EAT MORE, LOSE FAT How can you possibly eat more and still strip away fat? No, bulimia isn’t the answer. It has to do with eating more often— five to six times a day—and the composition of each of those meals. Hmm, maybe a diff e rent term is in order because if y o u ’ re used to gorging on two or three big meals a day, you w o n ’t really consider these smaller, more frequent feedings “meals.” They’re more like mini-meals designed to keep your blood sugar steady (no cravings or energy dips), your muscle tissue intact (you won’t burn it for energy) and your fat store s shrinking (Eureka!—I see abs!) T h a t ’s in direct contrast to how most of us were raised to eat—the thre e - s q u a re-meals-a-day approach. Take a look at what happens when you follow that classic American eating schedule and you’ll see why you can get fatter and fatter if y o u ’ re not careful. A big part of the problem is insulin, a hormone that can shuttle excess calories right to your fat cells (excess energy consumption—eating more calories than you can burn off—is also a big part of the problem): •Meal 1: At 7:00 a.m. you eat a big breakfast and trigger insulin so that excess carbs and fat are stored as bodyfat; the rest increase your blood sugar to fuel activity and prevent fat burning for a few hours. (If you skip breakfast, you begin burning muscle immediately.) •Three hours later—at 10:00 a.m.—insulin has done its job and your blood sugar is low. The starvation mechanism kicks in—ignore that growling stomach; you’re too busy to eat—and you start burning muscle for energy as your body conserves fat. •Meal 2: At noon you eat a big lunch, trigger another insulin surge, blunt fat burning and store bodyfat—the same scenario as breakfast. • T h ree hours later—at 3:00 p.m.—the starv a t i o n mechanism kicks in again, and you burn more muscle and conserve bodyfat. •Meal 3: At 7:00 p.m. you eat a big dinner, trigger an insulin surge, blunt fat burning and store more bodyfat. •At 9:30 p.m. the starvation mechanism rears its ugly head, and you either burn more muscle or binge on carbohydrates and feed your fat cells. That type of eating schedule, along with excessive refined- carbohydrate intake (Coke—it’s the real thing!), is the re a s o n people are so fat! People don’t eat often enough or the right foods. And when they do, it’s usually excessive. The big t h ree—or big two if you skip breakfast (don’ do it!)—even p revents high-level athletes from getting that X-treme Lean look. The best example is pro basketball players. You’d think those athletes would be ripped to the bone like pro bodybuilders considering all of the calories they burn during games and the endless hours of practice. Sure, most of them a re thin, but shouldn’t they be shredded beyond belief? For some reason almost every player has a layer of fat and very little muscle definition—and that reason is diet and meal scheduling. Most pro basketball players eat the normal three meals a day, and pretty much gorge at each of those to make up for the calorie deficit they create with all that running around. As you can see from the above scenario, gorging promotes fat deposition, so they retain a layer of fat. (Can you imagine how intimidating Shaq would be if he were more muscular and ripped? Whoa!) But even if you don’t stuff yourself at each feeding, eating t h ree big meals a day is not conducive to getting ripped. It’s the way to continually burn muscle and conserve fat. If you don’t spread out your food intake so you keep your blood sugar levels stable, that’s what happens—burn muscle, build fat. On top of that, you get cravings due to stress hormone release. Oh, and one big meal a day is worse, as your body hordes even more bodyfat because it thinks it’s starving all day long. When the starvation mechanism kicks in, your body shovels muscle into the energy furnace continually. As far as your body is concerned, muscle is expendable; it’s denser than fat, so off it goes. You must do things—like lift weights and get plenty of p rotein—to convince your body that it needs to hold onto muscle and jettison the fat like the excess baggage that it is. Having five to six smaller protein-based meals a day is the best way to do that. Sure, you’ve probably heard that, and you may even believe it, but do you do it? You have to make it a priority. Understand that it’s the only way to continually provide your body with the elements it needs for building muscle, and that it will keep your blood sugar stable to prevent cravings. Do it! And if those meals are the right percentages of carbs, protein and fat, insulin will be held in check so there’s very little, if any, fat storage and you’ll have that X-treme Lean look faster than you can say six-pack (we’re talking abs here, not Budweiser). Notice that we said every meal should include some protein. Why? Well, it keeps muscle-building amino acids circ u l a t i n g . That will protect muscle tissue, keeping it in a building mode instead of a burning one—for energy. It also signals your body that more muscle is okay. You probably figured that out. But did you know that it also has a higher energ y cost? That recent discovery explains why higher- p ro t e i n diets are so effective at b u rning fat as well as building muscle. A “higher energy cost” FORE MORE JUST KEEP IN TOUCH