Secrets to Losing Fat
It "can" be easy to know how to become physically fit. In just 3 steps you will be well on your way.
- Calculate the number of Calories you eat daily.
- Calculate the number of Calories you need to burn daily.
- Know your maximum heart rate (MHR).
Those are your 3 basic steps. You will also need to learn: how to eat the right foods and avoid "bad" fat; how much protein you should eat daily; the proper method to perform exercises; etc.
Take some time to review the pages of Garrison Body to understand everything you need to know. You have the first 3 most important steps. Now continue to learn the right foods, simple exercise, when to eat so that your body has the most time to digest all your food for the day.
Before you try, you cannot change the way your body works. But you can learn to understand enough of how it works to attain the goals you want.
- If you eat more Calories than you burn daily, your body will store the extra Calories - no matter where the Calories come from. It can be 100% natural food without any fat, but your body will create fat to store the additional Calories.
- Your body will ONLY store fat. If you have too many Calories for the day, your body simply stores the extra - as fat.
- No food will burn fat. The only way to burn fat is to do "something" other than nothing - like exercise, which could be just walking. But you must burn more Calories than you eat in order to burn fat.
- If you eat too "little" food, your body will eat your muscle for the nutrition it requires...and not only leave the fat storage, but increase the fat.
- Your body will not "use" fat unless it knows you are eating the proper number of Calories daily, and, your heart rate is below 65% of your MHR.
- Your body will only burn fat when your heart rate is below 65% of your MHR. The higher your heart rate over 65% of your MHR, the less fat your body burns. AND....if your heart rate is too high when you exercise, you will not burn fat! If you have eaten properly, your body will use recently ingested food. If you have not eaten properly, your body will use muscle for energy. That will have the opposite effect of losing fat to get healthy.
- Exercise can be easy or hard. That decision is up to you. But our proprietary calculator will detail the Calories you need to eat daily and the Calories you need to burn daily for whatever goals you have. Armed with that information you are ready to know that you are doing what's necessary to meet your goals.
Your body is constantly protecting itself - from you and from the elements around you. You cannot "trick" your body into doing what you want. Any attempt will force your body into creating and storing more fat.
You need to know whether you are gaining or losing fat or muscle. Scales only tell you your total weight. They won't tell you anything about how much fat you have, or if you have lost fat - only total weight. If you have too much body fat it's unhealthy.
Your heart has to work extremely hard to get your blood through all the fat in your arteries. It's pretty much the same as pouring grease down a sink drain. Eventually, you'll have to call the plumber to free up the clogged pipes because the water will not go down the drain. With your body, typically a person waits until they have a heart attack before doing anything about the fat build-up in their body. That's the same as the sink overflowing. When your heart has to work so hard to pump blood, eventually it stops - A.K.A. Heart Attack - or slows so much that you pass out as you are feeling a great deal of pain.
Review the "Body Fat Charts" in order to see what percentage is healthy for your age. If you do not know how to check your body fat percentage, you can ask someone who knows how to use skin calipers in a gym to check for you. DO NOT use an electronic device and DO NOT use the Body Mass Index (BMI) method.
There are 2 methods to check your body fat percentage that are accurate. The first method is called a "dunk tank" that many hospitals have and you can pay to use. The dunk tank is the most accurate method of measuring body fat - within 1 percent accuracy. The second method is using skin calipers - accurate within 3 percent. ALL other devices can be 10% (or much higher depending on who is administering the test) "over" or under your actual body fat percentage.
BMI uses your physical measurements. Those measurements do not take into consideration that you may have built a lot of muscles. Even if you have high body fat, you could still have a lot of muscle you've built.
You need to know this measurement so you know if you are gaining muscle or fat. Or, if you are losing muscle or fat. This is "critical" to your health.
If your exercise is pushing your heart rate too high, you will burn muscle. More accurately, glucose and glycogen are used when your heart rate increases over 65% of your maximum heart rate. Since glucose and glycogen are a large part of muscle, your body will eat muscle for the nutrition from which you are starving your body.
YOU CANNOT TRICK YOUR BODY! There is no way to "train" your body to do what you want. You have to understand how your body works in order to get the results you want. THAT is why Garrison Body created this site in 1996. Yes. Garrison Body has been around since 1996 - one of the first Web sites on the Net.
USDA states that the average person needs 2,000 Calories daily just to maintain their weight. But if you are not burning enough Calories, eating 2,000 may be too much, and eating less than 1,500 will be too little. You first need to know how many Calories you burn daily.
If you are over 50, that 2,000 Calories daily can be way too much if you are not highly active daily. As you get older you become less active. That means you need fewer Calories. BUT...don't just assume you know how many Calories you need or have been eating. That will also get you into trouble - translation, it will create more fat.
Each individual has different requirements. This varies with body type, activity level and metabolism. In "general", the USDA recommendation is "sort of" correct.
Garrison Body has created a proprietary calculator that calculates your daily activities, food you consume, your body weight and takes the "guess work" out of what you need for your goal. You may access the calculator which will provide the answers for "each" individual specific to their daily routine by following the link to the Calorie calculator.
Our calculator, used correctly, will show the Calories necessary to consume daily for the individual using the calculator, total Calories burned during a 24-hour period for that individual, whether that person has eaten too many or too few Calories for the day as well as how many Calories you were over or under. Because this calculator is based upon weight, the calculations are different from any other Calorie calculator so that the person using the calculator is provided the correct information - not just a "guess" which is what most Calorie calculators provide.
You may not know your maximum heart rate, but you need to know that number in order to assure you are only burning fat - not muscle.
When you exercise to reduce fat, you must be certain that your heart rate does not go higher than 65% of your maximum heart rate. 60% of your maximum heart rate is best for reducing fat. If your exercise has your heart rate beating higher than 65% consistently (or for most of your routine), you are burning food that has recently been ingested, or, muscle if you have not had enough food. If you do not reduce your heart rate to 65% or less, all of your exercise will be doing the "opposite" of why you are exercising. When your heart rate is over 65% of your MHR, you are no longer burning fat.
Most people refer to fat as "weight". But weight is simply the combination of fat, muscle and bones. There is nothing on a typical scale indicating that you have too much fat, are losing fat or gaining fat using only a scale. Even the scales that have that information are as much as 15% "off" from being correct.
Fat is...fat. It's what the body creates when you eat too much food, too little food, when you exercise without having the proper nutrition and the body then uses muscle to provide you the energy to exercise. Fat is the body's method of "storing". You want to stop the storing and use what is already stored - fat. Your body is always trying to protect itself. Therefore, you cannot "train" your body to do what you want. To "get" what you want from your body, you must first understand how some of the basics work. Anything other than eating the "correct' number of Calories daily will force your body into storing whatever you eat. If you exercise above 65% of your MHR, your body will "eat" muscle (if you have not had the proper amount of food prior to your exercise).
Here's a simple way to know if your diet is good or bad. Answer the following question.
Are you tired after you eat a meal? Tired enough to want to go to sleep?
If you said yes, then your diet needs to be addressed!
If you want to nap after most meals (or all meals), your body is shutting down when you eat in order to restore energy and to "STOP" using energy - which is food.
When you eat, whatever you eat should have the proper amount of nutrition and proper number of Calories. If that food provides what the body needs, then your body is ready to continue - you will have energy and feel good.