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How To Lose 20 Pounds
Really, Really Fast
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
"Burn
The Fat, Feed The Muscle"
Back “in the day” when I was a full time
personal
trainer and I met
with weight loss clients in person at my New Jersey Health
Club, the
first thing I
would always ask during
the initial consultation was:
"Tell me what you want... and I'll show you how to get it."
Typical reply from client:
"I want to lose 20 pounds fast."
My reply:
"Are you SURE that's what you want? ...If I can show you how to lose
20 pounds REALLY fast, will that make you happy?"
They nodded their head affirmatively as their eyes lit up in
anticipation of the rapid weight loss secrets I was about to reveal...
Their face went white when - with a totally straight face – I pulled
out a hacksaw and started walking towards them.... menacingly.
Not sure whether to laugh or run in sheer terror, they said,
"What the heck are you doing?"
"You said you wanted to lose 20 pounds fast. This is the easiest,
surest, most effective way I know to take 20 pounds off you FAST! In
fact, I figure that right leg of yours might even weigh 25 pounds!"
I kept walking closer and started to get into sawing position,
wielding my fast, effective and guaranteed weight loss tool...
"Bear with me because this IS quick, but sometimes it takes a few
minutes for me to cut through the bone."
By this time, my client (and I) are either completely cracking up, I
have seriously scared the living you know what out of them, or they
just think I'm a complete lunatic... (depends on whether I was able to
keep a straight face or not)
Finally, the light bulb goes on, and my client would see where I was
going with this:
"Okay, smart alec," I get it... I don't want to lose WEIGHT, I want to
lose FAT."
Sometimes I would be having so much fun, I would just keep on playin'...
"But why not? This is easy, fast and guaranteed - just what everyone
wants these days... it's even better than taking a pill! Come on...
let me hack it off! You'll be my next testimonial: 'I lost 20 pounds
in 5 minutes!' Imagine what that will do for my business!"
"Very funny. I told you, I get it! I want to lose FAT, not muscles and
bones. I need my leg!”
Naturally, of course, I don't always have to pull out my trusty blade.
Every once in a while... about as often as a total solar eclipse... a
client answers my question like this:
"What do I want? Tom, I want to lose 20 pounds of body fat in the next
12 weeks. I want to do it slowly, safely and healthfully and then keep
it off permanently. I want all the fat around my hips and thighs
completely gone and I want a firm flat stomach. I want muscle all over
my body while still looking feminine. I'd like to see myself at about
16% body fat and maintain all my muscle or gain a few pounds of lean
mass if I can, especially in my arms. This is important to me because
I want to set a good example for my kids, I want to be healthy and
live to at least 90 and I want my husband to look at me and say, "I
love your body," and I want to be able to *honestly* say back to him,
"me too!"
It is on these rare occasions that I know there is still intelligent
life on this planet.
If you could answer the question, "What do you want" with the
lucidity, clarity and specificity that this woman did, I don't think
you would ever have any difficulty reaching your health and fitness
goals... or any other goal in your life, for that matter.
Her answer was what you call a very "well-formed" goal, backed up with
lots of emotional motivation-inducing "reasons why."
"I want to lose weight" is a poorly-formed goal.
"Weight" is not the same as "fat." Weight includes muscle, bone,
internal organs as well as lots and lots of water.
If you only learn ONE thing from all my newsletters, articles and
books, PLEASE learn this:
WHAT YOU REALLY WANT IS TO BURN THE FAT, WHILE KEEPING THE MUSCLE!!!!
FAT LOSS is what you want, not weight loss.
If your body were 100% rock-solid muscle, with absolutely nothing that
jiggled (unless it was supposed to), would you care how much you
weighed?
I bet you wouldn't! And if that’s true, then…
STOP WORSHIPPING THE SCALE AND START MEASURING YOUR BODY COMPOSITION!
By measuring your body fat, you take the guesswork out of your health
and fitness plan and you get an accurate picture of what's really
happening in your body as a result of your diet and exercise program.
Instead of worrying about whether you are losing muscle, or wondering
if you are losing fat, you can measure it and KNOW for sure. (I always
get a good chuckle when someone tells me they're worried about losing
muscle when they don't even measure how much muscle they have!)
Instead of being confused by all the "opinions" from weight loss and
exercise "experts" who are all telling you something different, you
can MEASURE your body composition and based on the results, you can
KNOW for sure whether your program is working.
A very wise man once said,
"A single measurement is worth a thousand opinions."
So, how do you measure body fat?
Thanks to technology, there are some methods today that are so
accurate, they can tell you whether your left pinky has more fat than
your right pinky! Unfortunately, many of them are either too expensive
or they are inaccessible, being found only in hospitals or research
facilities
If you want to learn a LOT about various body fat testing methods,
chapter 3 of my e-book,
Burn The Fat,
Feed The Muscle
goes into great detail about the pros and cons of all the various fat
testing methods.
Instead of re-hashing it all here, let me give you
three quick and easy, practical suggestions:
Suggestion 1: Have a trainer or fitness professional measure you if
this service is available at your local health club. Sometimes,
there's a charge - usually $15 - $25, although some clubs offer the
service for free to all their members.
Suggestion 2: Purchase an Accu-measure skinfold caliper. Do a google
or yahoo search to find a reseller.
The Accu-measure was designed to allow you to measure your own body
fat in the privacy of your own home (you don't need someone else to
measure you)
Some people wonder if this is really accurate. Truth is, it's not
quite as accurate as a multi site skinfold test from an experienced
tester, but what's most important is not the "accuracy" per se, but
the reliability and consistency of your measurements so you can track
your progress.
Skinfold calipers in general are not accurate or
inaccurate, it's the person doing the test that is accurate or
inaccurate.
Suggestion 3: If you have a spouse, roommate, or friend who can
measure your body fat, you can purchase a Slim Guide body fat caliper
(or just about any brand of caliper) from Creative Health Products: chponline.com
The Slimguide is the best inexpensive caliper available (about $20),
but it wasn't designed for you to measure your own body fat like the
Accu Measure. You'll need someone to measure you with this caliper.
Other models of body fat calipers (if you want to splurge), range from
$150 to $450. (At our health clubs, I use the electronic "SKYNDEX"
caliper with the 4-site "Durnin formula.")
The calipers come with instructions, or you can use these formulas,
which I have used and found to be very accurate:
4 Site formula for men (abdomen, suprailiac, thigh, tricep)
% fat = .29288(sum of 4 skinfolds) - 0.0005(sum of four skinfolds
squared) + 0.15845(age) - 5.76377
4-Site Formula for women (abdomen, suprailiac, thigh, tricep)
% Fat = (.29669)(sum of 4 skinfolds) - (.00043)(Sum of four skinfolds
squared) + .02963(age) + 1.4072
[Source: Jackson A S, Pollock, M (1985) Practical assessment of body
composition. Physician Sport Med. 13: 76-90.]
Body fat percentages vary based on age and gender, but 20-25% body fat
is average for women (15-19% is ideal), while 15-20% is average for
men (10-14% is ideal). I have detailed charts for body fat charts in
my e-book if you're interested.
Once you know your body fat percentage, then weigh yourself and record
your weight and body fat on a progress chart such as the one found in
my Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle Program
(a fat loss program, not a
weight loss program). This chart is how you will track your progress
and "keep score."
You can calculate your lean body mass (muscle and other fat free
tissue) very easily just by crunching some numbers:
For example, if you weigh 200 pounds and you have 10% body fat then
you have 20 pounds of fat (10% of 200 = 20). That means you have a
lean body mass (LBM) of 180 pounds.
Now we're talking! With this data, you can get a really clear picture
of how your exercise and nutrition program are affecting your
physique.
Losing weight is very easy. Losing fat - and keeping it off without
losing muscle - is a much bigger challenge. If you simply wanted to
lose weight, we could just chop off your leg.
Or, (slightly less painful), I could show you how to drop 10 - 15
pounds over the weekend just by dehydrating yourself and using natural
herbal diuretics. Wrestlers do it all the time to make a weight class.
But what good would that do if it’s almost all water and you’re just
going to gain it all back within days?
You don't have to "throw away your scale" like many "experts" tell you
to. By all means, keep using the scale, the tape measure and even
photographs and the mirror - the more feedback the better - but body
fat is where it's at.
By the way, I recently bought a chain saw and a shiny new axe from
Home Depot, and I've been practicing my "American Psycho" and Jack
Nicholson, "The Shining" impersonations... so if you want to come to
my office any time soon for personal consultation, you'd better have
the right answer to my question, "What do you want?"
For more information about a nutrition and training program that
focuses exclusively on FAT LOSS, not WEIGHT LOSS, visit my
BURN THE FAT
website
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified
personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS),
and author of the #1 best-selling e-book,
"Burn the Fat, Feed The
Muscle.”
Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured
in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural
Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s
Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide.
For information on Tom's Fat Loss program,
Click here
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