HOW TO LOSE BELLY FAT & REDUCE BODY WEIGHT FAST - A DIET GUIDE.

                                                  

HOW  TO  LOSE  BELLY  FAT  &  REDUCE  BODY  WEIGHT  FAST -  A  DIET GUIDE.

This blog is on how to get rid of belly fat and reduce body weight fast, both for women & men. If you struggle to lose belly fat or weight or want to keep it off to get the results you want, you have to understand the information  in this complete guide to lose belly fat and weight loss.

Why are there so many new diets all the time ? Nothing has changed , the human body that you have is the same genetic makeup as it was hundred thousand years ago. So, all you have to do is understand how the body really works and then know why it is doing the thing that's it doing. Only when you understand the mechanism, you will be able to create that weight loss and that fat loss for ever and it will be easy .

Why do we gain fat ?

Is it because we are eating too many calories ? of course it is, but that doesn't answer anything, the question is why would we eat too many calories, what is that determines that behaviour, two things that will help you to understand : 

1) Eat too often, & 

2) We eat wrong things.

Do you think this Bear is over weight ?  He may weigh 1000 pounds or about 453 kilograms, have huge % of body fat, but it is perfectly normal, he is healthy, mobile & functional, it can run faster than most of us ever could, he has the exact right amount of fat for that time in his life in his environment, he is following natural behaviour & his behaviour is dictated by Hormones .

But Humans may not weigh a 1000 pounds like a bear , but  as per a study 75% of  Americans are over weight and more than 40% are obese. Is that because of some genetic switch ? No, because we created most of these problems in 2 generations and after that the genetic makeup has remained the same and been successful in keeping our weight normal for 1000's of generations. Is it "will power" that kept us like that for so many years and then all of a sudden it was just gone...No, I don't think so, sure we had some food addictions, cravings, but the question is why is that ? 

Just like the Bear we are following the Hormones, they determine our behaviour, but unlike the bear we have developed unnatural Hormones, unnatural balance of Hormones, because the food that we are eating is not natural anymore. Every other animal on the planet eat its food from the nature that is appropriate for their species. Humans do not do that anymore.

We have been told of so many different things like this diet, that diet, calories and low fat, you have been told the wrong thing, this is not your fault but this do not relieve you from responsibility, from now on when you have access to correct information, you have to learn how your body works so that you can make those changes and be successful once and for all. 

1)  Eat too Often - 

there is a pattern or cycle of  FEAST & FAMINE everywhere in nature. Where we eat something and when plenty of food then we store the excess, so that there is plenty left over, when there is less we can FAST and burn through our reserves until we can eat again. For the Bear that cycle is of about 6 months, they bulk up for 6 months so that they can afford 6 months hibernation without eating at all.  

Of course humans don't do that, we can know for sure that our prehistoric humans did, but if we look at other species on the planet, we can safely say that our ancestors did not have 3 square meals and snacks every 2 hours through out the day. More likely they ate once or twice a day when lucky & when not so lucky they might go for 3 days without food. So there is a FASTING pattern built in to our metabolism. 

Modern humans , if lucky get 8 hours & 5 min, and that if we sleep a full 8 hrs. and it takes us 5 min. to find food when we get up. So, what we have done as modern humans - we eat & we store , then bypass the FAST and skip the BURNING , because you can't burn unless you fast , so our cycle is EAT and STORE & again EAT & STORE. It is not that you eat too much, you are supposed to eat until you are somewhat full or satisfied, don't have to stuff yourself . 

When you eat until you are somewhat full, that sends a signal to your body that you are safe and maintain the metabolism. When we try to eat less, then we are sending the body the message of deprivation and the body starts slowing down on metabolism. You are supposed to eat until somewhat full , but not supposed to eat 6 times a day, if we do eat 6 times then we get stuck in the cycle of EAT - STORE - EAT, we never get a chance to balance the cycle by EAT - STORE - FAST - BURN - EAT pattern. 

Types of food that we eat and that too 6 times a day invites to  rising of  blood sugar. We heard of BLOOD GLUCOSE , this is how it works and relates to fat and weight gain. Average person has 100 mg of glucose per decilitre = 3 grams for an average size person, or about  half a tea spoon of glucose at any given time, the body likes to keep it in a tight range, so that when you are fasting you might be at 80-85 mg, when after a meal it might be about 120 mg., if you eat whole food with protein like meat, good fats and non starch vegetables etc.. then they fluctuate very very slowly.  

A diabetic, or someone with insulin resistance has about 300 mg of glucose per decilitre = 9 grams, ie. one more tea spoon of  circulating glucose. This may not sound much, but you get enormous blood sugar spikes and when that happens your body goes into an emergency mode. This amount of blood glucose is very toxic to the brain, it ruins blood vessels causing micro vessel diseases, which is a cause for kidney failure and blindness. Further causes Neuropathy which is the leading cause for amputation. 

Now lets say that, you follow the recommendations, not following the snacks here, you eat 100 mg of carbohydrate 3 times a day, 4 hrs apart. You can't use 100 mg of carbohydrate until you eat again, so you might be able to use 50 mg., so at least 50 mg has to be stored. Lot of times people say carbohydrate is the preferred fuel, because the body has to use in case of emergency to keep the glucose out of the blood stream. When you ate 100 mg, all of that glucose has to get into the blood stream before it gets into the cells, this has to happen in a relatively short time period, because even a tea spoon can shoot your glucose to 300 mg. The extra carbohydrate that you can not use before the next meal has to be stored.

How does the body store ENERGY & why does it do that ?  

There are 2 types of energy that it can store - CARBOHYDRATE & FAT (protein). In your muscles you have protein storage , this can't be used in a extreme emergency, we have a very poor ability to store carbohydrate, your muscles can hold up to 1,600 calories  & your liver can store up to 400 calories. We store calories for survival, we need energy for movement, to generate heat & to think, move, we need those signals from the brain to control movement and metabolism. If you are using about 2000 calories for survival and relied totally on carbohydrate, then you can live just for one day, that means any time a human did not have food for a day then we would be wiped out, that is why we store fat, as fat is much more efficient form of storage. We can store 90 times as much, which is 1,80,000 calories which can keep us alive for 3 months, drinking nothing but water, your body figures out the difference. 

This is not the event for a over weight person , a 180 lbs. or about 82 Kg. person with 28% fat is not a super slim athlete person but also not an over weight person, this fat came primarily from glucose. The body can store any excess energy as fat, but it is the excess glucose that readily stored and converted to fat. If you start building up too much fat, and then have the desire to lose some of that fat then you cannot burn fat if you go on adding carbs, if you put more carbs in before you burnt the previous ones, you can never get to lose that fat. The other thing is, if your insulin is high which is again a result of those carbohydrates, in the presence of high insulin you can not burn fat because your body is busy in making fat, your body can not make and burn fat at the same time.

While we do want to reduce overall carbs, not all carbs are equally bad. A plant is made of glucose, and if this glucose get into our blood stream then it will trigger insulin at much higher degree than protein or fat would, but if we take bread as an example- 75% of it is net carb or pure starch, this starch is going to get converted into glucose, here have 3% of calorie from fat, 12% from protein & 85% from starch or glucose .  Two slices of bread if we eat which is 28 gm., couple that with some jam, some orange juice, some sugar in the coffee, then it is easy we get about 100 gm. of carbs in one meal.

Now, lets look in an example of non-starch vegetable like cabbage - it has 3% net carbs of its weight, 12% of calories are from fat, 36% of calories from protein & 52% from carbohydrate. The ratios between that of bread and cabbage are very different , the carbs are not as dominant , they are much lesser than in the bread and also here it is absorbed much slower. Also, you cannot eat a cabbage that much as bread, you can easily have 2 slice of bread (28 gm.), but will find it hard to eat 28 gm. of cabbage. So, here we see the 2 factors - QUANTITY & SPEED - how much you are eating & how quickly you are putting them in. We can now be sure that, cabbage is safe & bread is not. 

INSULIN - basically it unlocks cells, you eat something it turns to glucose, that goes to blood stream, but it is no good to you until it goes in the cell, cell is a metabolic machinery that will use this glucose as energy. The cell turns some of the glucose to energy and turns the rest of it as fat. If we have a normal blood sugar (80-120 mg/dl), here insulin required will be very moderate, so have a low insulin response and remain insulin sensitive, that is a healthy place to be.

In case of diabetic, with 300 mg/dl of blood glucose, we will have huge spikes of glucose, when glucose is high then we need a huge amount of insulin to push the glucose from the blood stream to the cells, with that amount of insulin going and if we eat every 4 hrs., then the insulin doesn't have time to come to base line, before we load up more carbs. So, carbs are the things that drive insulin - high insulin , but the frequency amplifies it. As the insulin gets higher and higher, it works less and less , as a result the body has to make more insulin as the cells don't respond any longer & thus we have insulin resistance. 

INSULIN RESISTANCE - 

purpose of  fat cells is to store fat. This cell can grow more than any cell in the body, in it's shrunken stage it is about 10 microns, but it can grow in diameter 20 times, because it is a spherical structure, so it can grow 8000 times with fat, that's its capacity. When we start pushing the limit of that capacity then it is not a healthy fat cell anymore, it becomes inflamed - we have stuffed it so full that it starts leaking, now is where we get all of these metabolic problems (Syndrome X) of insuline resistance - diabetes, cardio vascular disease , stroke, dementia, and the list goes on... .

2) Eat the wrong things - 

Let us look to the historical prospective of what we have been eating. If we go back to 100,000 years, then 100% what we ate were from nature, unprocessed and unmodified, just like every other species on the planet, we ate meat, vegetables, nuts , tubers - we used to hunt, dig up or pick , just like any other species. Then about 8000 years or so we started agriculture, we ate mostly whole food, the grain was probably processed to some degree, but certainly not bleached or hybridized. We might be also using some oils, like naturally easy squeezed oil, may be olive oil . 

Now, when we get into the last 50 years or so, we have turned everything upside down, now hardly anything that we eat is unprocessed or no whole food any more. We eat now - white flour, sugar, plant oils, all processed with harsh chemical and high heat, artificial flavours, artificial sugar, artificial colours etc., So, these are non-food, no food any more. We come from a genetic makeup where we used to get fed, but not fed any more. 

An experiment was done on mice and rats to find out what to be fed to get them too fat and as fast as possible. Now, what would be the diet be- 15% calories from protein, 45% calories from fat and 40% from carbohydrates was the diet formula that was used, but if you convert this combination to human scale then it will be about 200 gm. of carbohydrate in a day, 100 gm. of  fat and about 75 gm. of protein per day.... A standard modern human diet is same as this. Surprisingly, they tell you to eat lots & lots of carbs, ultimately you end up having junk food and have an obese population. You just stand on the side of a road in any city of your choice and just watch and count how many people pass by with a bulging tummy.

On the contrast, in a Ketogenic diet or low carb, high fat diet - where you get 15% protein, 80% fat and 5% carb (20 gm. a day). This profile is distinctly different from the previous pattern. 

DRAWBACKS OF LOW CARB HIGH FAT DIET - 

the only drawback is UNFOUNDED FEARS = MYTH, because very few people understand this. We have been conditioned and programmed for so long that we think we are supposed to eat more and more carbohydrate because the fat in the body comes from the fat we eat, its just not how it works. Always you should remember that you can not burn fat when your insulin is high because of high carb intake. 

If you are insulin resistance then fats are very healthy as long as they are healthy fats. Often we hear that saturated fat raises cholesterol and cause clogged Arteries. This notion also restricts many from having high fat diet. When we study the research, there was some research from early 1950's & 1960's very old research that suggested -  may be some relationship between cholesterol and heart disease, it wasn't a causative relationship, but it was an observational. But in every study since then there was no co-relation whatsoever, but if we look at the insulin resistance then there is a very strong co-relation to heart disease, diabetes, stroke & Alzheimer's, even to cancer.

If you eat good quality fat while reducing carbs, then your insulin is going down, even if your cholesterol goes up, it is irrelevant, it has no bearing on heart disease. One exception is, you might have heard about good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, actually all are good unless they are damaged and oxidised, now this is a risk of heart disease, but that does not come from cholesterol, it is the insulin resistance and the oxidative stress that damaged the cholesterol that it became harmful. 

KEEP IT SIMPLE - 

It is not at all that complicated  to LOSE BELLY FAT & REDUCE BODY WEIGHT FAST, the hardest thing we have to do is to un-learn all of the stupid things that you have learnt in last 50 years  about - Cholesterol, Calories, & Saturated fats . 

- Eliminate sugar.

- Eat till you are somewhat full.

- Reduce carbohydrate.

- Eat meat, veggies & good fat.

- Stop processed food.

- Eat healthy Fat.

- Eat less often. 

- Keep insulin low and eat whole food. 

Thus learn what actual real food is and make it your life style......for you to STAY HEALTHY & JOYFUL for long.

Would highly appreciate your valued views & suggestions on this blog, in the comment section below.

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT - 5 EFFORTLESS WAYS .

 

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT - 5  EFFORTLESS  WAYS .

If you understand the basic inner functioning of your body then staying fit or losing weight will never be at all complicated for you. My effort is to try to tackle the most important health & fitness issues  of the day in a natural , simple & safe way.

In this blog we will try to understand the truth about how to lose weight once and for all . Weight loss fails because people do it wrong due to some misconception. Eating less and going hungry doesn't work. You must address the reason you are hungry. If you do it right it won't be a struggle and you won't gain it back. Just because there is no such thing as instant weight loss tips, or quick fixes does not mean that weight has to be painful. The willpower only consists being willing to learn how it really works and choosing the right foods and eating patterns.

Millions of people try to lose weight and only end up gaining all back, why does it happen to 98% of the people ? Do they do not have strong enough intention or willpower or are they lazy ?  NO, it is because they are doing it wrong & then they are being lied to and told that you need to eat less & exercise more , & still if it does not work, then you are made to believe the reason of not working is - you do not have the willpower , the motivation , the character or what ever it is. After some time these people do not have anything alternative , so start doubting themselves, feel guilty and shameful , thinking "there is something wrong in me". But that is not how it works, the OBESITY epidemic is exponential , but it is not because the earth has been overwhelming with bunch of people who do not have a will power, it is because we have changed the way we eat & we have changed the way we live. There is hope , there is nothing wrong with your will power or your character , what needs to change is your understanding what the real problem is. 

We need to understand the 5 BASIC SECRETS :

                           

1) Don't ever go on a DIET - because it did not work last time and it hasn't worked for millions of people trying it over & over , diets don't work - when you go on a diet at some point you plan to go off a diet. The very idea that you are going to go ON something implies that you are going to get OFF it, then you will be right back where you started, & that's why we have such YO YO dieters. The problem is when you think eating less & exercising more , then you are going to get hungry and you can only  keep it up so long & then you fail , feel guilt , shame & end up stop trying , as a result you have fear of failure & you are afraid of going on diet next time as you are afraid of getting hungry , because that's what happened last time you tried.

Number one misconception that we have to get over is "CALORIES IN & CALORIES OUT". Yes, We all understand the first law of thermodynamics - energy remains constant in a closed system, but  we need to understand that Calorie is not calorie, they behave differently , they change your behaviour, some calories are going to stimulate hunger , some calories are going to satiate hunger - they are going to trigger different hormones , trigger different behaviour, you already know this - 500 calorie of stake is not the same satisfaction as 500 calorie of potato chips , you know there is a difference, your body responds differently. This concept of "Calories in & Calories out" is like doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

It is OK to do a cleanse  for a week or 2 - 3 weeks once in a while , but should never go on a diet. We are talking about a life style change , that once you start implementing it , you only make changes that you plan to keep up for the rest of your life. Otherwise you are going to go ON & then OFF, and end up where you started.

                    

2) Address the ROOT CAUSE -  If your body is behaving in a certain way , there is a reason for that , there is a reason that you are hungry, there is a reason the food impacts you differently,  & those reasons that change your behaviour differently are called hormones . The hormone imbalance is the root cause , you can not keep the hormone imbalance & override it with willpower. 

The hormones here in question are primarily are INSULIN, CORTISOL, LEPTIN & GROWTH HORMONE. 

Insulin is a fat storing hormone, when you eat food your blood sugar goes up , insulin is released to take the blood sugar out of the blood stream , sugars & carbohydrates trigger the most blood sugar , so they trigger the most insulin , as a result they have the strongest tendency to store fat. Insulin promotes the conversion of carbohydrates to fat & prevents the conversion of fat into energy. If we want to get into fat burning you can not do it by exercising & eating less , you have to reduce insulin dominance , insulin resistance in your body .

Cortisol is another hormone , it is a stress hormone , that is when you have lot of stress your body does everything it can, it burns every bridge possible to get your blood sugar up , it perceives that there is an emergency when you are stressed & then you need more of the short term fuel called carbohydrate & blood sugar , but when your blood sugar goes up & you are not moving because you are sitting as you are stressed throughout the day , so there is no outlet for that blood sugar so the insulin has to put it back in to the cell & now we see cortisol drives insulin & insulin resistance.

Leptin is a satiety hormone , it regulates how full you feel & how safe your body feels in using energy , so when you are leptin sensitive then leptin signals that we have had enough & it is safe to burn off some for energy , but when you are leptin resistant then you are not sensitive, that is your brain is not sensing the message , then even though you have eaten enough but still you are not satisfied , but even worse is, it does not feel safe to burn some of that energy that you ate & that you have stored, you are still in eating mode & fat storing mode. It is Insulin that primarily turns off the sensitivity to leptin.

Growth Hormone is a fat burning hormone , it is also a muscle building hormone. It is primarily triggered by fasting that is when you don't eat , then the body feels there is no food so let's burn some fat , but insulin pretty much turns off the growth hormone . When we eat frequent meals or eat lot of food that triggers insulin then growth hormone will be always low . 

An imbalance in these hormones make you hungry. Hunger is not that with which you can fight for too long , certainly not for rest of your life. So if you are hungry , your body is screaming for food, the more you try to deny the need , the more the body is going to scream & it is not sustainable.  Calorie restriction diet is not sustainable , your own common sense  & experience will verify that. 

If we are ever want to get to a place where we are effortlessly living & losing weight , then the only way is to get these hormones in balance , that is with a life style & types of food that we eat , not the amount of food that we eat.

                 

3) Understand what food is , we have completely lost track , we completely lost all concept as a culture of what food is , we think that something we put in our mouth that gives you some sort of gratification for few minutes , that is not what food is . Let us think about it in this way - think of any other animal on this planet that has a widespread problem with obesity & weight control , of course not , elephants & whales are super heavy but they are not obese, they are suppose to be heavy , the amount of fat they have is appropriate for that species ,there are no over weight animals in the wild on a regular widespread basis, because they eat real food , they eat that is appropriate for their species , & because it is a real food it has dense nutrients, because it stimulates & promotes appropriate hormones and it is satiety, then hunger turns on & off appropriately, that is what real food does. We have lost that ability to determine what appropriate hunger & satiety is , we eat too much then slow down our metabolism , because we have eaten food that destroys our hormonal balance. We eat processed food , we eat man made food , the only other animals on the planet that have weight problem are the pets. Natural whole food provided by the planet promotes health & it does not create health imbalances or weight problem or hunger issues. 

Most people today would agree to minimising processed food , but disagree on what real or normal food is , especially about fat , because we have got this fat-phobia, somewhere down the line because of some wrong reasons we decided fat is bad - that was the monumental mistake , because fat is the preferred fuel for the body . So, those who oppose low carb high fat movement & the ketogenic movement , they think a high fat diet is unnatural , they say that it is extremely high fat & low carb diet so it is not sustainable - this is a misconception. Ever since we got the enormous boom in processed food our graph for obesity went on going up. So we need to understand that what they called extremely high fat & low carb food is actually normal food , it is a whole food because it is pretty much as it came out of earth.

                    

4) Take Action - the first action that we need to take is reduce sugar , because when it comes to health, sugar is the root of all evil. It  does the two things that are most detrimental to human health - glucose raises blood sugar & fructose clogs the liver and creates insulin resistance . Glucose speeds up your blood sugar fluctuations , it makes you hungry & fructose is a liver toxin . Table sugar is 50% each of the two worst things that we have ever come across, & what makes sugar toxic is the concentration, because it is a natural molecule , it is the molecule of plant life. When we eat vegetables we get 1-3% of sugar but it is packaged with lots of water , fibre , minerals & enzymes, and the things that we need to break that down.  So, it is the delivery method that is different, & we can never get more than 2-3 tea spoons of sugar that the earth produces, but when we refine it then there is no limit , now we are getting 10-20 times more sugar in a concentrated form & the dose makes the poison . Sugar is extremely toxic.We should never take more than 2-3 tea spoons in a day from all sources of refine sugar.

                    

Next we need to reduce processed foods & carbohydrates, now it depends on the person how far they have to go , if you are not terribly unhealthy , if you are not too insulin resistant , if your hormone system is not much out of balance , then it might be enough you cut out most of the sugars & most of the processed foods & go on and eat some of the other carbs like potatoes & rice , if this works for you then it's great. That means your weight wasn't stubborn on the first place , you were just eating too much of the wrong things that promoted hunger . But for lot of people weight is little more stubborn , so now it is not enough to reduce sugar & processed food, but have to go for low carb high fat diet or even have to go for a ketogenic diet where you are cutting the carbohydrate so low that you are forcing your body to re-evaluate to learn how to use fat for fuel again. In a weight loss process there is no quick fix , you have to take it as a journey , you have to make a commitment of what steps you are going to take , it does not mater whether you want to go slow or fast , that's more of a personality thing , some people are committed to do things really fast , but other people function better if they do gradually. The best way is to introduce it as a life style which you can do for rest of your life.

                

You have to develop new recipes & habits that you can take along with. Part of your action steps has to include EXERCISE , the reason you need to exercise is your brain needs it, your brain controls everything about body , the signals generated by movements feeds the brain , body movement or exercise is the number one signal nutrient , exercise thus promotes better hormone balance , promotes better circulation, detoxification and many more benefits when you exercise. Then you should also do MEDITATION, because meditation is a great way to reset your body , it de-stresses , it puts your body in a healing state . Think of the body as chemical, structural & emotional , with exercise you are addressing some of the structural , with better nutrition & food you are addressing the chemical & with meditation you are addressing the emotional aspect . Thus giving your body a well rounded solution.

               

5) DO NOT SET A WEIGHT LOSS GOAL - it is all right to know where you are & where you want to go , but do not force yourself into a time line because that's going to back fire , the reason that you are not going to use the weight as the goal because it is not the ROOT CAUSE , it is not the problem, weight is the result of the imbalance , it is the imbalance that you want to address. You should set goal in terms of health , set in terms of positive & quality of life , habits you want to develop , how you want to feel doing these things. 

If you set a weight loss goal - by so much weight by such & such date , that is not on which you have control over , if you want it to happen effortlessly in a balance & natural way , then first have to solve the root cause, then your body will naturally do things in proper sequence. What you can do is you measure & track your blood markers & weight but more like a positive observation, if it happens , then it happens, do not set time frame, let it unfold by itself in time. 

               

IMPACT OF EXERCISE ON BODY FAT & WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU.

                                                              

In today's Blog we will see how regular Exercise impact on body FAT  &  WEIGHT LOSS. My effort here has been to explain this very SERIOUS & MOST TALKED ABOUT ISSUE  in as much simpler way as possible.

This blog is actually in response to the number of questions asked about today's topic, by lot of friends who are following my Blog & YouTube channel :  fitnessfun50 .

The formula is very simple : Burn more Calories than your Calories intake.   

Let us see the concept of physical activity & exercise as they relate to obesity. In humans there is a fine balance between energy intake and energy expenditure. Energy intake is in the form of food & energy expenditure is in the form of the basal metabolic rate & physical activity. The difference between energy intake & energy expenditure is the net energy balance. If intake exceeds expenditure, then a net positive energy balance occurs.

Energy expenditure depends on a number of factors. This includes the starting body weight, the basal metabolic rate & physical activity. With regards to physical activity, there are several key variables including the frequency, intensity, duration & type of activity done.    

Let us now examine energy consumption : For example - One honey coated donut / doughnut or one average size of Indian sweet (Mithai)  has  approximately 300 kilocalories. The energy intake from the consumed donut / mithai is equal to the energy consumed by moderate walking for 30-60 minutes, at 5 Kms. per hour. If an individual walks for an hour at 5 Kms. per hour, then they will expend approximately kilocalories, the same as what was consumed in the consumed donut or mithai.

If a person walks daily for 45-60 minutes at approximately 5 Kms. per hour , such type of activity will lead to weight loss. Taking into consideration that the individual does not consume any extra calories and has a net negative energy expenditure. If this activity continues for a period of  2 to 4 months, body weight  gets reduced. The initial weight loss is the result of a negative net energy balance.The negative energy balance is because energy expenditure exceeds energy intake. 

After the initial weight loss if the individual continues to do the same type of exercise, ie. 1 hr.of moderate walking daily , then his chart will depict changes in body weight over time. Individuals are surprised and frustrated that their weight is not continuing to decrease despite regular walking. They have reached a plateau. The reason behind  the weight loss plateau is that with decreased body weight, the basal metabolic rate also decreases. When the basal metabolic rate decreases , there is a decrease in total energy expenditure. Now, if the demotivated😔 individual quits his daily walking exercise, the weight is gained again , at a quicker pace.The weight is re-gained as a result of a positive energy balance thus being created. Energy expenditure is now less since the physical activity has been stopped.

By keeping the same intensity and duration of walking without making any changes in the diet the person would enter a weight maintenance phase. This is characterised  by gaining a small amount of weight. The weight maintenance is the result of an energy balance being established within the body, where energy intake essentially equals energy expenditure. If there is no change in energy balance, there will not be any further change in weight.

What must be done to end this weight loss plateau ??

There are several options to maintain a negative net energy balance. These involve either decreasing energy intake  or increasing energy expenditure. Options include : restricting calories further or increasing the frequency or the intensity or the duration of the exercise.

To summarise , weight loss plateaus are expected and can only end with continued exercise and a net negative energy gain. Stopping exercise or increasing calories will lead to weight gain. If one continues to exercise to maintain a net negative energy balance, weight loss will be promoted.