Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle - How to Apply Calorie Cycling in Your Meal Plans
Most people know that to lose weight the last thing you want to do is starve yourself. In his popular weight loss book Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle Tom Venuto teaches you how to use calorie cycling as a way to keep your metabolism burning hot which will help you lose weight more quickly and keep it off.
You have to provide your body with enough food at regular intervals otherwise your fat cells will send out a warning to the rest of your body telling it to slow down and conserve resources. In order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in, but if your body is burning virtually no calories because it's in 'starvation mode' you will still not be able to get your caloric intakes low enough to lose weight.
Through Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle program you will learn how to make simple changes to the way you already eat meals. In order to lose weight you don't have to completely alter your food habits. A few simple changes can make all the difference. Just follow these simple guidelines:
Track your calories intake; if possible track your calories intake and your macronutrient breakdown too. You can do this by eating like usual for 3 days and record all the calories information, this way you will know your daily calorie intake.
Now you can create your 'new' meal plans. Have 5 meals a day for women and 6 meals a day for men. Center each meal around a lean protein sources like fish or meat. You want to achieve a breakdown like this: 30% protein, 50% carbohydrates and 20% fat. You want your meal plans to have between 20%-30% calorie deficit for 3 days. Then you follow up with a maintenance day with a 5%-10% calorie surplus. Make sure all the caloric increase is coming from carbohydrates.
In order to figure out what 20% of your normal daily calorie intake is just deduct 20% from the amount of calories you normally consume in a day. For example, if your normal daily intake is 2000 calories you would deduct 400 calories (2000x.20=400). That would leave you with 1600 calories a day. Just use the same formula to add calories when you hit your maintenance day. By using a maintenance day you are preventing your body from thinking it is starving and shutting down. If you keep your metabolism burning hot you will lose weight much more quickly and easily. Your cheat day can also be used for that special occasion when you know you'll be eating too much.
Calorie cycling is only one of the many ways to boost metabolism. Notice that the nearer you get to your goal weight or body fat percentage the harder it will get, so having a weight loss program which equipped with metabolism boost method will makes things easier.