A lot of people have been asking me lately, “Should I be eating more fat?” This post will not only answer that question, you’ll also learn how dietary fat fits into the macronutrient tracking and meal planning system used in bodybuilding and fitness diets designed to build muscle and burn fat…

Every cliché you’ve ever heard about the importance of planning is true. Failing to plan is a disaster waiting to happen. Planning is power.  Planning is confidence. Planning is success. It’s no secret that I’m an advocate of meal planning, and it’s a major part of my Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle system. I’m also a supporter of flexible dieting. If you don’t know what flexible dieting is, or if you do, but it seems like flexible dieting and meal planning don’t go together, then this will be the most important post you’ve ever read… 

Cheat meals have always been a hot topic. After all, who wouldn’t want to learn how to eat pizza or cheesecake and burn more fat? Unfortunately, despite years of discussion and debate about the best way to do it (or whether to do it at all), it appears that the ideal way to incorporate cheat meals into your diet plan without sabotaging yourself hasn’t gotten any clearer. With the spread of conflicting opinions from self-proclaimed experts, and the popularity of IIFYM and various types of “flexible dieting,”  how to cheat seems to have only gotten more confusing…

IIFYM is an acronym for a new craze called, “If it Fits Your Macros.” “Macros” of course,  is shorthand for macronutrients – protein, carbohydrates and fats. What does this have to do with Pop Tarts?  Keep reading and you’ll find out.  The spread of IIFYM through the online diet world in the last few years has led to some absolutely epic debates, controversies, and misunderstandings, depending on how different people explain or interpret IIFYM

If I told everyone who walked into my offices that if they exercised 30 minutes a day they’d double their weight losses, I have no doubt that no one would so much as blink, and many a gym shoe would be sold. Yet when I tell people that in order to double their losses they’ll need to spend no more than 3 minutes a day keeping a food diary, I might as well be putting needles in their eyes given the pain and anguish I regularly see flash across their faces.

For anyone who hasn’t been  keeping up with all the posts here at Burn the Fat Blog, the team at Examine.com wrote our “most liked’ post ever a few months ago, in which they talked about the actual science behind 10 popular fat burners. They did a great job taking complex science and making it accessible to you, and so for an encore, I asked them to give us the straight skinny on saturated fats. Here’s what they have to say:

Are We Fighting The Wrong Battle?  And are we losing in the war? It is a war. We face that war daily in our facebook feeds, during our talks with friends over coffee, and while making decisions at the grocery store.

Many people track their food intake with apps, software or old-fashioned paper and pen and that’s a good thing because tracking food intake has many benefits. But many people don’t realize there’s a difference between tracking food intake and working off a meal plan. Some people fail because they don’t know the difference between the two. It’s a simple and logical insight – it’s the difference between being proactive and reactive – and not grasping this could sink your diet efforts…

I admit, sometimes I take certain nutrition facts for granted. It’s probably because I’m so close to this subject and I’ve been a coach and practitioner for years. I realized this recently when I posted some articles referring to your “optimal daily calorie intake” but I didn’t explain how to figure that number out. I got tons of email and comments from readers letting me know!  I guess I thought it was common knowledge, but surprisingly, it seems most people don’t know what their ideal calorie target should be, and to make matters worse, they get conflicting advice about how much to eat from various sources. Well, I’m here today to fix my oversight and bring us back to nutrition 101: How many calories should you eat?

If an exercise physiologist, award-winning fitness bootcamp trainer and registered dietician to the pro athletes and stars were asked by his clients, “what are your MOST IMPORTANT tips, EVER,  for burning fat and getting in great shape while at the same time, achieving optimal health, wouldn’t you want to know the answers? I would. A man with that mix of credentials has a combination of academic and real-world experience you don’t come across very often. Lucky for you and I, that’s exactly what we have from today’s guest blogger,  Chris Mohr, PhD, RD.