Strength Training is the Magic Bullet For Fat Loss

     Your metabolism is the key to losing excess body fat and is your fat loss foundation. What is this mysterious "metabolism" thing and how can you control it and manipulate it to work for you and to help you burn fat? You may have heard that you can increase it and you would like to know how.

Metabolism refers to the rate your body burns fuel (calories) each day. Among the many things that control it are your activity levels and the amount and type of food you eat. A low metabolism is caused by not being active enough and hence your body has low energy needs causing food calories to be stored as fat. This is the main reason people become overweight.

To lose weight (burn fat) properly you must increase your metabolism while eating enough calories each day with whole natural foods. This will give you the energy to be able to increase activity levels to the extent that will chew into the stored fat. If you do not eat enough you will simply not have enough energy to be able to speed up your metabolism.

This is the bad news about dieting; it slows the metabolism shortly after dropping the calorie level too far. The problem is that you do not know how low to drop them without causing your body to shift into survival and fat storing mode. It is far better to forget dieting and food restriction and go the opposite way. More food, more energy, more strength, more fat burning, much more chance that you can do this for life.

The fastest and most permanent way to speed up your metabolic engine is to use strength training exercise to tone muscle tissue. Muscle is where body fat is burned and by coaxing this into peak condition you will supercharge your metabolism. It doesn't take much to achieve this; even a couple of pounds of increased muscle tissue will make all the difference.

It is unlikely you would even notice this on your body, except for a new firmness as muscle tone increases. Forget recreational activities like walking, jogging, cycling or swimming etc as these activities will not tone muscle to the extent that you need to speed your metabolism permanently. These activities will at best burn a few calories at the time but will not be enough to help you lose body fat long term.

Focus your efforts on your properly structured exercise program that contains at least 60% strength training exercise. Get the help you need from a fitness professional to ensure you get results and don't waste time trying to sort it out for yourself. That is what they do, and you need to learn how to exercise correctly, safely and efficiently and your program also needs to be changed every few weeks or you will not continue to get results.

Your exercise program needs to work the whole body at each session, it needs to contain exercises that work multiple muscle groups together and it needs to be performed at the right level of intensity otherwise you will be disappointed with the results. Exercise works if you do it correctly and that is why it is important to have the right coach to teach you the skills you need to manage your weight for the rest of your life.

There really is no other way, the sooner you get your head around this fact the quicker you will resolve the problem of excess body fat. When you think about it, is it so much to give in exchange for losing the body fat and strengthening and rejuvenating your whole body? Forget the price (doing the work) and keep your eye on the prize (the end result).

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