Niezgoda Fitness Systems Articles

The Best Info on Fat.

There are 9 calories per gram of fat and 3,500 calories per lb of fat. So if you cut out 500 calories a day and change nothing else, how are you going to drop 2 lbs? You will only drop 1 lb.
You best bet is to add 10 lbs of muscle so that you will be burning 1 lb of fat per week at rest.
It's also a good idea to eat (a carb, a protein and a fat) every 2-4 hours. If you don't your blood sugar drops and your body starts to store fat because it thinks it is starving. Also, stay off the booze, alcohol has 7 cal's per gram and reduces fat burning by around 25%.

When you workout, hit the weight first then cardio. You body like to use sugar as energy first and fat last. So by lifting first you body will burn off most of the sugars in your muscles. When you finish your resistance training, hit the cardio and stay below your Lactate Threshold or about 65-75% of my max heart rate. Less than 65% unless you very out of shape will not help you much. 55-65% of your MHR is best for active recovery (again unless you are very out of shape). Over 75% of your MHR will burn sugars (not fat) and make it harder for you to build muscle.

And on your comments on the two types of fat:
First lets talk about fat. Fat is a form of body tissue made of cells which primarily store lipids (fatty acids, etc) and fat cells are embedded in connective tissue. Fat cannot become muscle, and muscle cannot become fat. They are two entirely different types of tissues.

The two types of fat tissue are brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue. Humans, unlike many other animal species who require the specialized body temperature regulation that BAT provides, have mostly white adipose tissue (this is one reason why it's hard to generalize animal data to humans).

Fat has many purposes such as insulation, cushioning, fuel stores, and a source of estrogen production. Your body has fat because it's trying to keep you alive as long as possible. Fat is an excellent and energy-efficient fuel source.

We have a certain number of fat cells which remain more or less constant throughout our adult lives, if we maintain a roughly ideal weight. However, fat cells can also multiply when they become fully saturated (if you eat many more calories than your body can immediately use, over a long period of time, especially as a child), and then once you have them, they don't go away unless you physically remove them through liposuction. There is a process known as apoptosis, which does occur with the if you take certain supplements, or with illnesses such as HIV. But the research on this and fat tissue is too new to know much about it in humans.

Also, most people think that "Cellulite" is a type of fat. Don't listen to these people, they are clueless. Cellulite is not a special kind of fat, but merely an effect of the fat's position with regard to the connective tissue, and this depends largely on where the fat is, as well as age, gender, and genetics. Treatments that claim to reduce cellulite achieve a temporary tightening of the skin which gives the appearance of cellulite reduction for a brief time. In other words they do not work!

Body fat is stored in two places in the body: subcutaneously (under the skin), and viscerally (around internal organs). Visceral fat is much easier to mobilize (burn off) than subcutaneous fat, although it increases with age. This age-dependent increase in visceral fat is why body fat calculators factor in age.

When fat is lost, it follows the pattern of fat deposition set out by genetics and hormones. This means that where you put on fat first is where you lose it last.

Also, barring physical or chemical intervention (liposuction, hormones), you cannot choose where your body wants to lose or store fat. There is no such thing as spot reduction. It doesn't matter how hard you try, your body has a plan and it doesn't like to deviate from it. You may also notice that in the process of losing body fat, fat is lost disproportionately.

What some tend to call "toning" or "definition" simply refers to a loss of body fat so that the muscle underneath may be more clearly seen or felt. There is nothing special about toning or definition. It is not a mystical or special process, one which is restricted to women or a particular workout protocol. It's a loss of body fat, plain and simple.

Some women even get so lean that they feel the need to get fake boobs to make up for the ones that they lost. And if these women get too lean, you can see the top ridge of their breast implants. The negative appearance of very low body fat will also be compounded by age. Women should try to stay between 18%-22% Depending on the women, amenoreha (loss of period) may happen at around 15% body fat. If you get to that point put on body fat and talk to your MD.

Body fat loss also tends to be somewhat of an imprecise process. The body likes to also jettison muscle tissue along with fat and often gains some fat when muscle mass is gained. This varies with how the fat is lost, how much fat is lost, and the starting point of fat loss. If there is a great deal of fat to lose then the percentage of loss which is lean tissue is likely to be less. If fat is being lost by a person who is already at a low body fat, then more muscle relative to fat is often consumed. This is also why it is essential to get sufficient protein and engage in weight training while losing fat, so that the amount of lean muscle tissue is retained or even gained. There have been a few studies that put women on equal diets (same amount of calories) lost the same amount of weight but the group of women who was weight training wound up with much lower body fat than the sedentary group. Some members of the sedentary dieting group even wound up with more overall body fat as a percentage than they had started with, indicating that there was substantial muscle loss as a result of the dieting.