In this post, we’re gonna discuss the part of weight loss that no one wants to hear, but everyone should understand nonetheless. When you begin on your journey towards a goal of losing weight, most people want that instant gratification of quickly shedding the pounds. However, this actually isn’t the best way to do it. Here’s why.
Excess water weight
When you just start losing weight, you may notice a rapid weight loss. This can be partially due to a loss of water weight. Edward Laskowski, M.D. and colleagues of the Mayo Clinic go even further to point out that you are also losing lean muscle mass. What’s wrong with that? I know a lot of women that say they don’t want a lot of muscle, or that muscular look. They’d rather be toned anyway, right? Well, the problem with that is this; being toned requires lean muscle mass and lower body fat percentage. The fat covers the muscle, hiding that tone look. So if you’re just losing water and lean muscle mass, you’re not helping to get that toned look because the fat on top of the muscle is still there.
Gaining lean muscle mass isn’t enough
Rusty Moore put up a fantastic post on why lean muscle mass doesn’t burn as much fat as you think it does, or at least as much as you’ve been told it burns. So what does burn that fat? You guessed it, decreasing your daily caloric intake in addition to calorie expenditure (cardio)! More importantly, understanding what your daily caloric intake is so that you can adjust it to lose the recommended one pound of fat each week. In addition to writing down what you eat on a daily basis, make sure you keep track of your cardio. Write it down along with the calories you burned during the exercise. Check out my post on your daily caloric intake to figure out how to put yourself on an appropriate calorie deficit.
Understanding the difference between carbs
Naturally (due to the whole Atkins phenomenon), nowadays as soon as someone gets on board with a weight-loss regiment, they cut out the breads and starchy foods. Why is that? Well, in a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health stated:
The volunteers following the low carb diet had the biggest drops in triglycerides, the main fat-carrying particle in the bloodstream, and the biggest increases in protective HDL cholesterol.”
The study by the Harvard School goes on to show that the volunteers on the low carb diet lost the most weigth, the fastest! So then how do you curb your weight loss to 1 pound a week?
The American Heart Association goes further to explain the role of triglycerides:
Calories ingested in a meal and not used immediately by tissues are converted to triglycerides and transported to fat cells to be stored. Hormones regulate the release of triglycerides from fat tissue so they meet the body’s needs for energy between meals.”
The post on triglycerides by The American Heart Association goes on to explain that you should eat more fruits and vegetables in order to lower triglyceride levels. Here’s a post by Eat Know How that list foods that can help lower your triglyceride levels (Note that the first two categories are indeed fruits and vegetables and there are no recommendations for breads or potatoes or the like)
So why did I put that last quote in there? Well, it’s also to help better explain why I recommend 5-7 meals a day. It touches on how calories that are not used immediately get stored as fat. And that “the body’s needs for energy between meals” is why triglycerides are released between meals. But if you’re eating 5-7 meals a day, you’re body will need to release less triglycerides for energy. And if you’re meals are smaller, there won’t be an excess amount of calories for your body to convert to triglycerides and thus less fat.
But when you’re trying to lose weight, you have to be diligent and responsive to your body. If you’re losing too much weight too fast, make adjustments to the amount of calories that you’re eating per meal and make sure that you follow the caloric deficit that you establish based off of your daily caloric intake.
photo’s provided by flickr users Hypergurl and d_vdm and svanes
To lose weight here are some basic rules:
(1) More physical exercise
(2) Eat smaller meal possibly 5 – 8 days instead of 3 big meals a day
(3) Eat less carb and more veggie and protein.
Most important you would need to change to a more healthy lifestyle.
Steven,
Well put! Those are some great bullet points that I personally agree with and stress to those in my life. By the phrase “eat less carb”, I assume you mean eat less carbs with a high GI… and if so, I agree!
I’ll be sure to check your site thoroughly in the morning.
All the best,
Andrew
Weight Management and Fitness Forum 26th Edition…
Welcome to the 26th edition of the Weight Management and Fitness Forum. We received a lot of good submissions for this edition. We had a difficult time narrowing them down to these few, but we hope you enjoy these selections and find them helpful and i…
Weight management does include a lifelong commitment to a healthy lifestyle and should be viewed as an on-going process. Thanks for such an important message.
Keep it up!
Hey Tom,
Thanks for the read! I just wanted to let you know that Earn Your Cheat Day is now http://www.gohealthygofit.com
I’ll be sure to check out your site as well!
All the Best,
Andrew
This is a great site – but I am totally confused regarding bananas. Some say you shouldn’t eat if the tr. are high and others say “eat on”. My husband has terribly high tr. plus high cholesterol…also we are strict vegetarians. …and healthy ones at that as we both work 17 hours a day. However, I’d like to know if bananas are ok with his problem.
thanks and if you need to laugh and get off the subject of diet every now and then…go to my daily blog. thanks again, for the great info
http://www.attilathehoney.com
Hey Attila,
Thanks for checking it out! Just wanted to let you know that Earn Your Cheat Day has been changed to Go Healthy Go Fit (www.gohealthygofit.com) so make sure you switch your RSS if you haven’t already!
With regards to your husband’s high triglyceride level, I must say that I am not qualified to answer that question because I am not a doctor. However, all of the research that I’ve read, having been backed up by scientific studies recommends eating bananas in that situation. But please, make sure you consult your doctor first.
All the Best,
Andrew