subject: How to avoid burning muscle mass when dieting [print this page] Your body is not able to tell the difference between intentional calorie deprivation - as in the 500 calorie diet and starvation. If you dramatically cut down on your calorie intake, your body will move into a protective mode and the first thing it doe's is slow your metabolism down to hold and preserve fat (a vital source of energy) and instead will start to burn muscle. In the beginning of a 500 a day calorie diet you WILL lose weight. But it is unlikely to be fat; it is more likely going to be fluid weight and lean muscle tissue - Which is off course the exact OPPOSITE of what you want for any kind of safe long term weight loss.
Extreme dieting can decrease your metabolic rate down to a snails pace, causing your weight loss efforts to come to a rapid halt, they can also cause a very disappointing "negative" effect. It is this rebound effect that can leave you totally disillusioned with dieting because you can end up fatter then when you first started to diet. When you Yo-yo like this, you don't only put on more weight than you have actually lost, your percentage of body fat increases because your body eats in to it's own muscle tissue in search of an energy source during a "hyper diet" . Hence the word "Yo-yo dieting which many dieters sadly have had to under go many times in their dieting.
To permanently get rid of the fat stored in and around your body, you only have to burn more calories than you consume and this can easily be achieved by increasing your metabolic rate (the rate at which your body burns fuel even while you are sleeping) with a well designed exercise routine and a good healthy balanced diet. Even if you don't like working-out or exercising, just consuming 5 small, good health wholesome meals a day as in the 1200 calorie diet plan made up of protien,raw vegetables and fresh fruit will markedly help speed up your metabolic rate - and you will naturally start to burn more calories!
Diet supplements can also help particularly those proven to help speed-up metabolism such as the Acai berry, Maqui berry extracts and Wu-Yi tea - sometime also known as Oolong or Wu-long tea. But you have to remember that these are only "supplements" and do not replace good quality food, in other words just because you are taking dietary aids like those mentioned does not permit you to stray from maintaining a watchful eye on the type of food you eat.
It's a common myth that missing breakfast can help you slim, but in fact it's completely untrue -- don't skip breakfast if you're trying to lose weight .To keep a healthy metabolism functioning through out the remaining day your body needs a health wholesome meal first thing in the morning to help "kick start" its metabolism into action.
