We all know that exercise is an important to weight loss and life in general. A I would recommend to exercise even if you don't want/need to lose weight and give you a list of reasons why you should. part from being good for your physical health, exercise can also improve your mental health and overall well-being. However, for the purpose of staying on the topic of weight loss, I won't overload this post with the different implications exercise has in daily life. Today, I will discuss exercise as it relates to weight loss. For years, I have been working out and training to be in shape and stay strong for sports. but how does working out actually work? How does working out and gaining muscle relate to weight loss. How I've asked myself this question before and haven't been able to answer that until just recently. First, I want to get into muscle growth because it's important to know this too. In order for your muscles to grow larger and/or get stronger, Protein synthesis must be greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown. (Remember protein? The building block of structures in the body?) Basically, your muscles need to repair damaged muscle fibers (protein) faster than they can be torn. Note that muscle tears when a greater than normal resistance is placed on them. Repaired muscle fibers are thicker and more numerous. Special cells called satellite cells begin the process of muscle repair. When activated, they add more nuclei to muscle cells, allowing for muscle fibers to be repaired. There are 3 things that contribute to muscle growth:
How does this all relate to weight loss?I have good news for you! Muscle burns more calories than fat! In order to maintain their shape and function, muscles need energy from the calories you consume. If you remember when I talked about calories, you'll know if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Now, don't get too ahead of yourself because I have some not so good news. The theory that if you gain a whole bunch of muscle you will dramatically lose weight is false. In reality, A pound of muscle burns 5-6 calories per day, as fat burns 3-4. So, don't think you can go into the gym and try and get "swole" to lose a bunch of weight. Now, you might be wondering how much of your body is muscle. Thankfully, I can tell you. 40% of the average man's weight is lean muscle and 30% for a woman. Lean muscle is all of your skeletal muscles and your organs. However, these numbers can be different for all. If you want to have a more accurate number, try finding your body fat percentage then subtract from 100. Here's the formulas for body fat percentage: Males: [86.010 x log10(circumference of waist - circumference of neck)] - [70.041 x log10(height)] + 36.76 Females: [163.205 x log10(circumference of waist + circumference of hip - circumference of neck)] - [97.684 x log10(height)] - 78.387 Once you have your lean muscle percentage, you can multiply that by your weight to get a rough estimate to see how many pounds of lean muscle you have. If you want to go even further, you can multiply your pounds of lean muscle by 5 (calories 1lb. of muscle burns) to see how many calories your muscles burn even when you aren't moving. The only flaw in this is that it doesn't take in account the calories your organs burn to operate. My advice:
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Today, I did some research into what a calorie really is. Everybody has heard you should eat less calories when you lose weight, but why? How does this work?
I bet if I asked you what a calorie actually is, you wouldn't be able to tell me. So, I will define what a calorie is. A calorie is the type of energy found in food. All of the energy that is in fat and carbs comes from the calories within them. A single calorie represents the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1 degree Celsius. If you remember your junior high school science class, you'll know that energy can never be destroyed, only change in form. This is also true for calories, as your body either converts calories into another type of energy or stores it in cells. When you "burn" calories, it means your body is converting caloric energy into different types of energy. Calories are converted into thermal (heat) energy, electrical (nervous system) energy, sound energy, kinetic (movement) energy. Remember, if your body doesn't "burn" as many calories as you consume, the extra calories get stored in your fat and muscle cells. However, because your body is always producing heat, digesting food, sending nerve impulses, pumping blood around your body, and moving around, your body constantly burns calories. Everybody's daily calorie need is different, depending on your age, weight, height, and activity level. In general, the average adult needs about 2,000 calories a day to maintain a steady body weight and normal body functions. There are a few basic "rules" for calorie consumption. If your goal is to lose weight, then you should consume less calories than you would normally burn. If your goal is go gain weight and put on muscle or fat, you should consume more calories than you would normally burn. If you just want to maintain a steady weight, you should consume roughly the same amount of calories as you burn. It's also important to know how many calories are stored in fat. Usually 3,500 calories are stored in every pound of fat you have. This is VERY important to know. If your daily calorie goal is 2,000 and you consume 2,500 everyday for a week, you will gain 1 pound of fat. This is because your body will use 2,000 of those calories and store the other 500 (500cal x 7 days = 3,500 per week, equating to 1 pound of fat). It's important to know how many calories you need daily in order to lose weight. The internet has hundreds of online calorie calculators you could use to find your number. Don't think that you can only eat some crazy low number of calories per day, because I bet you need more than you think you do. Once you find the number of calories you need daily, you must then pay attention to the number of calories in the food you eat. In future posts, I will unlock the secrets of good food without all the extra calories. All information from: http://www.shapesense.com/nutrition/articles/ Everybody has heard people say you need to eat a certain way in order to lose weight. They say "don't eat fat" or "watch your carbs" and "eat plenty of protein". People often think of fat and carbs as the enemy and protein as your friend in the "eating game". Why? Probably because everybody has been told consuming fat and carbs mean you gain weight and consuming protein means you gain muscle. Today, I dove deeper into furthering my knowledge of these three things it seems most people don't know much about.
Fat, protein and carbohydrates are nutrients we need everyday. They are referred to as macronutrients, or macros, because they are made of large molecules. If you've ever heard anyone talk about "calculating their macros", it means they have figured out how many grams of fat, protein, and carbs they need daily. The numbers for each depend on your weight, height, activity level, and so on. Since I have already covered what fat is, I will focus mainly on protein and carbs. Just so you aren't confused, vitamins, iron, zinc, etc. are micronutrients because the molecules that made them up are smaller. Carbs: On the molecular level, a carbohydrate is simply a carbon atom attached to a water molecule (for all of the other science nerds like myself). Along with fats, carbs provide much of the energy we need. Some organs, such as your brain, are dependent on carbs as their source of energy. This is the macro that we need the most of everyday, the average adult usually needs 130 grams of carbs per day. Carbs are separated into two categories, simple carbs and complex carbs. Simple carbs consists of different kinds of sugars, monosaccharides (glucose, or blood sugar; fructose-fruit sugar) and disaccharides (two sugar molecules). Complex carbs, or polysaccharides, are starch, glycogen, and cellulose. Protein: Proteins are a special kind of molecule called amino acids. They are the building blocks for building bones, muscle, skin, tendons, hair, finger nails, ligaments, cartilage, enzymes, hormones, antibodies, hemoglobin. When you consume protein, it gets broken down into various amino acids which are then reassembled into new amino acids your body needs. Amino acids fall into two categories. Non-essential amino acids are those you do not need to consume. Out of the 20 kinds of amino acids, the body naturally produces 11 of those. The opposite of non-essentials, essential amino acids, are those you need to consume because your body can't make these. There are 9 essential amino acids we need to consume daily. You shouldn't worry too much if you are consuming the essential amino acids or not. Meat, fish, eggs, chicken, and dairy are complete proteins as they contain all of the amino acids. Protein that comes from a non-animal source are referred to as incomplete proteins because they don't contain all of the amino acids. However, you can always combine your fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, and whole grains to get all of the amino acids. Why should you know your macros? If you want to lose weight and are serious about it, you must know your macros to get serious results. No matter how much you weigh or how active you are, you will always need fat, carbs, and protein. Of course, the total grams per day will be less, but you shouldn't try to avoid fats or carbs entirely. What foods you are consuming to get your macros matters A LOT. Try getting your fats from nuts and fats naturally occurring in plants, stay away from animal fat and oil (exception could be virgin olive oil). Also, try getting your carbs from complex carbs, e.i. fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains.They have more micronutrients that simple carbs lose during refining process. Complex carbs are also more filling, as they are digested slower, which decreases blood sugar (glucose) spikes. This decreases problems with obesity, diabetes, and heart problem. I used this website called Eat This Much to calculate my macros. All you have to do is follow the steps on the site, plugging in your activity level and daily calorie goal (which it can also help you find). the website then gives you a daily meal plan that hits your daily macro needs. I'll let you dive into this more, click here. All of my information was gathered from here: http://www.shapesense.com/nutrition/articles/ Before you figure out the solution to anything, it's important to isolate the problem. It's obvious that excess body fat is the problem, but what is fat exactly? Before I can definitively say what is the healthiest, most effective way to lose weight, I needed answer this question. Today, I looked into what fat is and how fat is absorbed into the body. The process is complicated, but it works.
Fat is a different type of cell than our skeletal muscle cells. Known as adipose tissue, it's found throughout our bodies. Us humans have two types of fat, one type being brown fat. It's found primarily in babies and served to keep them warm. This fat usually goes away after our infant years. The other kind, white fat, is the type relevant to my research. It's found under our skin, in our muscles, and around our organs. White fat is important for energy metabolism, heat insulation, and mechanical cushioning. Before fat gets stored in your adipose tissue, it must get broken down to almost the atomic level and reformed. Once food goes into your small intestine, fat droplets in the food mix with bile salts from the gallbladder. This process is known as emulsification. This process breaks the fat into pieces called micelles. Then, the pancreas releases an enzyme called lipase that breaks down micelle into fatty acid and glycerol. Finally, the small intestine can absorb the pieces after being broken down. The journey isn't done yet for fat. With the help of a protein called chylomicrons, fatty acids and glycerol get assembled into triglycerides. Then, they are released into the lymphatic system, or arteries and veins. Another protein, called lipoprotein lipases, breaks down the reassembled fat into fatty acids in the bloodstream (it's a lot of breaking down, reassembling, I know it's confusing). In order for cells to absorb the fatty acids, they must activated by the hormone insulin. The small intestine produces insulin in the presence of glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids. Insulin tells your cells to absorb fatty acids, glucose, and amino acids. It also directs the body to stop breaking down glucose (from glycogen), amino acids (from protein), and fatty acids (from fat). In case you didn't understand any of that, I will try to explain here. Basically, the fat in your food is too big to be absorbed by your small intestine. So, it must get broken down into very small pieces. After it gets absorbed, fat is reassembled into larger pieces. Then, fatty acids are separated from the reassembled fat and transported to cells all throughout the body. All of those fatty acids get absorbed by fat cells from your veins. This all happens under the direction of insulin, which tells your cells to absorb fatty acids. Eating foods with fat is not bad. As I have said previously, your body needs fats to function properly. Some organs, like your brain, need fats in order to work. While you do need fat, an excessive amount means more fatty acids will be stored in fat cells. In future posts, I will discuss how much fat you need daily, and what foods to eat to meet daily fat requirements. All information in this post is from this source: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/fat-cell2.htm Hello, This is my first post as I dive into a project for school titled, "Personal Health Exploration". This blog is an addition to a more creative and interactive project for a 3-week long Health class. The project give me a chance to research about any topic health and well-being related, and present my findings to an audience. The topic I've decided to pursue is the complex topic of weight loss and how to achieve fitness goals. I hope to learn more than just about "exercising and dieting", because there is so much more to getting 'fit" than eating right and doing any exercise (I say "fit" because everyone's idea of being "fit" is different). There's so many variables in this topic; from specifically when you should eat, to specific workout plan that's right for you to get "fit", , and the science behind all of it too. For me, the topic of weight loss is something that is personal. Part of what I will be sharing with you not only consists of research, but also knowledge from my personal experience. A few years ago, I looked very different from how I do today. Let's just say I do not look like this picture at all. This was 6th grade me; a boy who had just discovered how to cook his own steak and burgers. And it definitely shows, to say the least. I was 12 years old, 5'5", and weighed 140lbs. However, in 6th grade, I didn't have as critical of an eye as I do now. I couldn't see that I was bigger than the other kids. I didn't know what were the effects of eating meat and potatoes every night for dinner. Maybe it was a good thing, because in 7th grade, I finally did start to see I was bigger than the other kids. I started to feel bad, since all of my friends were so fit and slim. Embarrassment and self consciousness were emotions I felt constantly. Luckily enough for me, puberty did it's "thing", and I grew taller and thinned out to some degree.
In high school, I did a bit better. I wasn't nearly as big compared to the other kids, but I was still self-conscious about people seeing my body. I still had enough fat on my stomach that I thought others would make fun of me. Freshman year, for example, I dreaded getting picked to play on the "skin team" during soccer practices. A soft-looking kid like myself seemed out of place among skinny soccer players. But, I put those feelings away and dealt with it. After soccer I played basketball, where I was formally introduced to weight lifting. I found a liking for strength training, and I kept working out after. I got stronger and more muscular, which kind of helped "even out" my upper body. I worked out my arms and shoulders a lot, so they would look big compared to my stomach. I had discovered a whole new realm of getting my body to a physique I liked better than before. However, I was still unhappy. This year is where I made significant changes. A goal of mine the majority of this year was how can I get to states in track and field. I started to read more about running my specific event (the 800m run) and watching videos of track meets. I noticed how many of professional runners were skinny, lean, and muscular. It's here I decided I probably needed to lose weight in order to get to states. I didn't really have any specific goals for losing weight. As I furthered my knowledge of losing weight and getting in shape, I adjusted what I did to cater to what I learned. While exercising is important, the food aspect is probably the most important part in weight loss (As I share my knowledge and experience on this blog, I will dive deeper into food). I want to be able to share my knowledge with others who maybe aren't happy about the way their body looks, or maybe the other runner out there who wants to go to states. I want to get the message across that you don't need any special diet or buy an expensive piece of workout equipment to lose weight. I will walk you through healthy, effective methods to lose weight and get a body you want. |