Saturday, April 21

Weight Loss - II

But wait, you say, wouldn't that lead to more weight loss and thus quicker and faster results?
While this may look good from a bathroom scale perspective, I assure you that this is detrimental to your ability to achieve permanent weight loss. That's because if you lose muscle, you lose your ability to burn calories. With less muscle, you burn less calories. It's that simple. People trying to lose weight should stop and think about that last statement.
And what happens when you now burn fewer calories?

You need to eat less compared to before your training program. This means that you are now more susceptible to gaining back your bodyfat and more. Oh yeah, and it doesn't do anything in helping you control appetite and in developing healthy eating habits.

Eating extra protein will not counteract this destruction because total dietary energy must be first increased to meet the body's energy needs. Fat, be in dietary or bodyfat, will not stop this muscle wasting because some tissues such as the brain need energy as glucose. While amino acids, which come from muscle protein can be metabolised to produce glucose, fats cannot. As a consequence, a person with more than adequate fat stores may suffer loss of muscle and other tissue if the diet is too restricted in calories.

The primary exercise prescription for those wanting permanent weight loss must be weight training or resistance training or strength training.

I know there are some out there, particularly women, who seem to think that their muscles grow like weeds and are afraid of becoming too big or masculine. While the men usually can't get enough and many unfortunately turn to anabolics. I can assure you that it's not easy to gain lean muscle. Losing bodyfat is the easy bit. Gaining muscle is the hard part. I laugh privately when a beginner comes to me and says that he doesn't want to get too big, like Arnold. To be like Arnold you have to be as great as Arnold: genetically and psychologically, mentally and of course follow his "supplementation" program.

Almost all the bodybuilders appearing in magazines these days are on or have used anabolic steroids. I would probably say that at least 85% of all bodybuilders in magazines today and if I include those taking prohormones the number could go as high as 95%. (Prohormones are biological substances one step away from testoserone or closely mimic it. These are deemed illegal in Australia, and in most sports organizations but are freely available in the US as sport supplements. They have been found to increase LDL or 'bad' cholesterol and other negative side effects which leads to cardiovascular problems.)

The ones that do it naturally would have had to work out optimally for at least 3 years with a sound diet before you can achieve anywhere near that. I'm not being negative I'm being real. But of course you do get the genetically gifted ones that gain considerable muscle after a year or two training naturally. For that to happen you must be on the right program for you. (And in case you're wondering, bodybuilding magazines and gyms are amongst the worst place for great resistance training programs.)

So, that's the men. *

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