How to Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle

When it comes to weight loss, one of the aspects that many people struggle with is figuring out how to lose weight without losing muscle. A lot of times when you lose weight it could be because you are losing muscle or water weight, neither of which are going to give you the lean, sculpted look you want. Instead of just focusing your efforts on losing weight, you should shift your attention specifically toward losing fat. As you learn to lose fat without losing muscle your body will take on a leaner, more toned look and you will finally get the results that you have been wanting.

Don't Trust Your Scale

A lot of people get really hung up on the numbers on the scale when they are trying to get thinner. It's no wonder, either, since many of our perceptions of what is thin and what is fat are based on how much we weigh.

However, when you start to focus on losing fat you need to forget about your scale for awhile. Here's why. Muscle weighs more than fat. As you begin to replace the fat in your body with lean muscle you can either stay at the same weight or in some cases even put on weight. A lot of people get frustrated when they don't see the scale moving even after all their hard effort, and as a result they give up and throw in the towel.

What they don't realize, though, is that even though they aren't losing weight, their bodies are getting smaller. They may have lost inches off their body and not lost a single pound.

That's why when you start focusing on losing fat you should stop using your scale for awhile. Instead, take your measurements with a measuring tape and keep track of how many inches you are losing. You'll be much more motivated when you see inches of fat starting to melt off your body than you would be staring at the same numbers on the scale.

Muscle Boosts Your Metabolism

Building muscle is a fabulous way to turn your body into a fat burning machine. The more lean muscle you have in your body the faster your metabolism runs. And the faster your metabolism, the more calories you burn all the time...even while you are just sitting around. That means that by focusing on building muscle in your body you will make it faster and easier to burn fat.

To get the biggest metabolism boost really work on building some of the larger muscle groups in your body like your legs or backside.

Eat Plenty of Good Food

Starving yourself or going on an extremely low calorie diet will actually backfire on you. When you cut your calories too low your body goes into "starvation mode" and your metabolism slows down. That means that it will be harder for you to burn fat.

Because of this it takes a different type of diet and exercise approach than you may be used to. You need to look for a program or diet specifically created to help you focus your weight loss efforts on losing fat while maintaining your muscle tone.

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