By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
www.burnthefat.com

REASON #1: NOT ENOUGH FOCUS ON TOTAL CALORIES BURNED

REASON #2: TOO MUCH FOCUS ON WHAT TYPE OF CALORIES BURNED

• The higher your intensity, the more carbs you burn during the workout
• The lower your intensity, the more fat you burn during the workout

HERE’S THE FAT-BURNING SOLUTION!

BUT WAIT - THERE IS MORE TO IT…

Naturally, we could argue that it’s not quite this simple and that there are hundreds of other reasons why your cardio program might not be working… and I would agree, of course. But on the exercise side, the ideas above should be foremost in your mind. On the nutrition side, you have to get your act together there too. For example, many people increase their food intake at the same time as they start a cardio training program thereby putting back in every calorie they burned during the workout! Then some of them have the nerve to say, “SEE, cardio doesn’t work!”

Incidentally, this is the exact reason that a few studies show that adding cardio or aerobic training to a diet “did not improve fat loss”: It’s not because the cardio didn’t work, it was because the researchers didn’t control for diet and the subjects ate more!! It should go without saying that nutrition is the foundation on which every fat loss program is built.

Choose the combination of type, intensity, duration and frequency that suits your lifestyle and preferences the best, and WORK THE VARIABLES to get the fat loss results you want, but whichever cardio program you choose, remember that a solid fat burning nutrition program, such as Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle is necessary to help you make the most of it.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

About the Author:

Being skinny-fat is defined as having low lean body mass and high body fat percentage. Someone who is skinny-fat is often unhappy with their appearance but struggles with how to change it. A person who has this body type may feel discouraged upon knowing their body fat percentage and feel they have to lose fat. This is typically a problem of ectomorphs or people who do primarily cardio and not weight training.

However, fat loss programs can often exacerbate the problem. The key to sustainable fat loss is lean body mass. The more lean body mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest. In this way, someone with higher lean body mass, will lose fat faster because they burn more calories. So it is key to build muscle through heavy weight training. To learn how to set up a weightlifting program for your needs, please check out the weight training section on my website.

Now, how should one eat to build the muscle? Is it necessary to bulk and eat tons of calories? Not really. Find a baseline for your maintenance calories by using a calculator (or by trial and error). Once you know your maintenance calories, you want to be eating 200-300 calories per day over that number to gain 1 pound a week of mostly muscle. You should continue to gain muscle until you are satisfied that you have built enough muscle such that it will look good when you cut your calories back down to lose the fat. This period of muscle gain will typically last 3-6 months.

What if you are eating below maintenance at the moment? You should raise your daily calories about 100 calories every third day or 200 calories every week in order to get up to maintenance + 200 calories. It is important to note, that an increase in calories will cause an initial increase in mass due to increased glycogen (water content of the muscles). So an initial increase is NOT to be worried about.

Cardio should be done for health of your heart and lungs only (and NOT as a calorie burning tool) while you are trying to gain lean body mass. I would suggest doing at most 1 hour of jogging per week + unlimited walking. If you find you are having trouble making gains (at least 1-2 pounds a month weight gain), then cut back on cardio or increase food. An ectomorph may have to drop all cardio except walking for this period.

Remember, the key to fixing your appearance will be weight training and not cardio. Take, for example, my friend Roni, who started running to lose weight when she was 154 pounds, but upon reaching 110 pounds discovered she was skinny-fat and did not have the body she wanted. She took up weightlifting, and was able to transform her body. To see how she looked with more muscle and less body fat, look at this transformation picture where she is the same weight in both (115 pounds). The second picture was taken 2.5 months after the first picture.

Growing up I was very sedentary. I did not have the skills or desire to play sports. I ate healthy, but in very small amounts, as I had little appetite (and was taught to eat when hungry, ie. food as fuel, something I appreciate). I was also an ectomorph, and was very, very skinny with low lean body mass. At 16 years old, I was 5′4 and around 95 pounds. I had been referred to a physiotherapist for a shoulder injury, and the PT was very much more concerned about my low bodyweight. The PT suggested that I join a gym to build up lean body mass as I would be at high risk for osteoporosis otherwise.

I joined a gym right away, and had gained 10 lbs by the time I was 18. This could have been higher had I increased protein intake instead of just food intake, but I graduated high school a lot healthier then when I went in. About this time I started buying Muscle and Fitness Hers. I LOVED how the fitness models looked and eagerly “ate up” the new info I was reading. I bought every issue for a few years, and kept them all for a long time. Furthermore, weightlifting completely alleviated my shoulder pain, which comes back when I stop lifting or don’t lift frequently enough.

I lifted with even more enthusiasm in university eagerly learning the dumbbell and barbell exercises I had seen in the magazines. Finally, I could do an exercise without worrying about being too small for a machine, or resetting it, or an unnatural arc aggravating the shoulder injury. However, I got busy with studying and started only exercising very infrequently.

Fast-forward to 2004, when I started to become concerned about looking great for my wedding in August 2005. I bought some adjustable dumbbells and a swiss ball. I also began to read Muscle and Fitness Hers/Oxygen Mag again and at some point I read an article where they mentioned “split routines”, ie. something rather than full body or upper/lower, which piqued my interested and I searched google for this, whereupon I found bodybuilding.com and soon after its forums. Within a few months of joining, and learning a lot, I bought more equipment, a curl bar (15 lbs), plates, an incline bench and a squat rack. Later, I added to this an olympic bar and plates, and olympic dumbbell bars so I could lift more.

I weightlift for many reasons. One is my long term health (and the reason I started). Others are having more energy; improved posture, flexibility (yes it improved), aesthetics, and a greater feeling of wellbeing.

When I first joined the bodybuilding.com forums, I was in denial about how poor my diet was. I had been eating lots of crap, and despite only weighing 120 lbs when I started, I was overweight (and predominately it was in my abdominal region). Gradually, the good habits of others in the community started to rub off on me, and I have improved my diet significantly. Although, I eat for “health” and do not ascribe to “clean eating” per se. I limit things that I feel are unhealthy (for example, I eliminated trans fats), and I eat things that will help me reach my goals (or keep my current physique if I am maintaining). I can eat more calories now to maintain my weight since I have a higher lean body mass, and excess calories do not go straight to my abs as long as I am on my healthful diet and exercising.

Currently, my pursuit has taken another turn, as I am trying to get pregnant. I will continue to weightlift as long as it is feasible, and of course, eating for health is even more important.

Welcome to my new fitness and nutrition blog. In addition to posting on various topics, I will also be doing Question and Answer posts.