The Tortoise and the Hare
We all know the Tortoise and the Hare story. The Hare was super fast and ran off ahead without pacing himself.
The Tortoise was not as quick but was able to keep moving at a slow and steady rate.
In the end the Hare ran itself out and was over taken by the ever consistent tortoise.
Rushing Weightloss
Just like the Tortoise and the Hare weight loss is not a race and should never be rushed.
The reason that we shouldn‘t rush weight loss is that the faster we lose weight the more lean muscle we lose and the more likely we are to slow our own metabolic rate.
Instead we should focus on slow and steady consistent weight loss and lifestyle changes. We also need to add exercise and resistance training to preserve or increase muscle mass in order to increase our metabolic rate.
The greater the amount of body fat we have to lose will determine how quick we set ourselves to lose weight. When there is more to lose the body fat will decrease much quicker.
As we become leaner the rate of fat loss decreases and as this happens we can increase the amount of exercise we do and slowly adjust calories.
Every 10kilos we lose is slower than the last 10kilos. Don’t expect the rate of fat loss to stay the same. Any decrease is good.
You may also need to program in some diet breaks where you don’t attempt to lose weight for a week or 2 weeks and then after the diet break reduce calories and start the next phase.
Rushing Weight Gain
Much like weight loss when we first start to gain muscle mass the first 5 kilos is gained quick and then the next 5 kilos is slower and so forth.
If we try to rush weight gain and expect that we just need to add more and more food we will end up piling on more body Fat.
Much like weight gain we need to make stepwise changes to our calorie intake and changes to resistance training.
We will need to increase intensity and improve recovery steps and make sure that we are progressing in the right direction.
Measurement Tools
The measurement tools we use are important. For weight loss or weight gain we can use;
1. Apps to record and track food.
2. Scales to record weight
3. Girth Measurements to record size losses in specific areas.
4. Skinfolds, Inbody and Dexa scans to record bodyfat.
5. Training Apps to create programs and record workouts.
6. Photos to show visual progress.
Patience
We are all in hurry and we sometimes want to speed up our progress. If your seeing good progress make small changes to improve.
Never make massive changes because these in my experience always lead to worse results.
Use measurements and tracking to ensure that your progressing and that any changes you make lead to better results not worse.
Be the tortoise not the Hare
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