The Fat Burn Revolution (6 page)

Think carefully about what issues will arise, then make a plan and in your mind’s eye visualise yourself dealing with them. If you feel anxious during this process, that’s a sign
that you need to do it all the more, so stick with those feelings and work through them by showing yourself how you’ll tackle those testing situations.

The very fact that you’re reading this book is proof that you have had enough of settling for less than the best you can be and you are ready to take action to improve your life. Obstacles
will come up along the way, some of which you may not foresee right now, but there will always be a way of dealing with them and moving towards your goal. Of course, doubts will appear, and you
will have lazy days when you’d rather be doing anything but your scheduled workout. But you’ve now committed to success, so you’ll do it anyway. And you will not regret it.

Occasionally I might use the vernacular and talk about ‘weight loss’, because it helps me get my message out into the mainstream, but really what happens
to people on the Fat Burn Revolution programme is that they shed fat and gain muscle and become leaner, fitter and their bodies look hotter as a result.

Although not a pretty picture, try searching for images of five pounds of body fat and five pounds of muscle on the internet. I’m asking you to do this to realise that a
person’s weight may not tell the full story when they make changes to their body shape. Take a good look at the pictures and ask yourself, which would look better on my thighs or arms? As you
can see, if you removed five pounds of fat from your body and gained five pounds of muscle you would look a lot smaller, while the scales would not move. This is a principle I really want you to
understand before you start your Fat Burn Revolution journey.

I do suggest that you record your weight, but the main reason for this is to help you see that the plan is ‘working’ and that you are indeed losing fat. But be aware that changes in
weight do not always show you what is really happening to your body. The scales can be distorted by hydration levels, the amount of food in your system, hormonal cycles (which affect both men and
women) and many other factors. Typically, people will experience losing a lot of weight in the first two or three weeks of any diet and/or exercise programme and then the weight loss will slow
down, which can be demotivating. (Don’t be fooled by TV weight loss shows, by the way, they deliberately select severely obese participants so those big drops will continue for longer, but
I’ll restrain myself from ranting about that here.) However, it’s not all bad. Often this initial weight loss helps people finally make the connection between the shape of their body
and the food and exercise choices they’ve been making. At last, they see there is no mystery to it. They don’t need to wait around in vain for a magical weight-loss pill to be invented
or accept that they have no choice but to always be weighed down by excess fat. The fact that they have lost weight gives them the proof they need to see that they can control the amount of fat
stored in their bodies by doing the right kind of exercise and eating the right kinds of foods. In an ideal world, we’d just look in the mirror or notice how our clothes felt to gauge
progress. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of us, our perceptions of our bodies are too distorted for that. Most of us find it difficult to notice when we’re getting fatter and the same
goes when we’re getting leaner. But when you see the numbers get lower on the scale or measuring tape, then you have the evidence that proves fat loss is happening and that what you’re
doing is causing changes to occur. It is very possible to have a lean sculpted physique and weigh a lot more than someone whose body looks overweight and out of shape. So please don’t get
hung up on those numbers.

For just 12 weeks, let go of:

...And anything else that has held you back in the past. When you see the difference this makes, you won’t want them back.

A
s well as taking a Before photo, I highly recommend you take progress photos every three or four weeks and compare them to your Before shots. You
should now realise that the Fat Burn Revolution is not a diet plan, what you are doing is creating a great body shape at the same time as gradually shedding fat. As you strip back that fat, what
will be revealed is a firm, fit-looking physique that you can happily maintain in the long term.

Adding muscle not only gives your body a firmer, more attractive shape, it improves athletic performance, reduces injury risk, aids mobility and agility, reduces aches and pains, brings a huge
range of health benefits and, of course, makes you stronger. And, as I’ve said in previous chapters, beyond the physical, all of this transfers into increased confidence and general
well-being.

All that aside, the benefit of the Fat Burn Revolution that many people get most excited about is the fact that adding muscle to the body increases the metabolic rate.

Metabolic rate is a measurement of the amount of fuel your body uses. The problem with most weight-loss diet and exercise programmes is that they actually reduce metabolic rate. Believe it or
not, the fat you have on your body places an extra demand on your daily energy requirements just by being there, as it needs to be maintained. So, when you shed flab, the amount of fuel you burn
each day will fall. If you ate the same diet you did before without increasing your activity levels, even if that diet had previously been just right – neither causing you to gain or lose
weight – you will now be putting more fuel into your body than it needs and the excess will be stored as fat. Obviously, to lose additional fat you then have to keep eating less and less or
exercising more and more.

I’m afraid it gets worse. Following most weight-loss diet and exercise plans will also cause muscle to be lost from your body along with the fat. Muscle requires even more energy to
maintain on the body than fat but it is much smaller and smoother than fat (weight for weight), so a reduction in this type of tissue can be disastrous for your body shape.

If you restrict calories and either don’t exercise or choose traditional forms of cardiovascular ‘weight-loss’ exercise (like steady-paced aerobics, running or cycling), while
you may lose weight in the short term, in the process you will probably lose muscle and slow down your metabolism. This means that once you go back to your normal lifestyle it will be very
difficult to maintain your results and even more difficult to lose weight in the future. Yep, it’s a bummer!

Muscles burn fat

If you’ve got your head around this, you’ll now see how the majority of people who lose weight tend to eventually regain even more fat than they started with.