Fat-loss handbook: your complete fail-safe, week-by-week guide to dropping 20 pounds in eight weeks - New wardrobe not included - The Men's Fitness

Men's Fitness, Feb, 2002 by Jeff O'Connell

Like the origin of the universe and David Hasselhoff's status as a rock star in Germany, fat loss is one of life's unfathomable mysteries. Whereas accumulating unwanted pounds is like a variation on the big bang theory--with your waistline expanding inexorably into new dimensions--shedding those pounds often feels like trying to climb out of a black hole.

Fortunately, fat loss isn't rocket science. Hasselhoff's former bronzed, six-packed Baywatch lieutenants are now making ends meet waiting tables, not working at JPL. More than likely, between auditions they pick up magazines like this one and learn a simple truth: When you consume fewer calories than you expend, your body starts burning its own fat and you lose pounds. Because it is a balancing act between energy consumption and expenditure, staying beach-ready year-round requires sound nutrition, cardiovascular exercise and weight training.

Our annual fat-loss guide accounts for all those factors in providing a turnkey approach to losing 20 pounds in eight weeks. If you're not that bad off, it'll help you lose less but still get you to your final destination--guaranteed.

You may think that in promising a loss of 20 pounds in eight weeks, we should include a few vials of crystal meth and a bone saw for one of your legs. Actually, 20 in eight is well within the realm of possibility, say the experts.

"If a guy has been inactive and not careful about what he eats, and then he makes some reasonable changes in exercise and nutrition, I think it's quite achievable," says Susan Kundrat, M.S., R.D., sports nutritionist and owner of Nutrition on the Move in Champaign, Ill.

Mauro Di Pasquale, M.D., a former assistant professor at the University of Toronto who has written several books on sports nutrition and supplements, says that while losing that much weight that fast won't be easy, it can be done if you're retooling a machine that's been in the shop for a while. "The guy who's out of shape could do it because his initial loss would be greater--it's not inconceivable that in the first two weeks he could lose six or seven pounds," Di Pasquale says. "From there, if he reverts to the more standard approach of losing two pounds a week, he could reach that goal by the end of Week 8."

Except for the "beginner's effect" alluded to by Kundrat and Di Pasquale, two pounds is typically the most you want to drop in a week. Lose any more than that and you're probably robbing your body of muscle cells, which are calorie-burning machines.

DON'T DIET!

Experts agree that, on the nutrition side, the key to losing 20 pounds is a sound, sustainable eating plan, rather than some sort of wacko quick-fix diet.

"Diets typically don't work because of the short-term mind-set that accompanies them," Kundrat says. "As a result, it's not something you keep up with. Also, many diets are simply too low in calories. They don't provide enough energy to do your workouts and get everything done that you need to in a day."

In contrast, the approach outlined here is an eating plan that won't deprive your body of what it needs. Scan the customized meal plans created by Ramsey, N.J.-based nutritionist Kathryn Scherb, R.D., for the readers of MEN'S FITNESS, and you'll probably wish the fast-food crap you ate today was half as varied and tasty. Using these menus as a guide, you should strive throughout the program to derive slightly more than half of your calories from carbs, a quarter from protein, and slightly less than a quarter from fat. (Weeks 6 and 7 are exceptions.)

Diets also typically treat fat loss as a function of eating only, but training is half of the equation. (For a good fat-burning workout, check out "How to Design a Lard-Burning Workout," page 94.) In fact, training will carry about 40 percent of the calorie-reduction load; nutrition will account for the rest. That way, neither the training nor the nutrition demands become overly burdensome.

As this plan will demonstrate, a few modifications made every day can really add up. Likewise, this isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. As long as you're working out and reducing your caloric intake, you're going to be gaining lean mass and losing fat. Even if you don't quite make it to 20 pounds in eight weeks--or don't need to--you're headed in the right direction.

PRELIMINARY: PREP YOURSELF

Keep a food journal to record what you eat so that you'll have a baseline from which to adjust. "Writing down what, when and how much you eat and drink is the best way to get a handle on your eating habits," says Suzanne Girard Eberle, M.S., R.D., author of Endurance Sports Nutrition.

Depending on how much weight you'd like to lose, signposts will tell you where to get onboard. Keep in mind that the calorie and weight-loss numbers provided are for an average 200-pound guy who at the beginning of the program is 20 pounds or so overweight. If you're bigger or smaller than that, or have less weight to lose, adjust accordingly.

WEEK 1

SIGNPOST: Start here if you're 20 pounds overweight and don't exercise at all.