Weight Loss Without Dieting

Are you so determined and strong willed that you can completely quit pizzas forever?  Chocolates, cakes, fries and burgers too?  And all the other bad stuff you love.  Alcohol?  What about social events and those special occasions every once in a frequent while? 

Well, I’m mightily impressed if you can quit all this poison.  In fact, as a matter of urgency, I’d be grateful if you’d let me have your tips how you do it right now!  But apart from a regular exercise fitness program, here is my top five for a fitness diet.

Top 5 Fitness Diet Tips for Food Craving

In practice, most of us probably won’t completely give up all the bad stuff all the time.  We might cut them out for now, but experience indicates that after a while they just kind of creep back, don’t they?  Obviously, we can then always drop back into ‘cut’ mode once more.  In fact, we’ve probably done that quite a few times already, haven’t we?

Serial Dieting?

In other words, this sort of diet is temporary, even when repeated over & over.  So it’s hardly a big surprise that the effects are also temporary.  This means that we might just have to go on a ‘real’ diet.  A so-called real diet is where you buy special stuff.  And it’s a lucky thing, isn’t it, that there are lots of these about?  Just yummy too.  Or so they say.

Now if you’ve ever had a weight problem then you’ve most likely tried a diet or two.  Or three.  Generally speaking, they concentrate on two factors: loss of weight by means of a reduction of calories.  The idea is to take-in fewer calories so that weight is lost.  Take in fewer calories to make the fat go away.  Sounds sensible, doesn’t it? 

Each diet has its own catchy selling point as well as some sort of compliance routine to try and make you stick to it.  This varies from diet to diet.  Likewise, from the point of view of nourishment there is an issue that some diets are less healthy than others.   But the underlying aim is the same: to cut calories.

And it works!  Hooray!  You did lose weight, especially at the beginning when a fair amount of water is often lost.  The snag is that the body needs water - lots of it.  In fact, around 70% of it is water.  So dehydration isn’t too clever and the initial weight loss is very difficult to maintain for long.

What Can the Dieter Do About This?

Assuming sufficient willpower, the dieter could cut calories even further in an attempt to maintain the momentum of the initial weight loss. 

The unfortunate and insurmountable problem is that starving the body in this way also starves muscle.  This happens because muscle burns calories.  But the defence mechanism of the body slows this down by reducing the expenditure of energy in order to cope with the reduced intake of calories.  This produces a loss of muscle, reduces the metabolism and thus slows the loss of weight.

How Can This Be Handled This Time? 

A possible way is by a further reduction of calories. 

Obviously, a downward spiral can start like this and there are only two possible results.  Both of them are unhappy.  The worst is that the dieter can become ill and even die.  Fortunately, the more probable result is that the dieter gets too hungry and breaks the diet because it is almost impossible to reduce calories indefinitely like this.

Breaking The Diet Is Good

Because it reduces the possibility illness or death.  But it’s not so hot for the purposes of weight loss.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is well known and the second less so.

The first effect is that all the weight loss is put back on again.  This is usually rapid.  In fact, if this has happened to you, you will have frequently weighed more at this point than at the start of the diet.  Usually, this means that after a while you start yet another diet.  After all, there is always a new one on the market, isn’t there? 

In fact, there seems to be an endless stream of them.  Just reflect on the number of sensational diets and diet books that hit the coffee tables in the last year or two.  Now think the same about the hundreds of equally sensational diets in the years before those.  And then the years before those, and so on ad infinitum.

Your Diet Has Increased Your Capacity To Store FAT

The second and lesser-known effect of the ‘diet’ relates to the muscle that has been lost.  This is unhealthy.  It is also completely counter-productive for the purposes of weight loss and is a key cause of you now weighing more than before.  The reason is that because muscle burns calories, a reduction of muscle decreases the metabolic rate.

Consequently, the body is even less capable of burning fat than previously.  To put this another way, as a consequence of the loss of muscle and the reduced metabolism, the body has become even better at storing fat!

Starve To Get Fatter - That’s Clever

Another result is that you don’t feel good.  Even worse, you feel tired, disappointed and probably depressed.  This means that there is a high probability that this will lead to bad eating.  Guess what this leads to?  That’s right, even more fat.

In other words, the low calorie dieting method doesn’t work.  It not only doesn’t work, it also costs a fortune.  Not only does it cost a fortune, it’s also unhealthy.  It’s not only unhealthy, but it’s also not achieving anything close to all-round fitness.  In reality, you are actually less fit than before because you are now heavier and have less fat burning muscle and a lower metabolism. 

How Can This Cycle Be Broken?

The answer is to start from scratch with the notion of taking-in fewer calories.  As before, the first aim is to take in less calories than are used up.  The trick is to do this without loss of muscle that lowers your metabolism. 

But how can this be done?  This is the critical question and you already know the answer!  That’s right, exercise. 

More Cycling

Exercise works in two brilliant ways.  The first is that it uses calories, raises the metabolic rate and burns off fat.  The second is that, if done correctly, exercise builds muscle instead of reducing it.  And because muscle increases metabolism, this in turn burns calories, even when not being exercised.

Therefore, the best answer is to stop thinking about losing weight and to start thinking about losing fat.  Then plan accordingly by a modest reduction of calories and an improvement in the quality of your eating and drinking.  Remember that a diet in the sense of starving oneself of essential nutrition will fail badly.  By contrast, a diet in the sense of eating well is essential.

Accompany this with a big increase in exercise.  This is the opposite of the usual route where near-starvation diets are relied upon with little or no exercise.  These simply lose muscle, slow the metabolism and eventually leave the dieter in a worse position than previously. 

Get Heavier to Get Slimmer - That’s Clever!

It’s well known that muscle weighs more than fat.  So, will having more muscle cause a problem?  If you think about weight loss rather than fat loss this might well hold you back.  But with the right exercise program you will build muscle and at the same time lose lots of fat. 

This will in turn reduce your weight.  The key thing to take on-board is that you need muscle for healthy and efficient calorie burning.

Hey, Good Looking!

For lots of people the key motivation in all this is not necessarily fitness but how they look.  Fat doesn’t generally score highly in the appearance department.  By contrast, a firm conditioned body looks better.  Not only does it look better than fat, it is also much healthier.  And not only is it much more healthy, it is also far better for personal confidence.

It’s better for confidence because muscle tone and greater fitness produce a tighter physical look.  Both the look and the enhanced physical capacity boost your confidence.  Greater confidence boosts attitude.  You feel better because you look better.  In fact, your mirror is a better guide here than your weighing scales.  In other words, you look better and feel better because you are better. 

The important thing is that your new confidence has a firm mental and physical foundation.  It’s not just surface.  Now this is invaluable for combating stress, which is so often an important contributing factor towards poor eating and exercise habits in the first place.

Worried About Getting Big Bulging Muscles?

This is sometimes a worry.  The concern is that exercising will produce massive, bulky muscles.  Well the chances of this are slim (ahem!).  It takes a great deal of a certain kind of heavy-duty weight lifting to bulk-up.  So forget it.  Just make sure you choose your exercise program carefully to match the aims you have in mind.

In reality, as The Fitnessblasting Manual shows you, your own weight is easily sufficient for a series of tremendous exercises that burn fat and build the longer slender type of muscle.  This not only looks nicer but is also a faster and safer way to build all-round fitness - power, endurance, speed and flexibility - without weights or pounding the streets.

But What If You Don’t Like Exercise?

That’s definitely bad news.  Sure enough, some people seem to think that time spent exercising is ‘quality’ time that could be spent eating junk food.  If you’re one of them, that’s too bad.

It generally takes a lot of work to get fat and unfit.  In fact, lots of people devote lots of time and energy to it.  So it hardly makes sense to expect to reverse years of effort in a few days.  But there’s no escape, you’re going to work on one of these options, aren’t you.  The good news is that although getting more fitness and less fatness can be tough, it’s not nearly as tough as the alternative, which can ruin your life. 

Many people will try almost any pill, potion or new diet that hits the headlines.  Just think what they could have achieved if they had stuck with a workable program instead of committing so much devotion and energy to so many long-term ‘quick-fixes’.  Maybe they just never found the right exercise plan.  Maybe they learn very slowly.  Whatever.

In fact, let’s face it, there’s apparently no end to the amount of money and effort that some people will go through to avoid exercise.  That’s their problem.  Why make it yours? 

The Effective Choice Not A Stupid One

For you it really boils down to a simple question.  Do you prefer being overweight, unhealthy, out of condition, out of pocket through investing in so many in silly diets, treatments or surgery rather than the right excise?  Do you prefer being out-of-condition 7 days a week / 24 hours a day to 4 regular 40 minute workouts a week for less than 3 hours in total?

Is that so tough?

The good news is that exercising commonly creates its own ‘high’.  So that after a while you find that missing a session gives you a bad ‘conscience’.  Strange but true.

The Magic Ingredient

In other words, there’s no magic to it, only lots of exercise and sensible eating.  But what is sensible eating?  No magic there either.  Reduce or cut sugar, transfats and alcohol.  Eat smaller, balanced, nutritional meals regularly and drink water between meals and at meals.  You will find some good recipes in the article, Great Food Ideas, even for your sweet tooth.  However, where there is a real eating disorder, make sure that expert medical advice is sought. 

Of course, it’s possible to do a lot more than all this depending on how fit you want to become.  How much more depends partly on your current condition and partly on your time and determination.  But even if you don’t give up all the bad stuff absolutely and forever, you can still be fitter, much fitter, and slimmer than previously.  The combination of sensible eating and regular exercising will make sure of that. 

Even better news is that eating right and exercising right reinforce each other.  This is the core solution: eat right and exercise right.  This will get you fit and slim and keep you fit and slim.  Each makes it harder to ‘forget’ the other and at the same time makes it easier to do the other.  Better still, you do it all yourself.  You are the only magic ingredient there is.

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