Negative Calorie Balance and Exercise
Negative Calorie Balance and Exercise work together for dramatic weight loss. Losing weight is a contest between calorie consumption, calories used for energy, and the metabolism.
The metabolism is charged the task of keeping energy flowing to all the systems that work subconsciously. These systems include your brain, heart, and digestion. The metabolism is aware of the calories consumed, the calories burned, and how much potential energy is stored in fat.
All weight loss diets are trying to manipulate the metabolism into thinking we are not starving while slowly reducing the number of calories supplied for energy. If the energy consumed does not alarm the metabolism, it will let go of fat storage.
Exercising to Increase Negative Calorie Balance
Everyone’s body has a metabolic balance in which calories consumed and calories burned for energy are at homeostasis. The average male can consume about 2,200 calories and the energy used to by the metabolism for system functions, plus energy used for digestion plus energy burned in daily activities will be equal. Weight will not be lost or gained.
The point of diets is to reduce energy consumed. Various tricks are used to increase the metabolic rate like consuming more protein. Another trick is consuming fiber which slows the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar. Excess sugar becomes fat.
A great way to increase the metabolic energy consumption is adding calorie burn to our daily activities. Any additional activities can achieve this. A half hour walk may burn 200 calories. If that is paired with a reduction of calories consumed by 200 calories we have a negative balance increase of 400 calories. A pound is 3,500 calories. You can do the math.
Reducing calorie intake by 500 calories a day and increasing exercise to an hour a day may result in a negative calorie balance of 1,200 calories. This means in 3 days the body will lose one pound. We have to be careful of the dieter’s trap of consuming more calories because they think they have earned the right by exercising.
Working with the Metabolism When it Becomes Alarmed
Most every time a person has lost a certain amount of weight the metabolism will become alarmed that its host is short of resources and it should do its job by holding onto fat stores. This is a plateau in our weight loss progress.
In losing 40 pounds in 5 months, I had several plateaus. I lived on a calorie restricted diet. I exercised moderately with an hour most days. I consumed calories in non-dense calorie foods meaning no sweets or foods with sugar added. No white flour. No alcohol. Restricted carbohydrate consumption of fruits and vegetables and especially late in the day.
I found I had to add a few more influences. Water consumption is crucial to losing weight. A minimum is half our body weight in ounces (a 200-pound person drinks 100 oz of water a day). Water consumption accelerates weight loss. Even though the minimum for me is 80 ounces a day at my current weight, I try to consume over 100 ounces and reach for a gallon.
Eating in a window of time called intermittent fasting helps digestion consume more calories. I like a 16-hour window. I have breakfast at 8 a.m., lunch at noon and dinner at 4:30 to 5 p.m. (Doctors may warn diabetics about this practice). This practice assisted the metabolism in burning fat for fuel and releasing bad fats.
Finally, I started having meal replacement shakes. This gave me more nutrients to supplement my calorie restriction. It also extended my fasting window. If I have a meal replacement shake for breakfast, I am fasting from 5 p.m. the previous night to noon of the current day. That is 19 hours.
The most successful exercise utilized by most athletes to teach the body to burn fat for fuel is to engage in long endurance with slow speed. After 20 minutes, the body has utilized most of the carbohydrates stored in the liver, muscles and blood stream. Muscles will then seek fat for fuel.
My goal for weight loss was a half-pound to a pound a day. Utilizing all these practices I was successful and the practices even took me through the plateaus after a week or so, at times, of my metabolism adjusting to each lower weight level.
See the Home Page for Healthy Fun Products that work on any diet.
See all the practices at work in more detail in my Free E-Book, The 3 Week Plan.
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