Changes in the structure of the body are much more important than the amount of kilograms. The weight of your body is often misleading. It may be that you gain weight because you train hard and increase the number of calories consumed. Does this mean, however, that you increased your muscle mass? Perhaps there was only increase in body fat? It also happens that if you want to lose weight, you reduce the number of calories consumed and exercise harder. Do you know, however, that you are losing adipose tissue, not muscle?
The purpose of slimming is not to reduce body weight but to reduce the percentage of body fat in the body! In general, the method adopted to improve the body’s structure is to stimulate the muscles through weight-bearing training and reduce body fat by using a low-calorie diet. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to run both these activities in parallel. If you have a good metabolism, you can effectively use the program combining the construction of muscle mass with reduction of body fat. However, this is a beneficial “short-term” action. Please note that your body reacts most visibly at the beginning of the slimming program. This is because, generally before the changes were introduced, the stimuli that stimulated your body were too weak. That is why every innovation in the way of nutrition or training turns out to be a strong stimulator. The genetic determinants also determine how the body responds to diet and exercise. Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who can use virtually any slimming program with good results. However, even then you feel its beneficial effects only in a short time. Sooner or later you will notice that the results of an acute diet regime and intensive training are not as visible as at the beginning. Even more later, you find that the chosen program ceases to give effect at all.
It turns out that at some point your body falls into a state of stagnation. You are no longer progressing, no matter how much you strive.
By limiting the calorific value of food, you reduce the amount of nutrients supplied to the body below the starting levels. The starting level is the number of calories and valuable ingredients in food, necessary to maintain the current body structure (proportion of muscle and fat tissue), normal body functioning (maintaining a certain level of nutrients in the blood) and a fixed level of physical activity. A positive consequence of this process is the reduction of body fat. However, the effects can also be negative and affect the size of muscle tissue.
Muscles need certain amounts of nutrients. If the amount of valuable ingredients contained in your food is too small, you can not avoid reducing body fat.
Your body has to adapt to new conditions. If you limit the intake of nutrients, your body will burn muscle tissue to regain balance. Launched defensive mechanisms necessary for survival. One of them is the use of muscle tissue as a source of energy in the absence of enough calories or intense and long-lasting physical exertion.
In addition, your diet will have to be steadily tougher. There is a problem of decreasing weight loss effects. To compensate for this, you must use an increasingly strict regime. The slimming diet affects the level of your resting metabolism, i.e. the burning power of calories, when the body is resting. The less you eat, the slower you burn calories. This creates a vicious circle – to lose weight you must apply an increasingly sharp diet. The smaller your muscle tissue, the less you burn calories and the sharper diet you need to use, which in turn leads to further loss of muscle mass!
What’s more, scientific research proves that the thinner one is, the more easily they burn their muscles, the more you lose weight, the more protein your body burns.
The use of low-calorie diet makes it difficult for you to preserve muscle tissue, and muscle development is virtually impossible at this time. To rebuild the mass, you must, of course, train and necessarily provide the necessary nutrients. Their amount can not only be lower than the level of equilibrium, but it should be much higher.
When using a slimming diet, your body’s energy source may become fat. However, the nutrients necessary to maintain and build muscle mass are not fat-soluble and stored in adipose tissue. If your body is deprived of enough valuable elements, the excessive increase in training load can cause a counter-productive effect, i.e. loss of muscle tissue!
What can you do to solve this problem? How to reconcile conflicting diet and weight-building strategies?
The answer to the question is simple you need to supplement the missing substances by reaching for supplements.
By using a low-calorie diet, you reduce the amount of vitamins and mineral salts supplied to the body. Supplements can make up for this shortage without introducing additional calories. Vitamins and minerals are very important, but to build muscle mass you need, above all, basic building material-protein, and specifically specific amino acids.
Protein means food, and food always contains calories. In 1g, proteins are always 4 kcal, regardless of whether it comes from fish, poultry, beef, pork or any other source. Unfortunately, proteins do not occur in nature in pure form. Protein foods also contain carbohydrates and fats. So if you want to increase the amount of protein supplied to the body by eating additional foods, you must take into account that the calorie content of your food will exceed a certain level of equilibrium, which will be associated with the increase in body fat.
The protein, like vitamins and minerals, you can take in the form of supplements. The advantage is double, because the source of your energy is not only carbohydrates. Depending on the type of food and physical activity, the body also uses certain amino acids. By increasing their intake (it is mainly about BCAA branched chain amino acids) you feed energy sources and protect the right amount of building material necessary for protein synthesis.
You can provide protein by protein supplements, eg AllNutrition Whey Protein, which contains pure whey protein concentrate without the addition of other less valuable proteins. It is characterized by rapid absorption, high level of branched chain amino acids and high biological value (BV 104). Protein helps in maintaining muscle mass and contributes to its growth. A good solution can also be a nutrient from SFD – WPC PROTEIN PLUS V3 is the highest quality protein with high anabolic activity and high biological value. It contains as much as 26.4g of protein per serving, thanks to which it is a great source of food protein for active people or in the regeneration phase of the body. It replenishes protein deficiency in the body, is quickly absorbed, and also blocks muscle catabolism and accelerates post-workout regeneration.
To supplement the amino acids in the diet you can use, for example, conditioner BCAA 4400. Brozer nutrient is a composition of branched chain amino acids in optimal for their effectiveness proportions 211 (L-Leucine-L-valine-L-isoleucine). They constitute about 40% of all amino acids from which muscle cells are built and are often a reserve source of energy activated after exhausting the resources of muscle glycogen, which is why it is so important to supplement them.
You can read also: HMB – supporting the building of muscle mass