Thanks to some (very bad) science, for many years, the medical community clung to the idea that weight gain was a natural and largely unavoidable consequence of aging. This view was based on research data that showed that most adults get fatter as they get older. Unfortunately, the study failed to account for a number of very important variables, including physical activity, and following healthy weight loss tips. Subsequent re-search has indicated that people don’t really get fatter as a direct result of aging per se. They get fatter because, as they age, the vast majority of people become less active.

When researchers delved more deeply into the phenomenon of aging and weight gain, they discovered that most adults were not merely gaining body fat as they got older, they were also losing muscle mass. This fact alone has enormous bearing on why people tend to gain weight as they age.

Muscle is a very special tissue. In terms of metabolic activity, pound for pound, muscle tissue is second only to nervous (brain) tissue. In other words, it takes more calories to maintain a given volume of muscle tissue than the same volume of just about every other tissue in the entire human body. And because we possess many more pounds of muscle than any other tissue type, the vast majority of our daily caloric expenditure goes to using, repairing, and maintaining our muscles.

This is true even if you lead a relatively sedentary existence. In fact, if you are currently sedentary, very marginal increases in muscle activity can greatly enhance caloric expenditure and fat burning. And if you are currently active, very modest increases in muscle mass will accomplish the same goal. In other words, the more toned you are, the more fat you will burn. Don’t worry, you don’t have to spend hours at the gym lifting weights to reap the benefits of a revved metabolism; a little extra muscle goes a surprisingly long way.

Additionally, the more muscle you possess, the higher your resting metabolic rate, and the more calories you will burn over time even if you’re just lying around channel surfing. Of course, channel surfing is not the ideal way to accomplish muscle toning. The old adage “use it or lose it” is especially true when it comes to firm flesh. Adults who do not exercise regularly will typically lose between five and seven pounds of muscle mass every decade. To put this into perspective, a five-pound muscle loss translates to roughly 250 fewer calories burned each day. This can add up to over 25 pounds of fat gain in a single year.

How can you prevent this from happening to you? Simple! Adopt an exercise program designed to efficiently build and maintain adequate muscle to fuel around-the-clock fat burning. But is it really possible to add muscle while you shed body fat?

Intuitively, the idea seems to defy logic. After all, it takes an excess of calories to build tissue, and a caloric deficit to lose tissue. Right? Not entirely. Despite half a century of (good) science to the contrary, many people (including, unfortunately, many so-called weight loss experts) continue to view human metabolism like a bank account into which we deposit and withdraw calories like currency.

Weight Loss Tips – Recognizing Your Trigger Foods

The notion that you need to spend more calories than you consume in order to lose body fat is deceptive. Dozens of studies indicate that the appropriate dietary practices, coupled with regular exercise, will induce simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss – without counting calories. Physiologists are discovering that the quality of the calories you consume is far more important than the overall quantity. Likewise, the quality of the food is far more important than the food group to which it belongs. You will never have to sacrifice variety for good health, or good health for good looks. When it comes to nutrition, thankfully, they all go hand in hand.

What would you say if I told you that you could have a dramatically improved physique in just six weeks by following some healthy weight loss tips? What if I could guarantee that, 42 days from today, you will barely recognize your own reflection? Staring back from the depths of your bathroom mirror, picture someone with slimmer hips, firmer thighs, tighter buns, flatter abs, more denned arms, and clearer, younger-looking skin. And that familiar stranger will be smiling – and not just because you look great; you also feel great. Your energy will be higher than it’s been in years; your mood will be positive; you will be well rested and know you can handle whatever your busy life throws your way.

Heard it all before? Does it sound a little too good to be true? Do you have the uneasy feeling that deprivation, suffering, and cravings are lurking just around the corner? Maybe with some complicated calculations and impossibly involved recipes thrown in for good measure? If you aren’t a little skeptical, you really should be. The vast majority of today’s diet books, weight loss products, and exercise gadgets are nothing more than faddy gimmicks that contradict the basic machinery of human physiology and, as a result, are doomed to fail.

Well, with most diets that’s what you get – deprivation, cravings and starving. Rather than defy natural laws, a healthy weight loss program harnesses them. A healthy weight loss program is not a fad or a quick fix. It doesn’t call for the radical elimination of entire food groups or hours of tedious calisthenics. What you have is a simple, sustainable road map to the physique you’ve always dreamed of having, a weight loss diet that will give you rapid, dramatic results that you will begin to see and feel within the first week.

How can I be so sure that such a healthy weight loss diet will work for you?

Because a healthy diet is not about weight loss. It’s about regaining physiological stability so that your body performs like the finely tuned, fat-burning machine it was designed to be. Unlike most fashionable (read fad) weight loss plans, a well structured and healthy weight loss diet will not turn you into a smaller, flabbier, hungrier version of your former self. It will not leave you exhausted, depleted, and primed for renewed weight gain. On the contrary, this type of program will melt unwanted fat while it tones your muscles, leaving you sated, energetic, and lean.

You Are Not “Going On A Diet”

The vast majority of so-called diets cater to our penchant for quick fixes. But when it comes to healthy eating, there is no such thing as a magic bullet, not even green tea weight loss diets. Fad diets that eliminate entire food groups and starvation diets that severely restrict calories contradict the basic machinery of human physiology. In the long run, these approaches are doomed to fail.

Although severe caloric restriction may lead to initial weight loss, the very nature of such an approach precludes its long-term effectiveness. Weight loss by caloric restriction triggers hormonal modifications that our species evolved to survive times of famine. These physiological mechanisms involve metabolic slowing, muscle wasting, exaggerated fat retention, and changes in brain chemistry that contribute to the development of behaviors like binge eating. The preferential loss of lean tissue (muscle) over fat often results in a false sense of accomplishment. You do lose weight. However, the “new you” is merely a smaller, flabbier version of the old you. Once normal eating patterns resume, the weight rapidly returns, plus an added ten pounds. Why? Because the muscle you sacrificed during the period of forced starvation, combined with metabolic slowing, make it that much harder for your body to burn fat.

The Miracle Of Muscle

When it comes to having a firm, flab-free physique, have you ever noticed that many people are able to coast along on youth until they’re about 20 or 25 years old? After that, without at least minimal attention to diet and exercise, body composition begins to deteriorate. The untended human physique will get softer and flabbier with every passing year. In fact, for many years, the medical community subscribed to the belief that decreases in metabolic rate and subsequent weight gain were “natural” and “unavoidable” consequences of aging. Well, I can assure you that’s simply wrong!

After all the gloom and doom about the health implications of being overweight, you’re probably ready for some good news. If being overweight is bad for your health (and it is), then learning how to lose weight is the best cure.

According to the experts, a weight loss of as little as 5 to 10 per cent reduces an obese adult’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and arthritis. Overweight people already suffering from these conditions usually improve when they lose weight. Losing weight also reduces the incidence of a whole host of heart and lung disorders. If you’re wondering why you should lose weight, I can’t think of a better answer.

Other Problems Associated With Overweight

Even though health considerations are probably the strongest argument in favor of losing weight, being overweight can make your life difficult in many other ways. If staying healthy and preventing disease do not motivate you, maybe the aesthetic, social, emotional, and financial consequences of being overweight will give you the push you need.

Aesthetic

Especially in our society, an overweight image is not the “look we like”. The most attractive clothing is designed for slimmer folks. Even if you have given up on dressing in the latest fashion, it is hard to look your best when your clothes are either too tight or utterly shapeless to hide your form.

Social

Not looking your best has social consequences as well. First impressions count for a lot, and, like it or not, first impressions are usually visual ones. Whether you’re hoping for a date, a friend, a job offer, or just not to be the last one chosen for the Saturday football game, you’re at a disadvantage if you’re overweight. It may feel unfair, and it probably is, but that’s the way it’s been since primary school and the way it is now.

Plain and simple, there are strong social biases against fatties. Many people regard being overweight as a character flaw, a sign of slovenliness and lack of self-control.

Emotional

Many of the negative responses of others are shared by heavy people themselves.

Self-esteem and a positive self-image are harder to come by when you are overweight. Depression often accompanies weight problems, sometimes as cause and sometimes as a result. People who are depressed tend also to be physically inactive. It’s another one of those vicious circles.

Being more active can help lift depression just as it helps you to lose weight. Many of the body chemicals that influence mood are influenced in turn by physical exertion.

Doing some regular exercise can help boost your confidence when you are trying to lose weight. Exerting your body encourages the release of endorphins, or “happy hormones”, making you feel good about yourself.

Financial

Obesity makes a huge dent in the funds of the health service of more than $25 billion a year, or 6 to 8 per cent of the total health care budget, because of the many problems associated with being seriously overweight.

People who are overweight cost the health service more money for health care than people of normal weight. Overweight people suffer from higher rates of disease and more complications. They are also involved in more accidents that result in injury. They are hospitalized more often and tend to suffer more complications from surgery and other medical procedures. People who are overweight may also experience more difficulty in getting life insurance because of their high-risk status.

Those who are able to get insurance will often pay higher premiums.

If you are overweight you are more likely to have health replications that require treatment in hospital and suffer injuries m accidents. Recovery rates are also likely to be slower.

Learning how to lose weight fast can be hard work and often seem to hard or overpowering to even contemplate. But with these simple and healthy weight loss tips you should be able to start losing weight right away and see some very promising and encouraging results within a matter of days.