How to Lose Weight - Calories Burned from Fat Not Muscle
73When most people here the term "weight loss" the first though that comes to mind is "diet." The belief is that if you want to lose weight, you need to temporarily eat a restricted diet until you lose the pounds and are able to go back to eating the foods you enjoy. Calorie restricted diets do allow you to lose weight. Calories are burned, but the problem is that those calories are coming from burned muscle, not burned fat. When the body doesn't receive enough food energy, it holds on to stored fat as an energy source.
Understanding why weight is gained in the first place will give an understanding of how to effectively lose the pounds and keep them off. Usually it is not because people suddenly begin eating more, or begin eating higher calorie foods, but it is due to changes that are taking place in the body as we age. When we are young and healthy, our bodies are very efficient fat burners. But years of unhealthy eating will turn an efficient calorie burning machine into a sluggish and ineffective one. It is no longer easy to get away with eating foods that by design tend to store as fat in the body. The good news is that it's possible to make healthy changes to your diet, lose weight and still eat many of the foods you enjoy. Another factor for healthy eating for weight loss has nothing to do with what you eat, but how you eat.
Busy schedules can force people into the bad habit of eating too quickly. This is dynamite for weight gain for a several reasons: When eating too quickly, we tend to eat in a stressful manner, gulping food that isn't properly chewed, which can lead to indigestion and lack of proper absorption of vital nutrients needed for efficient metabolism. Eating while stressed or on the move can also lead to indigestion. Sitting down and being relaxed is very important while eating.
Eating too quickly doesn't give the brain sufficient time to signal the body when it is full which causes overeating. A proper meal should involve eating slowly and adequately chewing food. This should take about twenty minutes. It is important to get your metabolism going in the morning by eating a healthy breakfast. Eating the majority of your food before evening will give the body time to burn off more calories. Eating five smaller meals throughout the day, rather than three large meals will help you to avoid snacking.
Eating balanced meals that provide all the nutrition the body needs to maintain a healthy metabolism is necessary for healthy weight loss and healthy weight management. Getting the right amount and best source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, fats, and carbohydrates are the keys to success.
Carbohydrates can be either healthy or unhealthy depending on the food source. Foods that have been stripped or processed like refined sugar, white flour, white pasta and white rice digest very quickly in the body, causing big changes in blood sugar which can lead to weight gain. Healthy carbohydrates cannot be digested rapidly, which keeps blood sugar from rising and falling too quickly, helping you to feel full sooner. Whole grain foods are the best source of healthy carbohydrates. When choosing whole grains make sure the words whole grain are on the package. If it is a multigrain product make sure each grain included is a whole grain. Stay away from refined white breads, pastas and rice.
Fats are often thought of in a negative way. But healthy fats are vital to body functions and good health. These healthy fats are unsaturated , mono-unsaturated, poly-unsaturated, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. The fats to avoid are saturated fats, trans-fats and hydrogenated oils. To avoid these fats make a habit of reading labels before you buy foods at the supermarket.
A large amount of Protein in many peoples diets comes from red meat. The problem with eating red meat is that it is loaded with unhealthy fat. Better sources of protein are chicken and fish which are much lower in saturated fat.
Vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants and fiber are all found in fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. It isn't a good idea to try an substitue these with fruit juices because they lose much of their nutritional content, are low in fiber, if any, and most of the time are loaded with added sugar. Many canned fruits and jams contain lots of sugar and will cause weight gain. Eating dried fruit may give you fiber but it is high in calories.
Going on a temporary diet to lose weight is never desirable and is ineffective long term. Making minor changes in how you eat and what you eat will help the body to function at an optimum level, which will facilitate weight loss and weight control.
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Comments
I skip breakfast wayyy too much! At one point in time, I did make myself eat breakfast every day, I didn't try to cut down on calories on any other meal, and certainly not on the first meal, either. I ended up losing quite a bit of weight, it really made the difference. It's somewhat crazy to think that eating more will help you lose more!
Thanks Steve!
Steve,
I agree with most everything that you said, however, I believe the total number of calories you eat, versus what you burn is important too. It's important to know if you are simply eating too much. This Hub is great advice on what to eat, but once you are eating right, you still need to know if you are eating the right number of calories.
Wonderful Hub - Thanks.
Thanks for your comment Lynn. I may not have made my point clear enough in this hub. The whole idea of changing the diet and eliminating bad sources of food that provide the required nutrients for the body is so that you don't overeat and so that you are most efficiently burning calories and not storing fat. The process of improving metabolism will help burn off excess fat. I go into more detail in my Best Way to Lose weight Hub.
Thanks for your comment Rachel! I have to work at that too.
Thanks for your comment Nicki! Keeping blood sugar stable by eating regularly is really important for weight control. By eating breakfast you may be consuming more total calories but you are also kicking your metabolism into gear causing fat burning. In my own experience I find that eating breakfast allows me to not be so hungry at lunch time and be full on less.
Good info. I can't agree more with the whole "you are what you eat" underlying message here. Since my household has been changing to more healthy alternatives, I've noticed a huge difference in our attitudes and our performance levels.
Great tips, what we eat is as important as the exercise we do, otherwise we won't see the results we want. I hope others follow these golden tips.
Nice explanation.
Really helpful tips! I found that switching to whole grains makes a big difference over time with weight management.
That is a great testimony about the impact of healthy eating on your family dabblingmom, thanks for your comment!
Thanks for your comment cguli8m! Good point. We need both diet and exercise or eventually health problems will surface.
Thanks for your comment xrated and thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for your comment amy jane and for a valuable testimony that I hope will help people realize how powerful healthy eating is in promoting ideal weight and health.
Thanks for the reminder! I have experienced such changes in my heatlh with the correct amounts of good foods.
Thanks for the tips! Even small changes can create awesome healthful results. I really like the idea that you do not call this a diet.
It's wonderful to find someone talking about losing weight loss in a sane and rational manner. Instead of toting the next great diet pill.
For some reason folks don't want to associate what they eat with how much they weigh. And certainly don't want to change their habbits to fix a probelm. We are such an instant fix society. We want to take a pill and wake up with a perfect body and perfect health. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
Thank you for providing guidance on this important issue.
This is so helpful! I've been trying to lose weight for my upcoming wedding and have lost a great deal, but I've been stuck on a plateau. Sounds like my habit of eating too fast is a big part of the problem. I'm bookmarking this.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Steve another very nice hub that hits the high points of healthy eating. I might add another couple that you'd probably agree with:
1. Eat smaller meals more often, up to 6 or more times per day. Every 2 hours is a good idea. Blood sugar curves return to normal about then, depending on what we eat.
2. Eat more spices, the hotter the better. Ginger, turmeric yellow curry powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and the other strong spices. Most tend to lower blood sugar, improve cholesterol, reduce inflammation and lower insulin resistance.
3. Eat more fiber and add soluble fiber to drinks. People who eat more fiber, even in supplement form, tend to steadily lose weight -- up to 2 pounds or 1 kilogram per month, only by adding 20-25 grams per day of soluble fiber their diet. A good micropulverized psillium powder like BeneFiber works great. You can't taste it, and it does help lose weight. It also helps improve blood sugar control and lower inflammation too. Stir it into everything you drink all day long.
4. Take green tea extract supplements and drink lots of green tea (without sugar of course). Geen tea contains polyphenols and EGCG that fights cancer, lowers blood sugar, helps speed metabolic processing of carbs, and much more. The effect is mild, but dependable.
Those 4 things are easy to do, cheap and effective ways to 'super-charge' an already good diet.
Excellent Hub. it actually, pretty much replicates the lifestyle change that I made and set out in my nub on my weight loss (together with comments by Level1diet).
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Hi Steve
Great
Hi Steve
Great post and you are so right about our abilities to burn fat slowing down as we get older. Another point to consider is how our metabolism reacts to how we feed ourselves.
We can only use so many calories at feedeing time( sorry makes it sound like a zoo).Any execessive calories which are not disposed of through waste,tends to get stored as fat,and as our metabolisms slow with age,it makes it more difficult to get rid of this fat.
The answer is to eat more frequently,so instead of eating just 3 times a day,this could be extended up to 6 times a day. I know for many people this is not a practical way of eating due to time and other commitments. However even eating 4-5 times a day should make some difference.
An example of this is if you r average intake is around 2500 calories a day and you split that intake into 3 meals,each meal would consist of roughly 830 calories. This can be too much for your body to convert into useable energy (depending on your build). So potentially a good few of these calories can be stored as fat.
If the calorie intake is spread over 5 meals that makes each meal around 500 calories which is easier for your body to deal with. Another positive of eating in this way is that as you are recieving calories more frequently, your metabolism will work more effectively, thus avoiding the dreaded 'starvation mode'.
Hope this is useful
Great information.....This will help me on my journey!
Thanks!
RachelOrd says:
12 months ago
Eating too fast has always been a big problem of mine...It's important to slow down.
Thanks for another great hub!