The Fat Burning Code (Part 1: Programming Your Body)

Welcome to the new series! I take it that you've read through all the articles that crack the code to muscle-building. You've optimized your diet, your training is on point, but now it's time to fixate your energy on the most difficult part of getting your dream physique. That, of course, is losing body fat. Building muscle certainly helps, but you'll still need to drop that fat if you want to look like a nice, lean slab of beef!

With this series, we're gonna be diving into how you can actually program your body to burn fat throughout the day, and what exercises you can do that specifically break down stored fat and allow it to get burned as energy. I'll tell you right now, this is not gonna be a typical 'go low calorie and do lots of cardio until your weight is gone' approach that most trainers and cheap dieticians tell you to do. This is gonna be different than most fat-burning strategies you've come across online or with a trainer. You can't just go low calorie an expect to lose fat. You may lose WEIGHT, but how much of that weight is actually gonna be fat? That brings me to the first part of the series, the programming. Now, for those of you that have tried to lose weight before, I assume you were told to or instinctively went low calorie, starved yourself, and hoped for the best. Sure, it may work for a week, two at most, but then you hit that infamous wall! And what do you do? You get discouraged when you still see that flab on your body. You get incredibly hungry since your body goes into starvation mode and spikes Ghrelin, the hunger hormone. You can only fight that for so long before your stomach hurts that you're so hungry!

There are so many reasons why this is not a good spot to be in. First off, when you only focus on calories, and go low calorie for too long, your body is gonna start fighting the breakdown process as it fears shrinking and 'dying' so to speak. The human body is truly a remarkable creation. It can adapt to so many different things, doing what it can to survive. However, those adaptations can work against us, but they don't have to! When your body gets into starvation mode, it will do anything it can to preserve energy and survive. How does the body do this? Well, it utilizes glycogen and protein in the body for energy, because it wants to hold on to its most dense energy system for as long as it can. Of course, that dense source of energy is fat. When you starve yourself, your body is wanting to do anything BUT burn fat. Plus, breaking down glycogen and protein is WAY easier for the body to do, when it's not getting it from an outside source anyway. This leads to the other reason that starvation is bad. The body utilizes stored protein....from your muscles! This is the LAST thing we want our body to break down because without muscle, we won't be able to crank up our metabolism and burn off that lingering fat. Focusing on calories alone is already a mistake when it comes to preserving muscle. Your body is not getting much protein due to the calorie-focused approach, so it'll have to get protein from within the body. This can also put you in a spot where massive fat storage is ready and willing to take place since you have more room for fat cells to form now that the muscles have been wasting away. And when that muscle wastes away, you also start to look flabby, which is disgusting and NOBODY wants that.

The last reason why you don't want to be in this position is that Ghrelin goes up so high that you're stomach is crying for food. You can't think straight because of how hungry you are. And then it happens....you splurge on the worst of foods. When that happens, the fat gain is so rapid that you're left speechless when you see yourself in the mirror. And again, that fat gain is rapid because the body has been starved for so long, and it's trying to build up as much stored energy as possible to survive. So instinctively, the body ends up storing lots of fat. So, in order to keep our bodies AWAY from that scenario, you need to learn to follow the body's hormonal rhythm, and strike at the right time! So, lets start in the morning. You wake up after 8 hours of sleep. No food, empty stomach. Your body has gone through Autophagy, which is the process of cleaning out cells in the body. This is why it's important to not eat between dinner and breakfast. With your cells cleaned out, and cortisol doing its morning spike, this is where you start programming the body. You don't want to mess with the cortisol spike, as it's actually able to break down stored fat when insulin stays low. This is why you DO NOT eat carbs at breakfast. Plus, when your cells are cleaned out, and you eat carbs, your body then gets programmed to STORE energy. This, of course, leads to fat storage as the body will create new fat cells so that it can soak in all that energy and save it for later on.

To keep that from happening, no eating carbs! When insulin levels stay low, cortisol will break down the stored fat in the morning and the low insulin levels will also allow you to burn fat throughout the day. This is what trainers and dieticians miss when it comes to breaking down stored energy in the body. It's not low calorie, it's low CARB. You can still do low calorie and keep insulin up, and in that scenario, you'll never break down stored fat for energy. You MUST keep insulin low to break down stored energy, both fat, and glycogen. Now that we've gotten rid of the insulin-spiking carbs, we still want to feed our muscles and keep our metabolism going. Of course, that's protein! ALWAYS include protein at breakfast to feed your muscles and keep the body from breaking down muscle tissue to satisfy the other protein needs in the body. But of course, you can't just eat protein. Protein by itself can still raise insulin due to the amino acids. So we need an energy source that slows the digestion and signals the body to utilize fat. And of course, that's fat! Fat slows digestion and also helps to keep insulin low, so long as there aren't any carbs present. Your breakfast should contain 2g fat for every 1g of protein to ensure that insulin stays very low. Plus, whatever macronutrient you eat the most of, is what the body will use for energy. Think about it, if you're eating lots of fat, the body gets used to using it as fuel. Same with the other macros. So by going zero carbs with fats and proteins at breakfast, right after the cells in the body have been cleaned out, the body will be programmed to burn fat as fats will be the main energy source with protein coming into play to feed muscles. And there you go! You've officially programmed your body to get into a fat-burning state. However, the fat-burning process is slow! It takes time for your body to break down stored fat and use it for energy. This is why you need to be doing this EVERY DAY if you want your body to mostly be in a fat-burning state. Plus, you'll be able to maintain your muscle due to the protein, and when you signal the body to keep that muscle, it'll be forced to utilize more stored fat.

Now, there's much more to the story when it comes to efficiently burning fat. Carbs still come into play, along with something that most people fear....the fat-burning workouts. Yes, you WILL need to do very intense workouts to spike the body's adrenaline and force it to break down more fat. This workout is not for the faint of heart, but this is where you'll have to step up if you really wanna throw down the hammer and get a good-looking physique. I'm of course talking about HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training). We'll talk about that next.