In yesterday’s post I talked about the wonderful results Shelley has achieved in transforming her body shape by following my 12 week fat loss programme. In the post I mentioned that Shelley’s Before and After photos make a really good illustration of why weight is often not a good measure to go by if a leaner, firmer, more shapely body is your goal.
I touched on this subject in a previous post back in June when I was working on stripping fat from my own body.
I’ll reuse the same photo here to show what 5lb of body fat and 5lb of muscle look like.
Seeing this should help you realise how someone’s weight may not tell the full story when their body shape changes. Take a look and ask yourself which would look better on your thighs.
Your body will become leaner, slimmer, firmer, healthier and sexier if you gain muscle as well as shedding fat by following a good fat loss fitness programme. You could replace 5lb of fat with 5lb of muscle and be a lot smaller, but the scales would not move.
This is why, while I do keep an eye on changes in my clients’ weight, my focus is more on bringing down the amount of fat they have on their bodies. That’s why I talk about running a fat loss programme, not a weight loss programme.
Everyone who completes my 12 week programme will gain muscle tissue as well as shedding fat. This is why the results are so visually impressive. I ask everyone to take Before photos at the start so they can see just how much of difference there is after 12 weeks. Adding muscle not only gives their bodies a harder, more attractive, sculpted shape, it improves athletic performance, reduces injury risk, aids mobility and agility, reduces aches and pains, brings a huge range of health benefits and, of course, makes them stronger. Beyond the physical, all of this transfers into increased confidence and wellbeing.
However, the main benefit many of my clients get excited about, at least at first, is the fact that adding muscle to the body increases the metabolic rate. Metabolic rate measures the amount of fuel/calories/fat your body burns. The problem with most weight loss diet and exercise programmes is that they actually reduce metabolic rate.
The body uses up energy to maintain the fat on your body, so when fat is lost the amount of fuel your burns each day will fall. This means that if you ate the same diet you did before, even if that diet had previously been just right – neither causing you to gain or lose weight – you will now be putting more fuel into your body than it needs and the excess will be stored as fat. Obviously, if you’re still trying to lose weight this will mean you have eat less and less or exercise more and more. And, I’m afraid, it gets worse – most weight loss diet and exercise plans will also cause muscle to be lost along with the fat. Muscle requires more energy to maintain on the body than fat but, as you can see in the photo above, it is much smaller and smoother than fat (weight for weight), so losing it can be disastrous for your body shape.
If you restrict calories and either don’t exercise or choose traditional forms of weight loss exercise, like aerobics, running, or cycling, while you may lose weight in the short term, in the process you will probably slow down your metabolism, which means that once you go back to your normal lifestyle it will be very difficult to maintain your results and even more difficult to lose weight in the future.
Once you know this, it’s easy to understand how the majority of people who lose weight tend to gain it right back, and often more besides. You should also be starting to realise why, for most people, adding muscle to the body should be an essential aspect of their fat loss attack plan. And that’s why you should not measure your progress by weight alone.
If you’re worried that gaining muscle will make you look too big and bulky, don’t. This is something that tends to worry women more than men, but ladies, I can assure you that getting big muscles is very hard for us to achieve even when we want to and does not happen by accident. Please read this post if you are concerned.
All of the workouts in my programme have been devised to increase the metabolic rate, which means that, after just a few weeks, participants will be burning more calories/fat for fuel, while they’re exercising and when they’re not, even while they sleep. So, not only do you get a sculpted, strong healthy body, your body also becomes very “metabolically active”, which basically means you burn a lot of calories. And you know what that means – you get to eat more and still maintain a great shape!
Throughout January I’m sharing success stories to show the fantastic results of the people who followed my fat loss fitness programme last year. If you haven’t already seen the posts about Kat, Sarah, and Shelley you should have a look now – get ready to be inspired!
My programme works equally well for men, by the way. Guys love the way it gives them that “ripped” look they usually want, this is because their bodies produce more testosterone and they achieve muscle definition more easily, while the women get lean, firm and shapely. I’ll feature one of the men from my pilot group in the next post so you can see an example of the results the guys got on my plan.
Full details on the programme will not be available publicly until the book is published in January 2014. However, I will be taking on a small group of fat loss fitness clients during January 2013 for online coaching similar to the pilot programme. Please visit my website if you’d like more details.