Question from Visitor

Hello,

Thanks for the question.

You wrote:
" Is it true that some people weigh more but look smaller than an indiviual that weighs less than them? if so, why is it that? "

It is possible for a person to be smaller than another of similar body types but yet weigh more. The reason for this is usually muscle mass. The heavier, smaller person tends to carry more muscle. Muscle is much denser than fat weight, thus it occupies less space. Fat takes up more volume of space per pound than muscle. Therefore, a fatter person tends to be bigger than a lean person of the same weight.

We can all witness this process as people age. After the age of around 30 years our body very slowly loses muscle (the rate of loss is slowed with regular exercise). As you lose muscle it reduces the metabolism, the result is we need less calories. Eventually this leads to a positive energy balance (we eat more energy than required) and we slowly replace lost muscle with fat weight. In many cases (those managing to maintain a steady weight over time) some people remain the same weight for years yet they seem to grow in size and width (butt gets bigger, hips, etc). The fact is they do grow bigger as the fat percentage rises. This process is often referred to as "middle-age spread".

You can read more about body types here:

http://www.weightlossforall.com/body-types-weight-loss.htm

Hope this helps!

All the best
Wayne
www.weightlossforall.com

Bad Lifestyle choices that can be avoided

It is easy to sabotage your own health. Without even realizing it, you could be setting yourself up for numerous health problems down the road, simply by making bad lifestyle choices. There are several ways that you could be endangering your health and shortening your lifespan. But those poor health choices can easily be changed, and it is never too late to improve your health.

1. Smoking – Smoking is a highly addictive habit that affects millions of people. The effects of smoking can lead to cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. It can also have long-term negative effects on your throat, your digestive system, your skeletal system, and your skin. And, the smoke that is released from cigarettes can cause great harm to those around you.

2. Poor diet – Both eating too much and eating the wrong types of foods can lead to long-term health problems. Eat too much (meaning having no regard for portion sizes) and you are likely to suffer from hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. Eating the wrong foods (meaning fast foods, high fat snacks, and highly processed foods) can also lead to obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Any of these conditions can cause stroke, heart attack, and death. Stick to natural, fresh foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains for the bulk of your diet. “Cheating” once in a while is ok, too!

3. Excessive drinking – Excessive drinking can lead to long-term liver damage, and it can affect your overall physical and mental health. Drinking and driving cannot only injure or kill you, but it can injure or kill others as well. The key to drinking alcohol is moderation, and if you have had even one drink, let someone who has not been drinking drive the car.

4. Not moving your body – Exercise is hard. It takes time. It takes commitment. But it helps you to control your weight, look great, feel strong and limber, have more energy, it lowers your blood pressure, increases your HDL cholesterol (that’s the good one!), and relieves stress. Why wouldn’t you want to do something that will give you all of those things? Walk, jog, swim, play with your kids in the backyard – do something to keep your body moving!

5. Ignoring stress – Some stress is good, it can be a motivator. Too much stress, though, can lead to a whole host of problems if it is ignored: high blood pressure, depression, severe headaches, or digestive problems. Find something that you enjoy doing and that relaxes you: exercising, meditating, gardening, and reading, anything that helps you leave your stress at the door.6. Not sleeping enough – Not getting enough sleep affects your judgment, your reaction time, and your mood. This can put you and others in danger, and it can affect your professional and personal relationships. Try to get at least 6-8 hours of sleep each night.

Making bad lifestyle choices, whether they are conscious or not, can mean the difference between a shorter life filled with health problems and a longer life filled with vitality and happiness. Being aware of the things that you can do to make your life better is fundamental to living a long and healthy life. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones!

Bigger Muscles to Lose Weight

Question:
If I did weight training to help build more lean muscle in order to boost my metabolism, as a woman, wouldn't I become muscle bound?

Answer:
Highly unlikely!
Building big, huge muscles so that you become bulked up takes years of dedicated, hard training. It also requires a diet where calories are gradually increased as muscle weight is gained. Muscles cannot be built much on a diet fairly low in calories and dieters tend to stick to lower calories.

The idea of using weights is to keep muscle toned and limit muscle loss when losing weight. Losing lean muscle lowers the metabolism and can lead to that dreaded weight loss plateau. By holding onto, or even building a little muscle it helps keep the metabolism optimal to maintain steady weight loss.
In fact modest exercises like walking will to a certain degree, build a little muscle. Walking helps tone leg muscles and toning is a slight increase in muscle. Even toning the body using Callisthenics builds a little muscle, that’s how muscles become harder, the difference is the protein deposited in the muscle is only tiny so size is not noticed.

For more information visit our site:
www.weightlossforall.com

Question from a Visitor

Hi *******

Thanks for your question.

You wrote:
"I have just turned 62 and exercise regularly (biking, walking, running and weights). I have a Timex Ironman heart rate monitor with a data recorder. Several months ago I recorded a maximum of 194 and last evening my resting (sleeping) rate was an average of 54 with lows of 30. I used your formula to calculate my target heart rate zone (102.7 and 134.3). Like many men I am trying to lose my "love handles" and having a hard time doing it! The lower range (102.7) seems very low ( I would have a hard time keeping it there). Is this the rate I should be using to burn fat (and ultimately lose my love handles)? I am 6' and 210lbs (I was 193 when I ran the marathons). Your assistance is appreciated. Have a wonderful day and keep up the good work."


In order to lose the last few pounds around the difficult areas I usually train at the higher end of my target heart rate zone. This way I burn off more calories and slightly help improve the speed of my metabolism. However, training at the higher end of the zone requires a greater level of fitness. Generally speaking most overweight people tend to have a lower level of fitness, thus for safety reasons it is often best for these people to train at the lower end until they gain some fitness, then gradually work up to higher intensity levels. Our articles on burning fat is written for this reason. Remember successfully burning body fat requires numerous factors, one of the most important is the fitness level of the individual. With less fit people the Cardiovascular system is often not strong enough to deliver sufficient levels of oxygen to the working muscles in order to keep burning fat (fat requires oxygen to burn). This is why many overweight and/or unfit people should train at the lower end.

As for yourself, you seem to be a very fit individual, as indicated by running marathons and having a resting heart rate under 60 (a good sign of physical fitness), and as you suggested the lower end of the scale will probably be too low to gain any worthy results. If you have the fitness and can cope with higher impact training then I think it's worth sticking to the higher end of target heart rate. Just remember to make sure you're getting sufficient recovery between workouts. Hard training always takes longer to recover from, it also requires good, complete nutrition. I often alternate training routines, if I run at a high pace on Monday, then on Wednesday I'll go swimming or do rowing at an easy pace. This helps recovery of potential minor injuries in the knees or ankle areas as there is no weight bearing on these areas.

As always you should still consult with your doctor before attempting any new type of exercise or diet!

Also, have you read Tom's article on losing the last few pounds of body fat?
It's a very good read. Click on the next link to view it...

http://www.weightlossforall.com/abdominal%20fat.htm

Hope this helps

All the best

Regards
Wayne
http://www.weightlossforall.com/

Very Low Body Fat!

How the heck does this guy drop below 4% body fat without drugs or supplements? Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder who regularly competes at 4% body fat. The fact is, there are probably very few people who truly understand fat loss better than Tom does, simply because he doesn't just research it or write about it - he lives it! (and has the ripped abdominals to prove it!) What Tom reveals in his best-seller e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, is essential knowledge if you want to get really, really lean, and until you understand these principles, you can't even hope to get lean enough to see your abs - which is what we all want right? Find out how it's done by visiting Tom's website at: www.burnthefat.com