Thursday, September 18, 2008

So you think you have lost some weight?

"Hey, look. My belt has loosened up."

or

"I've loss 2kg in the past two weeks."

or

"I've lost an inch off my waist."

It's too common to hear such comments during fasting month. People been coming to see me and pulling-up-and-down their pants just to show that they have lost some size.

However, let not fool ourselves.

First of all, the pants have loosened up because you were measuring it during the day when your tummy is almost empty. It is like a balloon. If it's full of air, it'll expand and when you let out the air, it'l shrink. The same goes to your stomach, if there's food, there'll be a slight bulge and when it's empty, it'l shrink. The best time to see whether you've lost some inches off your waist, try wearing the same pants just before you leave for terawikh. You'l be surprise that you havent lost anything yet.

Secondly, you will definitely loose some weight during the fasting month because your body needs energy to survive during the day and it will find its own way to ensure that you have it enough. Mind you, our body is in a 'starvation mode' during the day and when the body is in such a state, highly likely the source of energy will not come from fat. Fat will be the last source of energy when every other sources have been exhausted. The body is so intelligent that it will hang on to the fat for as long as possible before burning it as a source for energy. When the body is deprived from a constant supply of energy source, it will burn calorie in a more efficient way i.e. it will draw energy from easier sources and fat is not one of the easier source. Infact, it is much harder to burn fat when you are in the starvation mode. Furthermore, even if the body decides to burn fat, it will burn very minimal.

The bodyfat is likened to an emergency supply of energy where it will only be called upon to duty when any other energy supply source/system has failed or depleted.

So, from where does the body derive it's the energy from?

The body will get the energy from the easiest and fastest source. When the body lacks the supply of constant energy through food and liquid, it will draw the energy from the ready-made supply, the muscles. When this happens, we will loose muscle mass more and much faster than we loose fat, if we loose any. In fitness term, this is not good. It takes 3 pounds of fat to build 1 pound of muscle and the more bodyweight you loose, the more muscle you have to build to replace what you've lost.

Remember also that the body will also be deprive of water supply and in most cases mild or medium dehydration sets in. That's why you'll feel thristy in the afternoon or after 5pm because your body has dehydrated to some degree. You'll be loosing some more grams of your body weight just because you are dehydrated.

However, there are ways and means to avoid the above from happening but it requires super discipline and advanced knowledge on health nutrition and work-out programme to counter it. If you are a normal or slightly active person, highly likely you will never know the way to counter it.

So you think you have lost some weight???

Check again.

I stand corrected.

2 comments:

Kam Kasturie said...

I almost hit 70kgs my idle weight last few days but increase in fat proportion to 18% :P

Upiq said...

That's true bro... im expereincing the same too.

I bet 99% of people out there will experience the same except those who are religiously following their training programs.

When we build 1 pound of muscle, we loose 3 pound of fats. But when we loose 1 pound of muscle, we loose ZERO fat.