Weight loss has long depended on personal conviction and ability, but today it is more of an industry that motivates people to reduce weight through various means. One way is TV with thousands of telemarketing ads to promote the exercise machines and alternative medications. The other is the print media with ads on Weight Loss Clinics. The biggest however is the internet with all kinds of promotional activity with focus on every aspect of anti-obesity treatment. However, the internet is being used to make all kind of claims. Some are legitimate, while many are illegitimate. Certain myths are being propagated to sell products.
Muscle turning to fat is a long time myth that continues to endure. Muscle and fat are distinctly different tissues. Muscle tissue is approximately 70 percent water. Conversely fat is over 70 percent fat with less than 25 percent water. A pound of muscle contains under 700 calories whereas a pound of fat will yield 3500 calories. In addition a pound of muscle is approximately 18 percent smaller by volume than a pound of fat.
Just as wood cannot turn to iron, muscle cannot turn to fat. Dr. James A. Peterson, Dr. Cedric X. Bryant and Susan L. Peterson use a great analogy to explain away this persuasive myth in their book, Strength Training For Women (1995-Human Kinetics). The explanation goes like this: "If you don't use a muscle, it will literally waste away. When someone has a cast removed from a leg that had been broken, the unused leg muscles look smaller than they were before the injury. If muscle turned to fat, you would see a "fat lump" when the cast was removed, not atrophied leg muscles. Sometimes for some reason we are under the impression that if we stop our exercise program, our muscles will turn into fat. That is simply not true.
So if we exercise regularly (sit ups) in one particular area like the stomach (don’t we all want those washboard abs) will we get a flat stomach? What sit ups do is tone your abdominal muscles. However, they do not "target" the fat in your tummy any more than any other form of aerobic exercise. In fact, if you only do situps as your aerobic exercise, what will happen is that you will build up abdominal muscles in your abs, but it would be still covered in the same layers of fat as before.
The first place we usually lose fat is on our face (so our mothers can tell us we look too thin). Unfortunately, it is not possible to direct our bodies to burn fat from a particular area. Take sit-ups for example. It is important to keep our stomach (and back) muscles in shape, and firm abs can even help to hold in our stomach. But to reduce the size of our mid-section, one would do just as well to perform any exercise that one enjoys
The only way to reduce fat is through aerobic exercise. From personal experience, the most effective form of aerobic exercise would have to be running or jogging. It that while there's probably variation from individual to individual, the variables involved (e.g. calories ingested, current body fat proportion etc) must be interrelated and subject to a set of laws which could form useful graphs or simple programs that would allow a person to predict weight loss, armed with a knowledge of the relevant variables.
Actually, the variables involved are not limited to calories in or out and body fat proportion. One of the most important factors involved in the equation is metabolism. Metabolism is a measure of how much fat you burn from doing no activities. It depends on the fitness level of our heart and other muscles. For example, long distance runnners would have higher metabolisms than normal people due the their muscle mass and fitness levels. What this means is that they can effectively eat more than other people can, without weight gain.
The best way to increase our metabolism is running. Here is what Brian, an amateur long distance runner has to say “I used to be fairly overweight, until I joined a competitive long distance running training program. In just a month, I noticed significant amounts of fat loss all over my body. What is interesting is that my calorie intake was more, not less, than before” This can only mean one thing that the increase in metabolism contributed to Brian’s weight loss.
So to sum up, aerobic exercise and dieting is the best and only way to lose weight. Dieting though, involves counting calories. One has to count the calories in any diet. Even a small snack here and there adds up.
Running is not necessary the most effective form of aerobic exercise. One can get
just as much aerobic exercise by taking long walks. In fact, brisk walks for more than 2 hours can be much more effective than running. In addition, some people have joint problems. Running only exacerbates the problem. The simple solution to that is water exercise and swimming. One should try a wide variety of exercises. Not just limit oneself to running unless that is most enjoyable.
While diet and exercise are good what will really prevent any kind of relapse to old habits are appetite suppressants like Phentermine. Phentermine acts to reduce the need for food and thus ensures that the person who is already exercising does not feel the need for more food. One can easily buy Phentermine from an online pharmacy such as phentermine online. Not only is cheap Phenetermine available there, but also huge discounts can be got, sometimes as high as 40-50% for more than a month’s supply of the drug.
Weight loss is not only about being fit, but it’s all about having a positive frame of mind and going all out to achieve what you are more than capable of doing. It’s all about overcoming all the obstacles to weight loss to lead a healthy life.
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