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How to Loose Weight?

Unless you have a hormonal imbalance, the key to loosing weight is food and exercise — eat less than your body burns and let the body use the fats and muscles in your body for the deficit energy.

In almost all cases, loosing weight means loosing the fatty layers in the body. But in rare cases, loosing weight means loosing muscles. We'll discuss both.

To Loose Or Not To

Of the saturated and unsaturated fats, the saturated fats contribute to the accumulation of fat layers on the body that we often speak about loosing. First, establish if you really want to loose them because saturated fats have their benefits. They are energy reserves for your body which could save you at critical point later. They are great thermal insulators and impact absorbers.

At the same time, excess saturated fat is a liability to your health, risking coronary diseases and others. Loosing fat is meaningful only if you have them in excess. "Excess" must be calculated based on survival factors such as the environment you live in, the physical impact you receive and your existing medical conditions; not by the standards of glamour industry.

The glamour industry can negatively influence your perspective on figure, fitness, confidence and happiness. To reinterate what we said earlier, if you want to loose weight to boost your confidence or happiness, you need some psychological help.

How Do We Loose Fats?

Since saturated fats are energy reserves, the easiest way to loose them is to burn them for energy. To do that, your must understand the different energy sources in our body and their order of preference in use (or an approximate order of preference). Then, make changes in your lifestyle to force your body to burn fats.

Here are the different energy sources and their order of preference.

1. Stored energy in the cells
2. Energy from creatine phosphate.
3. Energy from glucose in your blood stream.
4. Energy from glucose in your muscles and liver (glycogen).
5. Energy from fatty acids in your accumulated body fat.
6. Energy from muscles tissues.

The compound called ATP (Adenosine Tri Phosphate) is the fundamental energy source for the human body. There is some ATP present in the cells already, so the cells use it when required. But ATP in cells lasts for for only about 3-5 seconds, after which, the body uses creatine phosphate to generate ATP and replenish the cells with it.

Creatine phosphate lasts for about 10 to 15 seconds, after which, the body uses glucose to generate ATP. Glucose in blood is used first, then glucose in muscles and liver (called glycogen) are used. Glucose in these stores can last only for few minutes, and if the body is not replenished with sugars, it will burn fats and muscles to generate sugars to generate ATP.

The lesson here is, you must change certain habits in your diet and exercise such that once the sugars in the blood stream, muscles and liver are used, it is not replinished, and your body ends up burning fats for its energy.

Fat Loss Diet

Considering our ignorance of factors pertaining to you such as your metabolism, fat reserves, body type, etc., we will not blindly publish a diet plan. However, some diet guidelines to keep in mind are discussed here.

All nutrients are not the same. 100 calories of protein will not damage your fitness goal like 100 calories of fatty or sugary food will. Cut back on fatty and sugary food because they will be further stored as fats in your body. Instead feed yourself food rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals, and get your body into the habit of burning its fat molecules for the sugar requirements, thereby reducing the accumulated fat.

Reduce or avoid carbohydrates before and after exercising (pre and post workout meals). This will maximise fat burning since the required amount of calories aren't fed through diet.

Many choose to skip meals to loose weight — a disastrous decision. Skipping meals will certainly force the body to burn fat cells and perhaps result in weight loss, but you will miss out on important proteins, vitamins and minerals; giving you health issues and sometimes even permanent damage.

Have a good understanding of your local food variety and their approximate nutritional values. It will help make informed diet decisions.

Fat Loss Exercises

Exercises or intense physical activities increase the energy requirements in your body. If your pre workout meal isn't rich in fats and sugars, exercises will force your body to burn its body fat and muscles for calories. If your post workout meal is similar, the fats you burnt exercising won't be compensated, thus making the net outcome of exercising productive for fat loss.

Remember: exercises alone will not help you loose weight. They are merely a catalyst that influence your metabolism. Only exercises with the right diet will do the magic.

Also remember that your body starts burning fat only after 3 or 4 mins into any exercise of physical activity (refer the order of energy preference discussed earlier). So exercise long enough and intense enough for fat burning.

You may have the tendency to join a gym and build your muscles in order to 'shape up'. The truth is, you don't have to embark on a body building regime to shape up: your shape lies hidden under those layers of fat that you intend to lose. Loose your fat and your shape will appear.

Spot Loss of Fat

Spot fat loss is the idea of loosing fats only from a particular part of your body or more from that part than others. Usually, this target part is the belly. Spot fat loss is a myth and studies have proved that. The metabolism of humans isn't such that it can choose an area for anabolism (break down of fats and muscles for calories).

However, note that we can build targeted muscles because of the science of building muscles allows you to. Muscles are built by working them to near point of exhaustion, tearing them, feeding them and healing them. If you really want, you can build one of your arms to be larger than the other.

On the other hand, you cannot burn fats from only a particular part of your body. Fat burning is an aerobic process: meaning it happens in the presence of oxygen and other hormones in the body. It is most likely that system burns fats from all over the body instead of preferring any body part. Whether there is an exact proportion of fats burnt across the body is kind of a mystery at the moment.

However, spot reduction of fat appears to work for because of perspective or mis-causation. For instance, when you work your belly out to reduce its fat, your body is still performing work. Therefore, your belly fat reduces with fats from other parts of the body. But because fats are most accumulated around one's belly than other parts, you capture a sense of fat loss only when you loose belly fat. Half an inch of reduction of your thighs will not give you that sense.

Also, since you were monitoring your belly fat (because your goal was belly fat loss), you attribute the loss to the exercises you did to your belly. The side effect of toned abdominal muscles (because you were working your belly out) further reinforces this attribution of belly fat loss to targeted exercises. It's a cognitive hack that is happening.

How To Loose Muscles?

Muscles are burnt for energy much like how fats are burnt for energy during sugar deficiency. When the body is not fed with food (carbohydrates, proteins or fats) for the supply of sugars, the body starts eating fats and muscles. However, the case of wanting to loose only muscles and not the fats practically does not exist. But if you want to, the way is to deprive yourself of enough protein.

Please note that the idea is not to deprive yourself of protein completely. Proteins, are also essential for the production and certain enzymes and hormones in the body. We are sure that muscles can be broken down to sugars if needed, but we aren't sure if muscles will be broken down to essential amino acids and used for the production and enzymes and hormones in the body. Therefore consume protein.

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