Why Dont Our Bodies Want To Lose Fat?

     Many people know how frustrating it is when you work hard at your exercise program for a few weeks, try and eat as good as possible cutting out any high fat or high sugar goodies but when you hop on the scales expecting success, nothing has happened; the rolls of fat haven't budged.

It seems as though it simply is refusing to leave your body. Why is fat so stubborn and hard to lose? The very answers to these questions should give you a greater understanding of how important these fuel storage depots are to the human body and will hopefully make your fat loss journey a lot easier.

To first understand why body fat is so stubborn; we must know why it is stored on our bodies in the first place. Our DNA was designed for accumulating fat in the days when we had to forage for food in the wild. This was hardwired into us thousands of years ago, when cavemen would have to survive days or even weeks grazing on whatever they could find until they made a kill. It is our back up energy supply for times of starvation.

The body's weight control systems were designed to make us gain weight, not lose it.Our bodies and our DNA evolved in an environment of food scarcity, not overabundance. And our genes that control our eating behavior have been shaped by those times. We cannot expect to change our instinctual responses to food just because we want to fit into our skinny jeans.

The problem is today we have been led to believe that we must diet to lose this excess fat, but we now know dieting only makes this situation worse. The caloric restriction that comes with dieting triggers the starvation response and makes our body hold on to the fat stubbornly. It doesn't know how long the food shortage is going to last and has no idea there is a fridge full of food in the next room.

If the food restriction continues the body signals a red alert and goes to extreme measures breaking down muscle tissue to use as energy instead. This results in a loss of muscle tissue which drops your metabolic rate slowing your body's engine to preserve energy to hang on to as much fat as possible.

So how then do we persuade our body to lose some of this excess fat?

A two pronged approach is necessary. First you must rev up your metabolism (your bodies engine) so it can burn more fuel every minute of the day 24/7. The quickest way to do this is to build back some of the lost muscle tissue that is the result of not enough proper exercise and very likely not enough good nutrition.

Strength training exercise is the only type of activity that will do this. Within a few weeks there will be an improvement in your metabolic rate if your exercise program is set up and performed correctly. Seek the help of a fitness professional if you are new to this type of exercise who will monitor your results and upgrade your program every 6-8 week to ensure continuing results.

Next you need to start eating so your body will not slow down your fat burning machinery. You will need to eat 5-6 small meal (around 300-400 calories) every 2-3 hours throughout the day. Each of these meals should contain 20-30 grams of protein and the rest raw or cooked vegetables and a small amount of complex carbohydrate such as rice, pasta or sweet potato.

Focus only on what you should be eating not on what you shouldn't be eating. Get your head around the fact that you have to eat plenty of high quality food to lose body fat. Your eating plan must support your exercise program so you can train intensely to crank up your metabolism.

This is what will give you the fat loss over a period of time. Think more - more food – more energy – more activity – more fat lost. Perfect!

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