28-Days-to-Lean Meal Plan
With the right plan and the right discipline, you can get seriously shredded in just 28 days.
Read articleGetting cut and defined isn’t just about calorie counting. Heck, if that were true, anyone and everyone could get lean easily. While modifying your total calorie intake certainly plays a major role, the key to successful fat loss lies in strategies that actually alter your body’s metabolism.
Most think of altering the metabolism as “boosting it,” but there are things you can do that also change the way the body handles food. For example, simply by taking a fiber supplement, you can alter the way your body handles carbohydrates. Fiber stimulates carbs to bypass fat storing pathways, which in turn means they ultimately head down other pathways for muscle fueling or building. There you go — a simple nutrition step to modify your metabolism.
Here are eight more such steps you can take to cut up and lower your bodyfat. Coupled with controlling your calories, they can transform your metabolism and help you get shredded.
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If you struggle with bodyfat, you should stress protein — more chicken, eggs, fish, beef, low-fat dairy and protein powders.
Why? Not all calories — carbs, protein and fat — are equal in their efficiency
Carbohydrates help retain muscle (and muscle is a metabolic booster), yet they can also stimulate fat storage. Following a modified low-carb diet — three consecutive days of consuming 100-125g a day, followed by a single day of taking in 300-400g, offers muscle support minus the fat storage. How so?
When you eat fewer carbs and replace those carbs with protein, in general, the body ramps up fat-mobilizing enzymes and hormones resulting in accelerated fat loss. However, a prolonged period of lower carbs can leave your muscle looking flat, since glycogen (the storage form of carbs in muscle) pulls water into the muscle. When you go low carb, the muscles get depleted of their glycogen and lose some water and therefore their fullness. Therefore, load back up on carbs every fourth or fifth day.
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Cardio is
The supplement combo can even preserve testosterone, the muscle-building hormone that often declines with cardio activity.
Pick up your carnitine at the M&F Store!
When calories are controlled, the inclusion of omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, trout and sardines may promote speedier fat loss.
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Creatine —
Mother Earth’s flavor enhancer stimulates adrenaline (epinephrine) and uncoupling proteins (UCPs). Adrenaline triggers fat breakdown; UCPs increase calorie burning. Garlic also controls cortisol levels, which can support muscle retention in a dieting bodybuilder. Use fresh bulbs in cooking or give supplements a try.
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It’s the
The amino acid tyrosine is also effective in turning a moderately calorie burning thyroid hormone called T4 into a more potent calorie burning one called T3. Three thousand mg of L-tyrosine taken before training or cardio will do the trick.
This is one of those herbs that longevity buffs have been using forever, no pun intended. Used heavily in cooking curry dishes or even in supplemental form, Fenugreek is extremely effective in controlling the rise in
As much as we’d like to report otherwise, you won’t achieve the physique you want just by counting calories and training religiously.
Your metabolism has to be on board with your efforts. These eight simple strategies should put the twist in your metabolic rate to provide a real return on your training and nutrition investment. FLEX