Why Shifting That Last Ten Pounds Is Always The Most Difficult
When you first hop on the exercise bandwagon, you find that the weight starts falling off pretty quickly. It is not uncommon for severely overweight people to shed five pounds in the space of just a week.
What’s more, you’re usually able to get results by making a few small changes to your lifestyle. You eat slightly less or spend a few minutes walking to work instead of taking the car.
Over time, though, you notice that your early progress is slowing down. You’re still losing weight, but at nothing like the same rate as before. You might lose a pound a week if you exercise four times a week and eat plenty of vegetables.
After about a year or so of weight loss, progress essentially comes to a halt. You’re doing all the right things - eating healthy and exercising more - but the weight remains firmly attached to your body. You just don’t seem to be able to push through that last ten pounds and get the body you want.
What the heck is going on here? Why does the body do this?
It turns out that there’s quite a bit of science behind this phenomenon. Essentially, what the body is trying to do is hold on to emergency calories that it can use to help you survive if there’s a famine. It is an ancient survival mechanism that helped keep your ancestors alive when things got tough.
Of course, in the modern world, having to go weeks without food is unlikely. It is almost unthinkable that there wouldn’t be sufficient food to go round. So holding onto those extra ten pounds is just plain annoying and demotivating. It takes away your spirit.
The good news, though, is that there are now cosmetic methods you can use to eliminate even the most stubborn of fat. CoolSculpting, for instance, cools down the fat cells below the surface of the skin, causing them to shake free, like grapes on a vine, making it easier for the body to harvest the energy.
Over time, though, your body will shed muscle as well as fat. And eventually, your basal metabolic rate - the amount of energy you burn just existing - will fall. Ultimately, it can fall as much as 40 percent, putting you back into caloric surplus, even if you’re on a diet.
Shifting that last ten pounds, therefore, is the hardest part of any weight loss routine. The way to do it is to be consistent, each as much fiber-rich filling food as you can, and get plenty of intense exercises. If you’re still struggling, then you might want to investigate cosmetic methods too.
Weight loss also slows for a second reason - the fact that you lose muscle at the same time as fat. People who are severely overweight tend to have powerful musculature under their fat deposits. They need extra strength to allow them to continue moving around. Muscle burns through more energy than fat, so if you are obese, you will lose more weight to start through this effect.
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