You may already know that losing weight comes down to eating less and exercising more, but why exactly does this cause weight loss?
Food is made up of calories which are used by the body for many different processes which do it yourself work outs must carry out. Our body is constantly burning calories, no matter how active we are. Even just sitting down and keeping the body stable is fuelled by calories, keeping the blood and heart pumping is fuelled by calories, no matter what we are doing our body is always using calories. Different food types contain different number of calories depending on the ingredients which it is made from. The most calorie dense foods are those which are made up of calorie dense ingredients such as sugar, starch and fats.
The amount of calories our body uses in an average day comes down to a number of different factors such as age, weight, gender, genetics and lifestyle. The rate in which our body burns calories is known as the "metabolism", which defines how fast our body uses calories. Typically those with a high metabolism burn more calories than those with a low metabolism.
The more physically active the body is, the more calories your body will use as it requires more fuel to move at a faster rate. For example running burns more calories than walking as it is a more intense form of physical exercise and the body requires more calories to function.
Losing weight and gaining weight comes down to the amount of calories you consume and the amount of calories your body uses.
If our body does not use all available calories during daily tasks and processes within the body, it stores the excess as body fat as it has no use for them and therefore must deposit them for later usage. Body fat is essentially unspent calories which are stored within the body.
Following a diet which consists of more calories than your body burns will cause you to gain weight and body fat due to the constant calorie surplus which you are feeding the body.
If our body uses more calories than it has available through the diet, it must dig in to fat stores to obtain the extra calories which it requires. This explains why a low calorie diet is extremely important when it comes to losing weight.
MODIFYING YOUR DIET IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF LOSING WEIGHT
Just performing exercise alone will not make you lose weight if you are still consuming more calories than your body is using. This is why modifying your diet is extremely important if you want to be successful when it comes to losing weight. You should follow a low calorie diet while still providing your body with a variety of essential nutrients to maintain optimum health and increase muscle mass. Although you can still lose weight by following an unhealthy low calorie diet, it is not recommended as unhealthy foods are usually calorie dense therefore you will not be able to fill yourself up as easily. Healthy foods contain less calories, offer health benefits and fill you up more therefore I highly recommend sticking to a low calorie and healthy diet.
Anybody is capable of losing weight, no matter how old or overweight they may be. Weight loss comes down to two things - Dedication and Motivation