You exercise regularly, periodically change your workouts and you watch what you eat - yet the scales just won't budge!
Thankfully there's a very simple (and relatively unknown) strategy you can use immediately to break through your weight loss plateau and start burning body fat fast.
But before we get to that, why do weight loss plateaus occur in the first place?
Why Weight Loss Plateau's Occur
Having personally worked with hundreds of body transformers over the years, it's not uncommon for clients to reach a weight loss plateau after only a few short weeks. What's more, this can occur despite sticking to their workouts and nutrition plans religiously.
The reason this happens is that the longer you've been
Therefore in order to continue losing weight you would need to continue restricting calories and / or burning more calories. However, it doesn't take a genius to realise that not only is this approach impractical, it's also completely unsustainable!
Unfortunately this is a trap that many fitness enthusiasts succumb to. In an effort to lose more weight they
This 'more is better' philosophy usually results in a loss of lean muscle tissue, flabby looking muscles, a slowed metabolism, fatigue and weight gain. (When you lose muscle you also lose your ability to burn body fat)
Introducing Carbohydrate Cycling for Maximum Fat Loss
One of the best ways to lose fat while maintaining (or even gaining) lean muscle is to cycle your levels of carbohydrate.
Carbohydrate cycling enables you to burn more body fat on lower carbohydrate days and to replenish your glycogen reserves on higher carbohydrate days.
Since lower carbohydrate and glycogen levels are associated with increased fat burning, low carb days are best utilised on cardio only days. And since your muscles require adequate levels of glycogen for resistance training workouts, we eat more carbohydrates. Makes sense right?
(Nb: Carbohydrates are broken down and stored in your muscles as glycogen)
For example, if you do resistance training on Mon, Wed and Fri and do some form of cardio on the days in between, here's how you could implement carbohydrate cycling.
Day Activity Carb levels
Sun Rest High (Cheat Day)
Mon Resistance training Low to medium
Tue Cardio Low
Wed Resistance training Medium
Thu Cardio Low
Fri Resistance training Medium
Sat Cardio Low
Ultimately this strategy keeps your body guessing and always primed for fat loss.
Why 'Cheating' Means MORE Fat Loss
Although it may seem counter intuitive, a high carbohydrate day once per week tricks your body into burning MORE body fat by increasing levels of the hormone, leptin. After several days of low to medium carbs, leptin levels decline as much as 50% which results in a slowed metabolism.
However, with the addition of a cheat day, (and subsequent increase in calories, carb & fat intake) leptin levels markedly increase and this in turn kick starts your body's metabolism - thereby creating an environment conducive to burning more body fat.
Therefore, unbeknown to many, eating very strictly all the time can actually be counterproductive to your fat loss goals.
Cheating has Physiological & Psychological Benefits
Physiological:
After only 6 or 7 days of adhering to a low to moderate carbohydrate nutrition plan, leptin levels drops by as much as 50%. When this happens the 'fat storage' hormone cortisol is switched on. The result? Stored body fat!
To prevent this from happening it becomes imperative to restore leptin levels. The best way to achieve this? To eat foods high in fat and carbohydrate over a period of 8-12 hours.
Psychological:
Most
Let's face it. The prospect of going without your favourite foods is not a pleasant one!
With carbohydrate cycling your nutrition plan becomes sustainable (unlike the majority of
Conclusion:
If you've tried everything to lose weight and nothing seems to work, or you'd just like to just burn body fat a whole lot faster, try carbohydrate cycling.
It may very well be the solution you're looking for.