Weight Loss And How To Lose Weight Fast

To be honest with you, weight loss is not easy, and if you want to know how to lose weight fast then there is only one simple answer: eat less or exercise more - or combine the two. The more calories you eat the more energy you are consuming. However, it can be made easier than it appears to you.

Any energy consumed in excess of what is used by your body by means of exercise and your metabolism is converted to an emergency energy store that body keeps in case of emergencies: that emergency is store is known as FAT! So if you consume more calories than you use up, you get fatter, and if you use up more calories than your consume you get leaner. It sounds a bit too simple doesn't it? Yet it's TRUE!

Let's put some of these terms into words that are easier to understand and apply to your own situation. Each will be presented and discussed in relation to the effect it has on your metabolism, your body weight and how it affects weight loss and how to lose weight fast and help you to look and feel slimmer, fitter and healthier.

Energy in Relation to Food

Energy, in relation your body, can be equated with calories. The more calories you consume in your food the more energy is contained in your diet. A calorie is a convenient unit used by dieticians and physicians to measure the amount of potential energy stored in the food that you eat and is used a lot in terms of weight loss. Fundamentally, the calories in your food come in the form of carbohydrates. Most people are familiar with carbohydrates in relation to bread, potatoes, fat, sugars and so on, but they are also contained in proteins.

Carbohydrates can be broken down by your digestive system and biochemistry into glucose that can in turn be absorbed into your body cells to be converted into energy. This is carried out when needed: it is a real time transformation: glucose and oxygen converted to energy. When you move your arms or legs, the energy needed is generated instantly as you need it in the mitochondria contained within every cell in your body.

Any glucose in excess of what is needed to generate energy is converted to larger molecules that we know as fat, and stored in fat cells - cells that your body has contained since birth. These fat cells can be full, empty or somewhere in between. And their degree of 'fullness' determines your degree of 'fatness'.

Energy Balance and Weight Loss

It figures, therefore, that if you eat more calories than are required by your body when you exercise then these excess calories will converted to fat and stored in your fat cells. It should also figure, therefore, that if your exercise demands more calories than you eat, then you should use up all your consumed calories, and then some, and you should not generate fat.

That's true, and here are some other facts about fat, diet and the way your body works that can help you to understand the concept of weight loss how to lose weigh fast.

a) Your metabolism: Your body needs a certain amount of energy to keep you alive: for your heart beating, breathing, digestion, biochemistry and every other bodily process needed for life. The amount of energy, or calories, needed for this is referred to as your metabolic rate: the rate at which your body burns calories just to keep you alive - in other words the energy you use when you are sleeping.

b) Carbohydrates: carbohydrates contain atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. These are the building blocks of sugars, particularly of the sugar known as glucose that is the raw material needed to generate energy in your body cells. The other main raw material is oxygen, which is why you cannot live without food or oxygen. You also cannot live without water, but that is because every cell in your body needs water for the biochemical reactions of life to take place.

c) Exercise and Weight Loss: Exercise involves contractions of your muscle fibers that use energy. So every time you move a finger, open your mouth or even blink an eyelid, you are generating energy and using up some of the glucose in your blood that was formed from the carbohydrates in your food. The more exercise you take the more glucose you burn, until you have used it all up.

Then your body turns to its emergency food supply discussed earlier: the fat stores. That then results in a loss in fat and hence weight loss. So now you know how to lose weight fast: eat fewer carbohydrates and exercise more. Simple? Not quite!

c) Weight loss is controlled by a balance between carbohydrate intake and exercise. However, it is also affected by your build. The more muscle tissue you have then the faster your metabolic rate. Muscle tissue, or protein, needs more energy than fatty tissues to maintain, so the more muscle you build then the easier you will find it to lose weight.

There are complications with this however, such as muscle tissue burning energy at a higher rate than fatty tissue, so everything is not always as it seems. However, in general, you can control your body weight and amount of fatty tissue, buy controlling your energy intake and expenditure.

If you want to know how to lose weight fast then the neat answer is to eat less and exercise more. However, there are other ways to achieve rapid weight loss than just that - but that's another story!

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