Three Simple Rules to Lose Real Weight

People talk all the time about losing weight. Unfortunately, most don't understand that weight per se is not the issue. We shouldn't be concerned about losing weight but more about changing the proportions of fat to lean muscle tissue in the body.

There's no doubt that many diets will help you lose weight, at least initially. The problem is, much of that weight is tissue other than fat.

You see, if you go on a low-calorie diet you will lose weight, but as much as 50% of it will be lean body mass, that is, muscle tissue. So only half the weight loss might come from fat.

A trade-off like this is too big a price to pay. The weight you want to lose should be coming almost completely from fat. Losing muscle is the last thing you need to be losing because the more muscle tissue you have the more energy you expend just maintaining that tissue.

Lose weight with exercise:

1. You have to think about losing weight without drastically cutting calories so that your metabolism does not slow down.

Obviously the best way to do this is to expend more energy than you consume, in other words exercise.

Although you can change body composition without exercise, if you do exercise you will lose weight from the right sources faster. Regular aerobic exercise will burn body-fat while resistance exercise builds muscle tissue. This elevates the resting metabolic rate, thus burning off even more energy.

Lose weight by changing calorie sources:

2. Cut the calories only a small amount, say about 3 or 4 hundred, make the out from mainly fat calories rather than carbohydrate calories.

You can easily do this by becoming a label reader. At the supermarket, read the labels and make a goal of keeping your fat intake to less than 30% of your daily calorie intake. It is particularly important to watch the intake of saturated and trans fats.

For instance try fat-free Italian dressing rather than regular salad dressing which can have up to 70 calories in one spoonful and 90% of those from fat; cut the cooking oil used by just one tablespoon and you've saved 120 calories, all from fat; eliminate butter and you've cut out about 100 calories per spoonful.

There's 300 calories and we've hardly tried. Smart substitutions for snacks and desserts could eliminate many more.

Lose weight by eating more often:

3. Eat small frequent meals throughout the day. This boosts metabolism so your body works more efficiently while keeping hunger pangs under control. Eat most of your calories earlier in the day and cut down on eating in the evening.

Following these three steps will definitely lose weight and make your body composition change. You will lose the weight from the body's fat deposits without losing lean muscle tissue. You might even find your weight does not change much because the added muscle tissue makes up for the loss of body fat. Either way you will look better and feel better.

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