Here is the other issue with eating a diet designed simply to help you
reduce your caloric intake: it’s miserable!

I always say that there is no point in
starting any new diet or any new training regime unless you intend to
stick with it permanently.

If you’re going to diet for a month and then go back to your
old shape… then what’s the point?

So whatever diet you’re coming up with right now, the first thing you need to ask
yourself is whether you can feasibly see yourself following it forever.

This is the problem with intermittent fasting diets and it’s the problem with calorie
counting. Sure, you can stomach the idea of scanning all your food for a few days,
weeks or even months.

But are you really going to be doing this when you’re eighty?
If not, then it is not sustainable.

And what’s the point of going to such effort to count everything you eat, when we’ve
already seen that the numbers are really just a guess at best?

For most people, this will be an effective tool until it becomes dull and they give up
because they’re too tired and stressed to stick with it.

For others, it might never work knowing to other biological factors that prevent them from getting the most from it.
Cast your mind back to the notion of your body going through cycles between
anabolic and catabolic. Now ask yourself: what have you been doing all day at work?
You’ve been stressed, likely getting into arguments, working to deadlines and
struggling with difficult clients. At the same time, you’ve been staring into a screen
which is a very bright source of artificial light.

What does all this mean? It means you’re very much in fight or flight. You’re very
much catabolic. And so when you get home, of course your body is going to revert to
anabolic.

Not only that, but your blood sugar is likely incredible low and you need
something to cheer you up – something that will release some serotonin. You need
to swing that pendulum back to the anabolic, rest and digest state.

And now you’re telling me that you’re going to eat fish because it has the right
number of calories?
The good news is that there is a better way…

The Other Factors Overlooked by Diets

There are many more important factors that often get overlooked by diets too.
One of these is the fact that we tend to eat socially. That is to say, that will we
often eat something because we’re with our partners, our families, or our friends.

We like inviting people round for meals, we like going out for fancy dinners and we like surprising our partners with chocolates.

If you don’t join in with this, then it’s actually quite unsocial and we miss out. Again,
with all those hormones screaming at you to get some sugar and now the social
pressure of eating out… are you really ordering that salad? Forever?

And yes, there is the simple matter of time and energy. Tracking all your calories
takes time and energy and as we’ve discussed, those are both factors that are
already at a premium. Can you really motivate yourself to count all the calories in
that home-cooked meal… every day?

But Most Important of All: Nutrients

And there’s something else that gets not a lot of attention when it comes to diet and
that absolutely deserves it: that’s nutrition.

Too many of us view our food as fuel. This is something that the calorie-counting approach is very guilty of doing. We look at food as something that we use in order to enable ourselves to keep going and to keep us productive at work.

We think of it in terms of something that our body burns in much the same way that a car uses petrol.

But food is MUCH more than that. Not only should food be enjoyable and social as
we have already discussed but it should also be thought of as being the very
substance that we are made of. You’ve heard the expression ‘you are what you eat’
and well… it’s true.

When you consume amino acids from proteins, your body actually reconstitutes
those in order to build your muscle and skin. You are literally recycling the parts of
dead animals and plants in order to rebuild your own tissue.

Likewise, the micronutrients found in your food help to build your bones and connective tissues, your brain chemicals and even the hormones that help to drive you.
Micronutrients are the tiny nutrients that come from all our food and they are absolutely essential to helping us to perform and feel our very best.

These make us feel more awake, more alert, happier and they even help to elevate our metabolism so that we burn more fat!

If you are feeling depressed, weak, sluggish and slow, then there’s a good chance
that it is actually because you have a deficiency in some kind of essential nutrient.
These are nature’s sports supplements and they can be instrumental in helping you
to get out of the funk you’re in.

Why Moder Diets are the Worst

And here’s another thing to keep in mind: modern diets are the worst.
The big issue is with modern diets is that they have essentially hacked the very
system our body evolved in order to survive with. Remember the way that
simple sugars cause a rush of blood sugar, insulin and serotonin to make us feel great
but then cause us to gain weight?
Well, all food manufacturers care about is that first bit: making you feel good. They
want to sell more of their crisps, their chocolate bars and their cakes and so they
have made foods that are practically just sugar.

These are constantly and immediately spiking the blood sugar and can single-handled raise your chances of developing diabetes and other health conditions.

What’s worse is that these overly processed foods have removed all of the nutrients
that made them so healthy. If you eat a piece of fruit, you’ll probably find that it’s
packed with vitamin C, vitamin A, resveratrol and a host of antioxidants which will
help you to look and feel more awesome.

But if you eat a shop-bought sausage role then you’re barely eating meat. You just get sugar, trans fat, and salt! Likewise, if you
eat a chocolate bar, you spike your sugar but without getting any useful nutrients.
Remember: this is the stuff that your feel good hormones are made out of. This is the
stuff that helps to drive your metabolism forward. This is the stuff that rebuilds your
wounds.
So is it any wonder that so many of us are burned out, dried up and exhausted?

Download the Easy Diet.pdf

The most straightforward way that anyone can fight belly fat, is to simply eat fewer calories than they burn. This is what is called maintaining a ‘caloric deficit’ and it basically means that the body needs to burn fat in order to get
the energy it needs.

The body is constantly burning energy, not only to allow it to engage in various
activities such as walking, jogging or thinking but also to allow it to simply stay alive.
That is to say that you need to burn energy for the most fundamental of human
bodily functions such as blinking and breathing.

If you are constantly eating, then you are constantly supplying your body with the
sugar that it needs. This will remain in the blood until the body is able to use it to
power whichever movements are necessary. Failing that, the body will look to stores
of glycogen which is kept in the cells. It’s only once both of these energy supplies
runs short that the body then needs to start looking elsewhere. That is when it starts
to burn fat.

How to Measure and Maintain a Calorie Deficit

If you want to measure and maintain a calorie deficit, then you need to first calculate how many calories your body burns in a given day. This means looking at the number of calories that you burn while inactive (called your ‘basal metabolic rate’) and then looking at how much exercise you do on top of this – making your AMR or ‘active metabolic rate’.

There are plenty of different calculations out there for getting a rough estimate of
these numbers.

Ultimately though, it is actually more effective in most cases to try and work this out using a fitness tracker. While calculations can be useful, they don’t allow for variations from one day to the next. Most of us will find that our active metabolic
rate varies tremendously throughout the week and this of course has a big impact on
how much you should be eating.

A good fitness tracker will allow you to enter some personal metrics, such as your
height, weight and gender, and will then count your steps and measure other
activities throughout the day.

A device such as the Fibit Alta HR for instance will not only track steps but also monitor your heart rate throughout the day and automatically detect exercises and activities like walks, runs and sports. Using this data, you can then get a much more accurate picture of how many calories you burn daily.

From there, you can then start calculating how many calories are going in. Again,
there is technology out there to help you do this. MyFitnessPal for example is a tool
that will let you log the foods you eat by entering the calories and ‘macronutrients’
manually, or by simply scanning a barcode in order to add them from a hu
database.

If you scan everything you eat through MyFitnessPal – not forgetting the drinks you
consume (including alcoholic!) and any smaller snacks throughout the day – then you
now have a total number for all the calories you’ve eaten to measure against the
ones you’ve burned.

Now all you need to do is to plan your day so that the number of calories coming in
stays lower than those going out. Let’s say that you’ve burned 2,300 calories and
you’ve eaten 2,200.

You can either stop there, or you can try and do some more
exercise in order to burn more calories. Either way, you need to keep the first number higher than the second one. If you can do that, then you will burn fat. It’s
that simple and it has to work – because there’s no other source of energy for your
body to get fuel from.

Maintain a constant caloric deficit of around 200-300 and you’ll slowly lose more and
more fat. Remember: slow and steady wins the race!

Except it’s not really that simple. Is it? For starters, there are the kinds of foods
you’re eating – the nutrients. Then there is the matter of your metabolism and, you
know, life.

Maintaining a caloric deficit seems simple and flawless on paper but in practice, it is
too simplistic. Over the next few chapters, you’ll discover why and you’ll find out how
to strike that happy balance that will result in guaranteed fat loss.

Women reading this might even be worried they’ll lose weight from places that they want it: like their breasts!
As some of you may already know, this does not guarantee you’ll lose your belly.
That’s because nothing can guarantee that you’ll lose your belly. Unfortunately,
there is no such thing as ‘targeted’ fat loss. That is to say that you can’t choose which
part of your body you want to improve the looks of and then conveniently blast fat
from there.

The order in which fat is lost from your body is actually genetically predetermined
and is impossible to change. Some people will lose weight from their guts first and
those people are very lucky indeed. Other people might lose it from their arms first.

As of right now, science has no way of helping you choose which order things happen
in for you.

So the only way you can burn belly fat is to burn all fat and then feel safe in the
knowledge that it is going to eventually reach your belly.

That said though, we will look at some tips in these articles later on that can help you to make your belly flatter and more toned in other ways…

The Role of Hormones in Weight LLoss

The Role of Hormones in Weight Loss
If you look around the web for advice on how to lose weight, you’ll find that people
fall into two broad camps. There are those that believe weight loss is entirely
dictated by that caloric deficit we just discussed and there are others that feel there
are other, more important factors at play.
Let’s take a look at some criticisms of the ‘calorie deficit’ approach to dieting…

Problems With the Deficit

It is certainly true that your body needs to burn fat for energy once it has run
out of other sources. It is certainly true that if you have no other means of
getting that energy, you will lose fat stores and eventually you lose weight.

This really is simple math – cause and
effect.

But the problem comes with calculating that magic ‘AMR’ – active metabolic rate.
These calculations are rough guesses at best and they are based on nothing more
than your physical features.

• The best calculations take into account your muscle mass (which is metabolically active) but even these don’t take into account underlying issues such as the balance of your hormones.
• Simply put, some hormones help you to burn fat faster and some help you to burn
• fat faster. These are directly responsible for how many of those processes that
• require energy are going on in your body at any given time and how capable your
• body is of utilizing the various stores of energy available to it.
• Just a few of these hormones include:
•  Cortisol
•  Insulin
•  Thyroid hormones (T3 and T4)
•  Adrenaline
•  Serotonin
•  Leptin
•  Ghrelin
•  Testosterone
•  Estrogen
•  Progesterone
•  IGF1
•  Human growth hormone
•  And many more
• The problem is that we all have different balances of these hormones. These
• hormones are in constant flux and are affected by everything from what we are
• eating at the time and how stressed we are, to how much sleep we’ve had and how
• sunny it is.
• Some people have imbalances in these hormones that are permanent, while others
• will use medications that can alter them.

Those fitness ‘gurus’ that ignore the role of hormones in weight loss can’t explain
why hypothyroidism or polycystic ovaries leads to weight gain. They also can’t
explain why using steroids builds muscle and burns fat.
You may not have a condition like hypothyroidism but the point to recognize is that
these conditions are not really binary.

You do not have to ‘have’ or ‘not have’ a condition – but rather you can view everyone as existing somewhere along the spectrum. You might have a slightly lower production of thyroid hormones than someone else, or you might be higher in testosterone.

This is why some people lose fat very easily and it is why some people struggle to
lose it. It’s also why things tend to get harder for us as we get older and it’s why
things get harder for us as we become more stressed and more tired.

All of this upsets our hormone balance and puts our bodies into ‘fat storage’ modes.

The issue is not with the calorie deficit but rather our ability to accurately calculate
our own AMR.

Not only that, but these hormones also play a very big role in why we
struggle to lose weight (they make us hungry, low in energy and depressed) and they
contribute directly to fat storage around the midriff.
This is before we take into account the fact that it is essentially impossible to
calculate the precise number of calories burned (heart rate alone is not a perfect
correlate for calories burned) or the number of calories in any given item of food.
You really think that every single apple has the precise same number of calories in it?

Are you sure you are really adding precisely the same amount of sauce to your
meals?

Then there’s another fallacy of the calories in/out diet, which is the notion that our
calories somehow magically reset at the end of the day: that we can make sure we’re
in a calorie deficit on Monday and then start again on Tuesday. In reality, the build-up of calories is cumulative and can be ‘carried over’.

The Roles of Carbs and Fats

As mentioned, the timing of your food and the way you eat can have a big impact on
your hormonal balance. Likewise, the hormonal balance can have a big impact on the
way that you’re eating!

For example, if you eat first thing in the morning, you ‘break’ your fast. That is to say that you take yourself out of a catabolic state where the body is desperate for food and is burning fat.

Some people will then try to extent this catabolic state for as long as possible as a trick to burn more fat.

They might even engage in something called ‘fasted cardio’ which means that they’ll work out first thing in the morning before breakfast so that the only thing available to burn is stored fat.
Another trick is something called ‘carb backloading’. Here, you engage in intensive
exercise designed to deplete the glycogen stores. Then you consume carbs and as a
result, they will be more likely to be stored in the muscle cells rather than being
stored as fat.

But the technique that most people are interested in is to avoid ‘simple
carbohydrates’ altogether.

Simple carbohydrates are any carbs that release their energy immediately into the blood. These tend to be the sweetest carbs like sugar, cake and white bread. By eating these, you cause a sudden spike in blood sugar which triggers the release of insulin and puts your body into a ‘fat storage’ mode.

If you avoid these simple carbs however, then you can maintain more of an
equilibrium and thereby prevent your body from storing the energy. Instead, you’ll
simply be replenishing your blood sugar as it is being used up.

This is the objective of many low carb dieters who will instead rely on complex carbohydrates and fats which digest much more slowly and therefore release sugar into the blood at a
slower rate as well.
Some low carb dieters and fasters will go even further to try and reduce blood sugar
to the point that the body beings producing an alternative energy source ketones.

Do you need to worry about this? Is any of it relevant for losing your belly? Don’t
worry – everything will be explained into a simple to follow program very shortly…

Make sure You Read our Next Post…How to Fitt A Simple Diet into your Lifestyle(the Easy Way)

How Did I Get Here?

If we’re going to fix this ‘belly problem’, then perhaps the best place to start is by asking how it got this way in the first place. What series of events led to you gaining the weight and letting yourself go? Perhaps with that knowledge, we can then reverse the process and get back on track. I’m speculating here, but I’m going to take a stab at how you found yourself with this unwanted flab.

Because for most of us, we weren’t always that way. Most of us were fairly toned
and fit when we were in our younger years but then things changed. We got older
and then we started to get tired.

Hormones don’t help – hormones make our metabolisms slow down as we get past 25 and suddenly it becomes much harder to keep the belly fat off.

Not only that, but we start spending more and more time at work in the office and
pouring more and more energy into that work. Then we get married, get a mortgage,
have kids…
Suddenly, the amount of free time we have to ourselves dwindles down to almost
nothing. If we aren’t changing nappies, answering angry phone calls out of hours,
coming home late or doing the dishes, we’re crashed out on the sofa exhausted.
And stress is another thing that can contribute to weight gain. Stress increases
cortisol, cortisol makes us hungry and it stimulates ‘lipogenesis’ or fat storage.
Gradually our gym regime takes a back seat and soon after that, our diet takes a back
seat too. We start eating what is convenient and affordable and slowly life chips
away at our fitness.

And it doesn’t seem like a big deal either. But as we’ve seen it really is, because it
starts to have a knock-on effect in every single other aspect of your life. If you can
take back control of your gut, you can take back control of your life!
So how are you going to get it back?

The Problem is Energy, Not Time

Let’s take a closer look at this issue and see what it really boils down to. Now a lot of people will tell you it comes down to time. They aren’t in shape because they don’t have time to be in shape.

Is this accurate though?

I would argue not. Because if you are like most people, then you have somehow still managed to watch an awful lot of TV
series. Maybe you recently completed the latest season of Game of Thrones. And
then there’s the simple fact that you could wake up earlier.

And there’s the fact that – if we are being completely honest here – eating healthily
doesn’t take that long. In fact it’s very quick and easy to eat a salad, or to eat
whatever you were going to eat tonight sans chips.

The problem isn’t that you don’t have time to work out, it’s that you don’t have the
energy or the inclination. And it’s not that you don’t have time to cook, it’s that you
don’t have energy. Furthermore, you feel like you need a pick-me-up. Something that
can help you to get yourself up and running again – and fish just doesn’t cut it.
Fish after a long day at work just doesn’t cut it.

This is straightforward calorie tracking. We’ll see why this can work and why it’s really just very simple math.

But I want you to keep this chapter in the back of your mind because we’re going to
be coming back to it. You’re going to see later on that your lifestyle makes it hard to
cut calories and that you need to have a rethink if you’re going to win this war on
your belly!

How to lose your Belly Fat

Everyone is looking for a ‘silver bullet’ these days. They’re looking for that ‘one simple trick’ that can change their lives and make everything better – that will make them feel more energetic, more attractive and more successful.

Because let’s face it: life can be something of a slog for most of us. We wake up in the
morning feeling tired and not wanting to haul ourselves out of bed. Then we drag
ourselves to work through busy, stressful commutes and then we force our way
through a long hard day.

When we get home, we usually feel too tired and depressed after our working week
to do anything worthwhile, and so we just crash out in front of the couch.

Many people struggle with feelings of low self-esteem, of depression and of
loneliness on top of this. We’re constantly connected but many of us feel that we
struggle to make real, worthwhile connections.
5
Is there really one simple trick that can turn that all around? That can give you a new
lease of life and help you feel like a million bucks?

Well, I’m here to tell you that there is. And it’s perfectly obvious when you think
about it. The simplest way to turn your life around and to feel the best you’ve ever
felt is to get rid of that belly fat.

If you’re currently living with a mushroom top, ‘Dad bod’ or just a spare tire around your waist, then it is dragging you down more than you could possibly know.

How Belly Fat Makes Everything Worse

Of course we all know that belly fat can ruin your confidence. Having a gut is simply not attractive whether you’re a male or female and it’s something that is going to make you
feel a whole lot worse about yourself as a result.

Having a gut doesn’t just get rid of any chance you might have stood of having a six
pack, it also ensures that you look like a stuffed potato whatever clothes you wear.
It’s immensely hard to put on a great shirt or dress and to leave the house feeling like
a million bucks when you have a massive gut hanging out.

More than that though, a gut signals generally poor health. This suggests that you
are less active and what normally goes along with that is a general lack of tone and
definition that can be seen everywhere from your arms to your face.

Women: do you remember when you used to feel light, petit and strong? Like a
toned and honed Amazonian ready for business and enjoying all the stares coming
your way?

Guys: do you remember what it felt to have a dominating presence in the room? To
look slightly like an athlete in your clothes and to have the look of a predator? To be
an alpha male and to look fantastic in nearly every outfit you wore?

Having a gut changes your posture too. It forces you into a more forward position
that slumps your shoulders forward and closes off your chest. This is a submissive
stance that sends a loud signal to others that you aren’t confident and that you don’t
need to be taken seriously! Women meanwhile can expect to look frumpy and tired.
Having a gut transforms you from the bottom up and brings you screaming into
middle age. It suggests that you’ve stopped trying and affects your very body
language – which of course has a deep psychological impact.

Then there are the direct results of getting into better shape.

Of course your sex life will improve and I’m not just talking about for single people. Obviously picking up
women/men becomes much easier when you look healthy and sexy but you’ll also
find your relationship improves.

How would you feel about your partner if they become more toned and sexy? Or if
they gained lots of weight quickly conversely?
And then there’s the way that a belly can impact on your libido – or lack thereof. If
you’re not having sex, then losing the gut might be the answer. And guess what?
Getting into lean shape can improve your salary too. Studies show that employers

are more likely to employ or promote people who are in better physical shape! On
average men and women who are more toned earn higher salaries!
And that’s before we have even touched on the direct psychological consequences of
carrying a belly around. Because as soon as you grow that gut, you’re going to start
producing significantly more stress hormones such as cortisol which will increase
depression and rob you of energy.

Of course, that gut drastically increases your likelihood of developing a number of
different conditions as well. This also creates something of a vicious circle – the
7 increase in cortisol and in stress increases your likelihood of gaining more weight and
encourages stress eating. Not only that, but it also makes you significantly less
energetic and makes it harder for you to engage in healthy activities such as exercise.
In other words, having a belly makes it much harder to get rid of a belly.

And that’s before you take into account the fact that you’re now moving around with a large tub of lard attached to your gut. Let’s face it – you are not in your prime and athletic
activities probably aren’t your strong suit right now.

But imagine if they were…

And that’s what we’re going to start fixing in this book. I haven’t even touched on all
the ways that belly fat can lead to depression, further weight gain, low self-esteem
and even serious health conditions. If none of these other reasons is going to provide
enough motivation then simply consider that a belly will increase your likelihood of
cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart disease and more.
So yes, this really is the one thing that you can do to change your entire life. If you
look after your body, it looks after you. And now we’re going to see how you can
make that positive change happen.