Burning body fat does not just yield a slimmer and more attractive body but it also helps prevent arthritis, heart disease, some forms of cancer, type two diabetes, stroke, and even some psychological disorders like depression.
One of the measures of a person’s health is their body mass index, which is basically the ratio of a persons weight to the square of their height. The higher this index goes, the more obese and unhealthy a person is. Thus, burning body fat literally means removing fat from the body for the sake of a person’s well-being.
Losing weight or burning body fat?
Some people use the terms ‘losing weight’ and ‘burning body fat’ interchangeably. This is because the words imply much the same thing because burning fat translates into weight loss. They would also suggest that burning body fat means depriving your body of essential calories.
The truth of the matter is that the only way to burn body fat is for the body’s basal metabolic rate or BMR plus the energy requirements for activity and muscle growth to exceed the calories absorbed from the diet.
There are many ways to do this without starvation. Increasing BMR means that the body uses the food consumed more efficiently which can cure obesity, provided that a proper diet is followed.
Exercise is key for burning body fat
The primary way to burn body fat is through exercise. For burning body fat, muscle building is the key. Increased muscle mass means increased BMR. To build muscle, people may take up strength training with weights.
Rather than relying on narrowly focused gadgets that only work the muscles in specific areas such as the thighs, a bodybuilding program based on free weight exercises as well as free body exercises can be much more effective at burning body fat.
Diet moderation also helps with fat burning
Along with exercise, diet moderation is important for the process of burning body fat. The key here is to incorporate a healthy way of eating for life rather than changing ones eating habits every few weeks to suit some new fad diet. Calorie cutting is also important but only such that the amount of calories you consume is just slightly lower than the amount you utilize.
Starvation is not only detrimental to overall fitness, it is useless as far as burning body fat is concerned. A survival mechanism within the body tells it to retain fat when food is scarce. Thus starvation leads to a reduction in activity level and BMR rather than burning body fat.
The main thing to do as far as diet is concerned is to cut out empty calories. That means giving up sodas and chips for water and baked potatoes. It does not mean eating tasteless rice wafers and wheat bran, it just means having more fresh and natural food in the diet than junk and fast food.
The golden rule is to avoid all edible items that have been processed because they always tend to be high in calories with little or no nutritive value.
As cliché as it might sound, including fruits and vegetables in the diet is essential for weight loss. Lean meats and cold cuts are also a great replacement for other calorie rich meat products. Increasing the percentage of protein in your diet is essential for building muscle mass, which in turn is necessary for burning body fat.
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