WEIGHT LOSS LIFESTYLE PROGRAMMES & PERFORMANCE NUTRITION
To explain how the 2 Fuel Tanks System works I want you to think of your body as having two fuel tanks, unlike a car which only has one. There is a carbohydrate fuel tank and a separate fat fuel tank. Carbohydrate is the main fuel your body likes to run on. Carbohydrates are stored in your liver and skeletal muscle and this is called your carbohydrate fuel tank. This carbohydrate fuel tank has limited storage capacity. Your liver is a certain size and you only have a certain amount of muscle, so you can only eat a certain amount of carbs before you fill these stores up. If you eat more carbs than your body can store in the liver and muscle your body, through the actions of insulin, will take those carbs and store them as fat in your fat cells for use as energy later. Excess dietary fat will get stored directly in the fats cells. We tend to know when we’re eating too much fat, but what we don’t know is how much carbohydrate becomes too much, and this can vary from one day to the next depending on your activity.
THE 2 FUEL TANKS THE FASTEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT NATURALLY
For fat burning to occur we have to run the carbohydrate fuel tank low enough so that the body has to look for another energy source. It then has either fat or protein that it can use for energy. Obviously we want the body to break down fat. To do this you first of all do not put too much carbohydrate in, and make sure the carbs that we do put in are at the right time relative to exercise. This is the role of your nutrition plan (diet plan).
Then when you exercise your goal in the first half of your workout is to sufficiently deplete the stored muscle carbohydrate. Having done this the body will then have to look for an alternative energy source. To encourage the body to draw on its fat stores for energy we first have to make sure that it’s cardio (aerobic) based exercise and secondly and MOST IMPORTANTLY the fat burning cardio must be at the right heart rate relative to your resting hear rate. The longer you spend exercising in this phase the more fat you will burn and the faster you will lose weight!
To burn fat and lose weight you need to access the energy in the fat fuel tank, but your body has programmed itself to use carbohydrate for energy first. This is because carbohydrates are stored within the muscle and are a readily available source of energy. Fat is stored outside the muscle in fat cells. To burn fat your body has to go to the fat cell, get the fat out of the cell, transport it via the bloodstream to the working muscle where it can be broken down and the energy released. All of this takes time and is a slow process compared to breaking down carbohydrates for energy. It is much easier for your body to break down carbohydrate for energy than fat. The body prefers the path of least resistance and so it chooses to use carbs first. What this means is that you will not burn fat for energy if your body has the option of burning carbs first.
JOHN PEAKED FOR HIS 40TH
BIRTHDAY AT 8 % BODY FAT.
BIG LOSS FOR 8 WEEKS EFFORT