I was like many people when I started thinking about weight loss. I thought you simply had to eat less and exercise a little more and the weight would drop off. While that did work to a certain degree, I also discovered that to accomplish some serious weight loss, more things needed to taken into account. For instance, one of these important factors was muscle condition and muscle tone.
Although muscle conditioning and tone may be something coming later in a weight loss plan, for the long-term goal, it is an important consideration. In fact, I found it helps to add some exercises and stretching into my daily exercise regimen, along with eating the correct foods and getting the right kind of activity.
Things such as walking, running, and other aerobic exercise are great as part of a successful weight loss plan but they are often not enough to get the job done completely. Some of the more popular plans include excellent suggestions for taking weight off with aerobic exercise, but jogging for half an hour only accounts for a few hundred calories, at best.
One of the effects of consistent, hard aerobic exercise is the loss of muscle mass, not the building of muscle mass. Information from some experts states that at some point, your body stops burning body fat as a fuel for exercise and burns carbohydrates. Therefore, I tried to include some muscle building activity in my daily routine, even if it just includes a couple of pushups and some minor leg activity like rising on my toes.
The result from these new exercises seems to add to my general feeling of good health and, according to most training guidelines, will be a good addition to my program of eating the proper foods and burning the excess weight that is water and body fat. As you prepare to get serious about losing weight, remember that muscle condition and tone is also important.