Weight Loss Diets Make You Fat

Weight Loss Diets

Make You Fat!

When you go on a weight loss diet, at some time you come off it. That’s when the pounds start to pile on again… often with a vengeance!

Why? Because you lost muscle on that diet as well as fat. Losing muscle slowed your metabolic rate.

Picture a pan of stewing meat simmering on a stove. What floats on top of the water? And what stays under water?

Fat is lighter than water so it floats on top. The meat – muscle tissue – is heavier. So it stays under water.

You can’t lose more than 2lbs of fat in any week. When you lose more than 2lbs you lose muscle tissue too.

Muscle burns calories for energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no time off for Christmas. Lose muscle and you reduce the calorie-burning. Gain muscle and you boost your metabolic rate.

I weighed 238lbs (17st) at 6ft 1 in tall before going on a diet that promised rapid weight loss. In the first 5 days I lost 9lbs. In all I lost 49lbs in under 3 months.

By the time I’d regained 25 of the lost pounds, my waist measurement was 4 inches larger than it was at 238lbs. Only later did I realise why. Because of the rapid weight loss, I’d lost both muscle and fat. What I put back was just fat.

Picture Arnold Schwartzenegger. Is he fat? Of course not. But use any height/weight charts or the BMI (Body Mass Index), and he’d be classed as obese. That’s why bodyweight is the wrong unit of measurement for slimming. A tape measure gives a better picture. But competitive bodybuilders use a more accurate system still. They use callipers to measure the thickness of skin folds and assess their percentage fat levels.

Where fat loss is concerned, competitive bodybuilders – especially the successful ones – know more about it than any of the weight loss organisations. Otherwise they wouldn’t be successful. Winning bodybuilding competitions isn’t just about massive muscles; it’s about extremely low fat levels too. Without low fat levels bodybuilders would look smooth instead of muscular. Then they wouldn’t be successful.

Even when you lose fat through dieting alone, you go from being fat and flabby to slim and flabby. Then eventually back up to fat and flabby again.

So is exercise the answer? Yes and no. Yes, you do need exercise as well as diet to become slim and toned. But the popular misconception is that you need aerobic exercise alone. Aerobic exercise – which doesn’t need to be the leotard and tights variety – is good for you. It tones the heart and lungs. It boosts your metabolic rate for a few hours after exercising. But only for hours; not long term.

Progressive resistance exercise (PRE) is what you need for that. Exercise that builds toned muscle. Exercise that improves your appearance more than weight loss alone ever possibly can. If you’re a woman with a desire for shapelier legs, tighter bottom, toned tummy, you can have all of these through resistance exercise. But not necessarily from aerobics.

If you’re a man whose dearest wish is to have a toned six-pack of abdominal muscles and muscular arms, again you can have them through progressive resistance exercise.

Train at a fitness centre and you’ll get personal exercise advice and guidance: the right combination of aerobic and resistance exercise for you. But if you don’t want to use a fitness centre, any exercise is better than none. At least start walking. Walk for at least a half hour a day. Preferably an hour. At a brisk pace too. Boosting the pace as you get fitter. That takes care of the aerobics side. Though adding cycling and/or swimming would be a valuable boost. Jogging isn't advisable if you’re overweight. You could damage your knees that way.

Weight training is the best form of progressive resistance exercise. Ladies need not worry about looking like a female bodybuilder. It takes a lot of tough specialized training and eating patterns for a woman to develop a muscular near-masculine physique. Women have two layers of fat beneath the skin to men’s one. That’s why women are curvy. At the same time, muscles are less dense than men’s.

For most women, weight training plus aerobics results in a slim, shapely, toned body. Aerobics without the resistance exercise is likely to result in a slim flabby body.

PRE doesn’t have to be with weights. You can use your own bodyweight. Press-ups for example - a first-class exercise for the chest, shoulders and backs of arms. The way most do it is with hands and feet on the floor, legs and body straight, hands at about shoulders width apart. Varying the hand spacing affects which muscles benefit most. Wider spacing throws the work more onto the chest. Narrower puts more onto the arms. But some can’t do press-ups because they lack upper body strength.

The solution? Start off doing them with your knees on the floor. Use a cushion under your knees. If this is too tough, don’t go all the way down before you press up again. Other alternatives are (a) use a couple of dining chairs to put your hands on while your feet are on the ground, or (b) use the arms of an armchair. As you get stronger raise your feet higher.

What’s of major importance is the word: progressive. You need to progressively increase the resistance as you get stronger. Suppose you can manage 6 normal press-ups. For a start gradually increase the number of repetitions until you can do say 15. Then reduce the repetitions and increase the resistance by leaning most of your weight over one arm at a time as you press up. Lower yourself using both arms normally.

You can also increase resistance by raising your feet on a stool or a chair. Or eventually do one-arm press-ups. You need your feet apart for balance with one-arm press-ups. Bruce Lee used to do them on one finger or thumb!

Squats are good for your thighs. The position of your knees affects which of the thigh muscles get most work. Knees apart throws more work onto the inside of your thighs and buttocks. Closer together keeps it on the front. When you squat, don’t go lower than thighs parallel to the ground before you return to the legs straight position.

Start off with your heels raised about two inches on a block of wood or something similar. Extend your arms in front at shoulder level then lower down to parallel and back up again. Keep your back straight and head upright. Don’t bend forward.

Again go up to 15 repetitions. When that starts to get easy do the same as with the press-ups: lower using both legs, then lean your weight over one leg as you rise, then the other leg on the next repetition. When you can do 15 slowly that way, there are alternatives for further progression. For a start do more than one set of the exercise. Say 2 sets of 10 – 12 repetitions. When you can do 2 sets of 15 it’s time to move on to something harder.

Sissy squats are excellent. With these you need to hold onto something for balance. Lean back so your upper body is in a line with your thighs as you go down. Keep your knees fairly close together. You’ll find this really works the front of your thighs and improves the shape.

Then there’s one leg squats. Extend your arms at shoulder height in front then raise one leg also in front. Do one repetition on your left leg, one on your right, alternating with each rep. Once you’ve reached the stage where you can easily do 2 sets of 15 repetitions slowly, do them all on one leg then all on the other.

You can progress further by changing the position of the non-squatting leg. Instead of sticking your left leg out in front as you squat on your right, grasp your left ankle with your left hand, so your lower leg is bent behind your thigh. Then squat down until your knee touches the floor. This is tough! If you can do lots of repetitions of this exercise you really should be using weights.

We’ve only discussed press-ups and squats – two good all round exercises for upper and lower body. There are many more you can do. But we can’t cover them all in one article. Abdominal exercises are important. But don’t do sit-ups. They can lead to back problems because they exercise the psoas muscles more strongly than the abdominals. This can lead to an imbalance that causes back problems.

Crunches and leg raises, where the head and shoulders are curled forward, are good. Abdominal muscles only work over a short range of movement. Sit-ups where you lift the lower back as well as the upper, exercises the psoas. So always curl your head and shoulders up. Whatever you do, don’t arch your back.

Yummy Chocolate Helps You Lose Weight!

Good news for slimmers is that there is now a mouth-wateringly tasty healthy chocolate, which is not only non-fattening, but also aids slimming efforts. Cacao, the stuff chocolate is made from, has the highest concentration of antioxidant flavonoids of any naturally occurring substance on the planet. Normally, most of these health promoting flavonoids are destroyed by the heat process used in making chocolate. This includes dark chocolate. Then all manner of unhealthy ingredients like fats, waxes and refined sugar are added.

But the healthy chocolate is produced by a patented cold process that retains the healthy properties of raw cacao. Not only are people losing weight on this delicious chocolate, it's also good for diabetics. The lady behind it's formulation is herself a diabetic. She eats the chocolate herself and has lost a lot of weight whilst doing so. As have many others.

Burn The Fat

Tom Venuto is a man that walks the walk where low body fat is concerned. He’s a natural bodybuilder (one who doesn’t use anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs). Tom keeps his body fat levels below 10% year in - year out. For competitions he lowers it even further to around 3.5%. Believe me that’s lean! Tom calls his system, “Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle”. And yes ladies, Tom’s approach gets rid of cellulite too.

Visit Tom's website to pick up a free mini course exposing the Big Fat Lies told by the big slimming organisations.

Not only has Tom been there, done it and got the tee shirt, he continues to do it. And he looks good in his tee shirt too. We’re pleased to be using some of Tom’s articles on Natural Good Health.

Meanwhile if you want to look good as well as feel great, get started now on a combination program of progressive resistance exercise, aerobics and sensible diet. As above, Appetizer is recommended for its simplicity and effectiveness. Do use your tape measure to keep a check on progress. It’s a much better guide than scales.

Should you consider yourself too old to start exercising with weights, read this:

"In his Boston research clinic, Dr. William Evans of Tufts University discovered that the muscles of older people are just as responsive to weight training as those of younger people. In his Book, 'Biomarkers: the 10 keys to prolonging vitality,' Dr. Evans wrote:

"A 12-week program of strength training using 60 and 70 year old men resulted not only in substantial increases in strength (their lifting ability went from 44 lbs. to 85 lbs.), but also in muscles that were larger and leaner with less fat in and around them. An 8-week study of 87 to 96 year old women confined to a nursing home showed that resistance exercise tripled their muscles' strength and increased their size by 10 percent."

Go for it!

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