The World's 30 Best Fat-Loss Secrets

’m a firm believer in the rule that a good

I article starts with a thorough introduc-
tion. It’s like the “warm-up sets” we do
before we get to the serious reps. But,
like most rules, there are exceptions. This
is one of ’em. You see, the advice in this
column is so simple—so basic—yet so
powerfully important, it just doesn’t need
a long, fancy intro. I think something
short and to the point, like this, will work
just fine: if you want to build a leaner,
healthier body, follow these tips!
1 Do aerobics in the morning.
The temptation to eat muffins
and drink coffee may be over-
whelming (just as looking in the
mirror, rubbing your belly, and
grunting might be), but doing some
form of aerobic exercise for just 20
minutes, first thing in the morning,
is more effective in burning fat than
a full hour of aerobic exercise per-
formed later in the day after you’ve
eaten a few meals. You see, after
an overnight fast, blood-sugar
levels are low, as are carbohydrate
reserves. Exercising before you eat
causes the body to dip right into
stored fat to come up with the
energy required to make it through
whatever rude awakening you’ve
subjected it to.
2 Don’t starve yourself.
Reducing your calorie intake to an
amount less than eight times your
bodyweight may cause your metab-
olism to institute severe energy-
saving measures that will make you
dim-witted and grumpy, as well as
reduce the rate your body burns
calories. It may also cause a reduc-
tion in lean body mass or muscle.
(Yikes!) For some reason, during
severe calorie restriction, excess
muscle is regarded as expendable,
and fat reserves are not.
3 Eat six times a day.
This is a tip I’ve given dozens of
times over the years, but for some
reason, it’s one people overlook.
By feeding your body frequently
throughout the day, you can avoid
hunger cramps and maintain stable
energy levels and a healthy metabo-
lism. It’s also a great way to provide
your body with the nutrients it
needs to recover from weight-train-
ing exercise and squelch cravings,
especially those uncontrollable
urges to binge during the evening.
One of the ways to make it a lot
easier to consume six meals a day is
to consume three regular, whole-
food meals, each consisting of a
portion of protein and carbohydrates,
and consume meal-replacement
drinks such as Myoplex for the other
three meals.
4 Work out consistently.
Everyone knows exercise burns
up calories while you’re doing it, but
University of Missouri researchers
say your metabolism is revved up
for as long as nine hours after a
workout. Their test subjects burned
600 calories in 1 hour during intense
workouts, but they also burned 120
more calories during the next 9
hours than they would have nor-
mally had they not exercised.
5 Eat protein and carbs each meal.
For example, a healthy breakfast
might include six egg whites and a
small bowl of oatmeal with skim
milk. Lunch and dinner might
consist of a serving of chicken or
fish and a small baked potato or
brown rice. By combining protein
and carbohydrates in each meal,
 “By feeding your body frequently throughout
the day, you can avoid hunger cramps and
maintain stable energy levels…”
you’ll maintain more stable energy
levels and provide your body with a
constant supply of amino acids and
glucose which help support muscle
tissue.
6 Count “portions,” not calories.
There aren’t many people who
can keep track of their calorie intake
for an extended period of time. As
an alternative, I recommend count-
ing “portions.” A portion of food is
roughly equal to the size of your
clenched fist or the palm of your
hand. Each portion of protein or
carbohydrates typically contains
between 100 and 150 calories. For
example, one chicken breast is
approximately one portion of protein,
and one medium-sized baked potato
is approximately one portion of car-
bohydrates.
7 Prepare meals ahead of time.
Most of us are too busy to prepare
healthy, low-fat foods every day:
that’s the secret to the success of
fast-food restaurants. One possible
solution would be to prepare some
low-fat meals on Sunday night or
whenever you have some extra time
and then freeze them.
8 Keep the alcohol to a minimum.
For some reason, people tend to
regard anything liquid, transparent,
and non-sweet as noncaloric. Every-
one knows that’s not necessarily
true, yet habitual beer and wine
drinkers are often reluctant to give up
the beverage of their choice while
dieting. Not long ago, a patient who
was enrolled in a doctor-supervised
weight-reduction plan came to us
after her diet had failed. We inter-
viewed her briefly and found that, in
addition to the food prescribed by
the weight-loss plan, she was drink-
ing an entire bottle of wine each
night! A bottle of wine or a six-pack
of beer can add anywhere from 625
to 1,100 calories to your diet. In addi-
tion, a gram of alcohol has about
seven calories—nearly as much as a while a gram of carbohydrates or
gram of fat, but both are metabolized protein contains just four. For
and stored by the body very easily. years, dietitians and scientists alike
assumed one calorie was pretty
9 Snack frequently but wisely. much like another, and if you ate too
many of them, they’d all end up
It’s been shown that spreading
being stored as fat. It turns out that’s
your calorie intake throughout the
not necessarily true—it seems the
day by eating more often increases
body can convert dietary fat calories
your metabolism. Obviously, the
into bodyfat more easily than it can
choice of food ingested during
convert carbohydrate calories or
these frequent feedings is also
protein calories into bodyfat. Studies
important, e.g., a slice of skinless
at the University of Massachusetts
turkey breast instead of an entire
Medical School point to the follow-
ham hock or air-popped popcorn
ing: if you eat 100 calories of
instead of a Snickers bar. Eating a
carbohydrate, it takes the body
high proportion of refined or simple
about 23 calories just to process it.
carbohydrates provides the body
The energy “cost” to digest protein
with energy a little too quickly.
is even higher. However, if you eat
Since simple carbohydrates are
100 calories of fat, it takes the body
used more easily than complex car-
just 3 calories to process it and
bohydrates, a lot of excess energy
deposit it, most likely on your hips,
is provided to the body in a rela-
rear, or waist. So by switching to
tively short time. If the energy is in
protein instead of fat, you’re not
excess of what the body needs at
only saving yourself from eating
that particular time, the excess is
extra calories, you’re also ingesting
quickly stored, most likely in the
food that’s more difficult for the
form of fat.
body to store as fat.
10 Build more muscle.
12 Be wary of fatty fish.
If you’re a regular reader of this
Not all fish are low in fat. The fat
magazine, then odds are you’re also
content of fish varies enormously
interested in building muscle. Luckily
depending on the species, but gener-
for you, muscle has a twofold cos-
ally, the fish are fatty because either
metic function. It not only helps you
they’re cold-water fish (they need
look leaner and stronger but also
more insulation), or they’ve been
makes your body more metaboli-
packed in oil. Let’s set some parame-
cally active. Muscle burns calories
ters first: lean fish have under 5
just sitting there counting its
grams of fat per 3.5-ounce serving,
change. It makes sense, though. Fat
while those that have more than 5
is metabolically inert. It’s simply
grams of fat should be considered
stored, like a bowling ball in a
fatty. (There aren’t many truly fatty
closet. It isn’t useful until it’s
fish, i.e., those that have more than
needed. Muscle, on the other hand,
ten grams of fat per serving, but there
is constantly demanding, “Feed me,
are a few, such as herring, mackerel,
feed me,” à la the blood-drinking
salmon, pompano, sardines, and
plant in the Little Shop of Horrors.
shad.) Feel free to indulge in lean fish
The more muscle you have, the
like cod, flounder, haddock, monkfish,
more calories you need just to main-
orange roughy, perch, pike, red
tain your present weight.
snapper, rockfish, sea bass, or tuna.
Fish that you may want to avoid or
11 Watch the fat content.
eat only occasionally include: catfish,
Most of you have heard a gram of shark, and bluefish as they all contain
fat contains roughly nine calories between five and ten grams of fat.
 “The more muscle you have, the
more calories you need just to
maintain your present weight.”
13 Be wary of ground turkey meat.
Turkey is highly nutritious, but
when you buy it from the butcher,
make sure you’re getting ground
turkey breast, not skin or dark meat.
Ground turkey breast is about 98%
to 99% fat free, while skin or dark-
meat turkey may only be about 80%
fat free, in which case it would
equate to a carton of Häagen-Dazs
with wings.
14 Keep your protein intake high.
One way to help prevent muscle
loss while dieting is to keep your
intake of protein relatively high—at
least a gram of protein per pound of
bodyweight a day. For example, if
you weigh 170 lbs, try to eat at least
170 grams of protein a day.
15 Not all vegetables are low fat.
It’s hard to believe it by looking at
an ear of corn, but most of the fats in
processed foods come from the veg-
etables. Still, it takes about a bushel
of corn or most other vegetables to
make a bottle of vegetable oil, but
the fat content of certain vegetables
(or fruits, depending on what botan-
ical school of thought you’re from)
like avocados and olives is enor-
mous. An average avocado derives
about 86% of its calories from fat,
while the number for olives is even
higher at about 95%.
16 Don’t eat nuts as a snack.
Sure they’re natural, and sure
they contain a lot of protein, but
they’re extremely high in fat.
Consider that many nuts derive up
to 97% of their calories from fat. The
only exception to this high-fat rule is
chestnuts, which derive only 8% of
their calories from fat. You’re proba-
bly thinking to yourself, “What
about those articles in the newspa-
pers that said eating walnuts could
reduce your cholesterol rate?” Well,
the test was financed by the walnut
industry, and in a nutshell, the study
involved two groups of men, one
control group and one of which sub-
stituted walnuts for fatty foods like
meat and butter. Since the walnuts
contain less saturated fat than the
beef and butter and have no choles-
terol, the cholesterol levels of the
walnut eaters dropped. Using this
same type of logic, they could have
made a case to support eating
bacon or eggs to reduce choles-
terol levels—sure it does—when it
replaces eating sticks of butter.
17 Cholesterol is not fat.
Cholesterol has nothing to do
with the fat content of a food.
Cholesterol is chemically a steroid
(not the anabolic type, of course),
and it’s produced by the liver.
Only animal products contain it.
Consequently, a food item can have
no cholesterol yet be high in fat.
Conversely, something can be high
in cholesterol yet low in fat, such as
shrimp. Despite the difference in fat
and cholesterol, a diet high in fat,
particularly saturated fat, can indeed
raise cholesterol levels.
18 Don’t eat with fat friends.
On the surface, this may seem a
little flippant, but the point of this tip
is not to avoid fat friends; just don’t
fall prey to the same eating habits
that may have had something to do
with making them fat in the first
place. If you eat with people with
poor eating habits, don’t use their
dietary shortcomings to justify slip-
ping into similar eating habits, even
if it’s only during one meal. For
instance, if everyone’s eating cheese-
cake, don’t let them pressure you
into being one of the crowd because
sooner or later, you really will be
one of the crowd... the fat crowd,
that is.
19 Frozen yogurt is not so great.
First of all, not all frozen yogurt is
low fat. Some varieties average
about eight grams of fat per cup.
Secondly, there’s hardly any way of
telling what the fat content is of the
local neighborhood yogurt stand’s
frozen offerings. If you’re absolutely
sure of the fat content, and it’s one
gram of fat or less per serving, go
ahead and have it as an occasional
treat.
20 Defat your cheese.
A recent survey indicated that the
most difficult food to cut back on
while dieting was cheese. Under-
standably so. If you’re preparing a
dish that requires it, try defatting
your cheese—zap an ounce of full-
fat cheddar in the microwave on the
high setting for two minutes, and
much of the fat will liquefy and form
a pool on top of the cheese. You can
then pour it off, and this method will
reduce the amount of fat by about
four grams. This method works best
with cheddar or mozzarella.
21 Watch out for salad dressing.
Two tablespoons of regular salad
dressing, about the amount con-
tained in a ladleful at a restaurant,
contain about 200 calories. To put
that in perspective, hot fudge has
fewer calories and a lot less fat. If
light dressing isn’t available and you
just can’t do without it, ask for the
dressing on the side and use it spar-
ingly. An alternative might be to mix
it half and half with vinegar or
lemon juice.
22 Get creative in the kitchen.
Try using calorie-cutting mixes
when you make a snack or pour
yourself a glass of something to
drink. Consider cutting your orange
juice with an equal part of carbon-
ated water or seltzer. If you just have
to have peanut butter (even though
each two-tablespoon serving of
peanut butter has more than one
tablespoon of grease), then mix it
with a mashed banana. All out of
nonfat mayonnaise? Cut down the
fat content of regular mayo by
mixing in some mustard.
Lose the Weight...
Find Your Smile!
 “Carbs consumed in the
evening are more likely to be
converted to bodyfat…”

23 Caffeine may help burn fat.
Supplements like Phen-Free, which
contain caffeine, used 30 to 60
minutes before an aerobic workout,
may allow you to burn fat faster. In
scientific studies, caffeine has been
shown to help liberate fatty acids
from bodyfat stores, thus possibly
increasing your body’s ability to
burn fat. It may also increase
strength and focus during a
workout and is often used for this
purpose.
24 Deep-six the potato chips.
Eating 8 oz of conventional potato
chips is like adding 12 Tbsps of veg-
etable oil and a teaspoon of salt to
an 8-oz potato. However, consider
this: you would have to eat 2 quarts
of plain unbuttered popcorn to get
the calories in 1 oz of chips (about
15 chips). By substituting, you save
ten grams of fat. Of course, if you
need your chips, try the Baked Lay’s
Potato Chips that can be found at
better grocery stores everywhere.
discovered by research scientists at
Iowa State University, may work
especially well in a fat-loss program
because when you’re working out
hard and cutting calories, HMB
could help you burn even more fat
while also guarding against muscle
breakdown.
27 “Pig out” once a week.
No one can eat “perfectly” all the
time without going crazy! If you’re
craving something like apple pie,
French fries, pizza, or candy, hold off
that craving until your “free day.”
One day a week, forget calorie count-
ing, portion control, etc., and eat
whatever you’d like. By giving your-
self this option, you can maintain the
discipline you need to be successful
the other six days of the week.
28 Don’t eat carbs before exercise.
If you supply the body with carbo-
hydrates to use as fuel when
exercising, it will prevent fat
burning and preserve bodyfat
stores. A recent study confirmed
that if you keep taking in carbs, your
body will burn carbs. Cut back on
the carbs, and your body will burn
fat more readily and quickly.
29 Fail fast and change direction.
If what you’re doing now isn’t
working, make a change! Don’t
believe that if what you have been
doing isn’t working, it will all of a
sudden start working for no appar-
ent reason. If you want different
results, you have to take a different
approach!
30 Don’t just read these tips!
If you want to build a leaner,
healthier physique, you have to
apply these fat-fighting tips. As they
say, “Knowing what to do and doing
what you know are two entirely dif-
ferent things!”

25 Cut back on carbs at night.

It’s a scientific fact that your body
cannot burn fat when your insulin
levels are elevated. It’s also a fact
that carbs cause insulin levels to go
up. So, it’s especially important to
limit your carb intake of foods like
bread, pasta, candy, juices, crackers,
and bagels in the evening after, say,
6:00 p.m. Carbs consumed in the
evening are more likely to be con-
verted to bodyfat and/or reduce the
amount of fat your body may burn
during sleep.

26 Try using the supplement HMB.

HMB has proven itself in the labo-
ratory and in the real world. It’s one
of the most thoroughly studied sup-
plements on the market. This
patented amino acid metabolite,