subject: Good Metabolic Fitness Is Required To Lose Weight [print this page] Good Metabolic Fitness Is Required To Lose Weight
For the last four decades research about the effects of exercise focused on what happened during the actual session and ignored the after effects. But things have changed and now we know for sure that what happens during an exercise session impacts the after effects on whether the body burns fuel for energy or stores fuel as body fat. These after effects of an exercise session are the most important aspect that determines our 'metabolic fitness', This is the ability of our body to efficiently burn fuel (calories) for energy and not store it so it piles up around our waist and other body parts spoiling our appearance and endangering our health.So, to lose weight and keep off unwanted pounds of excess flab, a healthy metabolism is our very best fat-burning friend. Each one of us would like to be able to burn more fuel than we do right now both at work and at rest.Our metabolism is often shrouded in mystery as it is a complex series of interactions between eating and exercise habits with a few genetic factors thrown into the mix as well. By taking some time to understand it though, you can boost your weight loss and fat burning efforts in significant ways. If you have allowed your metabolism to become sluggish even the best weight loss attempts will be hindered.When it comes to weight/fat loss the calories you take in are important but it is your body's hormones (chemical messengers) that tell your body how, when and where those calories are utilized. Restrictive food dieting is not the answer and neither is performing more long duration, low intensity exercise.To boost metabolic fitness you need to get every bit of muscle in your body toned up and there is only one form of exercise that will do this - proper strength training exercise. No other activity will take your muscles through controlled loading with sufficient resistance to rebuild lost strength or maintain it. This is how you will burn the fat off your body from highly active muscle tissue burning a greater number of calories.You need good body composition which is your muscle to fat ratio to have good metabolic fitness so the time spent on your exercise program needs to produce results or you will be just wasting your time. You can still do recreational type endurance activities but just do not replace your proper exercise program with them or you will be very disappointed in your results.Support your exercise program with healthy eating such as 4-6 small meals every 3 hours or so throughout the day. Each of these small meals should contain at least 20 grams of protein as the center piece and the balance made up of raw and cooked vegetables. Eliminate as much processed food from your diet as well and replace it with natural whole foods cooked from scratch. Yes, it will take some time and some effort to do this but, which would you rather have, a slim trim strong healthy body or a weak, flabby overweight one. The choice is easy don't you think?
