How to Get (and stay) Lean
If you've seen any episodes of "The Biggest Loser," you see some truly amazing things. Incredible weight loss throughout the duration of the show. Mind-blowing transformations. In a recent season, the winner lost 239 pounds in seven months. Holy cow!
But what happens in the years following dramatic weight loss?
Our body bounces back, and not in a favorable way. The pounds creep back despite our best efforts. The majority of contestants gain back most of the weight. Some even surpass their starting weight. Is it because they stop trying? Because they've lost willpower?
Why?
The reason many of these people put on weight so easily is they've destroyed their metabolisms. By starving themselves and running their bodies into the ground with exercise, they've caused serious damage.
Our resting metabolism is the number of calories we burn at rest. It's a large percentage of the number of calories we burn in a day. Experiencing dramatic weight loss, particularly in the way these contestants go about it, can significantly decrease our resting metabolism. This means we need to eat less and less just to maintain our body weight.
Do you ever wonder why it can be harder to lose weight after you've already gone through a "yo-yo" cycle of dieting? Every time we lose a significant amount of weight, we slow down our metabolism. As we gain the weight back, our metabolism doesn't completely recover. So we may actually be in a worse place than if we never went through the weight loss at all. Pretty depressing, huh?
Why does our body do this? It goes into survival mode. It senses a scarcity of food and an overload of activity, so it tries to hold on to as much fat as possible. Your body is smart. It's not going to give you an optimal physique when you're creating a dangerous environment.
So does that mean we're all destined to be overweight and unhealthy? Absolutely not. There are smarter ways to go about fat loss.
Smart Fat Loss
Focus on realistic goals. Aiming for 200 pounds of weight loss in seven months is way too aggressive. Even aiming for 50 pounds in that time frame is probably too much. The more gradual and consistent our fat loss, the less stress it is to the body.
Don't go wild with the numbers. Stop stressing about precise numbers of calories. Food plays a major role in fat loss, but your body does not work like a calculator. Getting too caught up in calorie measurements and calories burned during workouts may cause more stress than it's worth. When it becomes too stressful, we get frustrated and quit.
Does that mean you shouldn't pay any attention? No. But understand that food labels and smartwatches don't provide perfect measurements. And be aware of how they affect your overall stress levels.
Choose the right kind of training. Sure, there are benefits to cardio. And there's no need to cut it out completely. But in the long run, strength training can defend you against a "damaged metabolism" better than cardio. Strength training increases and improves muscle mass. Muscle mass is a big part of resting metabolism. The more muscle mass we have, the more calories we burn at rest.
This doesn't mean you need to try to become a bodybuilder. Adding a few pounds of lean muscle mass will not make you look big and bulky. In fact, it will probably do the opposite. It will increase your metabolism which will lead to more fat loss. The scale may not change dramatically, but you will look leaner, feel better, and perform better.
Key Recommendations
Be realistic with your goals: Slow and consistent fat loss will be more sustainable.
Doing some food and calorie tracking is okay, but don’t overdo it to a point where you’re overly stressed. More importantly, focus on quality food and quality training.
Incorporate strength training to improve muscle mass and metabolism.
Keep moving forward!
Your bStrong Team