Losing weight or losing weight?

Edited by Dr. Davide Marciano

Have you lost 5 kg in the last week?
Well done !
But if I asked you, what have you lost, would you be able to answer me?

Any person who decides to follow a low-calorie diet for obvious reasons of weight loss, bases the success of this diet only and exclusively on the response of the scale.
While it is not my intention to lead a crusade against such an instrument, I must make you aware of the misleading information it gives you.

In fact it will tell you that you have lost or gained weight but it will not tell you if this weight is fat, muscle, or water.
Let's face it, to lose weight you don't need a scientist, the important thing is to take in fewer calories than you consume and abracadabra that's it!
This is evidenced by the success of the diets that appear in magazines, such as soup, lemon, water and so on, which without having any scientific basis, can make you lose weight very quickly, at least for the first few weeks. Yes, that's right, at first your body is taken by surprise by the extremely low-calorie and unbalanced diet, so you can fool it by losing weight. After some time he is forced, for survival purposes, to get used to a reduced nutritional intake, so he will adapt his metabolism to those meager calories. If you want to continue to reduce weight you simply have to: "take away even what little you eat".
Not to mention the physical activity that is recommended during low-calorie diets. They require moderate aerobic activity (one walks at most) otherwise you will not lose weight on the scale. the weights you reply that the purpose is to lose weight and not to put on muscle, but this statement, as you will see, will leave the time it finds.
So: low calorie diet + light aerobic activity = weight loss program.
Try, out of curiosity, to detect the percentage of body fat, through a skin test, impedance or other, before starting and when you finish that fantastic weight loss program. You will be shocked!
You have lost 5 kg in a week but your percentage of fat is equal to or even higher than the initial quota. But this is of little interest, the important thing is those 5 kg less. So continue until things change little by little: you feel more and more tired, the weight no longer drops, those walks have become marathons, you look in the mirror and you see a mushy body with those much hated love handles. Which is why you decide to give that phantom diet a further cut by eating only once a day. But even in this way things no longer seem to change. What happened ?
Simple, you got what you wanted: to lose weight through the destruction of muscle mass which consequently led to the reduction of metabolism.
At this point it is best to clarify the different roles that fat and muscle have.

The first is an inactive tissue, which is the energy source of our body. To better explain us, from the anthropological point of view (times when man was a hunter / prey), man survived thanks to his high capacity to store energy (fat) which allowed him to overcome long periods of famine and drought. Since the current human machine is still set up with genes from at least 100,000 ago, we still tend to store fat and lose it with great difficulty. In this regard, studies have shown that the human body is unable to lose more than 300 - 500g. of fat per week, which is why, if in the last seven days you have lost 5 kg, by doing a simple operation you will find that, if everything went well, you have lost 300 - 500g of fat and 4.5 kg of lean tissue and water.
Muscle, on the other hand, is an active tissue, which in order to survive needs energy, or rather the calories you ingest. For the body, muscle mass is a significant energy expense, so it does everything it can to reduce it.
It is no coincidence that the basal metabolism (amount of calories burned in 24 hours by our body for survival) is directly proportional to muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the higher your basal metabolic rate and the more calories you burn.

Returning to the thread of this article, the low-calorie diet plus the gentle walk have significantly reduced your weight by consuming a large part of the muscles. Since the latter, as we said earlier, are directly proportional to the basal metabolism, your body will find itself in a real war setting, that is, it will try to burn fewer and fewer calories and store more and more fat to survive (a little curiosity: you know that do anorexics have a percentage of fat almost equal to obese people?).
Drawing the conclusions, you will find yourself after a year or more (these mistakes at a young age are absorbed by a body capable of withstanding all the "horrors" that you impose on it, but which, sooner or later, will present the bill) to possess a high percentage of fat and eating like ants and any food you add, even the healthiest, will make you fat.
Tired of the situation, you will start going to the gym by asking the instructor on duty why you cannot lose weight despite your efforts, the answer will always be the same: "YOU HAVE SO" VIOLENTED "YOUR BODY, WITH UNHEALTHY DIETS, THAT IT DOESN'T RESPOND NOW MORE "AT YOUR WILL".
All this happens because we want IMMEDIATE results, we don't care what can happen tomorrow or what damage our health receives, the important thing is to lose weight.
I will never tire of repeating it: "We must correct our eating HABITS without subjecting ourselves to stupid senseless diets".

THE STRENGTH OF A CORRECT DIET, OR THE SKILL OF A FOOD EXPERT, CONSISTS IN LOSING YOU FAT THAT DOES NOT ALWAYS COINCIDE WITH THE LOSS OF WEIGHT.

If you combine an intelligent diet with intelligent training, the results can only be amplified.
In this regard, let me recommend Physical Culture.
This choice is given not by my passion for this discipline but by the numerous studies I have read and which have always led me to the same conclusion.
Still have the goodness and the patience to follow my reasoning:
If we alternate aerobics with some weights to a moderately low-calorie diet, we will be able to support or even increase muscle mass.
This slight increase in muscles will allow us to raise the basal metabolic rate which, as we have said, is directly proportional to muscle mass.
Certainly the process will be much slower than just aerobic exercise but:

1) You will lose a lot more fat
2) You will not lose the precious muscle mass which in addition to giving you a pleasant appearance you need to raise your basal metabolic rate.
3) After putting on even a single pound of muscle you can eat more, without fear of gaining weight.
4) The more time passes the more your body will become active allowing you to satisfy your palate with all those foods that were previously strictly forbidden to you (with due care).

Practically you will become the opposite of those people who in order to lose weight in the shortest time possible, have followed a low-calorie diet without thinking about their muscle tone and who now have to give up all those dishes that are tempting and moreover find themselves with kilos of fat mass. more.
You might tell me you don't like muscles. I can also agree with you, but you must be aware that gaining muscle mass is difficult for all the guys who like me follow a high calorie diet, have a favorable hormonal condition (given by the young age), use food supplements, etc. .. ., let alone for people who follow a low calorie diet.

So don't be afraid: