If you're trying to get in shape by building muscle and you're overweight right now, then you really do need to know about this.
If you're really out of shape when you begin training, you'll make some progress almost immediately if you've gone from doing almost no exercise to doing some exercise.
After a while the law of diminishing returns sets in - and the closer you get to your target, the more difficult it becomes.
Have you ever seen someone who used to be really fat, and then you see them and they've lost a huge amount of weight? They look thinner yes, but they also look drawn, or gaunt, or just ill!
And this is the crucial mistake that you need to understand and avoid - because they've concentrated on losing weight, as opposed to losing fat.
If you're overweight now, then you must think in terms of losing fat. Because if you think just in terms of losing bodyweight, you'll end up stripping off more muscle than fat. Your body is very quick at working out situations - if you start to cut right back on your food intake, your body goes into survival mode.
This means it will store fat. So when you lose weight, you lose muscle. You also need to bear in mind that having huge muscles on your body is not a natural state. This means that especially if your body is in survival mode, it becomes all too easy to strip off your precious muscle, whilst retaining the fat that you really wanted to get rid of!
So always, always think in terms of losing fat.
That said, how do you do this?
The most important thing it to find a way of tracking your body mass index (or your fat levels if you prefer.)
Your bodyweight consists of your lean body mass plus how much fat you carry.
Nowadays, you can buy scales that calculate your fat levels - this is shown as a percentage of your bodyweight. It's important to track this as you go - because if your weight is going down but your fat percentage stays the same, then you're stripping muscle off and not fat.
Probably the most accurate way to measure your body mass index is using skin fold callipers. You use these to take measurements on four or five sites on your body, and then these measurements form the basis to calculate your fat levels.
If you use this you need to make sure that you're consistent as to where you measure, and also be consistent about the time of day that you check, as results can fluctuate during the day.
Don't go mad with this - check every couple of weeks or so.
By tracking your fat percentage you can go a long way to avoid falling into the trap of losing weight as opposed to losing fat.
Good luck!
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ged_Mccabe
If you're really out of shape when you begin training, you'll make some progress almost immediately if you've gone from doing almost no exercise to doing some exercise.
After a while the law of diminishing returns sets in - and the closer you get to your target, the more difficult it becomes.
Have you ever seen someone who used to be really fat, and then you see them and they've lost a huge amount of weight? They look thinner yes, but they also look drawn, or gaunt, or just ill!
And this is the crucial mistake that you need to understand and avoid - because they've concentrated on losing weight, as opposed to losing fat.
If you're overweight now, then you must think in terms of losing fat. Because if you think just in terms of losing bodyweight, you'll end up stripping off more muscle than fat. Your body is very quick at working out situations - if you start to cut right back on your food intake, your body goes into survival mode.
This means it will store fat. So when you lose weight, you lose muscle. You also need to bear in mind that having huge muscles on your body is not a natural state. This means that especially if your body is in survival mode, it becomes all too easy to strip off your precious muscle, whilst retaining the fat that you really wanted to get rid of!
So always, always think in terms of losing fat.
That said, how do you do this?
The most important thing it to find a way of tracking your body mass index (or your fat levels if you prefer.)
Your bodyweight consists of your lean body mass plus how much fat you carry.
Nowadays, you can buy scales that calculate your fat levels - this is shown as a percentage of your bodyweight. It's important to track this as you go - because if your weight is going down but your fat percentage stays the same, then you're stripping muscle off and not fat.
Probably the most accurate way to measure your body mass index is using skin fold callipers. You use these to take measurements on four or five sites on your body, and then these measurements form the basis to calculate your fat levels.
If you use this you need to make sure that you're consistent as to where you measure, and also be consistent about the time of day that you check, as results can fluctuate during the day.
Don't go mad with this - check every couple of weeks or so.
By tracking your fat percentage you can go a long way to avoid falling into the trap of losing weight as opposed to losing fat.
Good luck!