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The quickest way to succeed in losing weight, and to keep it off, is by increasing your metabolism.

Don’t be fooled by all of the fad diets. Just think of all those lean body builders. How do you think they achieved their fitness goals? They have developed incredibly fast and efficient metabolism.

The problem with fad diets is that many actually cause the metabolism to slow down. A decreased metabolic rate is often the very reason that weight loss progress grinds to a sudden halt.

Increasing exercise often has no effect, and reducing food intake often won’t help either. Because the net loss of protein in the muscles continues to lower your metabolism, the body will adapt to the lower calorie intake.

It’s a physiological fact that when we lose weight, we also lose protein from our muscles. And the quicker the weight loss, the greater the loss of protein. Because there is less intake of protein from dieting, the protein in the muscles is broken down and used for energy or to create new proteins for our immune systems.

Unfortunately, a net loss of protein will always decrease the body’s metabolism.

As protein is lost from the cells, it gradually lowers the total lean body weight. This affects the body composition and lowers the metabolism. Because of this process, we gradually require fewer calories to maintain body weight.

If the current diet is continued, weight loss will eventually stop. In fact, it’s even possible to SLOWLY GAIN BACK WEIGHT if a dieter sticks to a very low calorie diet!

The more protein that is lost from the muscles, the more fluid that is also lost, because protein holds around four times its weight in water.

Thus a quick weight loss in the first few weeks of a new diet regimen is mostly a loss of fluid, not fat.

If someone lost five pounds in the first week, for it to be all fat loss there would have to be a deficit of 17,500 calories!

To reach that kind of energy deficit in that short period of time would require constant exercise!

Over the period of a week, about only one pound of the five pounds lost is fat, the rest is mostly water.

Protein and its fluid replacement is the main reason that many dieters regain weight after a diet.

An increase in the metabolism would result in a gain of fluid. Therefore, weight loss would be more gradual. This is one reason for the recommended weight loss of one to two pounds per week. By increasing your metabolism, you are giving your body a reason to hold onto protein, so that less water is lost.

Even if more exercise is undertaken, a net loss of protein can occur if caloric intake is too low. 

Remember that dieters reduce their caloric intake. But, since exercise uses extra carbs, the body must break down extra protein in order to convert into more carbohydrates. More carbs are needed because a less fit person often has an untrained cardiovascular system, and cannot, which cannot supply enough oxygen for cells to burn fat for energy during exercise.

Exercise will increase the metabolism, but the trick for those trying to lose weight is to perform the right exercises for their specific body type, and not to cut too many calories too soon.

To lose fat fast, you should prepare the body by increasing your metabolism before cutting calories. This enables your body to establish a major fat burning energy metabolism while regulating the protein metabolism.

An increase metabolism provides many benefits to help maintain continuous and permanent weight loss:

• less exercise would be needed - giving you more time

• less effort if you did exercise - no need to try burning lots of calories during each session!

• less chance of weight regain later

• still enjoy some favorite foods - no need to be as strict on the diet

• less time spent preparing low / non fat recipes and meals

• save money from not needing to buy all the expensive low fat varieties

• higher percentage of fat loss over fluid loss

Aerobic Exercise to burn fat directly

 

Aerobic exercise like walking or swimming will burn a greater percentage of body fat. Aerobic exercise is an effective way to lose fat only if you are motivated enough to workout frequently, aerobics only burn fat during the workout so if you want encouraging results you need to be able to exercise daily and for longer periods. 

 

Anaerobic Exercise burns more calories than aerobic exercise because each movement generates more force from the cells. However when muscle cells contract with more force they switch to using carbohydrates as the main energy source. This type of exercise may seem incorrect for weight loss but in fact it helps produce an adaptive response with a side effect of an increased metabolic rate. During periods of rest the cells accelerate the fat burning process.

 

Aerobic exercise can develop into Anaerobic Exercise

 

Most exercises can be performed as aerobic (burn fat) or Anaerobic Exercise (burn mainly carbohydrates) the terms simply refer to the energy pathway required. For example walking is easy and a good aerobic exercise but if we increase the effort the body moves faster, eventually we end up running which then uses the Anaerobic Exercise energy pathway. The Anaerobic Exercise pathway means oxygen uptake becomes insufficient for fat to continue to be the main fuel source.

In fact most exercises or movements we perform result in a split between the fuels used, for example if the effort is about average like vacuuming a room or washing a car then we'll probably be burning about 50% carbohydrates and 50% fat.

 

Fast weight loss will come when the individual performs each exercise correctly and within their own unique capacity.

 

To change this rule you must burn stored fat indirectly by using anaerobic exercises to increase your metabolic rate.

 

Anaerobic Exercise

 

The words aerobic and anaerobic refer to energy pathways that are utilised during exercise. Aerobic means "with oxygen" and anaerobic means "without oxygen".

 

Fat needs oxygen to burn completely so in order to burn fat during an exercise we need to move slowly and smoothly. This enables muscle cells to be supplied with enough oxygen to continue with its aerobic capacity and utilize fat as the main energy source.

 

Anaerobic Exercise requires moving at an increased pace or with greater effort. Exercising this way burns more calories but results in a greater demand for oxygen which cannot be delivered in sufficient quantities to allow cells to continue burning fat. When we breath heavy we start to develop an oxygen debt and muscle cells switch to burning mainly carbohydrates, this fuel burns quickly and does not require oxygen.

 

Anaerobic Exercise such as sprinting or weight training require more effort and up to 95% of the fuel used will be carbohydrates.  

 

Although Anaerobic Exercise burn more carbohydrates they can be important in any weight loss program. They help burn fat indirectly by increasing the metabolic rate after an exercise session.