Amateur's Guide : What to know when you're on a fat loss program?

Are you looking for a fat loss program? Are you scouting out for someone to hand it over to you? Are you already following a program that isn't responding well with the desired results? Oh, that's too many questions. Put the questions aside, let's find out what goes behind designing an effective fat loss program. This post shall help you plan from scratch and even rectify your own fat loss journey.

As has already been preached time and again, weight management is essentially if not entirely a game of calories. If you seek weight loss, start keeping a check on your diet and you shall see your weight dropping. Not to mention, weight gain works by the same token. Getting yourself an extra meal daily can do the job for you, of course over a course of time. No doubt, there's more to talk about weight management. We will stick to the topic and in case you are more interested in finding out how to gain weight, you can always read a related post here. 

Fat loss vs Weight loss

The topic under discussion is so simple that you'd make out the conclusion for this paragraph just by looking at the heading. Don't you agree with me when I say, not all the extra weight you possess comes from your fat store? So, where's the difference? You know it. I am not going to repeat the things you know or maybe we can discuss over here those things in a little more depth with some important details. That's the idea. 

Before starting, lets count in things that may contribute to your weight. Counting on the fingers,

• fats
• bones
• muscles
• the organ system. 
• Did we miss out on something? Oh yes! Water. Do you know our body likes holding water on several occasions and based on certain conditions. Maybe I can take a couple of examples on this.
• With the amount of carbs stored, the body retains almost thrice the amount of water. 
• An electrolyte imbalance in the body can make your kidneys store in more water that should have ideally been flushed out. 

Clearly, you can't get rid of your bones or the organ system to drop those extra pounds, can you? Also, to mention alongside, we are not taking into account the weight of your hair, nails or whatever other product of a peculiar imagination. Okay, no more leisure talk. So, what are we left with to target? Of course the fats, muscles and the water retention. Only for your kind information, let me tell you that when people try to lose fat by opting for a low calorie or better say carbohydrate deficient diet, they tend to lose the water weight first of all. That explains the first and fast drop on the weight scale within a few days of having started such a fat loss program. As obvious as it seems to be, water weight gets easily restored once you resume a proper carbohydrate intake. We don't want that to happen. Neither do we want to lose any muscle mass only to get a skinny and undernourished look, do we? So, what's left now? Yes, right! the fat. Now you know that the terms weight loss and fat loss are not the same despite their use in an interchangeable fashion oftentimes. 

Planning the diet : A brief

When planning to cut down on the fat deposit, no matter what fancy named diet you follow (Atkins, Caveman, Mediterranean, Ketogenic) the fundamental rule at the base of all demands a caloric deficit. You consume less than you use and you're on your way to lose fat. We have already talked about and explained the eating habits and patterns for weight management in our previous posts. You may find these articles helpful. 

1. The abdominal fat mystery
2. Fat loss : Explained

How effective a program you make depends on what equipment from the arsenal of fitness do you bring in to your rescue i.e. how scientific and well planned is the coupling between workout and nutrition. Let's discuss more of this in detail in the following section.

An ideal fat loss workout : Behind the scenes

Though the exercise aspect of a fat loss program is over glorified every now and then, it's important to know that its not the exercise that would bring about the change. What you eat and most importantly how much you eat is the primary determiner of whether you'd build more fat deposits or melt away the existing ones. Does that mean, we need not work out? Well, as I already mentioned earlier in my text, the credibility of the program depends on how effectually various aspects of fitness blend in it. 

Let's dig in a little deeper starting with some fun facts. Do you know what does the term ' burning the fat' mean actually? It refers to a series of chemical reactions within our body that cause the oxidation of fatty acids to release energy. Wait! but these fatty acids are not freely available within the body. Our body holds fat in the form of triglyceride i.e. a group of three fatty acids tied together by a glycerol molecule. Before the fatty acids get oxidized or burnt, the triglyceride needs to be broken down to release the fatty acids. Now, how does that happen? 

Not that difficult to understand. Have you heard of something that we call 'the hormones'? Of course you have. Hormones like testosterone, adrenaline, growth hormone, glucagon. ghrelin etc. promote lipolysis. Oh, did I not tell you? Lipolysis is nothing but a fancy term for triglyceride breakdown. Apparently, these hormones create free fatty acids. Great! so they help you break the fat. Now it's your turn to burn it off. 

I think I am stretching this long. Anyway, let's now jump into the facts. How do you get those hormones working for you? Now I found the right time to disclose the importance of working out for fat loss. Cheers! 

Okay, to understand this you should know something about the muscle fibers that we fatigue in the gym by lifting weights. You may find this article on muscle fibers helpful. If you're not in a mood to go through the details, I will try to enlighten you slightly so that you at least follow by the forthcoming logic. For better understanding, based on the energy holding capacity and several other characteristics like speed of activation and maximum tolerable load the muscle fibers have been classified into 3 groups. Type 1, Type 2A and Type 2B. That's slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers. Type 2B are generally bigger muscles. These muscles get tired easily and in lesser time as compared to the other group of muscle fibers. Factually, when you train these muscles (2B) your body witnesses a notable rise in the levels of Adrenaline and Growth Hormone.  Now you know what I mean? Train them heavy, right? Correct! but there's another question popping up right here. That's still half of the work done. Training the legs, back, chest (2B) muscles would help release growth hormone and adrenaline that would then break down the stored fats into fatty acids. We are still left with how to burn them off. Aren't we? 

Okay! it's time for another fun fact. You need to recruit the slow twitch muscle fibers for burning of the free fatty acids. Type 1 and Type 2A fibers are generally small muscle groups that can be recruited even when subjected to comparatively lesser amount of load. Additionally, they fatigue slowly. The specialty of these muscle fibers is that they have lower glycogen(stored glucose) and higher oxygen capacity than Type 2B muscle fibers. This enables a comparatively greater aerobic activity and aids fat oxidation to release energy in the form of ATP. 

In case you find t difficult to sum up, you need to train with heavy weights in the first half of your workout routine (to train the big Type 2B muscles) to break the triglyceride stores and then switch on to lifting lighter weights or doing steady state cardio to recruit and fatigue the slow twitch muscle fibers(Type 1 and 2A) and burn off the free floating fatty acids.

Now that things are much more clear, I would like to mention a few points you need to look after . These are essentially factors that may inhibit the fat loss process if not taken care of. 

Glucose Intake and Glycogen Reserve

It's worth noting down that whenever your muscle and liver glycogen stores are full or you have extra glucose in your bloodstream, no physical activity would ever tap on your fat stores. Glucose is the first choice when it comes to eliciting energy from within the body. 

Restricted Blood flow

A restricted blood flow to an area would simply result in that particular area being deprived of adrenaline and growth hormones. This would only leave the local fat cells untouched and triglycerides unbroken.  We do not want this. Make sure you do not wear very tight clothes and always practice a proper warm up routine before the workout session to improve blood flow.

Insulin Level

I picked up a quote from the Guyton & Hall's textbook of medical physiology. "All aspects of fat metabolism are greatly enhanced in the absence of Insulin". This very well sums it up. You need to have a fairly controlled level of insulin day round. Insulin is considered a highly anabolic hormone and this along with muscle anabolism does apply to fat anabolism as well. Apparently, all the fat burning hormones are shut down in the presence of Insulin. 

Hormonal Imbalances

This is a highly ignored aspect of the weight management game plan. Be it weight gain or fat loss, the hormones play a vital role in everything that goes on inside your body. Some people simply tend to give up on fats when on a fat loss diet. What they don't realize is that it hurts their goals in a very severe manner. Your body needs cholesterol and fats to make these hormones. An improper intake can have a direct impact on your goals by posing threat to the levels of essential hormones, vitamins & minerals in your body. 

Though I've tried my best to explain things, I might have missed on a few things here and there. I genuinely hope that this helps and as always in case of doubts and questions you can always use the comment section.