Talk about losing body fat, and the first thing that comes to mind is “I need to exercise more” – and most people run out and join a gym, purchase an exercise program, or simply start an intensive home program of biking, running, and lifting weights.
However, exercising as a first step to losing weight and burning body fat WILL NOT WORK. Why? Simple – you first should address your diet to ensure your body is getting the raw fuel it needs to function optimally, and then add in exercise.
Using a car analagy – if you want to take your car and race in the Grand Prix – you of course will look at upgrading your suspension, tires, possibly your drive train – all of which are equivalent to strengthening different parts of your body. However, if you then take this same car and pour low grade, water contaminated gasoline in the tank – what do you think will happen? Forget about winning the race – you won’t make it to the finish line.
That’s exactly what happens with your body. As one of the finest engineered “machines” on the planet, it has evolved over millions of years on specific foods and nutrients – and functions optimally when it is being fed what it needs. Exercise puts stress on every part of the body, which under ideal conditions changes to accomodate that stress – building more muscle, lung capacity, endurance, and strength. However – it does this when getting the right fuel.
If it isn’t getting the right fuel – then it has to somehow accomodate this extra stress from exercise in some other way than strengthening its core systems (since it doesn’t have the building blocks it needs for that). What happens? You start burning muscle for protein, you encounter joint pain and injury, respiration issues, and a host of other things you would leasty expect from doing something “good”.
Before embarking on an aggressive exercise program [and possibly wasting your money], you first need to ensure your diet is excellent – eating the right foods, ingesting the right nutrients, and not introducing toxins into your body [diet drinks, excessive sugar, man-made ingredients, pesticides...the list goes on] that it subsequently has to deal with.
Start right – depending on your personality, join a certified proven program based on the level of support you need as well as explicit eating guidance versus understanding nutrition and choosing your own eating habits. At the one extreme you may consider Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig – as you don’t need to research, digest, or care about the science behind their eating plans. Or you may choose a diet plan like the Diet Solution Program, which provides the science behind the recommendations, and offers incredible flexibility in choosing what you eat each day.
In any case, make sure your eating habits are safe – start with a program designed by a certified nutritionist, has several years of results and thousands of customers behind it, and more importantly, fits your lifestyle in terms of being completelyt dictated to, or wanting the science and choices.
Spend a few months on a healthy diet before then introducing the stress of a regimented exercise program on your body. Exercise IS an integral part of losing body fat – but should follow correcting your diet if you want to be healthy and lose fat without any side effects.
