50 TOP TIPS FOR FAT LOSS - TIP 21

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Strategic Overfeed

Picture this: You’re eating a really clean nutrient rich diet consisting of the correct ratio of proteins, carbs and fats for your metabolic type. You’re starting to feel really good about your fat loss journey and you’ve been eating this way for about 5-6 days. It’s about to tick over day 7 and you have had massive hunger pains virtually every day since you started on this journey. What do you do? Should you ignore them?

Before I answer this question let me explain to you a little about the hormone Leptin. Leptin was first touted when it was discovered in the early 90’s as the saviour to the obesity epidemic. Because Leptin controls hunger pains and obese people seemed to be always hungry, it was thought that by simply giving an obese person a dose of Leptin, you could give them a sense of fullness and control their hunger. The reality couldn’t have been further from this as scientists soon discovered. It was found that obese people produced sufficient Leptin to give them the feeling of fullness, they simply became immune or resistant to it.
So why is this the case and what does this have to do with Strategic Overfeed and how can this help with fat loss?

It’s since been discovered that obese people somehow become resistant to their own Leptin levels, a little like how people with type II diabetes become resistant to their own insulin. Years and years of eating foods that don’t create a balanced hormonal system cause among other things a situation where we over produce and then become resistant.

So, how can a strategic overfeed help? It’s quite simple really. As you commenced on your fat loss journey by eating a really clean nutrient rich diet consisting of the correct ratio of proteins, carbs and fats for your metabolic type, you inadvertently set in motion a scenario where you began to lower your Leptin levels. Like anything in your system, when your body detects a lowering of something, it tries to offset this by producing more. The more Leptin your body produces the less hungry you’re supposed to feel right? That’s the theory but this is why it’s never worked, until now. By over producing Leptin you’re creating a situation where your body will eventually become resistant to your own Leptin levels.

So what’s the answer? You artificially raise your Leptin levels back to normal, without the need for your body to overproduce and that’s done by a single strategic overfeed every 7 days. Body builders have known this for decades; they just didn’t know why it worked.

It’s only in recent years that scientists can now demonstrate how this works from a peer reviewed scientific point of view. It’s very simple as to why a strategic overfeed works. It takes approximately 4-6 days to lower your Leptin levels to a point where the body wants to over produce, but it only takes 24 hours for your body to increase Leptin production to raise it back to normal levels. So what body builders do when they are trying to strip down before competition, is around about day 7 they eat what is known in their industry as a cheat meal.

They over feed their body in one meal with more calories than they would normally do. The excess calories resets their Leptin levels thus creating the feeling of fullness. By repeating this process, they can reduce their calorie intake, while keeping their metabolism burning and keeping at bay that whole “god I’m starving” feeling.

Next time we’ll talk about a sneaky training tip to keep you burning calories 24-36 hrs after the workout finishes. Till then have a great day.

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