When you eat fewer calories than your body needs you do lose weight but a percentage of that weight loss is muscle tissue. So when you weigh yourself you do weigh less but you have also lost some of your "Fat burning machine" which means your metabolism has slown down!

One pound of body fat stores up to 3500 calories. Lets say, for example that you require about 2000 calories to maintain your weight; if you stopped eating you could lose roughly a pound of weight every two days. This isn't a good idea because the human body will lose a pound of muscle for every pound of body fat it loses. The reason is that muscle is an expensive resource so in times of food shortage it makes sense from a survival point of view to lose muscle!
This is an internal safety mechanism that maximises the human body's ability to survive in times of famine. The human body is programmed to burn fewer calories, by maintaining less muscle and more body fat for use in times of food crisis as fat stores prolong life. This is the way we have survived for thousands of years.

When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism! Muscle is the place in your body where fat is burned. Starvation induced muscle loss reduces the body's fat burning ability.

Muscle burns fat. Remember, the scales cannot tell you whether you have lost fat or muscle and if you have lost muscle you've reduced your body's fat burning machine.

Iif your goal is to lose weight and then in a couple of months put it all back on again then by all means diet.
If your goal however is to reduce your body size (inch loss) and maintain the gains you have made then dieting is not going to work for you and a different method must be used.

Now you have a better understanding of why any form of dieting just does not work. So what does?

If you want to have that lean, toned and fit body you have always wanted you require a programme that includes the following components:

•  What to eat
  •  Nutritional advice and eating in a manner that boosts metabolism.
    
•  What to do
  •  Exercise both cardio and strength training.
    
•  What to think
  •  Motivation and Mental Fitness.

All three elements must be in place at the same time if you want to ensure a positive physical change.

All my programs follow the above principles so if you are tired of not getting the results you want I'll show you how to get that lean, toned and sexy body you have always wanted.

For more information please click on the following links:

Personal Training (One to One)
Group Personal Training (Groups of up to 8 people)
Pilates Training (Groups of up to 12 people)

Carol Bartram (Dip.PT, IIHHT)
Personal Trainer
Pilates Instructor
Hull, East Yorkshire, UK

carol@zestforliving.co.uk
http://www.zestforliving.co.uk