Why You Should “Just Say No”
To Diets To Burn Fat (Part 2)
By Rob Poulos, Fat Loss & Fitness Expert & Creator of 'Fat Burning Furnace'
In part one of this article, I talked about how avoiding diets is one of the best things you
can do for your long term health and fitness success, especially if you want to burn
fat. In this second part, I’ll show you how you can start to transition from your current
lifestyle to one that creates a lean, strong body and lasting health.
From a nutritional standpoint, you need a healthy balance of carbohydrates, proteins,
and fats in your diet to keep your metabolism firing on all cylinders, constantly burning
fat. Fad diets have a coolness factor to them that sometimes makes them irresistible at
first. But in the long run I’ve found it best to go back to the basics of what your body
craves. Let’s talk about that…
Complex Carbs (whole grains, breads, cereals, etc.) are vital to maintaining your energy
throughout the day and do a host of other things within your body including keeping you
feeling full. I’ll also lump fruits in with complex carbs, because of their high fiber content
and slow absorption into the blood stream, keeping our insulin level in check, which is
important for less fat storage and a higher chance of burning stored fat.
Simple Carbs, or sugars (candy, soda pop, white processed baked goods, etc) are to be
avoided and kept to a minimum for the most part. They provide little nutritional value to

you and are what I often refer to as empty calories. They just add calories to your body
with little or no nutritional value that are going to end up in your fat stores if you’re not
careful with how much you ingest.
Forget about maximum fat burning here. Of course, many people are aware of the
blood sugar and insulin connection with eating too many simple carbs. Our insulin
regulates are blood sugar level and takes any excess sugars and stores them as
fat. We then are stuck getting tired and hungry, making repeating this cycle far too
easy. The best way to avoid this, I’ve found, is eating a sensible amounts of complex
carbohydrates instead.
Proteins (lean meats, fish, poultry, soy, beans and legumes, etc.) are important to
maintain the cellular structures in your body and provide the building blocks for the lean
muscle you’re after, which is vital if you want to burn fat fast. But with anything else,
don’t go overboard with protein. Some fitness experts claim that you’ll need a minimum
1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight each day.
There is no real proof that this is the case, and ingesting more protein than your body
needs ends up going to your fat stores…plus it doesn’t do your kidneys or liver any
good either. I’ve found that keeping protein to around 0.5 grams per pound of
bodyweight each day more than sufficient in feeding the lean muscle growth that my Fat
Burning Furnace students stimulate with their properly performed resistance exercise.
Another important aspect of protein involves whether or not you’re getting your protein
from animal or plant based sources. While the traditional American diet recommends
most animal based proteins, recent data suggests that too heavy a reliance on animal
proteins increases risks for disease.
On top of that, animal proteins contain almost no fiber, which doesn’t go very far in
keeping you feeling full, and negatively effects your ability to burn fat. When choosing
your protein sources, make sure you eat a good portion of your protein from plant
sources (soy, beans, legumes, etc.). You don’t have to be a vegetarian, but I
recommend keeping your animal proteins on the low side.

Fats (found in many proteins, nuts, oils, etc.) are essential to maintain certain bodily
processes like hair, nail, and skin regeneration. There is a lot of confusion with fats out
there, some recommending extremely low fat diets and others even recommending a
very high fat diet. If you are focusing on lean protein choices in your meals, and
including small amounts of healthy oils, nuts, and seeds in your diet, your fat intake will
be in order.
So how much of each of these macro nutrients should you be eating to maximize fat
burning and get that lean fit body you’re after? It’s easy to get caught up in the
percentages and counting calories, but the easiest way I’ve found is to count portions
instead of calories.
An easy way to ensure that this happens is to make sure you eat both a portion or two
of complex carbs and a portion of protein at each meal. Add as many green veggies as
you can eat, as they’re super low in calories and provide more fiber, enzymes that aid in
digestion, and vitamins and minerals that will be more than adequate for most
people. Remember, focus on nutrient rich foods and you’ll find that burning fat and
getting healthy will seem like a natural.
How many times per day should we be eating to burn the most fat? I can tell you that
three meals a day is not going to cut it when trying to burn fat fast and get lean, at least
not in my experience. In fact, if you wanted to get as fat as possible, you should eat all
of your daily calories in one meal.
Eating smaller more frequent meals throughout the day is the fastest way to fat loss. It
fires up your metabolism, as every time you eat something, the metabolism kicks it up a
notch. Try and eat 5-6 smaller meals per day, spaced about 3 hours apart.
Now, I know many people don’t want to be taken out of their breakfast, lunch, and
dinner routine…so you can still eat at those traditional meal times, but try cutting back a
bit on how much food you eat at those meals and add those calories into 2 or 3 snack
meals in between. A snack meal could be a protein/energy bar or maybe even a piece
of fruit and a slice of whole grain bread.

So you see, eating for a lean, strong, and healthy body isn’t so difficult…and it doesn’t
require you to eliminate essential foods like complex carbohydrates from your diet. In
fact, doing so will put you into the cycle of confusion of fad diets that is all too prevalent
in fitness today.
And that’s a cycle that’s tough to break out of. Focus on foods your body craves
naturally instead, and the rest of the details will be easy to implement into your
lifestyle. Before long you'll start to burn fat faster than you might have thought possible.
Rob Poulos is a celebrated fitness author, fat loss expert, and the founder and CEO of Zero to
Hero Fitness. Rob created the world's most efficient method for fast and permanent fat loss
with his "Fat Burning Furnace" system to help those looking to put an end to restrictive fad diets,
long boring cardio workouts, and the need for super-human willpower for good.
Claim your free copy of Rob Poulos's "7 Secrets Of Permanent Fat Loss & Fitness" at his
website: http://tips.howtoloseweighteffectively.com