Maximising Warp Speed Fat Loss
by Mary
(Holland, PA)
Question:I hope you can help me because Mike and Alwyn are too busy it seems. I have been on this program and following it exactly and haven't lost anything in 9 days. I am in shape, 21.3% body fat and want to lose 10lbs or 5% whatever comes first. I'm on the 135 lbs diet plan, and like I said, haven't lost anything. Is this possible? My Polar heart monitor says I burn 450-750 calories per workout. Do you have any ideas? I sure would appreciate it. I have heard nothing but rave reviews about this program, but I'm not seeing it.
Sincerely,
Mary
Answer: Hi Mary,
I can't see exactly what you are doing so this is going to be long article with lots of little things to check.
Firstly you may not have anything wrong at this point, the body tends to hold weight then lose a whole bunch at once. Don't just measure on the scale, try measuring with a tape measure around your waist, hip and chest areas as well. The reason for this is that your although you may be losing fat your body is adapting and gaining weight in muscle and blood flow etc...
i am going to assume that you are in shape because some of these tips would not be wise if you are not:
Ok, the way to diagnose your workout is to go back to hierarchy of fat loss and start at the top.
The first step is nutrition.
You are on the 135lb diet. I assume this is your target weight or 10lbs lighter than you are now? I am also going to assume that you are sticking to this 100% and not having anything extra. Just recheck your diet, its the most vital part of Warp speed fat loss, if extra calories or high GI foods are slipping in anywhere its going to destroy your progress.
The next two are resistance training and Hiit(anaerobic interval training)
I am going to deal with these two together because you are aiming at doing similar things.
Just a recap on this whole process, its a bit more complicated than this but basically you are eating with enough energy to sustain your ideal weight, (so your metabolism doesn't panic), at the same time you are exhausting muscle energy known as muscle glycogen which gets replaced in the hours after exercise. So what you burn during your workout is irrelevant, its what you burn for the hours after it thats important. So for this reason don't worry about how many calories your polar watch is telling you that you are burning.(read the fat loss section on this site for more info.)
The process i have described above is called epoc and its the key to losing the weight on warp speed fat loss. You can do everything perfectly and not lose a thing if you are not hitting this epoc state.
So heres how you make sure:
In your resistance training make sure that your last rep of every set is pretty much the last one you could do. Most people don't realise how strong they are, your mind also tells you its too heavy so you go lighter. Finishing the routines with a bit of ache at the end of your sets is not going to achieve epoc. My advice would be to enlist someones help to push you, then test where you do fail on your sets, then go slightly lighter than that.
Also make sure that your form on these exercises is right, cheating takes a lot of the required effort away. If you are not sure get someone who knows what they are doing in the gym to help you. Also make sure you take all the momentum out of your lifting, stop completely at both the top and bottom of your lifts and make your movements slow and controlled.
With Hiit intervals, what exercise did you pick for this? From my viewpoint you have a bunch of options like sprinting, cycling and running up stairs, there are a few i would chuck out though. I have never seen anybody achieve much on the elliptical machine and i am not sure a treadmill is ideal. Sprinting is probably the best but i am going to explain hiit through a stationary bike cause its a bit easier to demonstrate.
Think of Hiit as a mixture of power and speed using large muscle groups. The largest of these is your legs, sprintings ideal for hiit because it uses the whole body but there is a greater risk of injury. Cycling uses your legs and your core which is also great. You want to use your largest muscle groups because it will use more energy and therefore burn more fat for longer.
Another problem is that people tend to go haywire on the speed but forget about the power. Spinning as fast as you can with no resistance won't get you near to epoc. Before your sprint interval begins, turn up the resistance on the bike to a 7 or 8, the most you can handle while sprinting, then go as fast as you can. The reason for this is that power and speed drains your energy way faster than just speed.
Lastly your intensity on both the resistance training and hiit are key. It's got to be the only thing you are focusing on. Heres why, Epoc is sparked off when you exercise hard in an anaerobic state, you get there quickly by using speed and power mentioned above. You know you are there because you will be breathing very hard, feel very hot and your muscles will be burning like crazy. You need to spend as much of your sprint interval in this state as possible, and this is going to take all your focus to do. The same goes for your resistance training.
OK, that should sort out the anaerobic parts of the workout. Some tell tale signs that you are hitting epoc is feeling warmer than usual way after your workout, maybe even getting a light sweat. This is your body using more energy than normal, heat is just a by-product of this. Another way i know that this is working is that i can't make it past 9:30 at night without needing to sleep, you may find that 8 hours a night is not a choice but a nescessity while exercising.
I am going to leave off going through the rest of the exercises, you can't go too wrong with those. Hopefully the tips above will help. Above all, don't give up - for me these programs are funny, you won't lose for a while then all of sudden a lot will come off at once. If its still not working for you, try going down one level on the food plan, but make sure you have tried everything above first for a week or two.
