There is a new approach to losing weight that is gaining momentum. It is now recognized that someone who is overweight is likely to have poor ‘metabolic fitness’ which means fat burning/fat storing hormones are unbalanced and inner systems and processes are not working as efficiently as they should be. Losing body fat becomes very difficult if not impossible.
This is the main reason why 95 percent of diets fail. If you are not prepared to take the necessary steps to rebalance your body first then spending time, effort and money on diet and exercise programs will not solve your overweight problem. This is not some new ‘fad’ dietary approach but stone-cold research based fact.
Build metabolism to burn body fat
A healthy person does not carry excess body fat. So, by building your ‘metabolic fitness’ back and improving your health everything else will then fall into place. If you have been overstressing your body with restrictive ‘diets’ or too much long duration, low intensity exercise regimes you have likely been causing damage to your metabolism (your body’s engine).
This is where the burning of body fat hits a plateau and your body will not longer respond to the stress you are putting on it. This not only makes weight loss virtually impossible it risks overall health as well.
You need to retrain your brain that you need to be healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to be healthy. Building back your health should be your first priority with weight and body fat loss ranking as a distant second. This means no longer falling for ‘get thin’ quick schemes that give nothing but false promises.
Toned muscle tissue is what burns body fat
To move forward and begin the rebuilding process the first thing to implement is a proper strength training exercise program as it is the only thing that will tone up and restore the fat burning efficiency of muscle tissue. Toned and healthy muscles are what drive the metabolism and burn body fat. It is within the muscle cells that fuel is burned for energy.
Weak flabby muscles are what we get these days in our sedentary and inactive world and they have low energy requirements so restoring their health is the number one priority. This approach is based on increasing the amount of fuel (calories) we burn so we burn more than we take in. The old outdated approach was all about eating less than we burn which worked against the metabolism and made us unhealthy in the process.
When you have your exercise program in place tidy up your eating plan and this means getting rid of as much processed non-nutrient so called ‘foods’ as possible. You know the ones in pretty boxes and packets full of unhealthy chemicals that screw up our hormones and make our body store fat instead of burning it.
Replace these ‘nasties’ with ‘whole’ foods – lean proteins, healthy carbohydrates and fats. This means getting back into the kitchen and cooking from scratch. This is the only way you know what is in your food. If you want to get healthy and lose that excess body fat there is no way around this. But you can make it enjoyable and even fun as you increase your skills in the kitchen and soon you will not want to eat anything loaded with unhealthy chemicals.
So, these two strategies, your proper strength training program 2-3 times each week and your small healthy meals each with a portion of protein are your ticket back to not only a healthy disease proof body but a lean, strong, shapely one as well.
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