HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT
In order to lose weight - fat weight - it is vital to do as much as possible to protect your metabolic rate and if possible to increase it. This means you must "trick" your body's starvation protection mechanism. If your body's starvation response is triggered, your metabolism will slow down, muscle mass will be lost, your body will have a tendency too store energy in your fat cells (the opposite of what you want!) weight loss will be inefficient and temporary.
To avoid the body going into starvation mode you must be careful how much you lower your daily calorie intake. Therefore, a calorie deficit is largely created by doing a lot of cardiovascular exercise and also by carefully reducing your calorie intake.
Losing weight: Fat Loss or Muscle Loss?
When you lose weight - no matter how good you are - it will never be 100% fat, some of it will be muscle. But, what you can do is minimise muscle loss. Don't forget that when you lose muscle your metabolism slows down. Therefore, you must take steps to reduce muscle loss as much as possible. This means weight training! In fact on a good weight loss programme you can increase muscle mass. So, you've hit two birds with one stone. You lose weight, but simultaneously increase your lean mass, adding shape and definition to your body. This will give you the appearance of great health, rather than the ill looking appearance of those who have been severely restricting their calorie intake resulting in fatigue, irritability, insomnia, muscle weakness and vitamin deficiencies. Basically, when you come out of a good weight loss programme you should be feeling the best of you life/ in a long time. Your stamina will improve, you'll see an improvement in your ability to exercise, you will feel stronger, you've lost weight and your breathing and quality of sleep is better, etc. This is the only way to achieve a healthy, permanent weight loss and to maintain a great physique. It requires a PERMANENT change of lifestyle - not just a 2-week diet.
Diet, Exercise to Permanently Lose Weight
First there should be no "DIET". By dieting, you automatically set yourself up for failure. How exactly do you expect to maintain your new physique, if after a few weeks of dieting you revert back to your old habits? Then you'll revert back to your old body. Ever heard the saying, that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Simply put, you must change your nutrition - permanently. This doesn't mean eating grapefruits everyday forever, but adopting good nutrition practices (during your weight loss period this may be more stringent) that are essentially possible to keep to. There is more information on nutrition elsewhere.
You can see from this diagram above that you can change various factors to create a negative energy balance. Sure, you can create this negative energy balance, just by decreasing the amount of calories you eat (energy intake - on the left side). However, you can see for yourself that if you manipulate both sides of the scale, by both dieting and doing exercise, it will result in an additive, and even synergistic, reduction in body weight. Studies show that a combination of both exercise and calorie restriction result in 9x GREATER WEIGHT LOSS, than exercise alone.
Caloric deficit causes fat loss. But,
EXERCISE. For two reasons this is your main weapon against the slowing of your metabolism during weight loss.
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Firstly, through cardiovascular exercise you will be able to create a calorie deficit that you would not have been able to create through diet alone - without triggering your body's starvation response. This means that instead of starving the fat, you are going to burn the fat.
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Secondly, through weight training you will be able to maintain your muscle mass, instead of losing it, as occurs during weight loss. Avoiding this loss of muscle will help keep your metabolism up and will make you look healthy and toned.
Look. Losing weight isn't rocket science, once you understand your body, it's simple. Losing weight is not expensive. Having a great body isn't limited to the rich and famous. But, losing weight isn't easy. It requires determination and discipline. It requires getting up and working out on days you don't feel like it. If it were easy, we would all be looking great, instead of just dreaming about it. Truth is, if you want a great body, you can have a great body.
Want to Lose Weight Fast?
Fat loss occurs slowly and steadily. Losing more than 2 pounds of weight per week means that you are losing water weight or muscle tissue, rather than fat. If weight is lost any more rapidly than this, it is most likely a sign that you need to eat more. To lose weight permanently, you need to lose weight slowly. Weight loss should be between 1 - 2lbs a week.
A further incentive for slow weight loss is that stretch marks may arise due to fast weight loss.
There are 3500 calories in 1lbs. (0.45kg) of fat. Therefore, to lose 1 lbs. of fat per week you need to burn 500 calories more than you consume each day (or 1000 calories less/ day to lose 2 lbs.) through a combination of nutrition and regular exercise.
500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories/ week (1lbs of weight loss/ week)
1000 calories x 7 days = 7000 calories/ week (2lbs of weight loss/ week)
