Lose Weight - 10 Things You Must Know About!

I know this sounds pretty hilarious from a person who is overweight but I just want to share some information with you. So instead of laughing, a humble thank you would be appreciated!

So, what are the 10 things you need to know about losing weight...

1. Do more anaerobic training e.g. free weights or high intensity interval training. Anaerobic training “traumatises” your core muscle groups and causes the “muscle protein breakdown” process. Studies had shown that your basal metabolic rate (BMR) can increases up to 24 – 48 hours after intense anaerobic workout as a result from the repairing works done to your damaged muscles.

2. Although aerobic training (cardio) burn more calories during workout, studies had shown that aerobic training will only lift your BMR up to 2 – 4 hours after your training. So, anaerobic training burn more calories that aerobic training.

3. When doing weight training, focus 80% of your time on free weights instead of machines because in free weight training, other part of your body muscles will be utilized for body stabilization while on a machine training, the machine stabilizes the body for you.

4. Muscle on average consumes 3X more energy than fat on a weight to weight basis. This means that you will literally burn more fat by developing more muscles.

5. Do not be too obsessed on low carb diet because low carb diet will cause your body’s leptin level to fall. When leptin levels fall in your body, this effectively reduces your BMR and triggers increased cortisol production (a catabolic hormone that promotes muscle loss and makes it hard to lose fat), and also increases your appetite, essentially promoting body fat gain.

6. Increase your meal frequency (ideally 6 small meals per day). The reason being is your body needs energy from digesting and absorbing the meal. Hence, you increase your body’s calories expenditure by simply increasing your daily meal intake.

7. Additional small meals per day help to stabilize your body’s blood sugar and effectively lower your crave for food and appetite throughout the day.

8. You can eat whatever sugar you like (especially high Glycemic Index (GI) foods) 30 – 60 minutes after workout because high GI foods will promote insulin spike in your body to replenish your muscle glycogens that were depleted during your intense workout session. Other than that, try to keep your foods low in GI to avoid big swing in blood sugar level.

9. Fibre can slow your blood sugar respond to food. This means that you are literally lowering the GI value of your food by incorporating more fibre in your diet.

10. Try to incorporate green tea or oolong tea in your diet. Studies had shown that green tea and oolong tea can stimulates thermogenesis (conversion of fat to heat) and increase the percentage of fat utilized for energy thus helping you to lose body fat. Click HERE to know more on green tea’s goodies.

I’ve come to know all these after I joined a gym. I hope this will help you to shave some kgs away or gain some insights on weight loss.