Do you know that at least 50 percent of the developed world’s population is on a diet of some sort at any one time? These people are engaged in an ongoing struggle with food and obsessing about being overweight.
You would wonder why we continue to partake in diets when as many as 95 percent of them don’t work. We believe that our overweight problems are just a question of eating too much food when in fact this is only part of the picture.
Why we become overweight
When we restrict our food such as going on a diet we buy into a process that is flawed as it only addresses half the overweight problem. Although what we eat is important so is the other half of the weight loss equation that hardly anyone bothers to address. This is the health and fitness of our metabolism (the body’s engine). If we have become overweight it is highly likely that our metabolic motor is in need of a serious tune-up.
Our metabolism is responsible for how, where and when calories are burned for energy and determine if we stay slim and trim or become overweight. The driver of our metabolism is the state of our muscular system which makes up to 50 percent of our body weight and is our fat burning tissue. As we rarely get to use our muscles anymore in our inactive and sedentary world it is likely that these muscles have been allowed to become weak and flabby and their energy requirements are lower than they should be.
So, although you may be overweight with too much body fat you may also be under-muscled with not enough strong, toned, muscle tissue. When you get this imbalance in body composition (muscle/fat ratio) you can’t help but become over-fat as you simply cannot burn off the food you eat. You will also be putting your health at risk of nasty diseases like heart disease and diabetes with high levels of insulin and blood sugar.
Reversing the overweight situation
First we need to restore muscle tone and there is only one way to do this – proper strength training exercise performed 2-3 times each week. Your local gym or fitness center will help you get started and monitor your progress if you are new to this type of exercise. Don’t think long duration, low intensity activity will do the metabolism tune-up as it won’t – you need to take your muscles through their full ranges of movement under a load to strengthen them.
If you fix things at base level – your metabolism and its ability to burn up the food you eat for energy through proper strengthening exercise you will slowly but surely lose that excess fat weight. You need to understand that your eating is not 100 percent of the fat loss battle by any means. To achieve long lasting fat loss you will need to get your body strong and healthy first.
So, instead of trying to eat less than you burn each day – focus on burning more calories than you eat through better metabolic fitness. This can only come from improved health – so think health first – weight loss second and you will never have to diet again.
Note: If you found the content in this article useful, please check out my home page where you'll find more information about my No Excuses Body Makeover program:
