by Carol Dunlop
NurseTogether.com
Diets Don’t Work,” is part of a recent ad slogan for a popular commercial diet company. It’s partially true; diets don’t work, by themselves. Diets, by themselves, are destined to fail.
Did you know that 95% of all dieters who lose weight, regain it, and sometimes even add more weight? That’s because they lost muscle, not fat.
Don’t let this happen to you. Read on to find out how to lose fat, not muscle, while dieting.
Fat-Storing Machine
Human Beings are designed to hunt and kill food for survival. Since early man didn’t know when he could expect to eat again, his body was designed to store as much fat as possible, to be used later for energy.
Today, you operate in much the same way. The strongest instinct in your body is survival. If your body believes it’s starving, it will instinctively slow down all bodily functions, including your metabolism. This causes you to crave high-calorie, fatty foods to be stored and later used for energy.
But what does this have to do with dieting? “Dieting” usually means following restrictive diets that include less than optimal daily caloric intakes. Your body perceives this lowered intake as starving and kicks into “Starvation Mode.” After repeated cycles of dieting over and over again, your body settles into a semi-starvation mode.
When your body is under the stress of starvation, it keeps the fat, but burns off the muscle tissue to produce energy for vital body functions. Your body then uses large amounts of water, from your system, to flush away the broken down muscle tissue. The end product is you lose weight, but not fat. You’ve lost muscle and water, not good.
Fat-Burning Machine
OK, so you lost a little muscle and some water, but when you get on the scale, it shows a lower number than before. Isn’t that good? Not really.
Healthy, toned muscle burns fat 24/7, around the clock, even while you’re sleeping. If you want to be a fat-burning machine, you need healthy muscle. In order to stop your body from burning muscle and make it burn fat, you have to stop dieting. Instead, figure out your optimal daily caloric intake and stick with it. Once you do that, your body comes out of starvation mode, realizes that it’s no longer in danger, stops storing fat and starts burning excess fat.
You’ll also need to increase your oxygen intake because oxygen aides your body in burning excess fat. By engaging in a regular exercise program, you are training your body to keep and nourish muscle with much needed oxygen, and to burn excess fat for energy.
Once you get off the diet roller coaster and take control, your body will shed the excess fat. It won’t have to store fat anymore because it will be getting the proper amount of calories and nutrients from the foods that you are eating. By incorporating exercise into your daily regimen, you are developing healthy muscle that regulates your weight and fights those cravings for high-calorie, fatty foods.
About the Author: Carol Dunlop is a Certified Personal Trainer with over 6 years of personal training experience. Carol’s areas of expertise include weight loss, body sculpting, fitness, aerobic conditioning, and endurance training. Carol is passionate about fitness, and her goal is to help others get in shape and maintain a positive self image. Check out her website at www.optimumbodysculpting.com.
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