The Three Simple Steps To Fat Loss
Its unbelievable but being overweight has now moved from asocial nuisance and domestic embarrassment to an officialdisease. The American Heart Association has announced obesity adangerous epidemic and a major risk for heart disease. More than70% of US adults are overweight and that figure is rapidlyincreasing.
But by following three simple steps in your everyday life you donot have to become one of the above statistics. They are easy tofollow without time constraints and dont require a completelifestyle change. These three steps are:
1. Strength Training – Nowadays you do not have to live in a gymto put on functional muscle. Short High Intensity sessionsperformed once a week is all that is required to elevate themetabolism for total fat burning.
2. A Small Decrease in Daily Calories – Diets dont work(everybody knows this by now) but by decreasing your dailycalories by a small amount, the weight loss is body fat aloneand not lean tissue and water that is associated with crashdiets. Remember fat accumulates on the body over a long periodof time so it must come off slowly.
3. More Incidental Activity – Instead of driving try walking,walk instead of taking elevators or escalators; take the stairsand so on. Just keep moving through out the day.
Lets have a look at the Three Steps in more detail below:
Strength Training
Between the ages of 20 and 70 the average person loses onequarter of their muscle mass. Running, cycling or other aerobicsports will not prevent this loss. This is very disturbingbecause the muscles are the engines of the body and every poundof muscle burns 100 calories every day.
By adding just 10 pounds of functional muscle to your body, youwill burn off 60 pounds of fat over the next year. Providing youtake in the same amount of calories, it will keep burning thoseextra pounds year after year! The amount of fat the body canburn is directly related to the lean muscle your body has.
If you dont perform weight training to maintain your muscletissue, you will lose half a pound of the fat burning tissue peryear after the age of 20 years. In simpler terms the morefunctional muscle you have on your body the more fat you willburn up.
Small Decrease in Daily Calories
For years now, we have been told to use dieting to rid theexcess fat from our bodies.
The trouble with this concept is that the low calorie restricteddiet would throw the body into starvation mode, with the bodyholding onto the fat and using precious muscle tissue forenergy.
This would then lower the metabolism causing greater muscle lossand when the diet is broken
the unwanted fat would not onlyreturn but actually increase because to the lowered metabolism.
The way around this is to cut your daily calorie intake by asmall amount of calories only. This will stop any starvationmechanisms from clicking in.
You can do this by making up a seven day eating plan and writingdown every thing you eat for the week, and then work out thecalories you have eaten with a calorie counter. Divide thisfigure by seven and you have your daily calorie value.
Decrease daily calorie value by a couple of hundred calories perday and no more. This will generate slow weight loss and themajority will be fat loss only. The daily calories should beconsumed during the day with small frequent meals.
The calories should come from a balanced diet (no fad dietsplease) with the required amount of micronutrients, vitamins andminerals. As well as containing the required amounts of fibre,fat, protein and carbohydrates.
More Incidental Activity
Fat is burned from the body when cells oxidize to release energyin the form of exercise. When the exercise is done slowly tomoderately then the majority of energy is taken from the fatstores.
The key to effective aerobic training that burns off maximum fatis long-term consistency not intensity. It doesnt matter if yourun a mile, jog a mile or walk a mile you will burn exactly thesame amount of calories.
The best exercise by far for the purpose of fat-loss is fastwalking either indoors on the treadmill or outdoors. Otheraerobic activities are the treadmill, bike, climber or any othertraining gear found in or out of the Gym.
Start with 100 minutes of controlled incidental activity perweek increasing this to 200 minutes a week or more. In all otheractivities try to move, move, move.
Try parking the car further away from your destination so youcan walk the extra distance, hide all your remote controls soyou have to get up and change the channels manually. These allhelp burn those extra calories and body fat from your frame.
So go ahead, by incorporating these three simple fat loss stepsinto your everyday life you will not have to change yourlifestyle or be subject to time constraints.
Gary Matthews is the author of the popular fitness eBooksMaximum Weight Loss and Maximum Weight Gain. Please visithttp://www.maximumfitness.com right now for your free weightloss e-course.
About the author:
Gary Matthews is the author of the popular fitness eBooksMaximum Weight Loss and Maximum Weight Gain. Please visithttp://www.maximumfitness.com right now for your free weightloss e-course.
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