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by Frank Occhipinti
Losing weight is one of the biggest challenges
many people face in trying to achieve their fitness goals.
Understanding nutrition and exercise and how they work together
to create change in our bodies can bring you closer to your
goals. With so many myths and unhealthy fad diets that claim
quick and easy results, it's not surprising that many of us
buy into the quick fix plans and diets. We become frustrated
when the expected results are not achieved. Then why, you
may ask, are so many of these diets so popular and so many
people swear by them? Why do these products and diets promise
fast results yet don't deliver them?
The answer is simple. Quick fix plans and diets don’t and
can’t work because they are physiologically incorrect.
With fast food a main stay in our culture and technology advancing
at such a rapid pace, people today are eating more and moving
less. Each year the average person gains more and more weight.
Losing weight doesn’t have to be a struggle and is actually
quite easy to understand and accomplish. One of the first
steps in losing weight and keeping it off is to understand
and apply the first law of thermodynamics—calories in
vs. calories out:
If your caloric input is more then your caloric output
= weight gain
If your caloric input is less then your caloric output
= weight loss
If your caloric input is the same as your caloric output
= no change
 The
first law of thermodynamics is pretty straightforward, common
sense really. With the quick fix plans and diets, can you
be sure that you are really losing fat or are you really losing
muscle? What’s the difference, you ask, as long as the numbers
on the scale go down? The difference is that if you are losing
weight from muscle atrophy and not fat, you are actually doing
damage to your metabolism. Muscle atrophy is the wasting away
of muscle. Muscle burns more calories than fat and when you
lose weight from muscle atrophy you lose the ability to burn
as many calories a day as you did before the rapid weight
loss. In essence, you’ve managed to slow down your metabolic
rate. Keeping the weight off and losing additional weight
becomes all but impossible. The only approach that truly works
is to increase lean body mass while decreasing body fat. Therefore
effectively, achieving desired results, a lean toned body.
See diagram A to the left.
Quick fix plans and diets set you up for failure because they
emphasize weight loss at all cost. So stop wasting your time
on fad diets and plans and learn how to do it right and keep
the weight off.
Develop a starting point and record body measurements and
statistics in the beginning and throughout your plan. Exercise,
plain and simple, is essential in order to gain lean muscle
mass but you don’t have to spend hours in the gym to build
muscle and increase your metabolic rate.
Nutrition accounts for at least half of your results and is
a vital part of a weight loss program. Anything in excess
will eventually sabotage your journey to weight loss. Consistency
and moderation in what you eat can undoubtedly become a lifestyle
change. It takes a little preparation and organization to
be successful.
With some determination and a clear understanding of how nutrition
and exercise work together, desired fitness goals can be achieved
and sustained without drastic and unhealthy quick fix diets.
In future articles, I will get into more detail about nutrition
and exercise, all the components involved and how it affects
your body. Don’t let misinformation discourage you from achieving
your fitness goals. You can do it!
Frank Occhipinti is a NFPT certified personal trainer located
in Huntington Beach, CA. Frank has over 5 years of personal
fitness training experience and his own firm, Fitness Prescriptions.
For more information please contact him at 714-374-5957 or
via emai:franko@socal.rr.com.
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