Essential variables of weight loss - How to achieve weight loss

There are no guaranteed regimes for weight loss.  Weight loss is generally side effect of (if positive – good nutrition and workout regimen; if negative – loss of vitality or of muscles.)

Before you discuss anything about calorie – Please understand 3 basic concepts of calories for your body:

1.     Calorie is unit of energy.  Extra calorie deficit won’t provide you weight loss because your body likes to utilize energy in most efficient way. For god fearing people, God designed your body in such an efficient way that it won’t really help you when you insult it. Treat your body with respect and your body will give you the performance you want from it.

2.     7700 calories equal 1 kg. You believe reducing 500 calories from everyday diet would give you 1 kg loss? Mathematically yes – except there are various other variables which you forgot to take into account that is directly proportional to calories consumed and burnt.  Things like metabolism, loss of muscles, loss of lean mass or loss of fat. Your body will burn something but it might not be something you want it to burn. You have to provide your body specials aids (most of them mentioned below) to burn the right thing (FAT). Hence making weight loss journey completely proportional to weight loss is garbage science and shouldn't hold as high value as it is told to you.

3.     Weight on your body is complete integration of various components in your body such as water, skeleton, muscles, fat etc.  Any improvement in any of your body would cause increase in weight. Your goal is to measure body fat percentage. Your enemy isn’t your weight on scale but rather your proportional size.

For men – Proportion of height to circumference of neck (should be higher) and waist (should be lower).

For women – Proportion of height to circumference of neck (should be higher), waist (should be lower), and hips (should be lower).

Steps for weight loss – variables of weight loss

Nutrition

-         Speed of eating
How you take your bites –if you are hogging or eating it slowly. When you eat faster, your body is forced to eat more because it can’t decide when the limit is full. Some people even get side effects such as constipation or gas due to fast eating. If you eat very slowly, your food loses lot of essential nutrients due to excess saliva and can’t be consumed by your body to provide maximum performance.  Best measure is chewing it enough that food becomes semi solid and you feel slowly filling up as you continue to eat.

-         Mindful eating

Know what you are eating.  People who eat mindfully over time are able to exactly describe what the food is lacking. They develop sense of flavor. 

Seen those people – when you don’t like food – they can take a bite or sip and tell you what is less or more. They can pick hazelnut from toffee nut.  Body rewards you further by filling full faster.

-         Distribution of calories.

All calories aren’t equal. If someone tells you how much calories to eat without telling you break down. They probably don’t know what they are talking about. Most of them give you ratio of food in macro nutrients.  40 carbohydrates: 40 proteins: 20 fats. Depending on your goal define the categories. You don’t have to always measure your calories if you know roughly what you are consuming. Depending on your goal decide the proportion if you go calorie counting way.

Base your decision on study by Kekwick and Pawan study, who compared three groups put on calorically equal (isocaloric) semi-starvation diets of 90% fat, 90% protein or 90% carbohydrate. Though ensuring compliance was a challenge, the outcomes were clearly not at all the same:

1000 calories 90% fat = weight loss of 408 grams (0.9 lbs) per day

1000 calories 90% protein = weight loss of 272 grams (0.6 lbs) per day

1000 calories 90% carbohydrates = weight gain of 108 grams (0.24 lbs) per day.

-         Metabolism
Please Google the term BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate).  It is speed at which body at rest burns up the calorie. Better the metabolic rate – better the chances of weight loss. There are various super foods that help you increase your metabolism speed. Moreover workouts always help increase your metabolism. One special side effect of high metabolism is you feel hungry all the time and need to increase your fat intake for better satiety.

Many people say you should have 5 to 8 meals a day. Instead of consuming 3 large meals, break it down further from 5 to 8 meals. Your body takes time to burn each and every calorie you consume instead of storing it away for later use. You will get the weight loss without following this method; however why take slower route when you know the faster one.

Key for higher metabolism isn’t low calorie but high calorie intake with better distribution.
 

-         Reason for additional calories
Your body is designed for efficiency. Sometimes when you are burning higher calories than consuming. Your body tries to retain lot of stuff to stop your body from crashing. If you don’t pay heed to such body signs, it may collapse with greater abuse. Your body will retain all the fat while sending fatigue signals early so that you trigger fatigue protocol. You feel hunger pangs and cravings. 

When you provide your body with adequate food. It won’t withhold any additional tissues and your fat loss will accelerate. How to calculate – how much food is essential – calculate your BMR online.

-         Division of food intake time.
You want to have all your meals at least 2 hours apart. Consume 30 gram within 30 minutes of waking up for best metabolism activation. Consume last meal at least 2 hours before bed time.  Reason for doing this is that your food is completely consumed by your body and it isn’t in burn mode while you go to sleep. Rather let it go in recovery mode – hence time when your body repairs internal tissues than trying to burn the food.  Of course the lower the intake of your food at night, faster it will burn. Decide your sleeping time based on same logic. If you ate extra, take extra time out before going to bed.

Recovery

Lesser the stress, better your body will focus on losing weight. Instead of burning your regular calories, your body tends to hold back for expecting higher performance.

Of course best break down of muscles happen when your body is tired. You get better growth when you are fatigue during last set. Ofcourse, you should have the right form. Don't skip training today because you're too tired. Train because you're tired for maximum growth.

 For better read about methods and requirement of  Recovery : Read :

http://fitcody.blogspot.in/2012/05/recovery-most-under-appreciated-hero-of.html

External Temperature

Calories are basically part of thermodynamics. All the laws of thermodynamics apply to your body because it is heat body with heat signature.  Consuming food with lower temperature or living in lower temperature slowly increases your odds to burn additional fat.

I won’t go in too much in mathematical details. However in simpler terms - consider your body temperature as constant at 37 degrees Celsius or 98.3 Fahrenheit. Greater is the difference of the outside temperature – more calories you will burn.  Chances of getting temperature at 45 plus degrees would be difficult to handle. You can produce greater difference with living in lower external temperature to burn more calories. Hence taking cold showers, swimming etc. shall be very efficient fat burners.

Read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/health/brown-fat-burns-ordinary-fat-study-finds.html

Body Posture

Keeping your body uptight, holding your core tight. Doing muscles contractions during consumption of meal or within 30 minutes of consuming meal helps to decrease your weight.

Workouts

Read more : http://fitcody.blogspot.in/2011/10/why-some-workouts-really-work-christine.html