By Dr. Francesco Casillo
Part 1
Dear readers,
as a personal trainer and in view of the warm season that is approaching, the time has come to expose the article whose central theme has always aroused great interest in most people: weight loss (and not just weight loss!) ; goal so coveted but most of the times badly undertaken through the dangerous do-it-yourself racks, recently valid guidelines and suggestions proposed by less experienced personal trainers or for the simple chase of technological innovation or "magic pill" of the moment, made psychologically necessary by the false wake of promising and deceptive commercial advertisements!
Trying does not cost anything and the resulting risk is of equal magnitude unless by "cost" you do not understand the intrinsic burden of changing your obsolete and unprofitable habits (if they have so far led to unsatisfactory results) and for "risk" the high probability of finding "certain" results (weight loss and preservation / increase in muscle mass) you will encounter!
Important: in wishing you a good and interesting reading I state that what you will read will find valid application only with the support of a personal trainer with a high qualitative and quantitative scope in the baggage of theoretical-practical knowledge relative to the topics set out below.
1) Increase your muscle mass to burn fat, thus triggering the slimming process !!!
The increase in muscle mass leads to an increase in basic metabolism, basically for two main reasons:
1) The first is related to the intrinsic process that leads to the increase of the same muscle mass. In order to increase your muscle mass you need to subject your body to intense weight training. This type of training causes micro-injuries to the muscle fibers inducing a painful inflammatory response mediated by prostaglandins (responsible for the famous muscle pain felt in the days following weight training and erroneously attributed to the famous "lactic acid" !!!) that presides through the triggering and activation of hepatic and muscular growth factors to the repair processes of tissues damaged by training and those of muscle growth!
The process of repair and muscle growth requires a high energy expenditure by our body, thus causing a significant increase in basal metabolism!
Therefore weight training, designed to promote the growth of muscle mass, is responsible for a significant increase in the basic metabolism in the days following training and this aspect optimally promotes the slimming process!
2) Having an increased muscle mass (even if only 500g / 1 kg) causes an increase in resting energy expenditure (basic metabolism).
Muscle mass is a metabolically active compartment, which means that unlike adipose tissue (body fat), it requires a constant supply of energy and nutrients to be maintained. Therefore, the energy expenditure of your body in the face of the maintenance and nourishment of an increased lean mass is remarkable!
This means that your body in a resting condition will burn more energy (calories) for the energy needs of your muscles compared to a condition of lower muscle mass levels!
The "Culturistica" practice confirms this!
Observe bodybuilders, you will notice that their lifestyle is characterized by a high frequency in the daily consumption of meals. Among the many reasons for which this practice is used, there is the need to constantly nourish one's muscles, because due to the high energy consumption that they entail, they would eventually break down in order to obtain energy for their own nourishment (condition better known as "protein catabolism") if the supply of nutrients in the diet was scarce and / or infrequent!
Here, then, that the increase in lean mass is due to the costly processes involved in this event, as well as to the high consumption that the same requires in order to be maintained, optimally favors the slimming process since it is decisive for the purpose of a significant increase in basic energy expenditure (basal metabolism).
