Weight Loss: How To Lose Weight Effectively
Weight Loss: It’s not Easy, but You Can Do It
One question I get very often as a 23 year plus veteran Austin personal trainer and gym owner, is what is the best way to lose weight? Weight loss, like virtually any question, in any field, you can oversimplify it, throw a an antiquated formula at it, or attempt to answer it with a sweeping statement. Since I take the word “personal” in my job title very seriously, and refuse to advocate thoughtless sweeping statements or hype trains, we can only partially answer this question, as most all of the true answer will be subject to a vast amount of individual parameters which is unaccountable for sight unseen and without a thorough pouring over of medical history, genetics, etc.
Ideally, the best way approach weight loss, is to exercise regularly and be mindful of what you eat. This means doing a combination of cardiovascular exercise sprinkled with some anaerobic exercise in order to stimulate fast twitch muscle fiber growth, and maintaining consistently good dietary practices. Unfortunately, we all don’t have golden genetics, and therefore, must work around certain obstacles that may hinder the weight loss process. If a otherwise healthy person with no known major imbalances, such as overly tight hip flexors contributing to a anterior tilted pelvis over many years, thus contributing to spinal degeneration, I would start with the basics. The best time of day to burn body fat, is first thing upon waking and on an empty stomach. If you have no food, or fuel, in your body, your body will burn oxygen as well as stored fat for fuel. This is aerobic exercise. If, however, you wake up, lounge around a bit with some coffee with half and half in it, chew on a bagel or 2, and then hit the gym, you’re now burning fat from the creamer, as well as the carbs from the bagel, or whatever it was that you have eaten. This isn’t going to go a long way towards weight loss.
The best way to lose weight if you’re elderly, injured, or otherwise incapacitated to some degree, is to think small movements and tighten up the diet even tighter that you would if you were capable of far greater amounts of cardiovascular exercise. Some people simply can’t move from a chair very easily, for whatever reason. For these people, I would suggest doing whatever is possible, be it arms raises, seated leg extensions, etc, in order to get the heart rate elevated. In this case scenario, weight loss will come slower than in most others, and for a variety of potential reasons, but it is important as with all scenarios dealing with weight loss, that you remain consistent in your efforts both physically, as well as with your nutrition.
For other people, and it seems the vast majority of us, the best way to accomplish a bit of weight loss, is to simply clean up your diet a bit. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up ice cream or beer, but that you can’t subsist on what counts as an indulgence. It’s much the same as people wanting to subsist on protein powders, etc. Those are supplements, not meals. The bottom line is, barring medical issues which make it much harder to burn calories such as major hormonal imbalances, etc, the best way to lose weight is firstly make a pact with yourself that you’re going to do it, then start eating nicely and head out the door early in the morning for that brisk walk, bike ride, swim, etc. So long as you get the heart pumping a bit faster and you eat to support your goals, you’ll more than likely find success in achieving them in time.
Andy is a top notch trainer for fitness novices to seasoned body builders. He has a breadth of knowledge matched only by very few in the fitness industry today.
Comments are closed