Fighting Fat: Part II

The second degree: reducing the amount of subcutaneous fat and drawing the relief of the muscles. How to properly combine diet and cardio for maximum efficiency?

The second stage: reducing the amount of subcutaneous fat and drawing the relief of the muscles. How to properly combine diet and cardio for maximum efficiency?

Fat loss strategy

In past articles, Ukrhealth talked about three different types of fat in the body (fat in internal organs, subcutaneous fat, fat in the lower abdomen and back in men), and also discussed the issue of how fat people can effectively lose weight.

Today's material will be relevant for those who have a body fat level of 15-18% (the thickness of the fat fold on the stomach is approximately 1-3 centimeters, the stomach itself does not protrude, but is still visible under a T-shirt), and who wants to lose weight to 10-11 %.

How to burn fat and build muscle?

Once again, we will remind you that it is impossible to burn fat and increase muscle in one workout. The typical advice to combine strength training with high reps and twenty minutes of cardio at the end is completely wrong technique.

No matter how beautiful and even logical the idea that the body burns subcutaneous fat and immediately directs the received energy to building muscle tissue, in reality this process is impossible for a number of physiological reasons.

Effect of hormones on fat burning

The hormone insulin, which is produced in the presence of sugar in the blood and is critically necessary for building muscles, practically blocks the release of fat from fat cells, which actually makes it impossible to burn this fat for energy.

Given that carbohydrates and proteins increase insulin levels, when they are taken, fat burning is inhibited. It is also obvious that in the presence of dietary fat in the body, the body does not need to burn its own fat. It turns out that fat burns only with periodic fasting.

Why won't running work?

Visceral fat, which is abundant in obese people, responds poorly to insulin, but responds well to the fat-burning hormone adrenaline, which is produced during cardio. That is why fat people lose weight when running without even following a diet.

If you have little internal fat, then the role of running is somewhat different - in fact, you need a negative calorie diet, as well as periodic "cleansing" of the blood from insulin and excess energy in the form of glucose, which is what cardio training (and running in particular) will help you with. .

What is better - running or dieting?

It is also important that when doing cardio, a person loses weight not because of calories burned, but because of hormonal "surges" caused by running or brisk walking. In fact, it is easier to reduce your diet by 400 calories than to run 5 kilometers.

You can either combine a less strict diet and fat-burning cardio, or give up cardio, but follow a stricter diet that limits carbohydrates to 40-60 grams. day. Cardio only helps you, but diet is still more important at this stage.

Why does not fat burn, but muscles?

Since the role of insulin is to protect muscles (and fat) from decay, with a low level of this hormone, the body burns not only fat, but also muscle. It is believed that the loss of three kilograms of fat causes the loss of a kilogram of muscle, and this is practically impossible to change.

In order to lose as little muscle as possible, it is important to adhere to the increased rate of protein consumption and in no case reduce the caloric content of food by more than 10-20%. The purpose (and technique) of strength training should also be different - maintaining mass.

Fast weight loss techniques

The slimmer you are, the more your body will prevent further fat burning. At the same time, "typical" weight loss techniques (starvation and mono-diets, drastic calorie reduction, excessive cardio) will burn more muscle than fat.

If you want to get a flat stomach, you will have to count calories and also use cycle diets. Only this will make you burn the most difficult fat - the fat in the lower abdomen, because exercise will not help. But more on that next week.

The most effective technique for burning subcutaneous fat is cardio several times a week on an empty stomach, reducing daily caloric intake by 10-20%, limiting carbohydrates to 50-60 grams. per day and increased consumption of proteins to protect muscles.