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5 Habits to Lose Fat While Gaining Muscle

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Is there an effective way to lose weight while gaining lean muscle? Reducing fat means consuming fewer calories than you’re burning. Dropping kilos means that you might lose lean muscle together with fatty deposits. You need to be smart in terms of losing weight since you need lean muscle mass to perform physical activities like exercising.

It’s a fact that muscle burns more calories than fat, hence, having less muscle slows your metabolism as well. Once you lose that hard-earned muscle mass along with fat, it will become a bit more difficult to reduce weight the proper way. Don’t worry since there are ways to preserve lean muscle while you reduce weight.

1.) Stimulate Your Muscles Through Working Out

Working out will definitely maintain your muscle mass, but you need to be consistent so your body will continue to build it and make it toned and firmer. So, if you’re on a low-calorie diet but you’re not doing resistance training then you might add more fat than muscle. According to a 2015 Harvard study, lifting weights is a better fat-reducing technique compared to cardio exercises.

Your Muscle-Building Fix: You don’t need to lift weights on a daily basis. Reserve two intense weight-lifting session that will incorporate whole body movements such as squats and deadlifts. Determine how much you can lift so you can gauge the volume of reps per set.

2.) Consume the Right Amount of Calories

Once your body enters a starvation mode, you won’t be able to gain and sustain muscle mass and can add fat in the process. Eating an ample amount of calories will help maintain your metabolic rates. In a nutshell, you need enough energy not to go in starvation mode in order to perform physical activities.

Your Muscle-Building Fix: We recommend that you consume around 500-1,000 calories of protein from your current daily intake. This will help you maximize muscle-building while losing fat. Keep in mind to keep your daily calories intake about half your daily need and half for your exercise activity.

3.) Minimise your Cardio Exercises

Do you think spending an hour on the treadmill or elliptical for an hour will only make you reduce fat? Your hard-earned muscle might be compromised spending too much time on the treadmill. This is what makes weightlifting exercises very effective in building lean muscle mass since cardio doesn’t engage muscle fibers in movements.

Your Muscle-Building Fix: We’re not saying cardio exercises aren’t good, it’s a matter of doing them at a moderate pace. Schedule low-intensity cardio exercises 2-3 days weekly, and then schedule high-intensity cardio intervals to shock your system and protect your muscle as well.

4.) Observe your Post-Workout Action Plan

A post-workout plan is as important as your weight loss action plan. So where do you start? After a grueling yet fulfilling session at the gym, it’s important to refuel with the right food for your muscle fibers to recover. Aside from proper nutrition, you need ample sleep for your body to recover and build muscle overnight. Both aspects are important when it comes to the actual muscle-building process.

Your Muscle-Building Fix: Make sure to consume a high-quality protein meal after your workout. This will enable your body to replenish nutrients and send amino acids to your muscles. Also, keep in mind that you need 7-8 hours of sleep for your muscle to begin repairing itself and even building new ones as well.

One of the principles of weight loss isn’t only about how much you eat but what you eat as well. In a 2015 study, people went on a low-calorie diet for a month and those who consumed more protein decreased their body fat around 27 percent. It’s because the protein found in meats, eggs, and poultry which contain essential amino acids to build and sustain lean muscle mass.

Your Muscle-Building Fix: Consuming 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight will sustain your lean muscle gains. The idea here is to spread out your protein throughout the day and include in each meal.

 

Let’s get started towards your weight loss, lean muscle-building and fitness goals. The OneBody Wellness team have more than 40 years experience coaching clients on fitness, health and wellness and would be more than glad to talk to you about your fitness goals. For a chat, Click Here to know more.

 

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How to Activate your Weight Loss Hormones

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Taking advantage of female hormones have shown that it may support your fitness and nutrition goals. You might blame your intense period cravings on your hormones but they’re helping in terms of muscle-building and metabolic processes.

Women have always felt vulnerable to hormonal cravings and sluggish metabolism due to stress and period. It’s a good thing that science is now discovering how female hormones are related to weight loss and increased metabolism.

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In this post, we will be sharing tips on how to activate these hormones to support weight-loss and revving up metabolism. Here are 4 ways to turn on your hormones to reduce weight and unwanted fat.

1.) Discover the Staying Power of Protein-Packed Meals

Did you know that you have hormones that slow down the movement of food through your GI tract? This is called cholecystokinin which are released by your intestines whenever you eat. It’s a glucagon-like peptide 1 and peptide YY that helps in gradual digestion of food intake. The big idea here is that slow-moving food makes you fuller after a meal.

Your Hormone-Activating Trick: Integrate protein, healthy fats, and complex carbs for every meal. How do you make your meal feel you fuller? Consume around 20 to 25 grams of protein in each meal. High-protein meals increase these satiating hormones, but make sure to add some fiber from complex carbs and some veggies that contain healthy fats.

2.) Curbing Your Cravings

There’s a hormone that decreases your appetite called leptin. It’s also called the feel-full hormone or satiety which is released from your body’s fat cells once it is activated from your brain’s hypothalamus. High levels of the feel-full hormone can lead to leptin resistance since the more fat you have then the more leptin your body will produce. Most women have low levels of leptin which is making them super hungry.

Your Hormone-Activating Trick: People with sleeping disorders such as sleep apnea and insomnia are struggling with weigh loss. Why? Sleep deprivation directly affects leptin secretion. To optimize your leptin levels, women should get around 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Manage your sleep habits to leverage on your leptin levels.

3.) Engage in Fat-Burning and Muscle-Building Exercise

The more lean muscle that you have then the more calories you burn even if you’re not doing any physical activity. How’s that possible? Your testosterone levels are at work even if you have a little of them. It’s a common notion that men have tons of testosterone but women have their share of it as well. It’s our body’s primary muscle-building hormones and you need to turn it on to lose weight

Your Hormone-Activating Trick: Weightlifting movements is an effective way to promote the release of testosterone. Performing compound movements such as pullups and squats will use more muscle fiber which will trigger the release of fat-burning testosterone.

4.) Support Your Thyroid

Our thyroid gland secretes a variety of thyroid hormones including T3 and T4. These hormones manage how many calories you burn by just being in a stationary position. Autoimmune diseases are the cause of thyroid hormone levels, and even healthy women experience a drop in thyroid hormones which result in reduced metabolic rates.

Your Hormone-Activating Trick: Iodine deficiency is the cause of thyroid malfunction. This means that you need to load up with iodine-rich food such as tune and cod. Seaweed is also a good source of iodine. If you take a close look, these can be included as a source of protein and fiber respectively

Do you want to learn more about creating an eating plan or an exercise routine that will boost your metabolism? Let’s get started towards your fitness goals. Chad of the OneBody Wellness and Transformation team specialises in female weight loss success and would be more than happy to talk to you about your personalised eating plan. Click here to know more.

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5 Simple Ways to Boost your Metabolism

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Nature works in different ways. This goes the same for every person’s body and metabolism. Each of us vary in terms of metabolic rates since we do different types of work, some would be glued to their office chair most of the time and some would be doing more labourous work.

So why do some people easily gain weight and others have a difficult time gaining some?

Metabolism is our body’s own “personal trainer. It’s a process that works naturally to support you in shedding unwanted fat and burning calories. Enzymes in your cells break down food then convert it into energy. This enables your heart to keep on beating, your mind to thinking whenever you’re at work, or even when you engage in a group exercise class.

The idea here is that metabolism is a subjective matter. The faster a person’s metabolism works then the more she can burn those calories. It also means that the more you burn then the easier it is to shed those kilos off.

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Here are 5 simple yet effective ways to improve your metabolism:

1.) Start your Day with a Hearty Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The big idea here though is the quality and quantity of your food in the morning. Always keep in mind that a hearty breakfast is better since it will make you full for hours and prevent you hop on starvation mode.

A combination of lean protein coupled with complex carbohydrates and healthy fats is what works best. The old reliable would be hard-boiled eggs and cup of oatmeal. You can also add some berries and a teaspoon of omega-3 fish oil. Remember to consume a quantity that will make you full for the next few hours even before thinking about lunch.

2.) Remember Fiber

It’s a best practice to include vegetables and fruits in your daily diet. This will enable your body to flush out toxins more easily. The idea here is that consuming organic fruits and veggies are considered more effective since they are grown without pesticides. These chemicals block your thyroid function. Your thyroid is your body’s personal thermostat and gauges how fast your metabolism runs. Whether it’s organic produce or not, it is a must to have your greens during lunch and some fruits to complement your breakfast.

3.) Strength Training

Did you know that muscle weighs more than fat which means it uses more energy as well? Most women in their 30s and 40s tend to increase their resting metabolism by 100 calories per day through strength training. This can be achieved spending 40 minutes twice a week for 3-4 months. The great thing about training twice weekly? It keeps your thermostat running at an ideal rate even if you don’t visit the gym daily.

4.) Make Calories Work for You

It’s a fact that if you trim those calories in your diet plan, it will deliberately affect your metabolism. The body’s metabolic process will think that times are lean and puts a hold on fat-burning to conserve energy. The solution would be to eat enough calories at least to match your resting metabolic rate. It’s a tricky situation but keep in mind that eating the right food, which give you sufficient calories is key to making those calories work for you.

5.) Protein First

Do you even wonder why your personal trainer promotes a protein-packed diet for you? It’s because your body digests protein more slowly compared to carbohydrates. A high-protein meal also boosts your metabolism. During thermogenesis, your body uses around 10% of its calorie intake for digestion, which means it takes longer to burn protein than fat or carbs. With this in mind, your body tends to expend more energy-absorbing nutrients in a high-protein diet.

 

Do you want to learn more about creating a diet plan or a exercise routine that will boost your metabolism? Let’s get started towards your fitness goals. The Team at The Naked Truth Fitness would be more than happy to talk to you about your personalised eating plan. Click here to know more.