How-to Lose Body Fat and Tone Muscles
The Healthy Plan for Weight Loss and Building Muscle
Sep 15, 2009
Want to lose weight? Have you been trying and trying, with no results? Perhaps you are going about it the wrong way. Read on to discover how to lose body fat and tone muscles the healthy way, guaranteed to get the desired results.
The Myth of Spot Reducing
Contrary to popular belief, there is no way to remove fat from a specific area. Just because a person targets a particular body part for weight loss, that does not mean only that body part will shape up. This is because the body burns fat systematically, which means that the body burns fat from everywhere at the same time.
Strength training builds and maintains muscle. It also increases a person's internal metabolism. It is diet and cardio exercise that burn body fat. When someone feels that tell-tale burn in a muscle from working out, that does not mean fat is being burned in that area; instead, it means that muscle is being built.
Set One Small Goal at a Time
To maintain motivation in the pursuit of weight loss, one must set goals. These goals should be small. Setting one large goal of losing one-hundred pounds, or even fifty pounds, can seem too daunting of a task. Instead, set a weekly weight-loss goal of one to two pounds, or a weekly goal to lose one to two inches.
Setting and reaching these smaller goals will keep a person motivated toward that overall fitness goal.
Use Common Sense
Fat takes up more space than muscle. People often forget this fact and become discouraged too easily and inevitably give up on their weight-loss goals. This does not have to happen.
One pound of fat equals the size of a grapefruit and has the caloric consistency of 3500 calories. One pound of muscle equals the size of an orange and has the caloric consistency of only 600 calories. That means that while a pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle, the muscle takes up much less space in the body.
If someone loses ten grapefruits off their body and gains ten oranges, that person will still weigh the same. However, that person will look smaller because those ten oranges (ten pounds of muscle) take up less space than those ten grapefruits (ten pounds of fat). The point is this: use common sense about losing fat and gaining muscle. Just because the scale reads the same as before, that does not mean nothing is happening in a person's body. Do not give up.
Do Not Commit Exercise Suicide
Dieting and cardio exercise without weight training does not work. It is committing exercise suicide. Ever heard someone say, "I want to lose weight first, and then I'll tone"? This is the wrong way to go about losing weight.
The human body is programmed to prevent starvation. It has three main sources for food: muscle (protein), fat and carbohydrates. Fat contains more calories per one gram than muscle and cardohydrates, so as far as the body is concerned, fat is more valuable as a long-term fuel supply, especially in a starvation situation.
When someone diets, the body burns more calories and consumes fewer calories. This forces the body into a starvation situation, causing it to hold onto its most vital source for survival: fat. Because the body is retaining its fat for fuel, it uses carbohydrates and muscle for energy.
Burning muscle is bad for long-term weight-loss goals. This is because without muscle, the body's metabolism decreases. When metabolism decreases, a person may lose weight but that person is just a smaller version of himself with the same body consistency. The fat has not actually been lost.
The simple solution is to incorporate strength training into the workout routine. This will tell the body that it is not starving, which will cause the body to then burn fat, rather than its much-needed muscle.
Weight Train Before Cardio
The body burns carbohydrates first. When a person does cardio exercises before a weight routine, the body uses all the carbohydrates available. By the time the person gets to the strength training, the body is forced to look for an alternative energy source. The next option for the body is fat, except for one problem: fat needs oxygen to be burned, and weight training does not provide that oxygen. This is because weight training contracts muscles, which constricts the veins and arteries that deliver oxygen. So because the body's carbohydrates have all been burned during the cardio session and fat cannot be burned during weight training, the only other available energy source is muscle.
The solution to this problem is to weight train first, then do cardio exercises. This is the best scenario for weight loss because the body first gets to burn carbohydrates during strength training, and then it burns fat during cardio.
Further Reading
For more information, read "How-to Slim Down and Shape Up: Healthy Secrets for Losing Weight and Toning Muscles."
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