Nutritional Tips For A Leaner You

Aggressive Dieting Leads Nowhere:  If you cut calories too drastically, the body tries to hoard energy by slowing down its metabolism, the calorie burning mechanism in the body.  Moderate cuts in calories, such as decreasing daily caloric intake by 200-400 per day (or 1400-2800 per week) allows the body to tap into fat reserves without throwing the metabolism into a tailspin.

The Role Of Protein:  Of the three sources of energy (carbs, protein and dietary fat), protein has the least impact on fat storage.  Overeating calories from carbs and dietary fat will lead to their accumulation as body fat.  That's not to say you can, or should, gorge on protein.  It means you should add more protein from chicken, turkey or fish instead of snacking on additional carbs or fat to satiate hunger.

"Step-Up" Dieting Preserves Muscle & Promotes Fat Loss:  Although  reducing dietary fat and carbs results in fat loss, keeping carbs down for a prolonged period (more than seven days) can deplete glycogen (stored carbs) reserves in muscle.  Low glycogen can trigger the burning of metabolically active muscle tissue. Increasing carb intake by 100-200 grams once each week should replenish glycogen reserves sufficiently to avoid muscle loss and my even increase the metabolism.

Healtified Mexican Bean Salad

Mexican Bean Salad

Salad:
2 cans black beans, drained, rinsed
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained, rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn
1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Dressing:
3 T white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
3 T canola oil
1 T chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

In large bowl, mix salad ingredients.  In small bowl, mix dressing ingredients with wire whisk until blended.

Pour dressing over salad; toss to mix.  Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours to blend flavors.

Nutritional Tips for a Leaner You

There are a lot of small and simple things that you can do to help create a leaner you.  We will look at some of those over the next couple of weeks.  Don't feel like you have to incorporate all of them into your life at once.  You will feel overwhelmed and won't stick with it.  Start out slow and try adding one or two and as you master those start adding in more. You will love the way you start to feel!

Calories Are The Tipping Point:  There are numerous tricks you can implement to help burn body fat.  The key principle above all others is to create a calorie, or energy, deficit to stimulate the body to burn body fat as fuel.  That means eating less, whether it be fewer calories from dietary fat, carbs or a combo of the two.

Calorie Deficits: Weekly Approach:  Conventional wisdom states that you have to eat fewer calories to shed fat.  Not true.  On average, you have to eat fewer calories over a seven-day period to drop body fat.  You can fudge a bit by eating fewer calories than normal for a couple of days, followed by a couple of very strict days and then a few days where you eat roughly what you did before starting the diet.

Protein Needs Rise During Dieting:  When excess calories from dietary fat and carbs are removed from a diet, the body burns small amounts of amino acids from protein, or worse, muscle mass when calories decline.  The extra protein protects muscle loss, because it can be burned in lieu of muscle tissue.