Skinny Love?

Skinny Love?

 

 

 

Skinny Love, and I'm not talking Bon Iver, or the covers by Ed Sheeran or Birdy either.

 

We are all so fascinated & obsessed with being 'skinny'. But what do people mean by skinny & how do they get there? .Over the last couple of years, learning about various lifestyle changes, fad diets, different exercise regimes, there's a few buzz words floating round one being 'weight loss' the other 'fat loss'.

As we are making changes to ourselves for health reasons, or you want to be fitter & stronger for your own personal goals, most of the time it end's up in some sort of loss over time, so what's the difference?

 

Weight Loss

 

Weight loss, is what a person see's in number's it will be that they've lost so many Kgs/lbs over a week or certain time period, this can also be measured in inches around certain body areas.

 

Weight Loss is essentially where you have a combination of diet & exercise programme to follow, that will result in a loss. But what is this mystical loss, where has it come off from.

Most weight losses, are a result of a diet where there will be no carbs or they are highly restricted, if you have a sedentary lifestyle this will work well as your body will use it's own glycogen stores for energy.

However, if you combine this with an active lifestyle, glycogen can carry 4 times more water weight which means you'll drop the weight quickly as you'll lose the water weight, unfortunately as you will have lower glycogen stores which means when you work out you will be wasting away your muscle mass & become dehydrated. 

 

So now you've got little carbohydrate stores & feel like your becoming fitter because the number on the scales tell you that you are, you might want to try interval/tempo training to add some nice lean muscle so you look toned & defined- don't even bother, well you can try but due to low glycogen stores your muscle will fatigue and there will be an increase in muscle catabolism so your own body will start to use your muscle protein for energy, so now your losing your muscle mass, & the less muscle mass you have the slower your natural metabolism becomes. #Awkward

Congratulations! You've lost water weight & muscle mass, you've become skinny fat! You've dropped some weight, but can't seem to get the definition you'd like, but you're skinny so who cares, right?

 

 

 

Fat Loss

 

Fat loss is the daddy of all losses! Only the tough need apply, fat loss is the endurance test, it requires hard work & determination to be able to succeed. Fat loss differs from weight loss as it just isolates the fat storage on the body, and doesn't effect your muscles or your metabolism in negative ways like weight loss does. Fat loss requires a healthy balanced diet, but doesn't require you to restrict or completely drop a food group. You'll need to eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism fire burning, in hand with training, to become a lean mean fat loss machine. So how do we burn fat?

 

The rules for fat burning are very simple & easy to follow, naturally with any loss you want to cut your calorie intake, the easiest way to do this is to cut excess dietary fat, fatty cuts of meat, skin off chicken, full fat diary products, but keep healthy fats in your diet such as salmon, avocado, nut butters.

Keep your carbohydrates in check, as these govern our hormone insulin that either help us break down fat or store it, carbohydrates must be slow releasing & wholegrain as they don't kick up the insulin too much & never eat carbs on their own.

Eat your protein, protein burns more calories whilst your body is digesting it, than what it contains, plus also it helps you build muscle & keeps your metabolism fired up.

Don't eat too close to bed time as this will make our insulin spike and will decrease our fat burn, throughout the day try & eat little often.

Before & after the gym, try & have protein before & protein & carbs after, as the carbs will assist the protein to repair & recover the muscles.

Fat loss requires you to retain or gain muscle mass, so lift heavy & feel the burn, work out for an hour, only one muscle group at a time, with a rest of 60 seconds between sets.

Don't forget your cardio, cardio helps release norepinephrine, which can help fat loss especially on an empty stomach e.g. first thing in the morning, or if you haven't eaten any carbs yet.
Using the fat loss method, will help you melt the fat away to reveal the god or goddesses body underneath, but don't be scared if you step on the scales & you've gained weight. As your building lean muscle mass, this will make you weigh more, but you should be able to see tone & definition & the truth will be in your measurements.

When I started this journey, I started off on a weight loss course because I didn't know any better & this is what a lot of the advertised diet groups & companies do. Over the years, I have tried various things, as I think everyone should to try & find what works for you personally, like everything in life, its trial & error.

I decided to write this blog as I've noticed people on Facebook & Instagram doing well with their 'weight loss' & when they post their food, food diaries, it made me quite concerned that they're not getting enough protein & wondering why their hair is thinning & nails have got brittle, so they need to take a different supplements that help them grow rather than having a healthier diet. Or they're not eating any carbs, then squatting wondering why they're bum isn't getting any bigger. It just see them making the same mistakes I did, in the earlier days & I'm just sat here like....

 

I also keep getting added to various groups, or invitations to pages not to be rude but I'm not interested in Forever Living, Juice Plus, The Cambridge Diet or any other faddy bullshit diets.
I just don't see how people get conned into doing these diets, why would you want to drink a natural laxative for 3 days? Or eat some fruity pills/shakes instead of proper food? Or have your calorie intake reduce to like 500 a day, not being funny but I'm pretty sure my right ass cheek eats 500 calories a day to keep it big & round. So thanks, but no thanks I'll have to decline.