To Lose Weight - Be Energy Inefficient!

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, summer approaches, and in my country, June generally starts the summertime travel season. As we all know too well, gasoline prices are sky high, making people look for ways to be energy efficient.

Interestingly enough, weight loss is about being energy inefficient. Think about it like this; if our bodies had perfect efficiency, 100% of the food we would eat would be used, for energy needs and to be stored as fat. Not only that, our bodies would fine tune and optimize energy production during workouts or other physical activities, so that we would burn the least amount of energy as possible. For running a marathon, this would be a good thing, but when trying to lose weight, this is a bad thing. The laws of physics do not allow anything to be 100% efficient, so neither are our bodies, but they are pretty efficient. But we can eat things and workout in ways that can boost inefficiency a little.

Certain foods, such as whole grains, leafy green vegetables, and lean proteins are low in calorie density and take more work to breakdown, resulting in fewer calories. But these foods will still signal our bodies we have been fed. Fats in the diet signal satiety and for a longer period, leaving you feeling full for longer - just don't over do it on the fats.

Let us compare two airliners, Boeing's 787-3 and the Concorde. Both airliners can make the London-New York flight. The 787-3 is slow and highly fuel efficient, while the Concorde is extremely fast and wasteful of fuel. Our workouts should be the same. A slow, steady cardio workout is just too efficient for our bodies, even with a long duration. Initially, one may still be able to lose weight with this - especially if you have a lot of weight to lose, but it will soon be ineffective. As with the Concorde, the more intense the workout, the more energy inefficient our body is, forcing more fat to be used for energy. That is why it is possible to lose weight with a shorter workout, such as, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). If you are stuck at a plateau, consider intensifying your cardio workout, even if it means you have a shorter workout, it might enough to jolt you out of it. It was in my case, I was stuck at the same weight for months, and decided to try much more intensive workouts. And though they were much shorter duration than what I have been doing, I broke through and dipped below the 10% body fat level. Remember though our bodies are adapting, so as you get use to one level of intensity, you will need to increase it.

Energy inefficiency is just one way to help with weight loss. For more weight loss plans and other ways to lose weight please visit my website.