Exercise | Losing weight is not the same as losing fat

Losing weight is not the same as losing fat, but after losing weight and exercising?

Many people choose to exercise and fitness. In addition to maintaining their health, they also try to lose weight. At the same time, many people who have just started to exercise may find this phenomenon, that is, after starting regular exercise, they find that their weight suddenly increases by a few kilograms, and then they start to lose weight. Can't understand, why is it like this?

We know that people who do not exercise will stimulate muscle growth after starting exercise, but at the exercise intensity of people who have just started exercising, the speed of muscle growth is actually very slow. On average, it may only be about 0.0X kg a day (of course, the weight The training will grow faster), obviously not the reason for the sudden weight gain in the short term.

In fact, this phenomenon is mainly due to the body's adjustment of energy distribution. Fat is a very efficient form of energy storage. But it is a slow process to break down fat as a source of energy. Once the body needs to consume a large amount of energy in a short period of time, the rate of fat burning will not keep up, and the carbohydrates that can quickly break down to produce ATP must be used to provide energy.

Therefore, regular exercise is a signal to the body, telling the body that it may often have to consume a large amount of energy in a short time from now on, so it is necessary to store more carbohydrates and less fat to avoid an imbalance in energy supply.

And the way to accumulate a lot of carbohydrates in animals is glycogen. After a large amount of glycogen is consumed by exercise, it will stimulate the muscle tissue to improve the absorption of nutrients (relatively less absorbed by fat cells) and make the muscle tissue accumulate a large amount of glycogen (the more calories become glycogen, the fewer calories become fat ). Many endurance athletes, to improve their performance, will train with a high-carbohydrate diet. Under the best conditions, they can even increase glycogen by 2-3 times. Although glycogen breaks down quickly and can provide a lot of energy in a short time, its storage efficiency is not good (as opposed to fat). Every time the body synthesizes 1g of glycogen, it must carry 3g of water. If the body increases the glycogen storage of 400g in response to energy needs, it will be stored with 1.2kg of water and glycogen for a long time, adding a total of 1.6kg of weight. If this energy is stored in the form of fat instead of glycogen, it will only weigh about 200g.

Another less important reason is that people who have just started to exercise often have insufficient muscle endurance, and it is easy to have ductile soreness the next day after exercise. This is due to the swelling and inflammation caused by slight damage to the muscle fibers. This is a normal phenomenon. After recovery, muscle strength and muscle endurance will increase. At this time, the inflammation of the muscles will be accompanied by edema, which will also increase the weight slightly.

These two factors work together to increase the weight of people who have just started to exercise, but these phenomena are simply to increase lean body weight and have nothing to do with fat weight, so there is no need to worry. In other words, your fat has not increased, on the contrary, it will decrease. In fact, we want to lose fat, not weight.

1. The principle of fat loss exercise

Fat-reducing exercise is generally like this: aerobic metabolism directly consumes a lot of calories, oxidizes fat, and reduces fat. Increasing the body's metabolic consumption and increasing daily energy consumption can also achieve the goal of weight loss.

During exercise, muscle glycogen and liver glycogen are consumed in large quantities in the body. They are the first energy-supply substances in exercise. Data shows that their total stock in the human body is between 250g and 400g. After exercise, due to exercise stimulation, the body generally stores more glycogen than before exercise.

After exercise, liver glycogen will be quickly replenished under a reasonable diet. During the replenishment process, the body stores a large amount of water according to the ratio of glycogen:water=1:3. In other words, when you store 100g of glycogen in your body, you will also store 3 times the amount of water, that is, the total weight will increase to 400g.

Summary: Because of the increase in glycogen and water storage, your weight will seem to increase. This is a normal physiological stage, don't panic, and this stage will usually disappear within one or two weeks of regular exercise.

2. Losing weight does not mean losing fat

Many people confuse weight loss with fat loss. Weight loss refers to the total weight loss of our body, including fat, muscle, water, and other substances. When losing weight, what we want to lose is not bones, muscles, or body water, but fat loss and body fat percentage.

Exercising muscles through fitness exercise not only consumes fat but also increases bone density and increases muscle mass and volume. It also strengthens muscle function and increases the proportion of muscle in body composition. If the body of a dieter loses the same volume of fat but adds the same volume of muscle, the fat will bring you bloated, but the muscles are different, and the muscles give you firmness, then it will inevitably appear as weight gain. Muscle is heavier than fat, but the same weight of muscle is much smaller than the same weight of fat.

Summary: If you find that your weight has become heavier, but your overall body shape has become firmer, then even if your counterattack is successful, we should not limit our eyes to the scale.

3. What should I pay attention to when reducing fat and increasing muscle?

• The first thing to know when formulating an exercise weight loss plan: Only three to four exercises a week can adequately burn fat. Exercise for three days a week can stagger the exercise time, and on the weekend, you can exercise outdoor weight loss, which can prevent the accumulation of fat without causing body soreness.
• If you want to increase muscle mass, you must increase exercise intensity. Regular exercise can help burn body fat and reduce the ratio of body fat, that is, increase calorie consumption.
• Generally, boys will choose heavy training courses for chest, arms, and buttocks. For girls, you can strengthen the waist and abdomen muscles, as well as the lines of the hips and legs, and continue with extension courses such as Pilates and yoga.
• During the exercise to lose weight, you must ensure the intake of dinner, otherwise, the blood sugar level and mood at night will become unstable. If this happens, you can eat some protein-rich foods.
• Research shows that even if you play tennis for several hours a day, as long as you drink one or two cans of sweet drinks or eat a few more pieces of Western-style cakes, your painstaking weight loss results will be wiped out. Therefore, to obtain a long-lasting weight loss effect, in addition to exercise, reasonable regulation should be made from the diet.
• It is not that the more vigorous exercise, the better the weight loss effect, but the long-lasting low-intensity aerobic exercise is more beneficial for daily weight loss, and it takes more than 30 minutes.