Stop beating about the bush, no matter how strong you are, how much weight you are able to move or how much volume your muscles have, if they are covered with fat you will not be considered bodybuilders in the most intrinsic of its meaning.

The volume by itself is not nice if not accompanied with the proper definition and you will produce not much admiration on the streets, besides your possibilities of success on a competition stage will be null.

So strive to eradicate the fat from your body. Here it is how you should proceed to get it: 

A MATTER OF MATHS

After all, loosing fat is actually very simple, if you understand how we work and how the body uses the foods. It's a matter of figures, one addition and one subtraction.

The foods we eat give us the elements to build new tissues and structures, but also the energy we need to live. The energy we use or take it's measured in calories and if the first ones are more than the second ones, then we gain it. Simple, right? Well, yes and no, because that is simplifying too much, but we are close.

Let's put it clear. The body has a daily energetic expenditure measured in calories and that is determined by what it needs to keep alive, ie to feed the organs as the heart, lungs, etc, and by the needs derived from the physical activities such as walking, working, going up or down the stairs and, of course, doing exercise. If the body gets more calories than the ones it uses for those two processes then the spare will be accumulated as body fat, hence in our evolution is the adipose tissue the only reserve of energy we got, a tissue from which the body can take the energy when needed. And that's precisely what it does when the energies consumed are fewer than the ones used on the maintenance of its vital functions, to decompose the fat tissue to cover the deficit between what it receives and what it spends.

Well, as you can see it is not difficult in essence to get rid of the fat, it is enough to down regulate the intake of calories so that the body itself takes care of decomposing it.

If a kilo of fat is a reserve of approximately 7.000 calories, then we can understand that reducing the daily caloric intake to 500 calories we will lose one kilo of fat a week. 

NOT ALL CALORIES ARE EQUAL

Well, now that we know how to add and subtract (I'm kidding), let's get into the detail of calories, because they are not all the same. Despite chemically speaking a calorie is always a minimum unit of energy, not all of them are equal hence regarding its origin they are processed differently in the body and therefore they produce different effects.

Since the beginning, the different nutrients have different caloric content, so a gram of protein or carbohydrate provides four calories, while the same amount of fat gives nine, more than double.

Until now nothing relevant but we can eat twice the quantity of proteins and carbohydrates to obtain the same calories with half of the fat. But once in the body calories are not processed equally.

For instance, saturated fats in the diet, which we find in animal origin foods, should be avoided because they provide a great amount of energy but also because they are easily transformed into body fat tissue.

Within the family of carbohydrates we find different types, for example the complex or slow, the fibrous and the fasts and despite at calories level their contribution is the same, the use the body makes of each one of them is not the same, because the first and second ones are digested slowly and without producing an excessive release of sugar in blood, and the third ones are rapidly digested and provide an abrupt raise of the blood glucose, which activates the massive insulin release that may promote the deposition of that sugar in the fat tissue.

Another factor that differentiates each type of calories is the dynamic expenditure they produce, ie in its digestion process calories are also used, therefore the higher this cost is the more calories will be implied in the digestion and the lesser possibilities they turn into body fat.

In this sense, proteins get the prize, ie a part of the calories they provide is used on its own processing.

You might wonder what to eat. Well, everything but with moderation.

According to what has been said, give priority to proteins, because they also are the base material for the creation of muscle and after all you are training to develop yourselves, so privilege white meats and lean red meats, fishes, eggs and proteinic supplements.

Regarding carbohydrates, choose the complex ones as potatoes, rice, pasta, whole-grain cereals and legumes, and also choose the fibrous as vegetables, as you cut off all related to sugar, derived from bakery, sweet drinks as fruit juices. Even these should be used with moderation because it contains fructose, the sugar of the fruit that, if it is not immediately used as energy, it has high possibilities of ending as part of the adipose tissue.

And of course be very restrictive with fats because, as we have seen, they not only provide twice the calories the proteins or carbs do, but also they become fat easier.

Saturated fats have also been repeatedly associated by scientists with cardiovascular and coronaries diseases, and even with some types of cancer; so don't eat animal fats, ie no sausages, butter, canned foods, sauces, fried meals, etc. 

FAT MELTING WITH MOVEMENT

Well, we know that if we reduce the caloric consumption under the daily level of expenditure we will be gradually eliminating the reserve of body fat. Now, we can reach that deficit by other means: increasing the expenditure.

It is clear that it is the same to eat 500 less calories than to burn 500 extra calories; the result is exactly the same.

Knowing that the use of calories is produced by two ways, the metabolic expenditure and the physical, it will be enough to increase the activity to rise the number of calories used.

The movement should be fed energetically, so move yourself and you will be burning lots of calories.

Do aerobic exercise and, beyond improving your physical conditions, especially the cardiovascular system which will increase it endurance, you will be eliminating a great amount of body fat. 

THE MUSCLE INTENSIFIES THE OVEN

I Will not tell you to train with weight because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this magazine. However you should know that the muscular mass by itself constitutes a good fat burning agent because it raises the metabolic rhythm.

That rise comes from the fact that the muscle is an active tissue in which numerous chemical processes are produced and in consequence it waists energy, while this doesn't happen with the fat tissue, that being a simple caloric reserve is barely active.

In practice this doesn't mean a person with an important lean mass will spend more calories only to keep fit rather than another person with the same weight but whose lean mass is inferior.

Having said this, from here we can deduce that in order to loose fat as well as to keep fit, the more muscle you have the better. 

TURN THE MACHINE ON

Well, as we could see, with an important lean mass the body is forced to burn lots of calories only to maintain itself and of course, much more on any activity it performs. Now, if increasing the caloric expenditure of the metabolism were still possible that would make a huge difference. Imagine we slightly increase the metabolic rhythm so that we spend simply 10 extra calories per hour, something easy to get, and that we do it all day long.

That means 240 calories burned per day, without going on a diet, neither exercise. That expenditure is made by the body with its own basic functions, even if we stay at bed. Imagine it! That means eliminating a quarter kilo each week without moving a finger or one kilo in a month, or twelve in a year time. What a change!

And, is it possible? Nowadays it is even easy.

There are many researchers interested in developing ways to eliminate the excess of weight, because this is one of the biggest problems the people of the developed countries face.

There are numerous mechanisms designed to accelerate the lost of weight, but obviously some are more effective than others.

Thanks to the advances we have, I think there is absolutely nobody on a weight-loosing program who does not use the aid of any specific product for that.

It would be foolish to go to war with no weapon and the same when you try to eliminate the wretched fat. Why not to use something that helps us to do it faster and more efficiently?