The human body is designed to keep us alive and well. It does so in many ways, one of which is through Adaptability. When the environment around us changes, the body detects the change and adapts to it. When you walk in a hot place, the body detects this change and adapts to it by releasing sweat all over the skin to cool off your body.
Considering the example above, we could use adaptability as a “release sweat” button. This means whenever you want to release sweat, all you have to do is put your body in the right conditions, i.e. elevate body temperature, and the body will do the rest.
OK, how about Weight Loss?
Absolutely, adaptability works here as well. Your target is to burn fat, so you need to put the body in the “fat loss mode”, to do so, you have to meet its requirement(s), and to achieve these requirement(s), you need to perform one, two, or any combination of its actions. Refer to the figure below,
(click on the image to view full size)
The Fat Loss Mode (the FLM)
The FLM is the mode you need to put your body in if you want it to burn fat. As you can see from the figure, there is only one requirement.
You must create a Caloric Deficit, which means the amount of calories you consume from food MUST be less than the amount of calories your body burns from physical activities. This way, the body will be forced to burn those missing calories from the fat stored in your body. I know what you are thinking right now:
Oh that’s easy, all I have to do is to reduce the amount of food I eat, better yet, just stop eating altogether and the body will burn the energy it needs from the stored fat … right?
WRONG !!! (Actually, a big mistake)
Remember adaptability? When you simply reduce your food intake, your body recognizes this as an emergency: food shortage, and enters the Starvation Mode. When it comes to weight loss, Starvation Mode is the NUMBER ONE ENEMY.
If your body enters into starvation, then all your efforts, including exercise and healthy diet, will be simply wasted. That’s because when the body enters the starvation mode, two things happen that are bad for weight loss.
First, it reduces its caloric needs to match whatever is available from food, thus eliminating the caloric deficit. Secondly, it stops burning stored energy and saves whatever food you eat as fat, very much the opposite of the FLM you were trying to achieve.
The best way to explain this is with an example. Let’s take John, he needs 2000 calories per day. If he consumes more than 2000 calories, he will put on weight. But what if he reduces his caloric intake to just 1500 calories per day? Here is what will happen:
- John needs 2,000 calories per day
- He cut his food intake to 1,500 calories, hoping the body will burn the balance
- However, his body adapts to this, and reduces its caloric needs to just 1,500
- Therefore, John’s body is burning: (1,500 out – 1,500 in = 0 calories per day)
- Meaning, John is NOT losing any weight.
When your income is reduced you naturally start to save and reduce expenditure. You begin to focus on the absolute vital needs until your normal income is restored. This behavior is in our nature, and that’s exactly what happens when the body enters the starvation mode.
When the body enters the starvation mode, it reduces its caloric expenditure by reducing the efficiency of - or even stopping - some internal operations. Some of these operations are vital for your survival, like enzyme balance, gland function, etc. So not only starving yourself is useless for weight loss, it is also bad for your general health.
So, what can I do?
Mathematically speaking, all john needs to do is to reduce his food intake AND maintain his current caloric needs at 2,000. This will allow him to achieve caloric deficit, or as follows:
- John needs 2,000 calories per day
- He cut his food intake to just 1500 calories
- However, his body adapted to this, and reduced its caloric needs
- But, John performed other activities to increase back his caloric needs
- As such, his current his caloric needs are: 2,000 - 500 + 500 = 2,000
- So, currently, John’s body is burning (2,000 out – 1,500 in )= 500 cals
- As such, John is losing 500 calories worth of fat every day.
The obvious question now is, what are these other activities that john did? That’s next.
The activities required to achieve the FML
There are a bunch of activities you can do to enhance your metabolic needs and therefore maintain your caloric needs, they are summarized here:
- Perform a low intensity workout (Cardio) as often and as long as possible
- Consume good foods and avoid bad foods
- Consume the right amount of the good foods
- Perform a high intensity workout at least twice a week (NOT weight lifting)
- Apply healthy eating habits, and stop the bad ones.
Wow! That’s a lot … I don’t think I can do all (or any of) that
If these thoughts came to your mind, then congratulations, you have just joined the club of millions of people around the world who feel exactly the same why about weight loss: Confused, Overwhelmed, Lost, and Intimidated. So, do not worry, you are not alone.
But I agree with you, if you start today and try to do all of the above you will fail, coz u r not ready.
Therefore, the key here is to Divide and Conquer. We will not try to do all of the above at once; instead, we will tackle them one at a time. That’s what we’ll do together in Operation Re-Burn
Soon enough, you will realize that doing these actions is not really that difficult as you originally thought.
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