With the uncountable, and ever increasing, number of fat loss diets claiming to give ‘serious results’, it is understandable that most newly published techniques or advice are largely ignored, and this means every now and then a real winner slips by unnoticed.

For anyone, regardless of level or experience, who has tried the conventional low calorie, no carb, high cardio regimes and found them to be nothing but a torrent of muscle wastage, low energy, depression and poor results, then depletion could be a method that finally gets heads turning in your direction. The conventional dieting methods tend to fail as they do not address your body’s natural survival systems. During the evolution of our species, in times of famine your metabolism reduces. This conserves as many extra calories as possible to help you survive until food becomes available again. This system works well out in the wild, where hunting is much more important than how well defined our abs are, but in the modern world, where image is king, it fights against us. This is because metabolism can’t tell the difference between famine and an intentional calorie deficit. During a conventional diet there may be some initial weight loss but metabolism soon catches up and lowers to a point where results will dry up and frustration steps in. The only way to continue from there is to give up or to keep reducing calorie intake until you are consuming barely enough to keep you alive....and then give up.

Depletion is a method of reducing your carbohydrate intake and forcing your body to run off stored fat instead. As carbohydrates are our body’s quickest energy source, combined with their low cost and availability, they tend to make up the majority of our daily meals. Also anyone who has tried to pack on some muscle will know the importance of loading up on carbs. This causes our body to run off the abundance of carbs while storing any available fats, over time this leads to an increasing body fat percentage.

Thankfully this can be reversed with a few diet tweaks.

The main aim is to consume enough carbs to keep our energy, metabolism and leptin up, while not consuming so much that fat is ignored as an energy source. This is achieved through eating carbs only when our body needs them and is best set to deal with them. When this is done alongside an appropriate training regime you will see dramatic results. The week is broken down like this:


Day
Workout
Diet

Monday
Resistance training
High carbs, high calories, low fats

Tuesday
Cardio
Low carbs, low calories, high fats

Wednesday
Resistance training
High carbs, high calories, low fats

Thursday
Cardio
Low carbs, low calories, high fats

Friday
Resistance training
High carbs, high calories, low fats

Saturday
Cardio
Low carbs, low calories, high fats

Sunday
Rest
Cheat meal
Now at first glance six days a week may seem a bit of a slog, but all is not as bad as it seems, each of these days only requires around 20 minutes at the gym, which works out to just two hours a week.

On the resistance training days you would consume carbs first thing in the morning, 2-3 hours before a workout and the largest carb and calorie serving immediately afterwards. Due to high insulin levels in the morning carbs are dealt with easily and not stored. The pre workout meal will help sustain you through the resistance training and the pre workout meal for muscle recovery; leading to none of the carbs being stored. Due to these meals spiking insulin, fat intake is kept low on these days. My resistance training of choice when combined with this diet is body weight circuits. This allows a quick, high intensity, full body workout three times a week that will work up a serious sweat. The diet and workout on these days will help stimulate lean calorie burning muscle and keep your glycogen, metabolism and leptin levels high.

The cardio days are where the fat loss occurs. On these days all meals are made of protein, fats and residual carbs, from vegetables. The meals throughout this day will keep insulin levels extremely low, meaning no extra fats are stored. The cardio routines on these days are interval training on your equipment of choice, though for maximum results I would recommend the treadmill or out on the street. Aim for 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow, 4-10 times. With a 5 minute warm up and a 10 minute cool down to help prevent injury and re-esterification. Due to the lack of carbs on these days, the only option your body will have is to access the fat storage for energy, and for intervals it will need a lot of energy. The fluctuation of calories throughout the week will mean that metabolism does not ever take a significant drop; it will be raised by the high calorie days, which result in an even greater weight loss on the cardio days.

The food choices you make can really make a difference. Avoid the starchy sugary carbs and opt instead for whole grains like brown rice and quinoa. Also try to have a big helping of fresh vegetables with as many meals as possible. If you really feel you have to eat something you know you shouldn’t, post workout would be the best time.

On the rest day the rules are relaxed a bit. Carbs and fat are kept relatively low until the long awaited cheat meal, every dieter’s light at the end of the tunnel. There is varying research on the effects of the cheat meal on heightening metabolism, but it has been shown to raise leptin levels and muscle glycogen significantly. It is also a huge psychological boost as it acts as a well deserved reward for the week’s work and will not have any negative effect on fat loss. My cheat meal is usually a take-away pizza or fish and chips, maybe with a cheeky doughnut or some ice cream.

All of this keeps your carb level in an optimal range for fat loss

When this week is put together as a whole, and carbs are kept in that optimal range, your body is primed for some serious fat loss. I have personally been using this system for two weeks, I was previously 91kg and approximately 12% body fat, and am now 85kg and approximately 10% body fat. Along with that fat loss, I have, as much as it is insisted it cannot be done simultaneously, gained some muscle. However as a caveat to this, I was previously on a high carb diet, supplemented with creatine so some of that 6kg could be contributed to water loss. However this is the quickest fat loss and body composition improvement I have ever experienced. For anyone trying to reach their dream body, lose weight, get toned or generally look and feel better, this doesn’t need to implemented as a crash diet, more a lifestyle change that can be maintained year after year. As an added bonus, once you have reached your ideal body fat percentage, maintaining it will be much easier than trying to reach it in the first place, so you will be able to cheat even more!

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