The Science of Stubborn Fat & What to do About It

Hello, Fat Burning Babes! Happy Friday. I wanted to get this post out to you before the weekend to get you thinking about the reasons why some of our fat is so stubborn. For most women (including me) it's on the belly. It's also the first place I gain and last place I lose.

This post is based on a conversation with a private client today. She's almost completed four weeks of her fat loss journey and her inches and fat lost in barely a month have been remarkable, especially for a woman entering menopause. She's swinging that kettlebell like nobody's business now. Although she keeps making consistent strides in losing body fat, her scale weight isn't dropping in very big numbers.

And that's perfectly fine by me.

Why?

 Because it lets us know that we're not only preserving muscle, we're gaining it. Muscle weighs more than fat. As long as her body fat % and inches off the belly and elsewhere keep dropping, I am fist pumping to heaven and high-fiving everybody. Moreover, as a woman entering menopause, one of her BIGGEST factors in preventing fat gain will be increasing lean muscle and bone density.

Here's a pic I took of 5lbs of fat vs. 10lbs of muscle at BodySpec's mobile DEXA unit at a health fair yesterday:

I'll take the 10lbs of muscle (L) over that 5lbs of fat (R) any day

Why is some fat - especially around the belly - so hard to lose?

Besides belly fat being one of the most dangerous, disease-inflicting types of fat we can carry, it can flat out make you feel awful and self-conscious.... especially during summer. Even when you believe you're doing everything "right," it clings to you like a needy co-dependent.

To strip fat a couple things need to occur:

• Lipolysis: mobilizing fat from their fat cells via lipase, a hormone sensitive enzyme produced by the pancreas. It ignites the breakdown of fats to fatty acids to be burned for fuel. Resistance training and short, intense exercise helps activate lipase, among other fat burning hormones. However, when you have insulin pumping through your veins the activation of lipase is inhibited. Moreover, people who eat carbs for breakfast then go for a jog or some other steady state cardio are more or less wasting their time if their goal is fat loss.  Lipase will be mainly be dormant for them.

• Once mobilized, other cells use that liberated fat for energy, including muscle. Muscle cells are exceptional at burning up free fatty acids. Hence, more lean muscle mass = easier to burn fat.

The process of lipolysis is set off by certain chemicals called catecholamines. To keep from getting too technical and making your eyes glaze over, these catecholamines attach to receptors on your fat cells to get them to release the fat. Think of them as a fat burning S.W.A.T. team trying to break down a door.

There are two kinds of receptors on your fat cells:

• Beta-receptors: respond well to the Fat Burning S.W.A.T. team and give up the fat to begin lipolysis.

• Alpha-receptors: Give the finger to the Fat Burning S.W.A.T. team. Very reluctant to give up the fat in their fat cells. Usually not until the cells with the most beta receptors have been emptied.

Areas where alpha receptors exist on most women

When you begin your nutrition protocol and resistance training, the areas of your body that have fat cells with more beta receptors are where you'll see your initial progress. Normally the face, legs, chest, shoulders. The stubborn fat spots like belly, inner thighs, caboose, back of arms are going to be the last to go until we've emptied out those fat cells that have a majority of beta receptors.

This is why crash diets and those expecting quick fixes will never succeed. In fact, people who starve, calorie restrict and waste muscle with steady state cardio cause so much metabolic damage to themselves that they actually end up making their body's natural body fat set point HIGHER. This is why you often see people on yo-yo diets gain back all their weight and then pack on even more fat regardless of how much they "exercise."

It takes time to undo. A few months to a year or more. Stopping this cycle needs to be a must for you. Not a should. Don't die from a horrific metabolic lifestyle disease (diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart disease) because of Mañana Syndrome aka "I'll start tomorrow."

You deserve better. Make a decision today that you're taking the wheel of your life and that means your health.

We all know someone (could it be ourselves?) who crash dieted, lost a ton of scale weight, and when starvation and painful hours in the gym were no longer sustainable, it all came back tenfold. You're depressed, defeated and ashamed.

Women must add as much lean muscle onto our bodies as we can, even though muscle weighs more than fat. Especially for women entering menopause. A few years ago I was ten pounds lighter in overall scale weight but my body fat was high and unhealthy. Flab was flying everywhere. This was while I ran at least 5 miles a day on a diet of whole grains.

Today I weigh more but I've dropped six sizes. According to yesterday's DEXA I have the body fat and bone density of an athlete in their twenties (I'm 42). I workout 75% less and enjoy the empowerment, confidence and physique shape that lifting brings. It didn't start with putting on a pair of running shoes. It started with changing my mind, being sick of how I looked and felt, then taking action and committing.

So, how we do get that stubborn belly fat to go away for good?

Not to despair, Fat Burning Babes! I have a simple answer. This does not mean it's easy. But the process is rewarding, empowering and fulfilling in its own right. Even better: it can last a lifetime when you really get it.

Here it is:

1. Always make body fat loss and inches lost your measuring stick. Not the scale. As I said above, the more muscle you have, the more fat you can burn (and also the more you can eat and not gain!). But muscle will weigh more than fat so we cannot be focused on scale weight. It has its place but we go by body fat%, inches lost, how you FEEL (physically, mentally, emotionally), how your clothes are fitting, how you're progressing in workouts, and then the scale. People will notice the confident stride in your step and the way you carry yourself proudly.

2. Listen to the signals your body is sending. Fuel, rest and honor your body, mind and heart  appropriately. This is your only life (at least in this body) we're talking about. There is nothing more important than caring for it.

3. Use heavy resistance exercise in short, powerful bursts.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all, wherever in the world you are, have a safe, fun and HEALTHY weekend. Take time for yourself and take care of your beautiful body.

P.S. 
You may know we're accepting participants in the 4 Weeks to Fat Loss beginning Aug 1 -31, 2015. Space is limited so grab a fat burning buddy for accountability and join! Kim Kelly and R.N. from the Spring Kick Fat in the Ass Challenge will be part of the private community, too! I'm so excited about the women we have joining. This is going to be an amazing time of transformation and empowerment!

Remember, you are not a damsel in distress. You're the hero of your story.

Hope to see you in August! More info below.

Michelle

What a difference one month can make.

Register today for the 4 Weeks to Fat Loss online coaching and community journey.*

$225  ❖  August 1 - 31, 2015

*Very limited space available. Results will vary. Not for pregnant or breastfeeding women.

Don't miss this opportunity to join an exclusive, private community of women journeying towards ultimate achievements in health, strength and empowerment.

The 4 Weeks to Fat Loss  journey is strategically designed to get your body, heart and mind primed for permanent No Fail Fat Burning, muscle gain and victory over habits that have held you back in challenging areas of your life. 

Your breakthrough transformation can begin August 1, 2015!

Why wait to unleash the amazing woman you know you are?

ACCOUNTABILITY + PREPARATION + RESILIENCE = RESULTS

Grab a fat burning bestie, get accountable and commit to connecting to the protocol and community with passion and courage.

It's not enough to feed our bodies better. Sustainable fat loss and health begins with what we feed our hearts and minds.

Beginning day one we start laying the foundation to achieving your goals with proven science and methodologies. Sometimes all it takes is minor tweaks for major changes. Keep in mind: it didn't take you one month to become overweight and fall into bad habits. For most it takes many months -- sometimes more -- to achieve their goals. But by the end of these four weeks you won't recognize the woman you've become because you'll be empowered with the tools to change your circumstances, your habits.... and as a result, your body. 

Ready to get the best fat burning tools for real results? Enroll now.

THIS ISN'T A WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM. 

Kim Kelly  and R.N. from the Kick Fat in the Ass Spring Challenge will be joining and helping the community in August!

No Fail Fat Burning for Women is about mobilizing body fat to be burned for fuel, gaining lean muscle (that will help you stay in 24/7 fat burning mode, especially after menopause), and empowering women to take the wheel of their health with science, not dangerous gimmicks. We don't go by the scale numbers, we go by inches lost, muscle gained and fat burned.

LEAN? STRONG? HEALTHY? 

Your decisions determine your destiny.

The 4 Weeks to Fat Loss online community is a secure and private group page on Facebook. No one can see the members or page except those in the program. This is a safe space of support, connection, learning and women growing stronger in every aspect of their lives. Remember that everything external began internally whether it's your body, career, creativity, relationships.... these all begin within from choice and action.  Our bellies and booties expand or tighten based on small choices we make every day that add up to big change, for better or worse.

Keep in mind this is not one-on-one individual coaching but group strategy and development. Those who succeed are positive community participants and commit to -- and get passionate -- about the process.

• Every day, for four weeks, I will take you step by step through your fat loss journey. 

• There will be exercise programs designed to shred fat for beginners, intermediate, advanced. (this is where having an accountable fat burning bestie comes in handy but you'll also have the online community, too).

• No, we will not be working out painfully for hours, counting calories, starving, and all that other non-sense that creates metabolic derangement and increased fat gain once those fads are no longer sustainable.

• You'll receive encouragement, direction, learning, recipes, as well as physical, mental and emotional "challenges." We cannot change if we do not commit to growth. Which way would you like to grow?

• This isn't going to be a month of deprivation and restriction. Hell no. If it's not simple it's not sustainable. This is about becoming educated, powerful, and authentically passionate about what you want to achieve while having a mentor who gets results and a community of kick ass women by your side. 

Give yourself permission to leverage all of your potential  by deciding, taking action and committing to your highest self. It will be my honor to ride shotgun and support you with a proven protocol. 

One short month that can change everything about how you experience your life. With the proper strategy, coaching and community you can achieve anything you desire. Following the No Fail Fat Burning for Women scientific, proven principles in this 30 day program can quickly close the gap from where your physique is today to where you want your body fat, lean muscle and fitness to be.

Remember: decisions determine destiny. Don't let another season go by where you make excuses instead of transformation and then feel repulsed by the woman you see in the mirror. That is not authentic power or joy.

I truly hope to see you in August and would love the honor of being in your corner every step of the way. 

 WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• Passion, desire, open-mindedness, a willingness to learn that long-lasting health and body composition takes time. There are a lot of hacks to jump start the process but no quick fixes.  

• A Facebook account. Again, our page is secure and invisible to everyone but members.

• A team-player attitude to support the other women in the community. We will all face challenges and that's where having each other's back makes a world of difference. We're in this together for four weeks.

• A fundamental knowledge and reading of the book No Fail Fat Burning for Women available on Amazon here: http://amzn.to/1deOafM

• An accurate body fat percentage reading via DEXA scan or hydrostatic testing. These are available almost everywhere and relatively inexpensive via mobile services. Home devices are wildly inaccurate. Google DEXA mobile body fat and/or mobile hydrostatic body fat to see what services are available in your area.

• Body part measurements and before and after pictures (for your private progress).

• At least a 20lb (9kg) - 35lb kettlebell and knowledge of the two-handed swing. Very easy. For instruction, check out Tracy Reifkind's "The Swing" here.

• And, of course, consult your physician before attempting any new nutrition or exercise protocol. As each individual woman is unique, you should use proper discretion before undertaking the diet, exercise and techniques of the No Fail Fat Burning for Women protocol. Michelle Burleson, Skye St. John, et al expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the 4 Weeks to Fat Loss protocol.

Once all spaces are filled we'll be waitlisting. Enroll today to secure your slot for 4 Weeks to Fat Loss!

The body you desire is the body you deserve.

Yours in resilience, strength and sticks of butter,

Michelle Burleson

Michelle Burleson

Getting (and staying) Fit Over Forty

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Hello, Fat Burning Badass Babes Worldwide! Michelle here. We'll have a Fat Loss Challenge Update later this week. Connie is no longer a participant sooo... then there were three! And they are crushing it. More on that later this week.

We get a lot of emails from women over forty that have my complete empathy. They go something like:

• I was an athlete when I was younger and then all of a sudden, no matter how much I exercise, the fat keeps piling on.

OR

• My body composition was fine until menopause and now I'm gaining weight and lethargic.

 OR

• My body composition was fine until I had a hysterectomy and now I've packed on 60 pounds.

OR

• I've been doing this for a month and lost lots of weight initially but everything seems to have stalled. How come I'm not in the shape of my life in one month after a lifetime of metabolic derangement and eating crap?

OR a combo or all of the above.

First, I completely understand your frustration. There just isn't enough information out there for women about sustainable and healthy fat loss and muscle gain. The insult to injury is that women over forty or those who resemble one of the above scenarios are really screwed when it comes to finding information that applies uniquely to them.

Read No Fail Fat Burning for Women

Second, like I've said before, the No Fail Fat Burning for Women protocol is an eye-opening, great foundation and primer for fat loss, getting control of your hormones... and frankly, getting control of your relationship with food. If you've read it, you know that the emphasis is on you being responsible and dedicated enough to your own wellness to take the plan and tweak it to your own individual biomarkers. This means doing work.

There is no one-size-fits all. I work with high performance athletes looking for any edge and women who just want to stop the post-hysterectomy fat gain. The protocols for the former and latter are going to look vastly different.

Your body's reliance on sugar (read: how much crap you've consumed in the past) and the amount of time you've been carrying an excess of body fat is going to determine what we need to get you to your goals, how we do it and how long it's going take. This is on top of an infinite amount of variables completely unique to you.


What if you're 40% body fat and your goal is 22%. Can you get there? Absolutely. Let's say your sister or best friend is 22% body fat and pretty much always has been. That means she's never really been in a state of insulin or leptin resistance among other things. Let's say nine months to a year or more later of changing your nutrition habits and timing and weight training that you are now also 22% body fat.

If your friend or sister who has been 22% body fat this whole time decides to do a fat loss challenge with you and you both have a goal of getting to 18% body fat, even if you do everything as prescribed, she's going to have the edge. Why? Because although you have lost a significant amount of fat, the fat cells that housed all that fat are still there. Waiting with open arms to get full and plump again. Your friend who is the same body fat as you doesn't have these extra internal terrorists to deal with. Your friend with same body fat as you has much more room for error because they didn't do all this metabolic damage when you both were young.

I'm not saying this to make you feel bad. Considering the environment, saturated fat scares, sugar addictions, chemical food additives, pollution, toxic livestock and seafood, pasteurized franken-dairy, soy, etc, we've all got some issues.

The good news is that if you stay the course, in about ten years those empty fat cells will die. More good news: the No Fail Fat Burning for Women protocol, when applied correctly to your situation, isn't restrictive. It's actually liberating, simple and life sustaining.

I ran my body into the ground when I was younger for the sake of athletic performance. Anything for an edge. Frankly, I didn't think about being forty or suddenly being sucked into an avalanche of fat gain -- and other metabolic issues -- I felt helpless to control against all the exercise and 100-calorie packs of chemicals I consumed. My doctors were useless and uninformed.

I was a writer and researcher for one the largest health care systems in the country that shall remain anonymous. It's just band aid over band aid instead of getting to the heart of illness. I remember interviewing doctors and therapists in bariatrics and neurology who know nutrition is the best medicine but their hands are tied to advise patients appropriately with such "controversial" things like saturated fat. I have no doubt my father would be alive today if we could've gotten him off the fat-phobic, high carb, treadmill for hours regimen his cardiologist prescribed. And it's worse for women. And we're forced to take studies and results that worked for men and then try to apply it to our very different metabolic systems. This normally backfires with body fat gain, blaming ourselves and depression. Really, we're just not built to burn fat and gain lean muscle the way men are.

Sorry for the rant. Here's the good news.

To all the women who write in saying nothing will ever work.

To all the women who say they just need to accept that they're going to be unhealthy and in constant conflict with their bodies.

To all the women who believe all is lost:

You're wrong. There is always an answer. It's often a minor tweak.

The only people I see who don't succeed are those who are lazy, uncommitted, excuse makers, obsessed with being 'skinny' over strong, and expect immediate results after a lifetime of poor choices and worse information from "experts."

You have to trust the process. Your body is a living, dynamic, gorgeous organism. Who you are at a cellular level today is not who you were yesterday and nor who you'll be tomorrow. You need to adjust for that.

There will be peaks and valleys. There will be freak out days. There may be toxic people in your life you need to cut loose. Emotional dead weight shows up as excess weight.

Your goals shouldn't be the outcome but the process. Outcome is great because we all love to look good. Who doesn't love the before and after pictures? I do. I love fitting into my favorite jeans. I love being able to knock out pullups and pushups. But make your goal the process and you will get the outcome. Make the decision to change then let your attachment to the outcome go. Then, guess what? You'll have your outcome.

That means enjoying the adventure of understanding your body. Instead of applying external rules onto it, learn what works from the inside out. Learn for the first time in your life what real hunger is vs a hormone crash and craving. Learn that you really shouldn't be in a constant state of digestion from snacking and adhering to a clock about when to eat. Mind what your body is saying. Get strong. As one of my clients said to me last week, "For the first time, I feel unstoppable."

Like I tell my private clients: listen to your gut and heart. There are neurons in both places, not just your brain. Get those two things healthy, too. Listen to them. It's not just a cliche. Spiderman (and woman) aren't real. Spidey-sense is.

Last, for us ladies who reside on the fourth floor of life and above, you gotta watch your protein intake. The whole "high protein to keep muscle" is a marketing message fed to you by questionable supplement companies and commercial food industries. Ever find it odd that the Food and Drug Administration is run by the Department of Agriculture? Wouldn't the Department of Health & Human Services seem more appropriate?

I digress,  excess protein can convert to sugar via a process called gluconeogenesis. It's not enough to keep net carbs really low and fat really high. You need to empower yourself by understanding your body fat percentage, your lean body mass percentage and what those numbers look like in pounds. You need to play with the combos of fat, protein and carbs and see how they impact you. Gaining and maintaining muscle is a must. Plus, you'll be completing the trifecta of mental, physical and emotional health.

85-90% of physique transformation is contingent on nutrition and nutrition timing. I don't care if you live at the gym.

Depending on your body composition it can sometimes take a month just to get your body understanding it should be burning fat for fuel. And that's okay. Stop wanting everything NOW. A lot of us ended up sick and overweight because of things we had to have NOW. The goal is the process and it's amazing to witness in the women I work with. Master the process and you'll get the goal while enjoying rewards daily.

There will be bad days but don't you ever, ever, ever quit.

You are not a damsel in distress. You are the hero of your own story.

Yours in resilience, strength and sticks of butter,
Michelle

 

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Have You Hit a Fat Loss Plateau?

Need Help With Your No Fail Fat Burning for Women Protocol?

 

A lot of times all it takes is a minor adjustment for major change.

• Do you want someone who's going to work with you daily? 

• You're serious about achieving your bodyfat and health goals using proven, powerful science specifically for women.

•  You're an athlete looking for a sustainable edge.

• You're frustrated with fad diets and fat loss gimmicks that only make you gain weight and become depressed when they're no longer sustainable.

If you're ready to be a Fat Burning, Hormone Balancing Babe at any age, I can help. 

Much aloha,
Michelle

Let's get you fit for life!

Together we'll get you there.

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Please share with other strong women who want the health of their lives. 
The body you want is the body you deserve. Thanks a million!

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