bart_yoyoThis is what we’ve been saying all along here at 10in30 Fitness. Going on “crash diets” where you starve yourself is a terrible thing to do to your precious body. You are training your body and brain to hang on to fat in preparation for future starvation. And if you do this often as with yo-yo dieting, you are damaging your body over and over.

Our Lose 10 Pounds plan is not a starvation diet. We gradually lower your calories based on your specific body, weight, and fat percentage. The key is to gradually lower your daily calories and end up with the right number of calories to lose weight. You can’t just jump into a big caloric deficit! But you do have to have enough of a deficit for your body to get rid of body fat, so the numbers have to be just right.

Repeated dieting may lead to weight gain because the brain interprets the diets as short famines and urges the person to store more fat for future shortages, new research by the universities of Exeter and Bristol suggests.

This may explain why people who try low-calorie diets often overeat when not dieting and so don’t keep the weight off.

By contrast, people who don’t diet will learn that food supplies are reliable and they do not need to store so much fat.

The study, published in the journal Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, is based on observations of animals such as birds.

Animals respond to the risk of food shortage by gaining weight, which is why garden birds are fatter in the winter when seeds and insects are hard to find.

The authors studied a mathematical model of an animal that knows whether food is currently abundant or limited, but does not know when things will change, so must learn about the changeability before deciding how fat to be.

The model shows that if food supply is often restricted (as it is when dieting) an optimal animal — the one with the best chance of passing on its genes — should gain excess weight between food shortages.

Fascinating stuff, eh? To read the rest of the article in Science Daily, click here.

 

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A caloric deficit diet is the number one agreed upon best way to lose body fat and thus lose weight.

Some say you don’t even really need to exercise at all if you are sticking to your diet. Well, I agree that if you are sticking to your diet of a caloric deficit (eating less than your body needs to stay at the same weight) you will lose weight. It’s just a numbers game. If your body needs say, 2000 calories to stay the same day in and day out, then if you eat 1400 every day you will naturally lose weight because you are not feeding your body enough for a 2000 calorie person at your height/age/gender. Your body cannot make energy out of nothing and those 600 missing calories are just that—nothing. They are missing. You are now eating enough for a 1400 calorie person. You will turn into that 1400 calorie person.

Then why do I insist that you do exercise? Well for starters, doing exercise will burn additional calories on top of what your body needs for every day activity like walking, talking, breathing, heart pumping, sitting, smiling, etc. So you will essentially be in a deeper caloric deficit without having to eat less because eating less will make you miserable! Those calories you are burning with exercise will subtract from the total daily calories making our example 1400-200=1200. Of course, these are just random numbers and you wouldn’t go that low in calories, at least you shouldn’t.

Eating at a huge deficit doesn’t work.

It doesn’t? Whaaaat? This might come as a surprise, but you shouldn’t just drop calories like there’s no tomorrow because guess what—there IS a tomorrow! And when tomorrow comes, you will gain the weight right back and usually with a vengeance. Yep, your body will avenge the fact that you starved it by hanging on to fat and you will eat more in order to prepare for another famine.

“But you said a diet is enough to lose weight!”

Again, why do I insist on exercise? Doing the right type of exercise and the right exercises will ensure that your body goes into fat burning mode and not fat hoarding mode. That’s correct—doing the wrong type of exercise will actually train your body to hang on to fat! You need to assure your body that you are eating enough for what you are doing so it does not need to store fat. That’s also correct—eating more food will actually allow you to get rid of extra fat around your waist, thighs, and arms! Now, obviously I’m not saying that you should eat more food than you need to maintain your weight; I’m saying more as in more than a crazy-low calorie diet like many people do, especially women.

You ever see someone—perhaps at work—that lost a lot of weight and everyone is high-fiving him and saying he looks great but something about him just doesn’t look right? He surely isn’t as big but he still looks crappy and you can’t put your finger on it? Well that’s because he lost a lot of weight, but not a lot of fat. He is probably rocking the same percentage of body fat but since the total weight went down, his size went down too. But it’s still a high fat percentage! He might now be at 25% body fat, which is slightly less or maybe even the same as when he was 50 pounds heavier. THAT, my friends, is what we do not want to do! We want to lose FAT and the weight will come off appropriately.

You do not want to become skinny fat. I’d rather be “fat and big” than skinny fat. Being skinny fat you lose in both worlds—skinny=no muscle, and fat=excess body blubber. YUCK! The big fat guy might have excess body blubber making him look soft, smooth, and walrussy but underneath that thick-ass coat of fat he has huge muscles. Trust me, big guys can lift a ton! Just go to the gym and see the big chubster doing leg press. He’ll load every 45 pound plate in the gym! The skinny fat person has no strength, and on top of that is carrying a high percentage of his or her total weight as fat. Sadness.

THEREFORE, in order to have a healthy, strong, useful, energetic, and—most important of all—SEXY body, you must workout the right way! I’ll give you a hint: YOU MUST LIFT FREAKING WEIGHTS! how’s that for a hint?

Click the link above on the word “healthy” to see why lifting weights is really important.

THAT IS ALL, MY BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS, THAT IS ALL.

Sincerely, your humble and loving servant in the world of health and fitness,

BUM MUSCLE

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