Its unbelievable but being overweight has now moved from a
social nuisance and domestic embarrassment to an official
disease.
The American Heart Association has announced obesity a
dangerous epidemic and a major risk for heart disease. More
than 70% of US adults are overweight and that figure is
rapidly increasing.
But by following three simple steps in your everyday life you
do not have to become one of the above statistics. They are
easy to follow without time constraints and don't require a
complete lifestyle change. These three steps are:
1. Strength Training - Nowadays you do not have to live in a
gym to put on functional muscle. Short High Intensity
sessions performed once a week is all that is required to
elevate the metabolism for total fat burning.
2. A Small Decrease in Daily Calories - Diets don't work
(everybody knows this by now) but by decreasing your daily
calories by a small amount, the weight loss is body fat alone
and not lean tissue and water that is associated with crash
diets.
Remember fat accumulates on the body over a long period of
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 stairs and
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 one
quarter of their muscle mass. Running, cycling or other
aerobic sports will not prevent this loss.
This is very disturbing because the muscles are the engines
of the body and every pound of muscle burns 100 calories
every day.
By adding just 10 pounds of functional muscle to your body,
you will burn off 60 pounds of fat over the next year.
Providing you take in the same amount of calories, it will keep
burning those extra pounds year after year! The amount of fat
the body can burn is directly related to the lean muscle your
body has.
If you don't perform weight training to maintain your muscle
tissue, you will lose half a pound of the fat burning tissue per
year after the age of 20 years. In simpler terms the more
functional muscle you have on your body the more fat you will
burn up.
Small Decrease in Daily Calories
For years now, we have been told to use dieting to rid the
excess fat from our bodies.
The trouble with this concept is that the low calorie restricted
diet would throw the body into starvation mode, with the body
holding onto the fat and using precious muscle tissue for
energy.
This would then lower the metabolism causing greater
muscle loss and when the diet is broken the unwanted fat would not only return but actually increase because to thelowered metabolism.
The way around this is to cut your daily calorie intake by a small 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
writing down every thing you eat for the week, and then work
out the calories you have eaten with a calorie counter. Divide
this figure by seven and you have your daily calorie value.
Decrease daily calorie value by a couple of hundred calories
per day and no more. This will generate slow weight loss and
the majority will be fat loss only. The daily calories should be
consumed during the day with small frequent meals.
The calories should come from a balanced diet (no fad diets
please) with the required amount of micronutrients, vitamins
and minerals. 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 energy in the form of exercise. When the exercise is doneslowly to moderately then the majority of energy is taken fromthe fat stores.
The key to effective aerobic training that burns off maximum
fat is long-term consistency not intensity. It doesn't matter if
you run a mile, jog a mile or walk a mile you will burn exactly
the same amount of calories.
The best exercise by far for the purpose of fat-loss is fast
walking either indoors on the treadmill or outdoors. Other
aerobic activities are the treadmill, bike, climber or any other
training gear found in or out of the Gym.
Start with 100 minutes of controlled incidental activity per
week increasing this to 200 minutes a week or more. In all
other activities try to move, move, move.
Try parking the car further away from your destination so you
can walk the extra distance, hide all your remote controls so
you have to get up and change the channels manually. These
all help burn those extra calories and body fat from your
frame.
So go ahead, by incorporating these three simple fat loss
steps into your everyday life you will not have to change your
lifestyle or be subject to time constraints.
http://articles.webraydian.com/article657-The_Three_Simple_Steps_To_Fat_Loss.html
