Many of us struggle with our weight and find that as we age, the battle between fat and fitness requires us to do more, not less. Weight loss shows on TV don’t seem to be of much help. A fat loss program, on the other hand, takes a slightly different approach and places an emphasis on increasing metabolism while burning fat and increasing muscle density.
These systems place a lot of emphasis on physical activity and only slightly lower your calorie count. The reason for this is because increasing your metabolism actually helps burn fat and calories efficiently. It might take you an hour of strenuous exercise to burn off that cheesecake you just ate.
If you have a high metabolism and good muscle density, you’re more likely to burn through that cheesecake faster and more efficiently than if you were fat, overweight, and sedentary. This is the reason why champion athletes can eat three times more than the average person. Their rigorous workouts and high metabolic rate make their bodies much more fuel efficient.
Many people have strong feelings on both sides of the issue. Fat burning refers to the process of stimulating the body to burn fat for fuel in large amounts to deplete fat cells. Your body runs on glucose as its main source of energy. Reaching its fuel tanks, the body will search for sugars, then fats, then proteins. Our bodies have the ability, like an oven, to find the chemicals they need in whatever is available.
Our bodies never really switch from one fuel source to another that cleanly; it just takes from the digestive process what it needs first, but if you’re low on fuel, you’ll start looking for established sources to feed your brain and then your body. The body will then look to preserve fat storage and consume available muscle.
If we use our muscles regularly, the body is forced to consume fat and come out of hibernation mode because it must use its resources to repair and rebuild muscle tissue. For obese people, it is important to start an exercise program at a slow and steady pace even when reducing caloric intake in order to burn fat efficiently.
Walking and swimming are two readily available exercises that can be done to acclimate your body to constant exercise. Walking allows anyone who is overweight to exercise regularly and, in a relatively short period of time, lose a significant amount of fat. Those who are more athletic can perform higher intensity workouts for faster results. For example, circuit training or high-intensity interval training, as well as the Express Fat Loss system, can help transform your body into an efficient fat-burning machine.
When you perform resistance exercise, your body continues to burn energy stores many hours after you’ve finished exercising. The reason is that intense physical training causes the muscles to become stressed and then sends a signal to the brain to ask for help. Your brain then sends out muscle-repairing chemicals to help them rebuild better and stronger in anticipation of more work to come.
Overtraining or not getting enough rest for your recovery will cause your cells to break down without having the necessary amount of time to get stronger. Either option will not help you reach your goal of being healthy and slim; just not at the same rate. The important thing is to consistently work at an even pace that is right for your fat loss program, your body type, and your fitness level.