Looking great is one of the goals of people in Houston, TX. They want a toned appearance achieved with weight loss and improving muscle tone. It’s not easy to burn fat and build muscle simultaneously. You need to ensure the weight you lose comes only from body fat. If you’re overweight, exercise will help you firm and tone muscles, but you also must eat fewer calories than you burn to lose fat. If you only diet, you may lose fat but still look out of shape. Doing both in the right combination provides the look most people want.
Consuming 3500 fewer calories than you burn to lose a pound.
The problem with dieting is that you can’t designate whether the pound you lose will be fat or lean muscle tissue. If you have more lean muscle tissue, it helps you look fantastic in two ways. Muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue, so the more you have, the easier it is to lose weight. Muscle tissue also weighs more per cubic inch. A container holding exactly a pound of muscle would be smaller than one holding a pound of fat. If two people weigh the same but one has more muscle, the muscular one will look thinner.
You have to lose weight while you build muscle tissue.
You lose fat when you eat fewer calories, but it has to come from the right type of food. You need protein but should avoid highly processed food and food with added sugar. Your body requires healthy fat, but it’s also vital to avoid unhealthy fats, like trans fats, that you get from junk foods. Identify your ideal weight and eat the calories necessary or cut your intake by 500 calories. That’s enough to maintain energy, build muscle, and lose weight slowly.
Use the best exercise.
All exercise is good, but if you want to lose fat, you need strength-building workouts and a little less cardio. If you do only cardio, you will burn calories, but the calories come from burning lean muscle and fat. When you burn calories while doing strength-building, you’ll be building lean muscle mass and losing fat. Doing HIIT—high intensity interval training—burns tons of calories. It’s not a specific exercise but a way of doing exercises. You alternate between high-intensity and a recovery pace. Doing bodyweight exercises in HIIT mode burns fat and builds muscle tissue.
- Maximize your calorie burning and workout using compound exercises that exercise several joints, tendons, and muscle groups.
- If you’re a woman and worry about building bulk and looking like The Hulk, don’t worry. Your hormones won’t allow that. Women bodybuilders who bulk up spend hours every day exercising and eat a special diet to get that look.
- Get adequate sleep. When you lack sleep, your body overproduces ghrelin—the hunger hormone, and underproduces leptin—the satiety hormone. You’re hungrier and burn fewer calories because you’re tired.
- Stay hydrated. Drinking more water helps you lose weight easier. Studies show drinking 8 ounces of water 20 minutes before a meal causes you to eat less. It fills you and boosts your energy, so you burn more calories.
For more information, contact us today at Reggie C. Fitness