This weekend I'm taking time off from posting my weight, food, etc. I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't been very consistent with posting what I've been eating. I haven't done that on purpose. I've just been a little busier than usual.
I was reading some of our You On A Diet book (by Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz) last night before bed and I found some interesting information that may shed some light on why I'm not losing weight as fast as I thought I would. I thought I'd share it with you in case you're having the same problem I am.
In the book they are talking about how muscle burns calories. They stated that every pound of muscle burns between 40 and 120 calories a day just to sustain itself, while every pound of fat feeds on only 1 to 3 calories. I tried to do some research on this online and couldn't find the same numbers, but I still found that it is true that muscle burns more calories than fat (which I think I knew anyway).
To get to my point, I'm thinking that maybe I'm not losing weight like I thought I would because I don't have as much muscle mass as I used to. I haven't been consistently weight training since I started this process, which could be affecting how many calories my body is burning every day. I haven't consistently weight-trained for the past five years, so I've probably lost a lot of the muscle mass that I used to have, therefore my body isn't burning calories near as a fast as it used to when I would try to lose a few pounds.
So to sum it up, I'm planning on really trying to do more weight training in order to build up my muscle mass so I can burn more calories throughout the day. Even while you're not exercising muscle will burn calories, so it's very important to build those up so you can continue to burn calories throughout the day.
Here are a couple of interesting sites I found - one about metabolism and the other about how many calories muscle burns compared to fat:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006
http://www.livestrong.com/article/256919-how-many-calories-does-muscle-burn-compared-to-fat/
I don't think you have any followers as OLD as your mom but when you get older.. yikes.. that muscle really takes a hike.. so I suppose I need to use more weights too..!! So when one reaches the 50's and 60's... better invest in some weights.. hence when you wave at someone..arm continues on waving long after the hand has stopped..!! (ok, just a little older lady humor!)...
ReplyDelete