Principles of Diet and Weight Loss

“Diet” is a word that invokes a variety of emotions from a variety of people. Some people see the word as a set of rules to be followed when you need to lose weight, yet others see it as a general eating habit. Here we will look at “diet” as a little of both.
But why do people want to lose weight? Sometimes is because they have some health issue that can be resolved or lessened if they drop a few pounds, sometimes it's just too look and feel better. Both are great reasons to lose weight.
When you make the decision to lose weight you need to ask yourself a very important question, "Am I doing this so I can weigh less or so I can fit into a smaller pair of pants?" That may seem like a silly question but it's actually very important and will determine what you do on your diet. Too many people depend fully on what the scale tells them, not on how well their clothes fit. Multiple problems can stem from this; one of the main ones is the issue of losing muscle as well as fat. If what you're looking to do is slim down and fit into smaller clothes then basing your progress on your scale at home will only slow you down.
This is why I have such a big problem with so many of the fad diets that exist out there, they can help you lose weight but they can also be very unhealthy. When a diet calls for a great reduction in the amount of calories you eat every day, such as the cabbage soup diet, or require you to cut out a large chunk of your daily diet, such as Atkins does, you can run into health problems and a very poor quality weight loss, one that when the diet is over, you are very likely to just gain all the weight back that you worked so hard on losing.
What is Weight Loss?
I will talk a little bit about how weight is lost, and when I say this I'm talking about weight from fat, not water weight or muscle weight. Essentially fat is energy that your body had too much of and is storing for use when food may be in short supply. So, if you deprive your body of energy by eating fewer calories than it requires for its daily functions, your body will turn to other sources for that energy. Those sources are typically fat and muscle. This is why exercise is so important when you want to lose weight, if you don't use your muscles your body won't think it really needs them and will use a lot of muscle for energy instead of fat.
Losing muscle during weight loss will severely hinder your weight loss progress. The act of having muscle means your body needs to burn calories just to keep it alive and around. So if you not only keep the muscle you have but actually add to it a bit your body will need to burn more calories every day just for upkeep, thus helping you continue to lose weight. Keeping your muscle and even adding a little is very beneficial to your weight loss goals. Just having muscle requires energy, so, allowing your body to lose muscle will decrease the amount of sustaining calories your body burns and thus will make it more difficult to continue to burn off fat, creating a weight loss plateau.
So as much as we hate to do it, exercise is critical in losing weight, so do it. Find a partner, find a sport or activity, anything you can do to keep that muscle around will greatly assist you in achieving your weight loss goal.

Article Source: http://www.articleopus.com

Eric Schmidt is the author of various articles around the Internet concerning diet, sexuality and health. He also writes for The UnDiet Plan.com, an online information and resource site for healthy weight loss.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated