Is Your Body A Fat Storing Machine?

If you have excess fat to lose but it’s just not coming off…you will want to take 5 minutes to read this!

Almost 75% of people said the first thing they would do to lose weight would be to cut calories and exercise regularly!

I don’t blame them! For years we have been told that to maintain or lose weight it has to be calories in = calories out. But in reality, science proves not all calories are created equal. Some calories provide the body with real vitamins and nutrients the body needs to survive while other food calories do nothing more for our body than to fill our stomach for a few hours.

You can eat 12 French fries or 3 cups of kale and they both have about 80 calories. The difference between them is the vitamins, nutrients, and benefit each one will give to the body. Kale is going to give the body Vitamin C, Vitamin A, B-6, protein and fiber which fuel the bodies energy and metabolism, while french fries offer little to no vitamins and are high in saturated fat. If you were given this fact and only offered the choice between Kale and French fries to survive, which would you choose?

So now take a good look at WHY you are counting calories or cutting them to lose weight? Is it because you will continue eating unhealthy food choices but just have less. Would you agree that it’s not how many calories you eat, it’s what kind of calories you eat that matters most when trying to lose fat?

Here is a simple explanation of what happens when you take the OLD SCHOOL (cut calories, exercise more) approach to weight loss.

Our body has a Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) that tells us how many calories we burn at rest throughout the day. So if you simply just watch TV all day, you burn calories just being alive. This RMR mostly depends on age, weight, occupation, and daily activity. Someone who exercises regularly, has a job that requires them to be on their feet for hours will have a very high RMR. They burn more calories per minute than someone who does not exercise regularly and has a desk job. So in essence you want to have an active lifestyle to increase your RMR.

People assume that if you burn a certain number of calories a day (RMR) then eating less than those calories will be the solution to weight loss.

Here is where we strike the problem.

The body is smarter than we are! If we decrease our food intake by 1,000 calories to try and lose weight, then our body will protect us from what is sees as a very dangerous situation (starvation). It will slow your metabolism to match the calories that it is receiving each day.

Our body will slow down to match what we are eating and weight loss will slow and then stop. In fact it gets worse. When the metabolism is slow like this our body is searching for fat to store to get us through the trouble it believes we are facing. Our body goes into “survival mode”.

If we break this diet one day and binge, which is a normal thing and very often what most people do, then our body will convert any spare calories straight into body fat.

When we add exercise to this equation, the body is going into an even greater survival mode since now we are cutting calories and burning more each day!!!!

So in essence, when we slash calories below what our body needs to thrive, it slows our metabolism and turns us into a fat storing machine.

BUT THERE IS HOPE!

There is a healthy way to reduce calories, while still keeping metabolism high. It’s by giving the body higher quality calories like I mentioned in the beginning of this post.

Nobody has 12 french fries for 80 calories, they usually have at least 1 regular serving for about 300 calories and a burger on the side for another 500 calories. However most people would have 3 cups of Kale in a salad for 80 calories with some extra veggies or protein for another 250 calories. Right there you can see that the calories in a Kale salad with chicken is lower in calories but won’t negatively effect metabolism since it’s getting quality nutrients.

If our body is getting all the protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats that can be absorbed by the body it will BUILD NEW CELLS that are strong and healthy.

In that case our metabolism will stay high and our overall health will stay high, or if we had been a bit run down then we will often see an improvement in personal energy and general wellness as our body builds up healthier cells and our metabolism becomes more efficient.

So in essence, if we are choosing to eat less calories, we must provide our body with the right nutrients in order to lose fat. Eating less of the unhealthy garbage will not be the answer.

I don’t think I have to say it again but it’s all about QUALITY of calories and giving the body the right nutrients and vitamins to thrive….That is the recipe for weight loss. You can throw out the calorie counting app and start reading food labels instead.

If you want RESULTS and truly want to reach your weight loss destination instead of riding the weight loss rollercoaster, be sure to follow my FB page Anna Renderer Fitness.

I hope to see you there!

Love and Fitness,
Anna