|
A Healthy And Sensible Approach To Weight Loss!
The sensible and healthy approach to reducing body fat is to combine moderate caloric restriction (diet) with increased energy
output (exercise). Appetite is delicately balanced with the body's actual caloric needs. If you reduce your caloric intake
by a mere 100 calories each day (one slice of buttered bread), for example, you will lose about 10 pounds in one year, assuming
that your activity level remains constant. But if you add to this an additional modest loss of 0.5 pounds per week due to
increased exercise (such as a 3-day a week jogging program), your total weight loss would be about 25 to 35 pounds in a single
year, and most of your weight loss would be from stored body fat.
When you feel you need to lose body fat it is advisable to do it slowly, losing no more than two pounds per week. Losing
more weight than that per week leads to losses in fat-free mass (muscle). Muscle is not something you want to lose. Muscles
burn calories, the more muscles you have the more calories you can burn. Losing muscle is not a good idea!
Decreasing caloric intake by 400 to 500 calories per day will allow weight losses of about two pounds per week when combined
with a proper exercise program. This is a realistic goal, and such losses add up to a substantial weight loss over time. When
trying to reduce body fat, your total daily calories should be consumed over atleast three to four meals per day. Reaearch
in animals has shown that, given the same number of total calories, the animals that eat their daily food ration in one or
two meals gain more weight than those that nibble their ration throughout the day.
The purpose of a weight-loss program is to lose body fat, not fat-free mass (muscle). Because of this, the combination
of diet and exercise is the preferred approach. Combining increased activity with moderate caloric reduction prevents any
significant loss of muscle. In fact, body composition can be significantly altered with physical training. Regular exercise
can increase muscle and decrease fat. The magnitude of these changes varies with the type of exercise used for training. Resistance
training promotes gaines in muscle, and both resistance and endurance (aerobic) training promote loss of fat. The healthiest,
most enduring, and BEST way to lose weight for most people is to combine a moderate resistance and endurance training program
with moderate caloric restriction.
|
