To lose weight, your body needs to burn more calories than you take but we must not forget that the calorie intake is essential for energy and muscle when you exercise your body needs even more calories. Before we talk about energy, however, the first thing you need to understand is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same: because losing weight is not necessarily losing fat and, conversely, does not automatically lose fat lose weight.
When people talk about losing weight, it really is a question of removing excess fat (usually to improve their figure). When eating, the body uses most of the calories for energy. If you eat more calories than they need for energy, will be stored as fat. If not consumed as many calories as are needed to cover energy consumption will lose weight, but energy is lost. By not getting enough supply of calories the body uses stored energy, unfortunately, the body uses its fat stores but, first, are the proteins and carbohydrates that provide fuel (fat will do in a small percentage). Your body will take the protein and carbohydrate in the muscle cells resulting in a loss of muscle mass and this will induce a slowing of metabolism which in turn means less fat burning. When this happens your body requires less energy to maintain weight (remember that the weight goes down because muscle mass also decreases). In other words, the body adapts to a lower energy level and even lower the calorie intake, not continue losing weight. (more…)
