Getting Fit: Train your body to burn more fat
You might be asking yourself, How can I train my body to burn fat? The answer is simple, build more muscle. However, it takes time and effort on your part and does not happen overnight or in a week. Permanent changes in your lifestyle (both in activity and eating properly), result in permanent changes in the way your body handles both essential fat and stored fat.
Essential fat is what your body requires for normal bodily functions. Yes, your body does need some fat, but we all tend to feed our bodies too much fat. That leads us to stored fat. Stored fat is what lies beneath the skin and serves as insulation and a cushion for your internal organs. This is where we store all of the excess fat that we eat.
Overfat people train their bodies to store fat instead of burn fat. Why is this? In general, overfat inactive people have a body that is at rest most of the time, they rarely exert their bodies for any length of time, and when they do, it is for a short period of time and therefore their body is using the prior meal as its source of energy instead of their stored fat. Think about it: How much energy does it really take to lie on the couch?
In order to build a better fat burning body, you need to think of your body as a machine. A machine runs better and more efficiently when it is properly oiled and used on a regular basis. Your body works in the same way. Proper nutrition and a active lifestyle keeps all of your systems running smoothly. For example, an athlete burns a lot more fat both while they are exercising and while they are lying on the couch. This explains why an active person can eat twice as much as the inactive person and not gain weight. The reason for this is that the more muscle you have in your body the less fat you have in your body. Muscle burns fat while being both active and inactive (resting). An active person has a “faster metabolism.” They have trained their body to burn fat more efficiently.
Stored fat provides the muscle with an inexhaustible supply of energy.
So when an inactive unfit person begins an exercise/weight training program, their bodies will tend to burn fat slowly at first. Their bodies are so used to just lying around that when actually asked to start doing something, it resists at first and is in “shock,” or an adjustment phase. People always resist change at first, then gradually adapt. This is why some people’s bodies respond differently to exercise/weight training than others. However, over a period of time, the body will begin to burn fat more efficiently because of the increased amount of muscle.
So an answer to the question of How can I train my body to burn fat is; to start and stay regular on an exercise/weight training program in combination with eating properly (less fat), and the result will be the muscle that you gain slowly will start to burn fat more efficiently. Because muscle needs more energy than fat.
Remember if you have a question that you would like answered, please either send it to: Paige Northcutt, P.O. Box 7281, McMinnville, Tenn., 37111. Or you can e-mail it to me at: [email protected].