Spring break is alomost here! For Oklahoma anyway, that means that most girls (and guys for that matter) are in the gym for hours at a time, and starving themselves to death in persuit of a beach body for spring break. Hate to bust all your sweat-suit wearing chops, but it's too late! Yep. Truth.
Fact one, the gains that you are seeing from the scale in the past few weeks of eating bite-sized portions and running yourself to China on the treadmill and stepmill are likely not from fat, rather dehydration and loss of your body's energy storages. The only way to sustainable weight loss is a progressive program and a commitment to health! Yo-yo diets can hurt your metabolism in the long run, potentially teaching your body to package up energy in the food that you eat in fat or adipose storages. I can't think of many people who would like to teach their body to store fat can you!?
Important things happen when you eat; your body uses the energy from food to repair tissues and create more energy. It fuels metabolic processes and anabolic processes that are needed to keep your immune system functioning, your bones, skeletal muscle and hearth healthy. Vitamins and minerals in the foods that you eat scavenge free radicals and that build up in your body in response to exercies, stress and your enviornment. The ingestion of food also keeps your metabolism running...period. When you take food away, in excess it will slow the rate of your metabolism to a crawl and believe me turning that engine back on is tricky! One other biggie, resistance training will build muscle that will rev up your metabolism!
Here is my take home; To get that spring break body, start early! Progress yourself into exercise slowly and look at the composition of your food. How many calories are you eating, how often are you eating, and what macronutrients are you consuming? The how much, how often and what are important questions. (Never drop below 1200 calories period) Slowly take out high sugar and high fat foods and replace them with fruits and vegetables. Have several sources of high quality protein in your diet (check out the ironlilyfit diet) Resistance train... yep. do it, more to come on this soon!
