegetable  sources, these are all likely to be stored as love handles and beer bellies.  Stomp them out.

(Tip: the best lipids to cook with  are goose fat, beef dripping, coconut oil and lard, in that  order)

3 – Sugar

The dreaded “Insulin” word is on the horizon folks – to burn fat on a  daily basis, you need to control your insulin. In effect, this is actually very  simple: Little Pickers Wear Bigger Knickers. So stop picking. Stick to  three square meals a day, and you’ll only have three periods of high  insulin.

One of my tribesman dropped a whole bunch of  inches off his waistline, and when I asked what he’d changed he said “I’ve  stopped putting honey in my tea”. Honey is an awesome food, but by having it in his tea between meals was clearly just enough to keep him from going to a low enough level of insulin to burn fat; note that this is nothing to do with  overall calorific intake/expenditure, more your liver and pancreatic “gear  change”.

Refined sugars are even worse –  unbelieveably potent, they don’t just nudge your pancreas, they pin it against a  wall and beat the hell out of it. Absolute top of the list of refined sugars to  avoid is High Fructose Corn Syrup – studies have shown this has a 100% fat  storage rate and, worryingly, once it’s stored in your body exercise has . . .  no effect whatsoever. To put that into context, Tate & Lyle white sugar had  a 70-80% storage rate, but was [relatively] easily accessed for consumption  during moderate aerobic activity.

Alcohol, by the  way, is globules of sugar with an ethenol molecule in it, so as well as the  ethanol scoring on the intolerance rule above it also strikes on the sugar  spiking rule. Stick to one drink per 24hrs; if you can’t stop at one *ahem,  looks sheepish* don’t drink at all while trying to trim up.

Likewise, orange juice and bananas – the former even more than the  later, these pack a heavy glycaemic (blood sugar) punch, and while that is what  you want after a workout, it’s not what you want while sitting at a desk.

Confused? Don’t be – like I say, put any one of  these strategies into place and you’ll see a difference in as little as ten  days. As always, I’m here my folks, so holler up if you need me.