We’ve all experienced it. We want to lose weight but get stuck. We starve ourselves for hours only to see that the next day there is no weight loss!
How frustrating!
Well that’s because not all weight loss is necessarily good.
Increasing our bone density will lead to weight gain but that’s a good thing, muscles weight more than fat. A lot of weight loss is just water weight as opposed to fat loss which is what we want. Particularly the fat around the organs which can be harmful.
But there is something else that people need to be aware of, that isn’t understood by most people. It’s called glycogen.
Glycogen is a carbohydrate energy store that is found mostly in the liver and muscles. At rest, glycogen is used for 15-20% of our energy.
Many people have tried intermittent fasting for weight loss, but they may not know that they will not start burning fat until they have depleted their glycogen levels and gone through what’s called a ‘metabolic switch’.
What’s a metabolic switch?
This is the point at which the glycogen levels in your body are depleted and the body starts using fatty acids. This is the point at which fat loss starts.
Intermittent fasting is fasting or eating a very low calorie amount for 12 hours to several days at a time on a regular basis.
So if you are struggling to lose weight despite a mammoth effort, make sure you understand the concept of the metabolic switch. For more detail, check-out: