When it comes to fat burning, and fat loss, there is always this “no man’s land” between “I’m not fat” and “I’m really lean and beautiful!”. For most men this happens at about 12-19% body fat, and for women between 18-25% or so.

No doctor will complain that you are about to die of an obesity related disease, and your friends will still say what a nice figure you have. But you know that muffin top is just a little too big for your liking!

As your training age progresses, assuming you are good with your food choices, and stay lean all the time, your body will get “used” to a lower, more lean body fat percentage. I used to be a really fat boy, but with not too much effort and even eating lots of food, I stay at somewhere around 12% all year.

But the time has come for me to push the limits again. I have been as low as 5-6% before but I lost so much weight. (I was only 71kg then!) But as my own experience, knowledge and skill improves, I am going to try to reach 5% body fat at close to 80kg. This would be my best physique ever. That is the goal over then next 12 weeks or so.

However, goals must come with ACTIONS or else they are pretty much USELESS. It is like the clients who come to me and say they want great results, but they want to eat cereal for breakfast and instant noodles for lunch. It just isn’t going to happen.

Here are the actions that I will take over the next 12 weeks to achieve my goal. I like to write goals in present tense because they have the highest chance of adherence. Your brain lives in the present not the past/future.

• I eat 6 meals per day
• I eat meat and nuts at breakfast
• I eat only foods that are not allergic to me (no tomatoes, carrots or chilli)
• I eat 1.2-1.5kg of meat every day
• I eat these choices even when eating outside of home
• I eat outside of home only once per week
• I train 3 days out of 5 with some days 2x/day
• I do 1/3 fat burning workouts, and 2/3 strength and muscle maintaining workouts
• I use licorice cream on week days and off on weekends
• I use far infra red sauna 3/week for at least 20 mins
• I schedule my own training into my callender and nothing will get in the way of that.
• I use 40g of BCAA during each workout
• I eat whey, glutamine, glycine and greens post workout
• I use carnitine and R-ALA before workouts
• I sleep by 11pm every day

If I do all those things consistently, I don’t see how I can NOT be leaner while maintaining all my muscle mass. If you write down a list like this, I’m sure you can achieve your weight loss, fat loss, or mass building goals as well.

Of course there is room for adjustment along the way, but the fundamental habits shown above will stay the same. Stay tuned for updates!

Here are a few questions that I was asked by our personal training and Singapore boot camp fitness clients last week. I hope these answers help you with your health, fitness, weight loss and fat loss goals too.

• What seafoods are ok and not…for example I love prawns and crabs ..are they ok as meal – yes they are fine as long as you don’t have an allergy to them. They are actually healthy and very nutritious! (and won’t make you fat!

• For the snack, can i replace egg with cheese? what other alternatives i have (Yoghurt, etc?) – I would stick with eggs over cheese although cheese is not a bad choice either. Eggs just have a higher amount of protein. I am not a big fan of yogurt because it tends to be highly processed and high in sugar.

• If i miss or cheat on my diet like last night. do i make it up the next day by taking less? – If you end up eating a bad meal, RELAX:) guilt probably raises stress hormones and makes you even fatter! Just get back to healthy food ASAP. That is the main thing. The wrong responses are to skip meals, or to continue eating bad stuff since “I already messed up”.

• For the coffee before training. Do I take it for big training (like on wed) or do i take it even if I do my intervals trainings/swims – Coffee is fine before intervals.

• Is coffee with low fat milk bad? I have a habit of taking it quite often..should i stop? I also use Equal instead of sugar.. is that acceptable? – I would go with heavy cream and cinnamon which slow down the caffine release and increase fat burning. I am not for artificial sweeteners unless absolutely necessary.

• My fishoil at home is 1200mg per capsule. How many do I take..taking 4 per meal doesn’t sound right – It is right, depending on your current level of body fat. The fatter you are, the more healthy fats you need to take to increase your insulin sensitivity (and a bunch of other good reasons too!)

If you go to any internet fitness, health or beauty forum you will see a multitude of different opinions on what program is best for your fat loss, weight loss, muscle building, or sports training goals.

The majority of these posts are by 14 year olds with no training experience to speak of, and since the internet is unregulated, you have no idea who is right and who is simply wasting your time.

Not Who You Want Designing Your Training Program

Some fat loss programs are good and some that are discussed are nonsense. Same goes for the muscle building programs and diet plants.

You can be sure that your nutrition and training programs are critical to your success.

But don’t forget the COACHING element.

My staff and I at the Genesis Performance Center always focus on our coaching skill. In fact when we talk about how we can help clients better, the discussions are far more often about how to get better compliance, rather than how to use the latest fitness gadget or technique.

Not that we don’t care about learning or improving technical knowledge. But all knowledge is useless if we cannot help our clients apply it. Truth is useless, only truth applied is of any value.

Join our personal training, NS fitness or Ladies fitness bootcamp programs to see how the correct coaching makes all the difference.

Crossfit is a pretty popular training system across the world. It’s not really so much a system in Singapore, but rather its done by individuals in their own training sessions. I tried the crossfit workout named “fran”. This workout is done as fast as possible:
1.    21 thrusters with 95lb weights (I used a 50kg bar + plates so thats 110lbs… yeah I’m tough hehe!)
2.    21 Chin-ups (some swinging allowed)
3.    15 thrusters
4.    15 chin-ups
5.    9 thrusters
6.    9 chin-ups
My time was exactly 4 mins… I believe the record I have seen on the net is 2mins 37 sec… but 4 mins is not bad for a first time:) I just finished it and my heart is still racing as I type.

Take note though: Crossfit “Workouts of the day” are not for beginners and I don’t agree with some of them and how they are structured.

Sometimes, exercises like cleans and deadlifts are put together in the same workout, very close to each other (or maybe even right next to each other in sequence or pairings). This is not such a good idea beacuse of the lowe back fatigue and technical mastery needed for these exercises.

“Fran” though is safe enough. The exercises use different muscle groups and challenge both the upper and lower body muscles separately.

Will I use a circuit like the crossfit “fran” in some of my client’s programs? Possibly, but remember why circuits work for fat loss/conditioning in the first place…

Time under tension and lactic acid buildup. You can do this with a circuit for sure, but there are other ways as well like slow eccentrics. I believe those would be a better choice for most of the personal training clients I see.

Yesterday I got another bunch of emails asking me cardio questions and all the time I tell them that interval training is the best way to do it. This can come in any form. Swimming, sprinting, skipping rope, lifting weights etc… It is because of Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumtion (EPOC). This burns calories for DAYS after the training ends.

The body needs to get back to “normal” after such hard training… so many things need to be done “inside” that take up extra calories and burn more fat!

• Restore ATP-PC: replenish energy
• Restore Oxygen Stores: increase blood oxygen
• Restore Heart and Breathing Rates to Normal: This takes time and energy
• Restore Hormone Levels: there is a chemical pump that works hard to get the hormones back in order
• Restore Body Temperature: each degree above normal takes 13-15% increase in calorie burning
• Remove Lactate: This byproduct also takes energy to remove

All the programs at the Genesis Performance Center take advantage of these facts to keep you burning fat 24/7 safely. Hey thats just like a late night infomercial… but it works!

One of my clients was recently feeling “down”. She has been training with us for a month and has been pretty good sticking to a fat loss kind of nutrition lifestyle.

The thing is… fat loss doesn’t happen in a straight line “1kg per week”. Most of the time it happens in stages. Not 150grams per day, but rather nothing then a sudden 3kg loss in 2 days.

Don’t get discouragred. Push through the plateaus and consistently do the right thigns. You will be rewarded!

As a fitness instructor here in Singapore I always take a look at how Singapore residents behave so I can help them achieve their fat loss, weight loss and fitness goals better! Here are some my observations about the way us Singaporeans approach their health and exercise.

• We DO have the time – If only we watched less TV and played less World of Warcraft
• We can achieve great health with only 3 hours of proper training per week – If we are eating the correct foods and taking care of our nutrition instead of letting what hawkers and restaurants sell us be our guide.
• Cardio is NOT bad for health – It is good to stay healthy so some activity like going for walks and playing sports recreationally is good for us!
• Cardio is BAD for fat loss – especially if we have limited time, it is simply not challenging enough for our bodies to force us to lose fat
• Women are motivated by encouragement – in general
• Men are motivated by challenge – in general
• Many people have poor hip function and mobility – leading to knee and back problems
• Many people have poor upper back posture and weak middle and upper back muscles – leading to shoulder and neck problems
• Barefoot training is really helping my clients with their foot/ankle health as well as their balance but DON’T buy those shoes with “5 toes”. They mess up your toe function and make you have knee pain!
• Warming up is very important – so is static stretching during the end of the day. But the warm up has to be specific for the task. For example, if you are warming up for squats, do squats! If you are warming up for soccer or basketball, you will need to add in some movement and running drills in multiple directions – specific to the task.

Putting these observations into practice is how we come up with out personal training programs as well as our fitness bootcamp, athlete training programs and Pre National Service training packages