Losing weight is a lifelong endeavor. Is losing weight about turning fat into muscle?

In fact, muscle and fat cannot be converted into each other. This is because fat and muscle are two completely different types of tissue in the human body: fat is composed of fat cells, whose main function is to store energy, and it also serves as a cushion for the body (against impacts) and to preserve heat; muscle is composed of muscle cells (muscle fibers) and has the function of contraction, helping the body to make various movements. What we call "weight loss" is more accurately "fat loss," which means that fat cells shrink in volume as energy is burned, so the body becomes slimmer.

Bama Red Brown Rice

1. About Body Weight

Many people think that body weight is just a number, but that's not the case. Body weight is composed of bones, muscle, blood, cell fluid, lymph fluid, and fat. What we need is more muscle, more bone weight, and a normal amount of body fluid. Because more visceral muscle indicates a normal metabolism, conversely, a decrease in visceral muscle leads to a decline in metabolic function. More muscle in the limbs means good physical and physiological function, otherwise, it leads to physical decline and physiological aging. A decrease in metabolic rate means a decrease in energy consumption, making it easy to form a body type that gains weight easily and loses weight with difficulty. Of course, the water in the body cannot be too little, as body fluid is very important for human health. The older you get, the less water there is in your body. Knowing that muscle, bone, and body fluid are parts that cannot be reduced, what truly needs to be reduced is fat. Excess fat brings many risks of chronic diseases to the body. Reducing body fat to a reasonable range is the real weight loss.

2. About Fat Loss

One gram of fat has 9 kilocalories of energy, so one kilogram of fat is 9000 kilocalories. It is not easy to burn it off. If we walk briskly for 1 hour at a speed of 100 meters/minute, we burn about 350 kilocalories. If you walk for 1 hour every day, it will take 26 days to lose 1 kilogram of fat. If you jog, you burn 400 kilocalories per hour, and it will take 23 days to lose 1 kilogram by jogging for an hour every day. You also need to ensure that the energy consumed each day does not exceed the limit.

3. Fast Weight Loss is Muscle Loss

Losing 1 kilogram of muscle can lead to a weight loss of more than 3 kilograms, because protein binds a large amount of water. Muscle contains 20% protein and 70% water. Therefore, if you reduce fat, it's only 1 kilogram of fat, but if you reduce 1 kilogram of pure muscle, you also lose 3.5 kilograms of water. The weight loss from reducing protein is very fast and significant.

4. Exercise Must Be Combined with Diet to Be Healthy

Exercise consumes the body's energy, including blood sugar and amino acids. Therefore, the time after a lot of exercise is when the body needs to eat the most. This way, the body will have energy to recover. The ideal post-exercise food consists of carbohydrates and protein. There is a basic principle for the intake of these two foods: carbohydrates should be higher than protein, and the total calories from carbohydrates should be twice your target weight. For example, if your target weight is 150 jin, you need to consume 300 calories from carbohydrates and about 150 calories from protein. A simple post-exercise meal could be: chicken and brown rice, yogurt and almonds, or a protein shake and a banana.

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