Correct These 5 Mistakes
to Lose 10 Pounds in
20 Days
Table of Contents
Intro
Mistake # 1 - not incorporating weight training into you fitness routine
Mistake #2 - drastically dropping your calories/skipping meals
Mistake #3 - drastically dropping you carbohydrates
Mistake #4 - Not incorporating interval training as part of your cardio
Mistake #5 - not getting enough sleep
Tying it all together for maximum fat loss in the shortest amount of time
Tips
Special Offer
Introduction
In my 15 years as a fitness professional I have seen people blindly follow one diet or exercise fad after
another. Very few, if any, of these concepts are new. Interestingly, most of them have come about more
than once in the lifetime of the people I see swearing by them, at least for the moment. That is, until the
next recycled fat loss fad idea rears its ugly head again offering false hope to the masses.
Here's the truth. There are but a few true, effective ways to burn off unwanted fat and keep it off
forever. So why all the confusion? Why are so many people struggling to lose those unwanted pounds?
Unfortunately, it's because the effective actions, or behaviors, all require work, and all the gimmicks,
gadgets, and fads are entrenched in quick-fix, short-cut, this is one thing you have to do scam. The
fitness industry is a billion dollar industry. Most of that money is made selling lies.
Well I'm here to give you the truth. For free.
Don't pick the one or two mistakes that you're most interested in correcting. We're talking about less
than 3 weeks here. Apply all five concepts 100% for the next 20 days and you will be amazed at how
quickly the fat falls off. Four out of five won't do it. YOU HAVE TO DO ALL FIVE!
Go get started!
- Scott Ludwig
Mistake # 1 - not incorporating weight training into you fitness routine
This is the most egregious of all the mistakes and that's why it's number one on the list. This
misunderstanding affects more women than men, but both groups have mistakenly focused
solely on cardio when attempting to lose fat.
For most people the thought process goes something like this:
- Weight training is for building muscle
- Cardio is for burning fat
While there is some truth in both of those thoughts we have study upon study that shows again
and again that the combination of weight training AND cardio is the superior way to train for
burning fat. There are two reasons for this. One has to do with muscle sparing, and the other
has to do with E.P.O.C., a fancy acronym which stands for Excess Post-exercise Oxygen
Consumption.
To lose weight you have to be in a calorie deficit. Meaning, you must be burning more calories
than you are eating. But, if you're not doing some form of weight training your body can lose
weight (notice I'm using the word weight and not fat) in a variety of ways. Namely, water, fat,
AND muscle. Even if you're someone not interested in putting on muscle you should be very
interested in keeping the muscle you have. When you see someone that "has a nice shape" is
partly the muscle on their body that gives them the shape. Think of a dancer's or an ice skater's
legs. Lean and shapely. That's a lack of fat AND muscle.
Here's what you need to know. Your body needs energy for all of its functions plus all of the
activity you do. Normally, your body gets the majority of its energy needs from the food you
eat. When the energy from the food you eat doesn't meet your body's energy needs it must go
to itself for that energy. Here's the thing you should know. It does not necessarily choose fat
first. In fact, it may choose muscle first if you're not strength training. Strength training gives
your body a reason to preserve muscle and make fat its go-to resource for energy when needs
are not being met through food.
E.P.O.C. is a complicated combination of words that really doesn't tell you too much. The short
of it is this; the more intense your workout is the longer your metabolism stays elevated after
your workout. An elevated metabolism burns more calories at the same exact activity level than
a metabolism that's not elevated. So, to illustrate, two people workout. One does a moderate
cardio only workout that burns 500 calories in an hour. The other does an intense weight
training and cardio mix workout that burns 450 calories in 50 minutes BUT creates a larger
E.P.O.C. effect. If both of these people were to engage in the same exact activity level over the
next eight hours the higher E.P.O.C. producing workout and therefore elevated metabolism
would many more calories per hour over several hours.
So, by incorporating weight training you get your body to burn more calories over a several
hour period AND tell your body to burn more of those calories from fat since it has a reason to
preserve muscle.
Mistake #2 - drastically dropping your calories / skipping meals.
This is a tough one for a lot of people. It's counterintuitive. If dropping calories can cause you to
lose weight, then shouldn't drastically dropping your calories cause you to drastically drop
weight? In the very short run, yes. But this is very short-lived. Our body is chock-full of
protective mechanisms. One of which is if calories are too low for too long the body will slow
down the metabolism to preserve itself. It may take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks
for this mechanism to kick in, but what's important is what happens after that point. When it
does kick in it becomes nearly impossible to burn any fat. I've seen this happen with clients that
insist of dropping calories too low for too long. They keep adding hours of exercise to their
weeks and further reducing their food intake but the scale stays the same. This can only go on
for so long before they give up. When they do, the effect is disastrous. The desire to diet and
exercise diminishes. Now a surplus of calories are being fed to a shut down metabolism on top
of a reduction in exercise and the weight quickly piles back on. And usually a few additional
pounds to go with them.
The way to lose fat and CONTINUE to lose fat is to reduce calories slightly while manipulating
carbohydrate intake to force your body into burning fat. We'll get into this a little later.
Mistake #3 - drastically dropping carbohydrates
Yes, lowering your carbs compared to the typical American diet is usually a good idea. But, it's
truly not necessary to excessively drop them. Most people find it very difficult to sustain a very
low carbohydrate diet for long periods. Furthermore, when your carbohydrate intake is
extremely low your protein intake and fat intake has to be higher if calories are to be
maintained at a suitable level. A moderate level of carbohydrates allows you to have a larger
variety of foods, to include fruits which are obviously good for you.
The reason lower carbohydrate diets are effective in losing fat is largely because of insulin
control. When calories are high and carbohydrates are high your body produces insulin. Insulin
takes the carbs from your meal, now in your bloodstream, and puts them in storage. It stores
them in your muscle and your liver. But, there is only so much space in your muscle and liver. If
your diet has offered a surplus of calories in the past couple of days then your storage areas are
close to full. When they are close to full and you eat more carbohydrates your body has no
more room to store them so it then has to covert these extra carbs to fat and store them.
Unlike carbs, your body has an unlimited ability to store fat. What I need you to take from that
is that is when there is room to store carbohydrates in your muscle and liver they will not be
stored as fat. How do we make room in these areas? Moderate carbohydrate intake and regular
exercise. As long as there isn't an overdose of carbs in any one meal, or in several consecutive
meals without exercise in between to use some up, you are not in danger of gaining fat, and in
fact can still lose fat while eating carbs. You just the right type at the right times along with
some smart exercise and you can burn fat. We'll get into exactly what that means later.
Mistake #4 - not incorporating interval training as part of your cardio
Interval training is a type of cardio where you work very hard for brief periods of time, take a
break, and then perform another bout of intense work. I've seen a few programs out there that
tout this form of cardio as the far superior version over longer, more moderate intensity work
like going on a slow jog or bike ride for long period of time from one hour to up to three or four
hours of biking or hiking. The truth is you need both. Each type affects your fat burning ability a
little differently and even the benefits on your heart are different. The reason I'm only listing
the lack of interval training as the mistake is that most people do plenty of the other. Walking
on a treadmill or outside for 45 minutes or longer, as an example, qualifies as steady state
cardio. This is the opposite, so to speak, of interval training in the cardio realm.
Interval training creates the greater E.P.O.C. effect and can pack a lot of calorie burn into a
small amount of time.
Mistake #5 - not getting enough sleep
Sleep deprivation may be the toughest mistake for many people to correct. Limiting caffeine
intake to the first couple of hours in the morning and refraining from TV and the computer
before bed are good first steps toward better sleep. Alcohol is another sleep killer. While many
people feel that alcohol relaxes them and the fall asleep quicker, how deeply you sleep is
affected negatively by alcohol. Whatever steps you may take to improve your sleep habits is
well worth it for overall health, but also for fat loss. Deep sleep is where our body recovers, bad
hormones subside, and good ones are amplified. In addition to hormonal optimization, it has
been shown that people who did not get enough sleep the night before engage in less activity
(yeah, no kidding) including working out, and tend to poorer food decisions throughout the day.
This is just bad all around. Here's a quote from an authority in sleep.
“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning
that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will
not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep and the clinical
director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Arizona.
Tying it All Together
Weight Training - you don't have to do it every day to tell you body that the muscle it has is
needed and to burn fat instead of it. Either weight training 3 x per week or incorporating a little
weight training into to your regular workouts will do it. Remember, study after study has shown
that the combination of weight training and cardio in a single session is the ideal mix for losing
fat. Don't be afraid of grabbing the bigger weights. As long as you are using the proper form you
are safe, and if adding muscle is a fear for you (mostly women), not only is it way harder for
women to put on muscle but it is nearly impossible for men or women to put on muscle while
in a calorie deficit. Heavier weights will increase the metabolic effect (E.P.O.C.) of the workout
but will also make a bigger impact on your body deciding to keep the muscle you have.
Calories and Carbs - most people drop their calories way too low right off the bat when
beginning a weight loss plan. They may see impressive weight loss early on, but it quickly halts
with no solution to fix it. You should start your total calories per day no lower than 10x
bodyweight. Divide that number by 5 and you have an average amount of calories per meal you
should be shooting for. Main meals can be a little larger than that number and the in between
snacks can be a little smaller. I have found that five meals is best for most. I've had a few
successful with four and a few more than that successful with six, but five is extremely effective
and fits into most people's lifestyles a little more nicely. Your carbohydrates in most of your
meals should make up about a third of the total meal. Your carbohydrates in your dinner meal
should be closer to only a fourth of the total meal. These amounts may be low for you if you
haven't tried any carbohydrate control before, but they are a good bit higher than many of the
very low carbohydrate diets out there. Remember, balance is the key.
Interval Training - interval training cardio is short intense bouts of high output cardio with short
breaks in between bouts. These can be placed anywhere in your weekly training. In the middle
of a workout, at the end of weight training session, or all by itself making it the workout. An
example of this that I do as a solo workout is as follows:
From the one end of the street that I live on up to about five houses away from my own is a
slight incline. Seems like nothing in a car, not much to talk about walking, but on a bicycle done
repeatedly, it starts to look and feel a little bigger. After a little warming up I ride down to the
bottom of the street. From the bottom I sprint to where the hill crests, slowly turn around and
coast back down to the bottom. Depending on time and energy I will repeat this for a total of 8
to 12 bouts. Highly effective fat burning in less than 20 minutes.
Sleep - I realize that eight hours may be fantasy land for many adults but achieving deep sleep
and getting in a total of six is reasonable for most of us. Don't overstimulate the brain just
before bed. Try to get away from the TV, computer, AND cell phone for at least a half hour
before bed.
Success Checklist
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Do 7 workouts in 5-6 days out of the week.
o 3 weight training or weights and cardio mix workouts per week
o 2 interval training cardio workouts per week
o 2 long cardio workouts per week
Eat 5 meals per day, 3.5 to 4 hours apart.
Starch and fruit carbohydrates should make up no more than 1/4 of your first four meals
and none of your last meal. Fibrous vegetables should make up half of most of your
meals.
Carbohydrates should be fruit for the first and third meals and starch for the second and
fourth meals. Neither starch nor fruit will be in your last meal
Tips
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Make the bulk of your meals on the weekend.
Partition meals into small tupperware containers
Don't buy cheat foods in bulk - buy the smallest size possible on your cheat day for your
cheat day
If you didn't pack you meals for the day purchase and eat REAL food from the grocery
store. Stay away from fast food meals of all kinds and don't worry about calories and
protein and such, just make the meals on the go real stuff, nothing processed.