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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tom Venuto
Read between
February 3 - February 9, 2019
As you read this book, you’ll discover that if you eat the right foods, you can actually eat more and nourish your body with all the nutrients it needs. You’ll not only burn fat faster and keep it off, you’ll also get healthier and feel more energized at the same time.
If you want to get started quickly, you can. Chapter 14 contains the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle eating plan, sample meal plans, and food lists, making that an excellent “nutrition quick start guide.” Chapters 15, 16, and 17 contain the workout, including the 28-day training plan. Jump in!
Do the goal-setting exercises in Chapter 6 before going on to the other three elements.
The crucial first step is setting a goal.
the most important part of getting in great shape is simply making up your mind to do it.
ideal method to measure your progress is body composition testing. Body fat can be measured easily using a skinfold test. Chapter 3 discusses body composition testing methods in more detail, and Chapter 4 teaches you how to chart your progress and interpret the results.
One trait shared by every person who gets lean and stays lean is consistency.
planning is the simple cure that solves every diet problem.
A meal plan is your eating goal for the day.
having a meal plan on paper is one of the most powerful fat-burning strategies you can use.
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An easy way to start making better decisions is to give your food a grade. Simply ask yourself, “How processed is this? How calorie dense is this?” The more a food is processed and the more calorie dense a processed food is, the lower the grade.
The less a food is processed (the closer it is to its natural state), the higher the grade.
As long as you choose mostly A and B foods—even an occasional C—and you’re conscious of portion sizes, you can feel confident that your meal plan is healthy as well as effective for fat loss.
you’re far more likely to overeat some foods than others. These are foods with more calories per unit of volume (high calorie density). Certain foods are also more palatable.
Certain food combinations are doubly disastrous. Fat and sugar is one of the worst. Common examples include cheesecake, peanut butter cups, and ice cream. Starchy carbs plus fat is another dangerous combo. A prime example is white pasta with a cheesy, creamy, or buttery sauce (think fettuccine Alfredo).
Even healthy, unprocessed foods can become calorie bombs, depending on what you put on them. Salads can be a great starter or even a complete meal (if you include some lean protein), but when they’re topped with full-fat cheeses, croutons, bacon bits, and high-fat dressings, they pack a caloric wallop.
THE 12 WORST FAT-STORING FOODS
• French fries and other deep-fried foods • Ice cream and milk shakes • Doughnuts and pastries • Candy and confections • Sugar-sweetened soft drinks • Sugar-sweetened juice drinks, energy drinks, teas, and dessert coffees • White bread and white flour products • Potato chips, corn chips, and fried tortilla chips • Bacon, sausage, and processed lunch meats • Hot dogs and fast-food burgers • Pizza with thick crusts and fatty meat toppings • Sugary breakfast cereals
THE 12 BEST FAT-BURNING FOODS
Lean protein foods
Fibrous vegetables
The most “fat burning” of all meals is lean protein plus fibrous carbs (fish and broccoli or chicken and a green salad, for example).
✓ Whole fresh fruit ✓ Vegetables (any fibrous carb or nonstarchy vegetable) ✓ White potatoes (or sweet potatoes) ✓ Fish and shellfish ✓ Oatmeal, rolled or steel-cut (unsweetened) ✓ Brown rice ✓ Beans and legumes ✓ 100% whole wheat or whole grains* ✓ Low- or nonfat dairy products* ✓ Chicken and turkey breast ✓ Eggs and egg whites ✓ Lean cuts of red meat, game meats
eating the same thing every day or following the same meal plan each day can help you automatically eat less and maintain long-term fat loss.
when you’re given too many choices, you not only become confused about what to eat, you also tend to eat more.
How would you like more endurance, more energy, and a natural endorphin “high” as bonuses? You get all that when you add cardio training into the mix.
The real key to success is to find an exercise you enjoy—
If you do cardio right, you could double or even triple your rate of fat loss, boost your metabolism, increase your conditioning to an athlete’s level, and get healthier than you’ve ever been.
secret to fat loss is not exercise. It’s not what foods you eat either. The ultimate secret to fat loss is achieving a calorie deficit, and consistently staying in that deficit until you reach your goal.
In Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, there are two types of formal training, resistance and cardio. Both can burn large amounts of calories and help you lose fat, but we’ll consider them as two separate endeavors, with distinctly different purposes.
Our definition of “cardio” is any exercise that’s rhythmic in nature, involves large muscle groups (namely your legs), and raises your heart rate and breathing, and which you can sustain for extended periods of time.
Cross-country skiing machines are not found in many gyms, but they have a cult following. The machine does involve a certain degree of skill and coordination, but if you stick with it through the learning curve until the awkwardness is gone, you’ll be well rewarded.
I like to call three cardio workouts a week a baseline.
If your goal is fat loss, 30 to 45 minutes at a moderate intensity is usually more than enough time to achieve the type of calorie burn you need.
interval training, where the intensity is very high, as little as 15 to 20 minutes can do it.
I believe that sweet spot—which provides both efficiency and effectiveness—is around 20 to 30 minutes of high-intensity cardio or 40 to 45 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio.
rating of perceived exertion (RPE)
You simply rate how hard your workout feels on a scale from 1 to 10.
Breathing rate is another way to estimate training intensity. If you’re not breathing heavily, you’re not working hard. If you’re so out of breath that you can’t finish a sentence or hold a conversation (the “talk test”), your intensity is probably too high for steady-state training.
Sweating, on the other hand, is not a good gauge for training intensity
excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).
The higher the intensity and the longer an intense workout is sustained, the higher the EPOC.
them. If you’re lifting weights or doing intense cardio in the morning, it’s probably ideal to have one of your meals beforehand, including protein.
you could at least have a light meal, a snack, or a protein drink and then eat your first full meal after training.
Will cardio make you lose muscle? What about people whose primary goal is fat loss? Research plus real-world results from competitive bodybuilders suggest there’s plenty of room for both.
CARDIO PERIODIZATION: THE FAT-LOSS SECRET OF THE LEANEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
If you’re already fit and your time is limited, do up to three sessions of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) per week.
It burns a lot of calories.
progressive resistance, where you lift more weight than you have before, is the Holy Grail of building muscle and strength.
If you push yourself through the “good pain” of burn and fatigue to squeeze out those last reps, it can make the difference between a great body and an average body.
