| Searching for a diet plan because you want to lose | | | | more calories to function and it helps to burn fat. |
| weight? The first thing you need to determine is how | | | | Getting enough calories and working with light |
| much to restrict your caloric intake. If you are looking | | | | weights to tone muscle and build lean muscle mass |
| at a diet that allows less than 1,200 calories per day, | | | | burns far more calories than not consuming them in |
| you should avoid it. These type of super low calorie | | | | the first place. |
| diets fail. The reasons are very simple: | | | | 3. Depriving yourself too much and not getting |
| 1. Too few calories will send signals to your brain that | | | | enough to eat cannot be sustained long term. If you |
| you are slowly starving to death. This comes from | | | | have tried this in the past, you know it is true. You |
| prehistoric times and is a survival mechanism when | | | | might skip a meal or eat a couple of carrots, and |
| our ancestors went through lean times where foods | | | | then in an hour you are running to the nearest fast |
| sources were scarce. Your brain then causes your | | | | food place for a combo meal. If you eat sensible |
| metabolism to slow down, almost to the rate of a | | | | foods throughout the day, including snacks, you |
| hibernating bear. If this happens, it becomes | | | | never let yourself get this hungry so that you will |
| impossible for you to burn calories or fat. This is also | | | | choose the wrong foods. |
| the reason why you should never skip meals to save | | | | For these reasons, it is very important to eat in a |
| calories. Stoking your furnace or metabolic engine will | | | | healthy, well balanced way each and every day. |
| help you to burn calories throughout the day and | | | | Think of your body as a machine, like a car. When |
| even through the night while you are sleeping. | | | | you add cheap gas (French fries and a burger) to it, |
| 2. If you are not getting enough calories, your body | | | | it starts to run very badly. Your body runs much |
| will start to consume your lean muscle mass for | | | | more efficiently when you choose foods that are |
| energy. In other words, it is preserving its fat stores, | | | | close to "whole" - non processed, not deep fried and |
| but using up your muscle. This is what you do not | | | | without saturated fats. |
| want to happen, because lean muscle mass requires | | | | |