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29. Resistance Training

RESISTANCE TRAINING

Resistance training, like some simple weight training, with the objective of increasing your strength may benefit you in terms of your overall fitness and physical integrity. It will also help you to lose fat. Any form of exercise gives your muscles some form of resistance training. If you suddenly start waking and running, you will not only burn fat, but you will build up muscle mass as a result of resistance. This is why sometimes your weight loss might plateau – muscle weighs more that fat. Persevere, though, because you are still losing fat – which is the goal.


Metabolic Rates

At this point let’s talk about metabolic rates. There are two metabolic rates, your resting metabolic rate RMR and active metabolic rate AMR.
Resting metabolism or burn fat whilst you sleep. This is one of the wonders of the human body – when you exercise or pull weights you will be increasing your resting metabolism. This means you will burn fat, when you are resting. It takes more energy to keep muscles going so the more muscles you have the more energy they take – energy in the form of fat. What’s more, research has shown the effects are long lasting – up to two weeks. This is great news. It means that if you suddenly stop exercising for two weeks when you go on holiday for instance, you won’’t lose the benefit. Be sure to get back on track when you return though.

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30. Breathing for Weight Loss

breathing

BREATHING

Here is a very short post on breathing. It’s well worth the effort to re-learn how to breathe. I say re-learn because we are all born with the ability to breathe properly using the diaphragm. Have you ever watched a baby breathing while she’s asleep, you can see her stomach rising and falling. This is caused by the diaphragm pushing up and down like a bellows. Every single cell in the body needs a supply of oxygen to live. Deep diaphragm breaths brings in more oxygen for metabolising fats and a great side effect is an increase in energy. Try it now. Did you feel a bit light headed – that’’s the effect of oxygen.



The other benefit is the removal of carbon dioxide, the bi-product of metabolism.

Here’s another post, which goes into another benefit when you breathe properly – how to stop anxiety.

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31. Support

Support

The final tenet of successful fat loss is your support structure. Who do you trust to tell them what your journey is so they encourage you and support you? Be careful who you tell. Some people may dissuade you and even tempt you away from your goal. Other well-meaning types may say you don’t need to lose weight and that you look great as you are. Just remember your motives for doing this are not short-term looks but long-term health. Only tell people who will be positive and supporting. If in doubt don’t tell people, they will notice eventually and be complimentary.

a. Fat loss buddy
b. Coach


FAT LOSS BUDDY

It might be useful to find someone who will join you on your journey, someone you can share your experiences with.
This gives you accountability. A wonderful thing about people is we don’t like to let people down, so why not use this to motivate you. If you and your buddy have agreed to meet for an evening walk and it’s lashing down with rain, you are more likely to turn up than if you had no buddy. If you do it alone, no one will know if you miss one session, apart from you that is.

COACH

Every successful athlete has a coach and quite a lot of other successful people do as well, such as actors, singers, business people. The reason they are successful can be down to good coaching. Coaches can support you and give you practical advice. They can be the person to get you motivated or be the shoulder to cry on. Having a fat loss coach will give you all of this, from someone who has been there and done it. What better than being coached to lose fat by someone who has actually done it themselves. I you think you might benefit from this, contact me, I’m here to help.