For the last 20 odd years ‘fad’ diet programs have been coming out at a fast rate – everything from ‘thin thighs in 8 minutes a day’ to ‘lose 20 pounds in 20 days’.
Of course these false promises are appealing to anyone who is overweight and they blindly keep trying these useless programs in the hope ‘maybe this time’.
But the problem is not only do these types of diets fail 95 percent of the time, going on and off them can do long term damage to your metabolism (your body’s engine). There comes a time when it will no longer respond to the stress that is being put upon it with restrictive diets and excessive long duration, low intensity exercise.
Once this plateau has been reached losing weight becomes nearly impossible and to top it off you are speeding up the aging process and risking your overall health as well. This is not what you think you are buying into when you attempt these ‘fad’ diets.
To have become overweight means you have poor metabolic fitness which means your hormonal and chemical balance is ‘out of whack’. This is where your body becomes a fat storing machine instead of a fat burning one.
This comes about from eating the wrong types of foods and too much of them as well as not doing enough muscle building and maintaining activity. Your muscle cells are where fuel (calories) is burnt for energy and when they are allowed to become weak and flabby their energy requirements become low. So guess where the excess goes? Yes, into the fat storage depots around the body which makes it larger and heavier.
To get rid of this fat it is not just a question of going on a diet and hopefully losing the weight so you are back at square one. To even be able to lose the weight and more importantly keep it off you need to fix up the damage you have done to your metabolic motor to make your body fat resistant instead of fat attracting.
Changing the unhealthy chemical environment and restoring it to a healthy balance that favors fat loss is the first priority. This is done by firstly getting those muscles toned back up so they can do their job burning up the glucose from the bloodstream produced from the food you eat. This is what is at the root cause of your fat storage problems.
There is only one type of exercise program that will do this and that is a proper strength training program performed 2-3 times each week. This is your greatest tool in the weight loss battle and you will need to give it priority and put some effort into it so it works best.
Support this program with a healthy eating plan – one that ditches processed foods and favors multiple small meals with source of protein at each one. Eaten every 2-3 hours they will further boost your metabolism and also give you the energy you need to do justice to your exercise program. It is not about the amount of time you spend doing it – it is about the amount of intensity (degree of effort) you can muster up. Quality not quantity is the ticket here.
Those two strategies – proper strengthening exercise and healthy ‘clean’ eating done consistently over time are what will get you back your ‘metabolic fitness’ so you can reclaim your slim body. So, think health first and weight loss will follow.
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