Are you aware that 3500 calories is one pound of fat? If you want to lose one pound in a week, you have to cut out 3500 calories, so to lose five pound in a week, you have to cut out 17,500 calories.
But the thing is, the average person only takes in about 2000 calories a day, or 14,000 per week, and that is pretty much what it takes to sustain your health. In other words, to diet away five pounds in one week you can’t eat anything, ANYTHING, for the whole entire week, PLUS one day before AND one day after the week. An average daily food intake of 2000 calories would need nine days of zero, zip, nada, none, no food whatsoever to lose 5 pounds. The problem should be obvious at this point: You can’t just diet fat off. It takes more than diet.
Here’s what will happen when you stop eating: Your body recognizes that there is no food and goes into hibernation mode. This is not a conscious decision, it’s involuntary, like your heartbeat or breathing. The first thing it does is gives up water, and that means protein, which is 75% water, and constitutes lean muscle mass. After it depletes your water, it will start to burn carbohydrates, which causes you to store fat. In other words, you will start to gain weight. This is a metabolism thing, where your body reacts by slowing down the burn rate, and any food you take in is immediately sent to the fat storage unit. You have to change your metabolism or you won’t lose weight, you’ll put more on.
Since you can’t diet off the weight then it stands to reason that you have to work on increasing your burn rate. Normally a diet gets you to take in fewer calories and what you burn slowly reduces your size. Actually, you are just losing water, and because 75% of your lean muscle protein is water, pretty soon you start to gain again. You are in hibernation. Your body has made a choice. Give up the protein, live off the carbs, and store as much fat as possible. Any food you take in is converted immediately to fat to help you through this period of starvation. Remember, a bear can sleep though an entire winter without eating.
One thing is for sure: Body Builders don’t eat a lot of Big Macs and Whoppers. They have a totally different diet, and couple with some simple exercises, they control their metabolisms. If you like that sort of look, they are usually pretty hot, too. They eat like they will never have another meal. For all the food they take in, they should weight 400 pounds, but they don’t. They have learned to speed up their metabolism, so what they eat is going into muscle building, not fat storing.
Fact is, you can’t just diet and make fat go away, so you have to make a complete lifestyle choice. You want to lose weight? Start with a little exercise. Get your metabolism kicked up. Once that starts to take off a little weight, THEN you start your diet, and after that you increase your exercise. When you start AFTER you have increased your metabolism, the work will be more effective. The pounds will come off faster and more easily. The weight loss is a lifestyle change and more likely to stay off.
Understand that you put your weight on because you don’t burn everything that you eat. You store some of it, and over time, that weight builds up. Problem is, storage is driven by what you eat and that consumption is mostly about water. Protein is 75% water. When you go on a diet, after you clear out the water you burn protein from your storehouse.
You can’t just diet fat off because your body will give away all of it’s protein to protect itself, so you start to live on carbohydrates- and gain weight. When you lower your food intake, you lose protein, and this loss lowers your burn rate.
Ifyour diet istaking too long, remember that 3500 calories is one pound of fat. Here’s your chance, come to my website at the link, or come to my blog. There’s lots of articles and the blog has some great stuff as well.