Nowadays everyone is looking for the quick fix as it relates to weight loss, fat burning, muscle building and lean body goals. More and more people want to look and feel great but normally they want these results now and are not committed to long term health and fitness and clean eating. The most sustainable approach to not only looking and feeling great is to employ a Perth personal trainer that is able to help you achieve a sustainable plan of action and results.
The more social media we see and interact with the more lean body, muscled and toned physiques we see. How many adverts do you still see on TV and social media for the "quick fix." Whether it be for the latest fitness machine/gadget, diet pill or new diet for the shortcut to achieve health and fitness goals ASAP. This can be misleading to most people that may have tried training for a couple of weeks maybe even a month on and off while not maintaining an appropriate diet and holding themselves accountable. What these ad's don't show is the hard work, consistency, commitment and knowledge that goes into not only achieving these results but maintaining them. A Perth personal trainer can help you achieve your goals through not only training but through lifestyle coaching to make positive changes in your mind set, nutrition and overall health.
What can a weight loss obsession lead to?
With the obesity figures increasing it has come apparent that on the other end of the spectrum people have become obsessed with weight loss. So much so it can bring about changes in our lives in general where we become insecure, less confident and even depressed. It may affect our relationships with our close family and friends as we become more upset within ourselves and withdrawn. This can lead to drastic measures which may include:
• Restrictive eating patterns - on a new craze diet or meal replacement drinks
• Nutritional imbalance - starving ourselves which could lead to eating disorders
• Excessive exercise - leading to burn out, fatigue and possible injury
• Unsociable tendencies - from avoiding social events due to the fear of gaining weight
Diet and exercise should work into your lifestyle and should not be a hit and miss method for a quick fix.
Another aspect we must consider is how to people really view weight loss. Yeah the scales may have come down over a quick fix period but what have you really lost. Are you losing muscle, water and even reducing your own bone density through restrictive diets. Remember we still want to feel and look great and even though those scales have come down have we achieved that. Most of these quick fix diets will firstly look at restricting your calorie intake and depending on your previous lifestyle this may be anywhere in between moderate to extreme. You may go through stages of this type of dieting and find once you start to go back to your normal diet/lifestyle you will put the weight back on and sometimes more. This is because your body does not know when this drastic cut in calories may happen again so this promotes the body to store more fat from the excess energy resources you consume during this period.
As a Perth personal trainer we must consider if clients on these diets are limiting there exercise performance, immune system, the ability to recover and grow stronger/leaner. We need to burn more calories then we consume to lose weight right? But are we consuming the right amount and quality of nutrition to build and maintain lean muscle mass. Our bodies are a fascinating machine, if we do not provide our system with the correct fuel types then the body will eat away at its own resources to survive. Even during long extended periods of exercise our body will actually start to breakdown muscle proteins if our bodies are not fuelled correctly. Once our bodies have entered a catabolic state (calorie restriction/starvation) it will turn to muscle protein resources to burn to provide us with energy. Our bodies do not generally like to carry more lean muscle as the more lean muscle we carry the more fat we burn at rest. It is a lot easier for the body to store excess energy as fat and not expend energy maintaining muscle. We must have a correct balance of protein, carbohydrates, fat and vitamins and minerals to maintain optimum health and fitness while exercising.
As a personal trainer Perth I prefer to focus on either (or combined in some cases) body composition scans and body measurements rather then a figure on a weighing scale. I advise clients to take one or two pieces of clothing that may have been a little tight previously and 4 weeks into their training program try it on to see how it now looks and feels. Asking clients about how happy they are now with how they feel is important together with progress photos from periodical reviews during the training program. I tend to steer them away from the numbers on a scale as they are not a true representation of our body composition through the early stages of training.
Are we better off with quick weight loss?
We want to lose weight quickly but not at the expense of our lean muscle mass. Quick weight loss within a few weeks means you may have lost muscle and therefore shape, tone and functional strength. Due to this you’re not holding as much lean muscle and as a result your metabolic rate (BMR) is reduced which results in less energy being burnt when the body is at rest.
The aim of this article is to help people see why crash diets and quick fixes are not sustainable. Health and fitness should be a lifestyle choice and with the correct balance of good nutrition, exercise and holding ourselves accountable there is no reason why we can't still enjoy the guilty pleasures.
I Perth Personal Trainer (IPPT) is committed to helping you understand the basic principles to sustaining a body and level of health and fitness you desire. In further submissions in this video and blog series we will discuss the solutions to maintaining lean bodies, muscle mass, tone and strength and at the same time looking and feeling great.