Help to Reduce Belly Fat
Can You Lose Weight Where You Want?
If you have excess weight only in specific parts of your body, you still must look at yourself as a whole. It’s not possible to spot reduce; in other words, you can’t dictate that you only want weight to come off one place or another. In most cases your so called “trouble spots” is where the fat will come off last, so be prepared to lose weight in your fingers (rings fall off) and your face (friends may ask if you’re feeling all right) first. There is hope for losing that belly fat though.
Work Toward Building Muscle and Reducing Body Fat
If you work toward building muscle and reducing body fat you will eventually tackle those trouble spots though, and develop a better physique in the process. Muscle tissue is active meaning it requires calories to be maintained. If you were stranded without a food supply, eventually your body would turn to its own muscle tissue as a source of nutrition first (muscles are protein) while saving the fat stores for last. Simply put, fat is nature’s way of ensuring survival during times of famine. That’s why the prevalence of heart failure kills someone who is severely malnourished. By building more muscle you become a more efficient energy burning machine which translates to mean you can eat more food! That to me is a good thing.
The More Active You Are, The More You Get to Eat!
That explains why some people can eat so much more than others yet not gain weight; your efficient energy burning friend simply has a greater proportion of muscle to fat than you. Muscle is more dense than fat. It’s often said that a pound of muscle is heavier than a pound of fat, but the truth is a pound is a pound. What they mean is a one pound volume of muscle is a smaller package than a one pound volume of fat, or put another way, fat is billowy and fluffy while muscle is sleek and compact. Lady No. 1 weighs 120 pounds with 30% body fat so she has 84 pounds of lean tissue and 36 pounds of fat, while Lady No. 2 also weighing 120 pounds but at 18% body fat is carrying roughly 98 pounds of muscle and 22 pounds of fat. Would you rather be Lady No. 1 or Lady No. 2? Which do you think takes up more space, 22 or 36 pounds of fat? I’d say 36 pounds of fat would be a lot bigger package than 22 pounds.
How Much You Weigh is Meaningless
That is why body weight as a number by itself is meaningless, but your ratio of fat to muscle is very important and worth working to change. Strive to decrease your body fat and increase your muscle mass and you’ll look better, you’ll feel stronger and more energetic and you’ll simply be healthier.
You can generally have your body fat tested at fitness centers and most gyms so ask about having it done. It’s better to know you have 30% body fat and work to reduce it to 29, than not to know and only think in terms of body weight. Most people who think only of how much they weigh tend to do everything to reduce that weight, and it’s usually at the expense of losing more valuable muscle.
The best way to increase muscle and decrease fat is through a consistent exercise program. Start at whatever is your beginning, but do start.
Begin with an overall body conditioning type exercise program, doing whatever you enjoy, whether it be a sport, gardening, weight lifting, biking, hiking, or any other activity. Any physical movement you do regularly counts as exercise even if it is doing laundry or taking out the trash. Get as much as you can out of every chore you do, and stop thinking of it as a chore but instead as an opportunity to move your body.
In the early 1900s a washing machine was a new invention. People used to wash their clothes by hand, and hang them outside to dry. Being a housewife was actually a pretty strenuous job. It’s no wonder women were thankful for modern conveniences like automatic washers and dryers, but now we’ve come to where our daily activities are not taking our bodies at all, so unless we want to get fatter and fatter we must do something about it.
Get Fit and Belly Fat Disappears
It doesn’t make sense to drive around and around in the parking lot looking for the closest space when you’re on your way to run or walk on the treadmill. Why take the elevator five flights every day at work and then pay a monthly fee to do the StairMaster after work? What if we all started to notice that our world is full of exercise equipment.
We could become so much more fit if we’d just start to notice all the opportunities for physical movement we miss in the name of convenience. Look around and see if you can spot some exercise opportunities, and then get busy and get fit.
~~ Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, author of the free e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com
Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss.
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Weight Gain = Poor Quality of Life
Gaining up to 20 pounds over four years can significantly decrease quality of life, according to a study in the Dec. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study asked over 40,000 women to rate their ability to perform simple tasks, their experience with bodily pain, and their overall vitality during the study period to determine how weight gain or loss affects quality of life.
Weight Gain Increased Feelings Of Bodily Pain
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The study found that a weight gain of 5-20 pounds resulted in decreased physical functioning and lower overall feelings of vitality. Weight gain also increased feelings of bodily pain.
“We asked simple questions about lifting and carrying groceries, climbing flights of stairs, and their experience with a range of basic functions of daily life,” Harvard University assistant professor of medicine Ichiro Kawachi, MD, tells WebMD. The women were asked 36 questions that rated their abilities on a scale from 0 to 100.
“We found that weight gain was among the strongest predictors of declining physical function, stronger than current smoking,” says Kawachi, who co-authored the study along with a team of Harvard researchers. “We also found that even with women who started out at a normal range of weight, a moderate gain of 5-19 pounds was still associated with a decline in functioning and energy level.”
The study also found that while weight gain and loss were associated with the worst and best quality of life scores, it found that among women who maintained their weight, quality of life remained high.
“The message of even maintaining weight is a very important preventive goal,” says awachi. “If you can prevent adding a couple of pounds a year, it would translate into a health gain in terms of function, as well as the known risk factors for cardiovascular and related health.”
Being Overweight Increases Risks Of Health Disorders
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Physicians know that being overweight increases the risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes among other disorders.
The study cites national statistics showing that over the past 15 years, the average weight of Americans has increased by nearly eight pounds.
Of the patients involved in the study, close to 40% of the women gained between 5 and 20 pounds, approximately 40% maintained their weight, and just over 15% lost between 5 and 20 pounds. The women ranged in age from 47 to 71, with an average age of 58, and were followed for four years.
Franca Alphin, director of the Duke University Diet & Fitness Center, says learning to maintain weight is as important as taking it off.
“The majority of people know how to lose weight but not maintain weight loss,” says Alphin. “The challenge to someone losing weight is to maintain weight, and the challenge for people with normal weight is to maintain it.” She says part of the center’s weight-loss program is defined periods of weigh maintenance. “When someone reaches their goal weight, typically other issues in their lives that have been on hold come back, and food can be reinstated as a crutch, so maintaining weight becomes more important.”
The Bottom Line In Dieting Is Calories
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Alphin advises a daily diet of 1,200-1,500 calories and an ultimate exercise goal of 30 minutes three or four days per week. “The bottom line in dieting is calories. You have to be aware of portions and over consumption regardless of what foods you choose to eat.”Source: WebMD
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Weight Gain = Poor Quality of Life
About The Author
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Michael Lewis has been collecting articles and information on Weight Loss and HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and related health benefits. He has created and edits numerous web sites about this subject. Michael is a staff writer for ageforce.com and several other websites. If you would like to contact Michael you can e-mail him at [email protected] or if you would like to know more about Weight Loss, HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and related health topics please visit us at AgeForce.com.
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