Thursday, September 17, 2009

Trying to Shed Weight Rapidly? Is It a Good Thing

By Don Smith

Patience is a characteristic that individuals who are trying to shed pounds appear to need more of. The fat can by no means be lost rapidly enough to satisfy what their idea of how weight loss should happen. The idea from society is that weight loss can be actually be done rapidly. Weight loss shows on TV make fast weight loss look easy, it appears like it can be a breeze and is permanent. This mindset promoted by the media is a tad bit skewed from what occurs in real-life.

Fast weight loss looks like the essential intention of anyone who is overweight and needs to lose weight, ? The reality is that it isn't the greatest way to set about weight loss. Is important to think about the different types of tissue that is lost when you diet, muscle and fat. You will want to lose more fat. Lose weight slow and you will be victorious. That is how the game of weight loss should be played.



Stable weight loss should be the goal of anyone trying to lose their love handles. Attempting to achieve short term weight loss too quick will encumber your weight loss efforts in the future. The guidelines say that you should lose no more than 2 pounds in a week. At more then two pounds per week, and you lose muscle tissue and leave behind more fat. Muscle is active part of your body and therefore burns more energy. Body fat is not as energy consuming and doesn't raise your body's metabolism. Keep in mind that it took a period of years to gain the fat that you now have. Weight gain takes years of neglect to accumulate pounds of fat. Take it slow.

There are definitely exceptions to the hard and fast rule of 2 lbs. of weight loss per week. The exceptions go for the morbidly obese over 300 lbs.. At a higher weight level, weekly weight loss can be carried on at a more of a percentage based formula based on starting weight of the individual prior to dieting. Is important that the percentage of weight loss does not go above 1% in any particular week.

Keep in mind that when we're talking about "weight", it is not the same thing as "fat". Weight refers to the overall weight of our body which includes a lot of different tissues including muscle, fat, bone, skin, internal organs, blood, and much more. A morbid and almost funny way to think of this is if I asked you to cut off an arm, you would instantly lose "weight". So we know that your goal is not to just lose weight, but there is something else you have in mind. You want to lose "fat".

When you want to lose weight, you should look at adding a weight lifting regime to build muscle in your body. Muscle is a more active type of tissue that will help you keep the weight off.

If you carry on with an excessive weight loss every week and you are losing more and more lean muscle tissue, once you stop dieting and exercising the ratio of fat tissue will be higher than when you started. Therefore what would you will have is a slowing down of your metabolism, and you're setting yourself up for a future gain in weight. At the point that you have lost the weight, you are almost like a "skinny fat person". Yeah of course you've lost weight but not the right kind of weight.

How do I recognize if I'm losing fat instead of muscle?

Good question. There are a number of home testing kits that can help you measure the fat ratio of your body. One of those is the bioelectric impedance analysis body fat scale, but the best tool that you can utilize is body fat calipers. We won't go into the formula of how you compute body fat ratio using calipers measurements, but what you do is pinch a loose piece of your skin on your various parts of your body and quantify the depth in millimeters. From this you will get the most and most accurate understanding for body fat ratio. The formula that you utilize will account for height and weight and sex. Websites that perform the calculations for you can be found rather easily on Google. Just enter the data and you're good to go.

Generally just think about the way that you gained weight over the years. It wasn't fast process. It took years. Lose weight but don't over do it by going too fast, have fun, and become healthier!

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