If you have reached the point where your body is not giving up its fat store despite the fact that you have been dieting and doing lots of low intensity activity it may be because you have stressed your body so much you have hit a ‘metabolic plateau’.
If you have hit this plateau your body will no longer respond to the stresses you are putting on it from dumb dieting and the wrong types of exercise. If you have pushed your body to this point not only are you continuing to mess up your metabolism, you are risking your overall health and speeding up the aging process as well. I think you will agree that none of these things are going to do much to contribute to the slim, strong, healthy body that you desire.
It is totally crazy that millions of people are continually dieting and many are reducing food intake well below starvation levels. The World Health Organization states that a starvation diet is any diet less than 1800 calories a day for women and 2200 for men. Yet almost every diet starts a person off dieting on well below this level.
Dieting is great for a short while
Yes, it works great for a few weeks, the weight falls off and dieting is the ‘bee’s knees’ but suddenly the brakes go on as the body quickly slows the metabolism as the ancient ‘survival mode’ is triggered. The body will hang on to its fat stores desperately from this point on as it believes that a real famine is looming.
Many people when they get to this point restrict calories even more with more dumb dieting and add in lots of low intensity long duration exercise trying to force the body into burning fat. But guess what? It has had millions of years of practice at this sort of thing and you will not beat it when it’s in survival mode.
What is better than dieting?
Doing the opposite of dieting is what works best. Firstly get your metabolism in good health so it is burning fat at a steady rate. There is only one way to do this and that is to rebuild and re-tone your muscles with proper strength training exercise. Nothing else will do this so forget the long slow stuff as it will not boost your metabolism and rebuild your metabolic engine.
Muscle is what drives the metabolism and to work your muscles properly is paramount if fat loss is important to you. Working large muscle groups using ‘big’ exercises gets results the fastest especially when you put some effort into each session.
Next you need to support your exercise program with quality nutrition. This means ditching as much processed non- nutrient foods that are full of chemicals and will do nothing to help you lose fat. Get your butt back into the kitchen and get cooking natural fresh whole foods from scratch. Eat 4-6 meals each day each with at least 20 grams of protein at each meal and the balance vegetables.
We haven’t mentioned dieting here at all as it is the very last thing you need to do to get into better shape or lose weight. You will in fact be eating more than you think you should be but it is nutrient dense food items that will boost your metabolism so each meal is helping you become slim again – something that dumb dieting will never do for you.
It is hard to get your head around the fact that to lose excess fat you need to eat lots of healthy nutritious food (the opposite of dieting) and get your muscles back up and toned and burning more fuel. When they are toned they create more heat from metabolic action and it is this heat that will be burning more calories around the clock. Weak flabby muscles have low energy requirements so your priority is to get your strength and energy back and fix the problem up at the core.
When you make these changes to both your exercise and eating plan you will soon see the results as the fat melts away. Your energy and vitality will increase and a slim, strong body that is underneath the excess flab will emerge and delight you. It is in your power to create a feel-good body you will be happy to live your life in.
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