Should You Lose Weight Or Lose Fat?

Often, both fat loss and weight loss are mistaken to be the same, but it’s really not. Think about it - losing weight basically means that when you step on that weighing scale, you should weigh less. Now you’ve lost this weight since there is less of something in your body. The options are fat, muscle or water. Losing fat is ideal, but losing muscle is detrimental to your health.

Did you know? Building muscles and while losing fat helps burning calories even when you’re sleeping. Basically, your body requires energy to maintain the muscle mass. If you have more muscle in your body, then it takes more energy to maintain it. In fact, it takes about 10 times the energy to maintain the same amount of muscle as it takes to maintain fat.

The other kind of useless weight loss programs are those that focus on water loss to show you instant results. The most common ones are sauna belts, body wraps etc. At the beginning of each of these treatments you will be asked to consume significant amount of water and then weighing yourself. Post the session you will be again asked to measure your weight loss. Since 60 percent of our body is water these treatments take up the water and make you feel you have lost a few grams in just one session!

The other popular way to lose weight are starving strategies, like skipping meals, fad diets, and staying hungry, where people end up losing muscle. Your body has to maintain itself whether you feed it or not. So, when you don’t feed it for a long time (like when you skip meals), it starts looking for stored energy in your body. Instead of burning fat, it burns muscle to get that energy. So, when you skip a meal the next time, remember that you’re harming your muscles. Lesser the muscle in your body, lesser the energy it takes to maintain it. But you still eat the same amount of food, so you land up storing the extra energy in the form of fat. It’s a vicious cycle.

Get on a balanced weight loss plan that not only manages your dietary intake but also encourages you to exercise to burn calories faster. Healthy way to lose weight is to focus on the quality of food you eat and not the quantity. If you don’t provide enough food to the body it starts storing more calories as the body goes into a starvation mode and wants to conserve every calorie entering the body.

Weight loss diets that are healthy focus on ensuring your body gets adequate nutrition & calories to help your body function properly. The food given is balanced that keeps you fuller for longer, making you over eat lesser than normal. Make sure you find a diet plan that is customized to your lifestyle and food preference that will help you stay on track longer, see consistent results and keep the weight off longer.

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