What you eat is almost more important than what you do in your quest towards a more healthy body and lifestyle. You have to pay attention to what you put into your body, but that doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of the things that you like. Everything in moderation is generally fine. (Of course I don’t mean things that cause damage like drugs or tobacco. Incidentally, did you know tobacco belongs to the nightshade family? Why is that interesting, you ask? Nightshade is known for its toxins.)
The main thing I wanted to talk about is what happens when people diet to lose weight. (I may be preaching to the choir here, but this information bears repeating.) When you diet without exercise, you lose fat and muscle. Your weight will go down, and your percentage of fat to lean body mass may also drop, but losing muscle is a bad thing. Humans naturally lose muscle as they age. Naturally is perhaps the wrong word. Due to the sedentary lifestyle of “modern man” we tend to lose muscle mass as we age. We, as a society, do not get enough exercise and gradually the muscle mass is depleted. It is highly important that we reverse this trend.
I had the pleasure last weekend to talk to a woman who was 96 years old. She was still able to get around, mostly of her own power, assisted by a firm hand on her elbow. One thing in particular I noticed was that she had trouble getting up out of a chair. That is due to decreased core strength. That seems to be a common issue with older Americans. Core exercises (sit-ups, crunches, hyper-extensions – for your lower back) often get overlooked. Some folks get obsessed with abs, but most people tend to neglect lower back. But I’ve gone off on a tangent when I mean to concentrate on exercise vs. diet.
To sum it up, if you lose body weight with no concern to what sort of tissue you are losing that’s a bad thing. Your rate of caloric burn drops as you lose muscle, which means your metabolism drops. This causes a viscous cycle. You weigh less, but you are burning less fat as you are going about your regular daily routine, so you are more likely to regain weight in the form of fat. People jump into this cycle and continue to diet and lose muscle and regain fat. This is evident in television commercials as the leading diet systems have new spokes people all the time. The systems help people to lose weight, but those same people tend to regain the weight and more.
The key to successful long term weight loss is exercise teamed up with diet. The exercise needs to be resistance training, not cardio. Cardio is great for heart health, but not to help you with muscle retention. Resistance training (weight training) will help you burn more fat, retain and possibly gain muscle and help you with long term health and mobility.
Evolution to Modern Man
