Does a Fat Free Diet Help Achieve a Healthy Weight Loss?
Everyone claims that they want to lose weight and get healthy, but what they really mean is that they want to lose fat and inches to fit into some old clothes, look better in a bathing suit, or turn their keg belly into a six-pack. The first thing people attempt to do is eliminate fat without changing their diet, even though we all know that is not healthy. If it was, people would be running around slim and trim from eating all kinds of fat free versions of their favorite foods.
Our bodies need fat. Fat is responsible for regulating our body temperature. It insulates our vital organs and stores energy our bodies use later on as fuel. Just as everything else in life there are two sides to every story. There are good fats and bad fats. There are also some facts that you may have never heard before. Knowing them just may well be your ticket to finally losing weight in a safe and healthy way.
Diet Tips #1: Body Fat Percentage Is Key
Body fat percentage is the amount of body fat we carry compared to our weight. The goal here is to have an ideal body fat percentage in a range wherein we carry enough fat to feel and look healthy, but not so much that we become overweight, obese or susceptible to diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
The ideal range for healthy body fat is 20 to 25 percent for women and 8 to 15 percent for men. True accuracy is not all that important as long as you are sure that your body fat percentages are going down. Starving yourself to lose weight results in muscle loss and poor health. Changing your diet to water-rich foods and exercising every day will work much better.
Diet Tips#2: Muscle Burns Fat
This simple little fact is the reason why exercise is such a necessary part of living a healthy lifestyle. If you do not exercise while you are losing weight, you could lose muscle. Muscle loss makes burning calories and fat more difficult. The more muscles you have, the more calories and fat you will burn, even when you are resting!
I could not exercise when I first began to lose weight because of severe asthma. Once I became healthy, I was able to exercise and build muscle. It only accelerated my weight loss and I finally began to look good physically. So, if you can, follow an exercise program that combines aerobic activity (like walking or jogging) with resistance activity (like lifting weights).
Diet Tips #3: Exercise Uses Stored Fat As Fuel
The more you exercise, the more you have to eat. The key here is eating the right kinds of foods. People like professional athletes who are slim can eat whatever they want because they need fat and carbohydrates for energy, but a person needing to lose weight needs to eat right by changing their diet to healthier foods.
The more you exercise, the more calories you burn and the sooner your body tap into our fat stores for energy. Most people think you should just get on a treadmill for 30 minutes a day and that’s enough. Even though it is definitely better than sitting on the couch, building muscle can maximize the calories you burn during cardio so your body reaches for fat more often.
Diet Tips#4: Diet Affects Body Fat Composition.
Body fat comes from stored calories. Your body fat does not care whether the calories come from fat, protein, or carbohydrates. This is why people who eat fat free foods never lose weight because the carbs turn into sugar and then into fat. This also explains why men have beer bellies from drinking non-fat beer as well as obese diet soda drinkers.
Fat has more calories than carbohydrates or protein, so monitoring the amount of fat in your diet is beneficial. If it is healthy fat, like the kind found in avocados, olive oil, fish, or nuts, there is no reason to exclude it completely. It is the fat you get from snacks and desserts that should be limited to weekly instead of daily.
Even a modest decrease in body fat percentage can have extraordinary health benefits, so start reaching your goals by making a few minor changes in your activity level and diet. Starting small is better than diving in head first. When you make small changes daily, you do not run the risk of getting burned out and overwhelmed. The next time you want an oreo, eat an apple. Dare yourself to just try it. You will be thankful you did.
