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Unleaded Conditioning Tip #8 [8 of 99] by Mark Hatmaker



[Excerpted from the upcoming Unleaded: Whole Hog-- The Support Manual.]

Wanna lose fat with no work? With no formal cardio? While increasing calories? Then gain lean muscle.

OK, there is a slight cheat on this Tip, but only slight.

Here’s what I mean.

The current “Tried & True” formula for losing fat is…

·        Reduce caloric intake.

·        Increase caloric expenditure.

·        Reducing caloric intake, aka, dietary restriction, aka denying the self-waging that never-ending war of the will between you and the fast food burger.

·        The caloric expenditure usually takes the form of aerobic exercise, aka, “cardio.”

·        The more calories burned the better.

But…

·        What if I were to tell you the Old Schoolers had ways of increasing caloric intake [bringing fast food burgers back on the table] and…

·        Yes, increasing caloric expenditure, but not necessarily by doing more work [i.e., aerobic exercise or “cardio.”]

·        See Unleaded Tips 13 & 15 for the Quality Over Quantity Support.

“Hold on, Old Man, you’re saying I can do less work, increase my calories AND still lose bodyfat?”

Yeah.

“You’re fulla shit Old Man.”

I hear ya.

Stay with me for another minute.

Lean muscle tissue contributes to a higher Basal Metabolic Rate [BMR.]

The higher the ratio of lean muscle tissue to fat means a higher BMR, that is a higher overall caloric burn.

Lean muscle tissue burns approximately 6 calories per day per pound of lean tissue.

“Six measly calories per day, that ain’t nuthin’.”

Stay with me.

The average male weighing 185 pounds has about 78 pounds of lean muscle tissue while a female weighing 140 pounds has approximately 49 pounds of lean muscle.

·        That average male is burning 468 calories per day simply sitting in a chair, sleeping, thumbing his phone.

·        The average female is burning 294 calories per day.

7.5 Days & 12 Days

What’s this?

·        To burn a pound of bodyfat requires an expenditure of 3,500 calories.

·        To burn this pound of bodyfat off you’d have run 35 miles.

·        And I ask you, after running 35 miles do you not think that you’d have to eat/refuel adding back into that hoped for fat deficit?

If the average male were to sit on his ass and do nothing and only fuel absolute maintenance calories he would burn a pound of fat in 7.5 days, the average female would burn that in 12 days.

That’s a fat loss of 4 pounds and 2.5 pounds per month respectively—the usual recommended rate of loss on most sustaining diets.

Here it was done doing….Not A Damn Thing.

Now I am not recommending sitting on one’s ass as the ideal training plan but…

We do know this…

·        Each pound of lean muscle tissue adds 6 additional calories per day burned—male or female.

·        Lean muscle tissue in an active male or female burns even hotter particularly when active [training] meaning that if you have two individuals of the same weight [185 pounds, let’s say] but in one the ratio is more muscle than fat they—even if by a small percentage, the one with more lean muscle will burn hotter under any exercise load and burn hotter simply sitting in a chair.

We know that an untrained male can add 8-12 pounds of lean muscle tissue in a single year of training.

The average untrained female can add 4-6.

This is the low end.

  • Elite individuals (with optimal training and nutrition): May gain up to 15 lbs. for males and 12 lbs. for females in their first year.
  • Highly motivated individuals: Can achieve even faster gains. One study found untrained males who trained five times a week gained an average of 4.4 lbs. of lean muscle per month, suggesting potential gains of 16-28 lbs. in the first year,

Let’s stick with the low-end for this next bit of math.

Now that sit on the ass and do nothing diet takes our fat loss rate to…

6.5 days and 11 days for a trained male and female at the low-end of the scale to lose 1 pound of bodyfat.

These are the low-end rookies. If you tick even slightly towards motivated the fat loss doing nothing becomes more aggressive.

Again, this is doing nothing but unrecommended ass-sitting.

If we presume the training ones are, well, training they tick that BMR higher while training and AFTER training.

“Well, Old Man, running that 35 miles to burn a single pound of bodyfat is also training, so what about that?”

·        Running, biking, and all other endurance type activities are indiscriminate.

·        Meaning they do not focus on and isolate bodyfat.

·        Yes, endurance type activities do reduce bodyfat but…they reduce body mass overall, lean muscle tissue is also a part of this loss.

·        Loss of lean muscle mass that is a major part of our fat-burning engine while we exercise and when we stop.

·        We burn while we run but when we stop, we stop burning.

·        We are working harder and longer to diminishing purposes and lose the aesthetically appealing to boot.

·        This is not the case with resistance training performed intelligently in the Old School Way.

The Old Timers saw all activity/exercise as a net positive, but all types were and are not equal.

If one has an eye on fat loss, postural realignment, strength, pleasing body recomposition the arguments against adding a few pounds of lean muscle tissue while losing bodyfat are hard to beat.

Lose weight, gain muscle [the scale still ticks down], and…wait for it…

All while INCREASING calories consumed.

“Wait, you mean I don’t have to eat less, restrict myself, cry every time I see a pie?”

Nope.

That’s what the majority of the remainder of this manual will be about.

How to eat happily anywhere and everywhere.

At home. Out. And yes, fast food is definitely on the table.

So, the plan is this—The Unleaded Whole Hog Blocks 1-6 for building that aesthetically pleasing fat-burning machine and this manual for how to fuel that machine—Happily.

Pretty sweet deal, huh?

·        For more information on Old School Unleaded Conditioning, see Unleaded Conditioning: The Whole Hog

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