The industry around weight loss is well aware of the fact that low-calorie
diets cause fast loss of muscle and fat.
For this reason, the market is saturated with fiber bars, liquid meals and
light weight cereals.
We live in a society of instant coffee,….. while-you-wait, etc.
Fast results are essential for continuous sales results.
The average consumer is not aware of the fact, that when they are
losing fat, they lose muscle also.

Nutrition scientists have known for many years that reducing calories to
800 – 1200 per day, which is below the essential energy requirement of the
body to maintain vital functions, causes you to cannibalize your own muscles
for fuel. On these diets, muscle provides up to 45% of the energy deficit.
If the deficit in essential energy requirement is 500 calories per day,
then up to 225 calories will come from muscle breakdown.
On only four weeks on such a diet, you can lose 1.5 kg of vital muscle.
In your muscles is all your energy created by burning of fats,
carbohydrates and proteins in the mitochondria of each and every cell.
Even an ounce of muscle lost, lowers basic metabolic rate of fuel
consumption and reduces your ability to burn body fat.

So all diets that are below the essential energy requirement of your
body are a guaranteed recipe for failure.
Besides the fact of losing muscle,which is your body’s engine,
the weight loss industry also know that fast fat loss guaranties regain of fat.
The physiology behind it has been known for decades.
Fast fat loss alerts the potent defences of the body of its energy reserve.
The quantity and activity of the lipo protein lipase enzyme increases
immediately, which is the body’s main mechanism that collect digested
fat from the bloodstream and stuff it into fat cells.
Lipo protein lipase get hold of every fat molecule and even disable your
body to use it for energy.

In order to make up the deficit, you have to burn more muscle.
However, as muscle is your basic structure, it is harder for your body to
burn it than fat. As a result, your metabolism slows down,which reduces
your ability to burn fat.
Toxic wastes build-up as a result of burning proteins. This can make you
sick and cranky. This activity does not help you to control your appetite,
which becomes more ravenous.
It gets even worse. If you can’t resist the inconvenience any longer and
succumb to real food, the lipo protein lipase has become so efficient,
that you regain seven weeks painful fat loss in almost seven days.
But the biggest problem is that you don’t get any of the lost muscle back.

So the final result of the diet is that there is no change in body fat but
a big loss in muscle.
This loss of part of your engine causes further fat gain as it reduces
your ability to burn the fat you have.
Overweight people using low-calorie diets lose so much muscle that they
set their bodies up for permanent obesity, when they use them repeatedly.
The food industry is constantly creating new ‘functional foods’ that will
help you lose weight, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, and help you
keep your blood sugar and insulin levels in check and so on and so on.
When did eating become so complicated, and since when could food do all
of these magical things?
Foods designed to help you lose weight are a multi billion dollar industry.
And think of how ironic of an industry that is, how could you possibly eat
something to lose weight? That doesn’t make any sense at all. The act of
eating always adds mass to your body, it couldn’t possibly take it away.

The only way you can lose weight ever, is to eat less calories than you
burn off. Bottom line, there is no arguing this.
This rule existed 1000 years ago, and will exist a 1000 years from now.
There is no possible way you could gain weight if you ate less calories
than you burned off.
No matter how easy you seem to put on weight, and how little food you think
you eat, there is always a lesser amount that will cause you to lose weight.
The actual matter that makes up your fat cells has to come from somewhere,
and that somewhere is your diet. If you eat more food than you burn off
then you will store fat and gain weight. If you eat less food than you
burn off you will lose fat and lose weight. That’s it.
So the list of 7 foods you can eat to lose weight consists of any foods
you would like to see on that list!
You could lose weight eating cheesecake everyday. As long as you ate less
total calories that day than you burned off.

The only weight loss diets that have ever worked or proven to have any effect
always make people eat less total calories. That’s it. Carbohydrate, fat, protein and
sugar don’t make any difference, as long as you eat less. If anyone tells you
otherwise they just haven’t done their research. And I encourage you to challenge
anyone who thinks that any ‘special’ food can actually help you lose weight.
It’s baloney, eating less is the only way.
Think of it this way. If any of the popular diets like low carbohydrate, low fat, high
protein actually worked, would you or anyone else still be looking for another
way to lose weight?

There are three main keys to losing fat and gaining muscle.
If you’re missing any of these you will most likely fail in your attempts
to build a lean muscular body.
So what are they?
1) Eat Less Calories than you burn off
2) Resistance Training
3) Eating enough protein to maintain muscle mass
That’s as short and sweet as I can put it.

Any diet can work as long as it gets you to eat less calories than you burn off.
The key is to find a diet that suits your personality and your lifestyle.
If you’re like me you don’t have time to spend on diet rules and focusing on
good foods and bad foods and what to eat and what not to eat, and meal timing
and all of that.
The diet that will work for you will most likely be the one with the least amount
of rules,or in fact no rules at all but rather just provide a guideline or two.

For me that diet is Eat Stop Eat.
It is the simplest nutrition program I have ever come across.
There is only one guideline, and that is to take a 24 hour break from eating
once or twice per week. That’s it, simple and effective.
This type of eating program might work for you, or it might not.
You just have to try it first. As long as you can find a diet you can stick with for
the long term you’ll be able to lose weight,
the next key it making sure all of that weight comes from fat.

This is where resistance training comes in.
You have to do some form of resistance training in order to maintain and build
muscle mass while you’re losing fat. If you are following an effective diet
without doing resistance training you could end up losing muscle mass along the way.
If this happens you could lose body weight without actually improving the look
or shape of your body.
Your actual body weight doesn’t matter as much as your percentage of fat.
If you can lose 5 pounds of fat, but gain 3 pounds of muscle you will only lose
2 pounds of body weight on the scale, but you’ll look 8 pounds different.
Even though 2 pounds doesn’t sound like much,the difference on your body fat
percentage is the key.

This is why weight training is so important while dieting. Weight training is
the best way to make sure you don’t lose muscle while you diet, this helps with
overall health as well as improving the overall look and shape of your body.
After all when you diet the goal is to show off the lean muscle that is under the fat.
The third key to building muscle while losing fat is protein. You have to eat
just enough protein to make sure your muscles can grow. This is a controversial
topic that many nutrition ‘experts’  still don’t agree on.
But the bottom line is protein is your friend when it comes to building muscle
and especially when you’re dieting.
Mix these three key ingredients together and you’ll have a potent fat loss and
muscle building program that can transform your body in no time.