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Is The Fastest Way To Lose Weight Really THe Quickest?

By: Stephen Bartlay "That's it. I've had enough. I'm going to diet and finally get rid of these pounds!"
Did words like these ever come from your mouth?
And once those words become official, for many of us, something else happens; we want to get rid of those pounds just as soon as possible.
We are going to explore this need for speed in a moment. Before we do, we need to acknowledge that there is nothing basically "wrong" with wanting fast results. Speed is the way of the world we live in and the desire for speedy weight loss is perfectly natural.
When we want to lose weight fast, most of us think about seriously cutting back on the number of calories we take in.
From a simplistic perspective, this line of reasoning is bang on. Losing body fat is a matter of eating fewer calories than whatever number of calories we are currently eating that maintains the weight we have.
As an approach to how to lose weight, this method is fine. The issue of interest in the quick weight loss diet is not the "how", but rather the "how fast." A sharp reduction in caloric intake leads the body to fear that it is facing starvation. It then takes measures to save itself.
Being conscious, thinking beings, we sometimes find that nature's priorities run a different course than our own. If life and death are the chips on the table, the consequences of these priorities take on grave proportions (pardon the pun).
Take for example hypothermia. This is a condition where the body's temperature becomes abnormally low; as when ill dressed for harsh winter weather for example.
The body keeps a kind of emergency plan for various types of life threatening situations. For hypothermia, the plan is to conserve heat. One way to help achieve this end is to shut down the blood supply to non-essential body parts (saves on having to heat the blood). We are probably in agreement with the body about legs and arms as non-essentials. But the body's "non-essential" list includes the head!!
We also come to a parting of the ways with our bodies when it comes to how the body handles things when it thinks we are in danger of starving. Among the many responses the body has to this situation, two are of particular interest.
1) The body adapts to the lower number of available calories by lowering the metabolism. This way, it can conserve its inventory of fat.
2) The body knows that muscle is "high maintenance." Muscle consumes calories even if we're just relaxing on the couch. So the body remedies this problem by reducing our muscle mass - it literally "eats" it!
Well now our "fast weight loss" plan just went out the window. The body has seen fit to batten down the hatches against the threat of starvation. It is now burning way less fat and it has severely weakened the muscles "voice" in the matter.
The transition is complete; we are now long term fat storage units.
Obviously what we've learned here is to approach calorie reduction in a more gradual manner.
So how should we approach dieting safely?
An effective weight loss plan would have at least these features:
1. Non-aggressive calorie reduction: don't cut your calories by more than 20%.
2. A strength training component to increase muscle mass.
3. A focus on aerobic exercise to increase the body's fat burning ability.
These features are each well covered in many books as individual topics. If you are looking at a diet system that is missing some of these activities, you can always just add them.

Article Source: http://www.lifeweightloss.com

Stephen Bartlay is a weight control enthusiast, researcher and writer. More information is available about fat burning diets at WhyWeight.info/ProductReview - a product review website.

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