Recovery
Last thing you want to feel is sluggish or weak from training. Getting a decent supply of oily fish, naimly mackerel, sardines and pilchard will aid your recovery with Omega-III fatty acids. Recovery = better training next time. Remember, you can't gain muscle if you don't rest.

Energy efficiency
Did you know that coconut is amazing? Well you do now. The fat in coconut is an MCT (medium chain triglyceride) meaning it's much more likely to be used by the body as an energy source as opposed to being stored as body fat.

 

Fasted training
Every wondered why bodybuilders do cardio in the morning? It's because in the morning after you wake up you have no food in your stomach because it digested throughout the night (and evening if you stop eating earlier). When you have no food in your stomach, fat is used as an energy source because there is no energy from an outside source. The way the body uses energy (very very basically) is --Food then fat then muscle-- Low intensity exercise liek power walking, light jogging and bike riding use a great percentage of fat for energy as it is. 20-30 minutes of low intensity exercise before you eat will burn fat very well.  This also applies to weights on an empty stomach. Personally while writing this, i do light exercise fasted when i'm on a rest day and train when i wake up on gym days.

Fat burning wave
When you've finished an intense workout your body is frantically burning fuel to recover from the workout. When you have your protein shake or you eat you'll be raising insulin. If you have that post workout shake right after you're killing your fat burning. I wait anywhere from 30 mins to an hour after my workout to eat. The whole metabolic window shit is a huge myth. You won't loose muscle if you don't eat within minutes of working out. Wait a little while after your workout before eating and ride that fat burning wave for awhile. In the presence of insulin we cannot burn fat very well or at all, so hold off the protein powder or your chicken and brown rice and then when you've waited a while, spike insuling to go anabolic and start recovering.

 

Fat after burner
Walking the same distance you run will indeed burn the same amount of calories. Run ro walk, a mile typically burns 100 calories depending on your weight and the incline/decline you're walking up or down. However, the more intense the exercise and workout, the more calories you burn AFTER the workout. With jogging there is a rise in metabolysm depending on how long you ran for. doing 50-60 mins of jogging will almost double your calorie burn! Now with resitance training there is an after burn. When you've torn your muscles down it's time for them to recover. Your body needs extra fuel to repair the damaged muscles so when you do resitance training, you burn fat while sitting down, while resting, while sleeping and when taking a shit! Now lets talk HIIT or high intensity interval training. Usually done with 30 seconds intense bursts of exercise followed by 30-90 seconds low intensity. A good example is 30 seconds fast jogging/sprinting followed by 30-90 seconds walking. 20-30 mins is all you need and your metabolysm will be jacked up like mad for up to 48 hours. Every other day alternating upper and lower body, is a good way to constantly be in a fat burning state.

 

Metabolic slowdown
If you hit a fat loss plateu and your nutrition is fantastic and your training is great it might be because your body has lowered your metabolysm due to having low calories. This can happen after 1 week or 2 weeks, you might not experience it atall. If your weight loss has come to a halt do this metabolic spike routine:
Day 1 - eat your normal amount of protein, have under 10g of carbs, half your fat
Day 2 - Get your protein and try and eat 1000 ish calories above your cutting calories
Day 3 - Repeat day 1 after fasting for 16-24 hours.
(Day 2 stop eating at 4 and start eating at 12 preferably after a workout)

This will prep for the cheat day without gaining fat, spike your fat burning hormones and metabolism up to normal and then burn the excess off the next day

 

Calorie carryover/compensation
If you have a moment of weakness or you know a big meal is coming in a day or two there is a way to make it work. You can always compensate for a calorie surge either the day before or day after.
Day before: With above in metabolic slowdown just do day 1 then you can enjoy that big meal the next day with no guilt or fat gain.
Day after: If you had a naughy blow out. Just do the same as above except make it 16-24 hours after your last meal of the day. Also try and do some kind of exercise the day after.
I have found that calories can carry over. What you don't eat today your body will use tomorrow and likewise, what you overeat today, your body won't need tomorrow. Every wondered why one blowout won't make you gain wight but if you do it the next day you put loads on? Because calories carry over and should be though of as an aveage over 2-3 days, not set in stone and washed clean every individual day.

 

Feeling sluggish and dopey
This is common for me atleast on a cut. If you find yourself feeling like you haven't eaten in a week you might think you have under eaten. While this MIGHT be whats happened it's not the full picture. Before you screw your fat loss up it might be of any or all of these reasons:
-You are dehydrated and haven't drunk much water
-You have over stimulated your nervous system in which case a rest or nap will help
-You have over stressed yourself either physically or mentally
-You ate too much food at once which has to be gotten used to
-You ate too many carbs at once and you're on a sugar crash
-You ate too much food and the digestion/nutrient absorbtion process is using all your energy
-Your body is using a lot of fuel to repair your muscles after a hard training session
-Too much caffine or sugar resulting in dependance and a comedown when you come off it
Explore these possibilities before you add to your caloric intake for the day

 

Carbs help aid fat loss
Say whaaaaaat? yeah they help you loose weight.

Firstly because they make you release seratonin, a lovely chemcial that makes you feel happy. This will keep you motivated and keep your mood up which in turn will aid in your diet staying strong and your training intensity up.

Secondly, carbs will aid in the repair of muscle tissue and fill their energy supply up in the form of glycogen. Your muscles use glycogen for muscular resitace. You'll lift more weight for more reps if you have a decent supply of glycogen which would be depleted with a no carb diet.

Thirdly, they will ensure your blood sugar levels stay in the right palce (providing you eat low glycemic carbs). The reason people cut carbs is because thye eat the wrong carbs and suffer because of it. Most people don't have the will power to live on beans, brown rice, oats and sweet potatoes. Seems stupid to cut a whole food group doesn't it?
Lastly, they will keep your energy up during a cut and help prevent that ocasional drowsyness and lethargic daze fest you can get while in a caloric defecit.

 

Glycemia
Eating slow digesting complex carbs will result in a stable release of insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone and it is raised in the presence of carbs. The slower something digests the less it raises insulin. In the presence of insulin it's very hard or even impossible to burn fat. Eating low glycemic carbs (go to my food database) will ensure you don't spike your inslulin and stay in a fat burning state the majority of the day. All I use currently are sweet potatoes, oats and black/red kidney beans.

 

Catabolism v anabolism
Catabolism: A breaking don state, it's what you are when breaking down muscle in the gym or exercising. It's  a non resting agressive state
Ananbolism: A calm state, a state of repair and rest. Healing and recovering.

For effective weight loss you need to be in both states at different times. When you wake up your cortisol (stress hormone) is highest because you haven't eaten. Take advantage of this and exercise on an empty stomach to break down fat. If you're in a catabolic state all day however, you'll eat up your muscle too. You are catabolic while lifting too, you're braking down muscle so it can rebuild. The nesscary catabolism is your training and caloric defecit.

The anabolic part is important. Insulin is an anabolic hormone along with testosterone. When you have your post-workout meal your body starts repairing and you go anabolic. For this reason is why exercise upon exercise is bad for you. You have too much catabolism and not enough anabolism. Professional athletes train for 5 hours a day every day but they take ANABOLIC steroids. This means they can recover quicker and limit the affects of catabolism. You're natural (I hope) so know your limitations. If you feel you're taking your body, cool down on the exercise. Work with your body not against it. The anabolic portion of your day will be sleep, water intake and proper nutrition. Getting 6-8 hours is vital to an anabolic enviroment.

If one is dominant then you won't get anywhere. You'll either gain weight and move away from your goals (resting all the time no exercise and eating all the time) from being too anabolic all the time or break down your muscle your fat, be over stressed and look like a skelleton from being too catabolic.

Important things to remember:
Weight training is very important - catabolic
post workout recovery is important - anabolic
a caloric defecit is nessecary - catabolic
good nutrition and rest is nessecary - anabolic
Water is very important too just in general never forget it.

 

Testosterone:
One problem of being on a caloric defecit for an extended period of time is that when you start getting low bodyfat around the 12% range and under, you'll start lowering your T-count (testosterone). I felt it when i got to 5%, it makes day to day life hard and it lowers sex drive, makes you weaker and makes it hard to get it up more than one or two times which can be irritating if you wan't a wild freaky night :p

Ways to increase your T-count:
Be a healthy bodyfat around 10-12% is good (males)
Do strength training - Lifting heavy weight for 1-5 reps with 90+ seconds rest will elevate your testosterone
Have sexual activity - Watch some porn, jack off or better yet go and get some.
Aromatase - This is an enzyme that turns testosterone into estrogen. What increases this enzyme? Soy, tofu, sunflower oil, safflower oil and corn oil and ALCOHOL. How can you prevent araomatase fucking with your fat loss and gains? Try not to eat the listed foods first. Zinc is magical, it stops aromatase working if you have adequate amounts (so i've read). Vitamin C needs zinc to be absorbed which also helps fight aromoatase. Eating vitamin C with an iron rich food like chicken is a great combination. Also healthy food like stinky sharp tasting (cruciferous) vegetables like kale broccoli and brussels will help. If you have man boobs or gyno then you could probably use with some estrogen flushing. Raw broccoli contains a chemcial that flushes out bad estrogens but looses it when you cook it. Sooooo.... yeah. Herbs spices and healthy proteins like fish and chicken are the go to way to help yourself out.

 

Growth hormone:
This is another muscle building fat burning hormone. You can stimulate this hormone as far as i know through 2 methods:
Training - hypertrophy, doing 8-12 reps with mdoerate weight increases growth hormone. Resting 60 seconds after each set also helps you release more growth hormone. Volume also gives it a boost so do drop sets, burn sets, pyramids, 21's, strip sets ect and maximise that time under tension
The other way is through fasting. If you don't eat for 16-24 hours you raise your growth hormone which will help you preserve muscle, gain muscle and loose fat. An easy way to do this is to stop eating at 5, go to bed a bit hungry (down a pint of water to kill that hunger) then don't eat untill at the earliest, 9am or go up to 2-3pm if you like. Fasting is healthy, totally acceptable, a valuable tool and easy. If you feel yourself craving huge blow out meals and you feel an eating dissorder coming along like you feel you starve the gorge, don't do fasting. It's healthy physically but it can be unhealthy mentally.

 

Thermogenics & caffine
Coffee and green tea will raise your metabolism to aid in some calorie burn. I've read that coffee with food can aid in the metabolysm of bodyfat too. Thermogenics like cinnomen, nutmeg and ground chilli powder raise your bodies temperature and increase your metabolism a tiny amount. Spices are also a good source of nutritional content and natural healty chemicals. So spice your meals up, it will help.