Weight Loss - What Really Works?

Having seriously researched the many weight loss books and articles around, I can safely say that I was becoming increasingly confused by the mixed messages and advice out there.  Then I stood back and looked for common themes within that advice and I came up with the following insight:

1. Don’t starve your body in an attempt to reduce your calorie intake.  It may work in the short term but at the cost of muscle mass and the potential in putting that weight back on is very high.  Instead you need to spread your meals over five to six smaller meals rather than three big meals. Don’t do strenuous exercise on an empty stomach. Your car won’t run on an empty tank, what makes you think you can?

2. Whilst you need to be aware of your calorie intake, don’t be a slave to it.  It’s more important to regulate the quality of the food you eat, including increased protein and fibre in your diet.  Why?  If you are working out or exercising more than three or four times per week, you need fuel to help repair muscles and to keep your energy levels topped up.  vary your source of protein and fibre during the week, to make your body work harder in processing these important dietary supplements.

3. Eat a short while before and after strenuous exercise, this both fuels the body and maximises your body’s ability to process protein and repair muscles and also increases your metabolic rate for up to 36/48 hours afterwards.  Increased metabolic rate means increased calorie burning and reduced fat storage.

4. Don’t try to remove fat completely from your diet as this is as important to your diet as calcium and vitamins.  The secret is control the type of fat you eat (avoiding trans fats wherever possible) to ensure your good cholesterol level is maintained at a healthy level.

5. Once in a while you can have that MacDonald’s burger as a treat, this way your craving for this sort of food will not be so bad and you will soon find it easy to control those urges.  This will hopefully result in more long term weight control rather than the usual see-saw effect that starvation diets cause.

6. Interval training is a great way to boost your metabolic rate and target energy from fat stores rather than muscles.  I mix this in with my normal four sessions of weights (1 hour sessions).  I try to complete three sessions of interval training (30 - 40 mins) with the four sessions of weight training.  That adds up to four days I hear you say, not quite.  One day a week I do both, one at lunch time and one after work.  This still gives me a day of complete rest.  One final thought on this, I like to do my leg/calves focused weight training session the day before my rest day. This allows my legs to rest before my next cardio/interval session.

7. Mix up your sessions a little by not doing exactly the same routines every week.  Add a resistance set into your session or a maximum weight set.  This keeps your muscles guessing and stops your body developing efficient ways of handling the sames sets and thus increasing your ability to both both calories and increase your metabolic rate.

Finally, don’t expect to lose those ten to 20 lbs overnight.  You need to programme your body to feel comfortable with your dietary and fitness improvements.  This will mean that your body is subjected to less stress and a more able to keep the weight off as the new improvements become a part of your normal life rather than taking over your life.

If you have any comments or feedback on this subject I would love to hear them.

Good luck

Mark