Losing muscle mass not fat.This is the most common mistake that most people do while on a weight loss journey.Most of the people are completely unaware of this fact.
They just think that losing weight means starving yourself and thats all but they do not know that they are doing more harm to their body than good.Here i will discuss this common mistake and how to lose weight effectively and in a healthy way.
Calories in vs calories out.
Yes you heard right.I know that you probably will be thinking that its all about "calories in vs calories out".Now listen carefully yes its exactly true but you have to keep in mind that it all varies from person to person.
Everyone has different body sizes,shapes and composition.It also depends on how many calories do you burn in a day.If you are a large person that is mostly on feet throughout the day then you probably need more calories than a small average man.You can not say that having as few calories as a small person will be enough for you because then you will be depriving your body of its necessary food requirement which is not good so it varies from person to person.
Another thing is BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate) that is the amount of calories your body burn while at rest i.e..doing nothing just lying down.First of all check out your BMR that shows you how much calories you burn if you do no particular activity throughout the day.Now if you want to maintain your weight you need to have that much calories daily and if you are mostly on your feet throughout the day you can have 200-300 more because these 200-300 are other than those of the BMR and they will not make you gain weight if you are active.
Wanna lose weight?
Now if you want to lose weight you have to reduce the number of calories that you are taking than the number of calories that you burn.Now there are a few simple steps that will help you through this as they helped me..
1- Always know your BMR as well as your Body Mass Index(BMI).There are many calculators available online that helps you to calculate your BMI.
2- Now that you know in which category you fall,start working out accordingly.If you have normal BMI there is no need to worry but if you have an increasing BMI then that could be a problem and you have to do something about it.
3- Always have an app in your mobile phone to calculate all your calorie intake to keep track of what you are eating.I perso ally suggest MyFitnessPal..Its great and has helped me a lot in my weight loss journey too.
4- Now we have to burn some extra calories to lose weight and that we are going to do with exercise.Yes exercise i can not emphasize this enough that exercise is so important if you want to burn fat and lose weight.
Do not starve youself.
And the most important of all.Stop starving yourself.We know that our body uses glucose as a source of energy.Whenever You starve yourself and deprive your body of food and glucose your body will reach in a state where it is not getting enough food to turn it into glucose and there it will start to use your muscle protein and convert it into glucose to gain energy and the more muscle you lose lower is your BMR and it results in weight gain as your body is not able to burn even those few calories because of muscle loss.
Exercise for fat loss
First you should keep in mind that your weight loss results come "80% from your diet and 20% from exercise".
Now you must be thinking i will just do diet and that will be enough but to achieve long term weight loss you will have to incorporate exercise in your lifestyle at some point.
Exercise is extremely important...
1- It increases metabolism
2- Helps burns fat
3- Improves mood
4- Sweating helps get rid of toxins in the body
5- Helps tone your body and much more..
Do Strength training
Resistance training is extremely important as it burns fat by helping building muscle because the key is the more muscle you have the more fat you will burn even in the rest state.
What you need to do is to do resistance training 3-4 days per week and remaining 1-2 days you can do cardio.
Follow high protein diet
High protein diet naturally helps you to lose weight by
• Increasing metabolism
• Increases satiety hormones like GLP-1 and cholecystokinin etc
• Decreases hunger hormone
• Have a higher thermic effect (20-30%) as compared to fat(0-3%) and carbohydrates(5-10%).
Now what is Thermic Effect of food?Our body uses calories to digest and metabolize the food this is the thermic effect of food.
Now as protein has higher thermic effect it means our body will burn more calories to digest high protein meal which is necessary for weight loss.
Take proper sleep
Sleep for at least 6-8 hours per day as it increases growth hormone that helps burn fat.
Conclusion
Follow these steps and you will definitely see changes in your body.Your body will be more toned and your body fat percentage will decline.
And always make sure to seek medical advice before following a particular diet.
