Simple Tips To Burn Body Fat Better
It’s as Simple as Eating PFF: Protein, Fat + Fiber
Since Coronavirus more people have been working from home, which means less mobility throughout the day. A more sedentary diet has not been friendly to waistlines. What if I said that you shouldn’t need to exercise to “manage your weight” on a diet that naturally helps you burn body fat? This way, exercise would be an awesome bonus rather than something we would feel obligated to do.
When we think about metabolism, we have to think about what our body is burning in the process of creating energy. It can be food we just ate, stored sugar (glucose) in our muscles + liver or fat from our adipose tissue. Ideally we should be able to utilize all three, but we can get stuck into relying on food for energy which blunts our ability to burn body fat for energy. If you get hangry often, need to eat snacks between your meals or eat before you workout this can likely be the case for you.
How do we tap into body fat? Due to our mostly inactive lifestyles, we need to be extra careful about carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are great sources of quick energy and in excess - accomplished in low amounts - are easily stored as body fat intended for future use. However, we rarely get around to burning it due to food abundance in our modern culture. Don’t get me wrong, carbohydrates are great for growing children (wholesome carbohydrates from fruit or whole grains, not sugar) and for athletes who need that energy to excel in their sport.
In addition to being sedentary, we also get older. Those 30 and over start to have a muscle mass decreases approximately 3–8% per decade and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60. Less muscle, “sugar storage units” if you will, further contributes to carbohydrate resistance; women especially since we have less muscle than men. Good news though, an adult diet higher in protein and fat actually helps to preserve muscle mass and protects against carbohydrate resistance diseases like pre-diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes.
You might wonder, why do I have to eat differently compared to a few centuries before when meat and potatoes was a staple meal in my family heritage? We have to strongly consider the lifestyles we’re living. Before cars, farm machinery and hot water we were plowing fields by hand, hauling water from streams, walking everywhere and lugging heavy things long distances. There were cast iron pots and pans to move from the fire to the stove, lots of babies to carry, and jobs like cutting lumber, mining coal and much more.
Those ancient people were basically doing a strength training workout from sun rise to sun down. This kept their muscles empty of glucose so when they ate, they would just refill them. In modern day, we don’t empty our muscles unless we exercise and that’s usually only a few times per week. Also, our current diets are much higher in carbs than they used to be before sliced bread further contributing to our modern day health problems.
To simplify all that I mentioned above, we’ve created a very simple formula to constructing your meals as follows: PFF. Make sure eat time you eat you have protein, fat and fiber. By focusing on these foods, you will easily stick to a lower carb eating style. Here are some examples:
Pork sausage + avocado + berries. The protein is the sausage, fat is sausage + avocado and avocado + berries is fiber.
Regular (no sugar added) Greek yogurt and grain-free granola. The Greek yogurt is protein and fat, the nut based granola is fat and fiber (kids could higher sugar fruit like bananas or mangos).
Eggs with cheese and greens. Eggs and cheese are protein and fat, greens are protein + fiber. (Kids can add a sprouted whole-grain toast).
Paleo toast (such as Base Culture) with peanut butter, butter and drizzle of honey. Paleo toast has fiber, fat and protein, peanut butter has protein and fat.
Salad with steak and olive oil dressing. Steak is fat and protein, greens are fiber and olive oil is fat.
Cauliflower rice curry with cashews and chicken. The vegetables are fiber, the cashews and chicken are protein and coconut milk is fat.
Tolerant Lentil Noodles with creamy red sauce and meatballs. The pasta is the fiber and protein, the cream is the fat and the meatballs are protein and fat.
1/2 apple with a hardboiled egg. The apple is fiber and the egg is fat and protein.
Kettle Roast Sunflower Seeds have protein, fat and fiber all together!
Examples that don’t fit this equation:
Low fat Greek yogurt cup - Missing fat + fiber
Egg Beaters (egg whites) - Missing fat from the yolks and fiber
Donut - Missing fiber + protein (and the fat is low quality vegetable oils)
Fruit only for a snack (naked carbs!) - Missing protein + fat
Remember, each body is different and carbohydrate tolerances differ. However, if you eat a lot of naked carbohydrates or have grains in most meals and are looking to burn body fat, try the above examples out. Start with breakfast for a week, then add PFF to your lunch and then to your dinner (this should get you to about 75 grams carbs/day). Also consider adding strength training 2-3x/week to help maintain and grow muscle, this will help increase your body’s ability to manage glucose.
Each time you have a meal - ask yourself: what is my protein, fat and fiber?