Ali Gordon

Three Steps to Burning fat & retaining muscle

With summer at our finger tips the holiday season is soon to be well under way, the nation frantically panics as we try and achieve our beach ready bodies. I am one of those people and I think its not uncommon to feel body conscious at all levels whilst we think about lounging around the pool or beach, thats a whole other subject anyway. For today I wanted to run over a few basic methods I apply whilst trying to dial in my physique.

Without delving into the deep technical side of sports science & nutrition mainly because I am just an enthusiast and haven’t studied subject in great depth I wanted to talk on first hand experiences tips and programs that I have followed which simply worked for me.

Fasted Cardio (LISS)

I know this theory single handedly comes with a lot of controversial views and again I am not going to go into the technical side, I have practised fasted cardio which for those of you who may not have heard of it before is exercise on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning after you have ‘fasted’ over night whilst sleeping. During my attempts to reduce bod fat I have found this cardio the most effective yet. I wake up at the crack of dawn drink a black coffee & take to the roads enduring a steady state (slow) jog for 20-30mins. I choose Low intensity steady state (LISS) as I believe this is the most muscle sparing way to increase your heart rate to encourage fat loss as there is more ready available oxygen in the body.

Intra BCAA

Branch chain amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Why? during a calorie deficit I understand our bodies can be very sparing and potentially use muscle stores to fuel the body, this for a guy like myself is a slight concern as I have worked my arse off to gain the muscle I have. BCAA are there to help support and maintain muscles during cardio and weight training I understand that using amino acids during ‘dieting’ can be beneficial to retaining as much muscle as possible.

Calorie Deficit ( MacroNutrients)

Food consumption possible the most crucial part in achieving that beach body we strive for. The quote ‘you can’t out train a bad diet’ is so true. I won’t cover macronutrients in this post as it deserves a more in depth coverage, however the best thing i ever did with my own nutrition was research Macronutrients, calculating your bodies BMR basal metabolic rate will help guide you to working out the correct calorie intake for yourself, as individuals we all require specific quantities of food intake. When you establish your base intake (BMR) add on your calculated daily activity and deduct 500 calories from this figure and you should be on the right track to losing an equal % of fat on a weekly basis. In short consume less calories than you burn in a day you should lose weight as it forces the body to use stores to fuel you.

I hope you found this post helpful and If you guys have any more questions regarding this subject please drop me a comment below & I will get back to you. Have a great day guys. – AG


T – Shirt – (Soon to be released) shop Here      Joggers – shop Here      Trainers – shop Here      Bag – shop Here        Shaker – shop Here