Avoid The Skinny Fat Curse: 3 Diet Routines To Check Out

If you’re trying to get ready for the beach, and you are going to be going on a diet to lose some body fat, it is important that you don’t choose the wrong diet. When you drastically change the way you eat, you need to be aware that you can often times lose weight, but not necessarily lose fat. Part of the trick of getting a good body and avoiding the skinny fat curse is to choose the best diet for fat loss. After all, you don’t want to end up with a bad body, even though you have lost weight. The key is to lose fat and maintain muscle. If you don’t diet correctly, you’re going to be really disappointing. So, now that you are aware of those considerations, here are some diets to consider.

Ketogenic Diets

The classic idea that fat makes you fat has been dispelled recently by countless leading scientists. The truth is that fat (and protein, to a lesser extent) should be the basis of your diet. This is because fat leads to ketosis, which is where your body burns fat for energy. So, a diet should be high in foods such as avocado, coconut oil, nuts,  meat (if you’re not a vegetarian) and cheese and butter. Of course you should certainly eat loads of greens or green smoothies (but they won’t be the bulk of calories, though they might be a lot of food).

If you are concerned about the heart healthy aspect of eating lots of fats and cholesterol, then do yourself a favor and read some of the articles on this. Don’t jump into any diet without doing research. There is a lot of debate, most of it focusing on the role of a researcher named Ancel Keys. Some people have suggested that his early research on fat was misguided. The NY Times has a good write up on the debate.

Smoothies And Protein

If you don’t feel comfortable doing a diet that is super high in fat, you could go healthy and choose a diet that is high in protein (by making whey or vegetable protein smoothies) and swapping out one meal a day for these green smoothies is a fantastic way to lose fat. It’s important to remember that you should be adding protein powder to these smoothies. You can get basic plain, grass fed whey, or you can get vegetable protein powder. If you’re making berry or fruit smoothies, then you can add a flavored berry style protein powder. These smoothies will give you the protein necessary to maintain or even build muscle, while losing fat on a caloric deficit.

If you are making pure protein shakes or only using berries, you could make due with a blender that is perfect for protein shakes (I have a write up here about the best blenders for protein shakes) but if you’re making green smoothies, you are going to want to read up on the higher end and stronger blenders that are best designed for making green smoothies.

Intermittent Fasting

Crash dieting is a bad idea, but intermittent fasting is not crash dieting. You simply restrict the time within which you eat food. So, for instance, you might only eat between 12:00pm and 8:00pm. You let your body go into a fasted state, which has been shown to increase fat burning potential. Here is a good breakdown on the different intermittent fasting routines.