Women's Safety Information

What do people normally do when they try to lose weight? They would starve themselves and start jogging. This is the last thing you should do! Instead you should burn fat with the right exercise and healthy diet.

What are the consequences of a starvation diet?

A starvation diet is when the calories intake is too low: 1200 calories for women and 1800 calories for men.

When the body sense that there are lower than normal caloric intake, the fat cells sound the alarm and decrease the release of Leptin, a hormone that controls fat metabolism, tells the brain you are full. When Leptin level decrease, the appetite goes out of control and makes you feel hungry and you want to eat more.

Reduced Leptin level causes Lipase (fat digestive enzyme) to decrease and slow down fat burning.

Starvation diet reduces the energy level in the body. But maintaining muscle in the body requires energy. So, the body loses muscle mass due to the lack of energy to support it.

What is an effective weight loss program?

The most effective way is to cut calories slightly and increase activities level.

A small caloric reduction will not trigger the starvation diet response. The amount of calories reduction depends on the body size, the amount of lean body mass, activity level, age and gender. Generally, reduce calories intake by about 20% is safe.

Increase activities level to burn fat and calories. To burn 1 lb of fat, the body needs to burn 3500 calories. So, if you burn 500 calories a day, you can cut body fat by 1 lb a week. Losing 1-2 lb of fat is safe. In one month, you can lose 4 lb / 8.8 kg of fat which can equate to losing your body weight.

Put some planning into how are you going to take off 500 calories/day or 3500 calories /week. You may cut 250 calories (20%) from food and at the same time burn 250 calories from exercise every day.

Doing circuit training is an efficient way to burn fat within a short amount of time spent during the training. You can burn fat and build muscle at the same time. This will protect you from losing your muscle in a caloric reduced diet.

Cut out foods that contain most amount of calories and saturated fats:

Replace fizzy drinks with water and green tea Change whole milk to skimmed milk or soy milk Cut down unhealthy treats such as biscuits, potato chips, cakes and pastries Cut down beers and alcohols. Replace deep fried food with steam, boiled Feed the muscle with more lean protein and go for foods that burn fat.

There is no one magic pill or easy way to lose fat. You have to be determined and persevere. And when you succeed, you will feel a million times better. You got to try it to believe.

By: Su Lee Chong

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