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

know, exercising while consuming a small calorie intake just

makes the situation worse. This is because when you exercise,

you start burning off more energy and the more you workout, the

more energy your body needs. I already told you above where

the energy comes from, and if you do not give your body the

energy it needs, it will just feed on your muscles even quicker

now that you are exercising. So eat more food! In addition

to this, when you cut down too much on your calorie intake,

your body will start storing calories because it doesn’t know

when you will eat again. The calories that are stored will be

stored as fat. So in other words, when your body is storing

energy, it’s basically storing more fat.



To summarize my point: Not eating enough calories results in

muscle loss, dehydration, slower fat burning, and your body

will always adapt to a lower calorie intake.

Bottom Line: if you can’t maintain that lower calorie intake

for the rest of your life, you will gain your weight back

when you get tired of starving yourself!



To lose weight properly (burning fat) you must increase your

metabolism (weight training) and your need for oxygen (aerobics)

while eating enough calories each day (nutritious diet) to

give you energy and maintain the protein in your muscles because

protein helps build muscles, which indirectly burns fat. This

brings up another good point: When you build muscle your weight

will increase because your muscles are made up of mostly water,

but your body fat percentage will decrease because building

muscles increase your metabolism (in other words, muscles way

more than fat, but take up less space than fat). So keep in mind

that losing body fat can’t be measured by a scale; use a

measuring tape and also look at yourself in the mirror, and then

you will see the true results. One of the best ways to know if

you are losing more body fat than water is by using a body fat

analyzer.



Make sure that you focus on fat loss not weight loss. Your goal

should be to lose weight by burning fat, not losing water from

your muscles. Remember this when you choose your weight loss

program.