I know most of my fiends worry about being fat, or not in shape. Some of them don’t know how they got there. Some of them do know what made them so fat, eating too much. Only few however actually take a bold step to reduce their body weight and get in shape. And everyone simply go to gym and try to reduce their fat. This tend to work only with some people and not with everyone. Because there is this one major issue that they still need to answer. Which is, what about the food?
It doesn’t matter if you are already fat and goes to gym but at the end of the day you still eat lot of food. And probably you might have convinced yourself that since you are going to gym you are allowed to eat more thus end up eating more and more carbs (carbohydrates including sugar) and fatty foods. Its a great feeling I must agree, to eat like a king. But its not so great feeling when you get a king size belly too. Your hard work at the gym is wasted and so does your money and time.
So how do you get it right? It depends on your current situation, i.e., you are already fat or not, and your goal, i.e., what is it that you really want to achieve, a lean body, big muscles, etc. This article is for people who wants to be lean. You need to understand how your body works when it comes to digesting food. Your body needs food as a source of energy. Which means the energy that your body required is generated through breaking down food and burning them, just like a car would burn petrol. The main source of energy is carbohydrates. This is the easiest and the fastest to break. Next is fat which is hard (required more energy to break itself) and slowest. And then the body has proteins.
As your primary source of energy your body will always use carbohydrates to generate your energy requirements. If there is not enough carbohydrates it will start burning fat deposits in your body failing which proteins will be burned. Since your body always keep enough carbohydrate deposits in your body (converted as glucose to glycogen in your muscles and liver and then as fat) this burning fat upon lack of carbohydrates in your food will not initiate overnight. If you keep eating high carb food like rice, bread and rottee, too much, even though you think there’s no fat, unless you burn all the carbs that you take, excess will always be convert in to fat thus you will hardly loose weight. If you are successful in burning all the carbs you eat, by exercising, you will not put on more weight. But you will hardly loose weight either.
The key to loosing weight is, in my opinion, adopt a low carb diet. Because most of you don’t really go to a gym or work hard and burn your calories, your energy requirement is lower. Therefore you need not to provide your body with so many carbohydrates. The goal is to eat less carbs so that they all will be burned during the day and nothing will be deposited in your body. Then you can maintain your weight. But to loose weight if you are over weight you need to activate the fat burning mechanism as your primary source of energy in your body. Cut down carbs as much as possible and eventually, after few days, your body will start depending on your fat deposits and thereby you will reduce your weight. If you go to a gym this process will be much faster. But remember, your do need to feed yourself within this period. So adopt a high protein/low carb diet. The low carbs in your diet will quickly burned and protein will help to build your muscles. Zero carb diets are bit riskier too. High protein food are, eggs, fish (especially tuna), meat, milk, cheese etc. You can even opt in for a high protein milk such as, whey protein, if you know what you are doing. Extra Protein will hardly converted in to fat but always flush out of your body as nitrogen and Ammonia though urine.
Once you achieve your goal, you need to start eating appropriate amount (to match your body’s energy requirement) of carbs again making sure you burn them all thus adopting active lifestyle. Because now that you have burned your body fat, to meet your energy requirement you need carbohydrates again. I hope this article be a first step in finding more about balanced diets and eating more healthy in order to be lean and healthy. I was once a confused kid not knowing how to get rid of my fat, wasted hours and hours in the Gym but didn’t really bother about controlling my food habits. However I was able to loose 10kg (from 82kg to 72kg) of body fat after concentrating on my diet and adopting more healthy and balanced diet. To gain more weight I suggest protein but not fat.
This is not me though 😛
Junkyard 