Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss
by Vernita Sherman
In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than
it takes in, but keep in mind that your body needs calories for
energy and when you exercise; your body needs even more calories.
Before I talk about energy, the first thing you must understand
is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing.
Just because you lose weight, does not mean you lose fat, and
just because you lose fat, does not mean you lose weight. When
people talk about losing weight, what the really want to do is
lose the excess fat on their body and obtain an attractive
figure. When you eat, the body uses most of the calories for
energy. If you eat more calories than the body uses, it will
get stored as fat. If you do not consume enough calories per
day you will lose weight, but you will also lose energy. When
you do not consume enough energy (calories) for your body, it
will start using up your energy stores to make up for the energy
deficiency. Unfortunately, the energy stores used is not your
stored fat, but instead it’s protein and carbohydrates (carbs)
that will supply most of the energy (stored fat makes up a very
small percentage). Your body will take the protein and
carbohydrates from your muscle cells; causing your muscle mass
to reduce (say good by to that toned attractive look) which
forces your metabolism to decrease (a low metabolism = slow or
no fat burning). When this happens your body requires less
energy to maintain its new lower body weight (remember the body
weight is lower because you loss muscle), which is why your
body conserves energy by slowing down the metabolism. In other
words, the body has adapted to the new lower energy (calorie)
intake which means that you will no longer continue to lose
weight.
Keep in mind that the weight you had lost in the first place
was mostly water weight and you will eventually gain it back
in the form of fat, not muscle (in order to get your muscle
mass back to the way it was before, you have to work on
rebuilding it). When carbohydrates and protein that are already
in your body are used as the energy source, your body will lose
water weight because both carbohydrates and protein hold water
in the cells. In essence, you are dehydrating yourself to lose
weight. So yes the scale will go down, but approximately 75%
(if not more) of it is water instead of fat. And just so you
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BIO:
This article was written by Vernita Sherman
of QVM Weight Loss. QVM Weight Loss is a complete
online resource for all of your weight loss needs.
Vernita focuses on teaching you the truth about how
to permanently lose weight the healthy
way at http://www.qvm-weight-loss.com
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