Whether it’s a class reunion coming up in a few weeks or that yearly appointment with your doctor, lot of us feel the need to drop fat fast, but eating lettuce for every meal is not the way to do it. Instead, here are 10 reasons you should work out instead of starving yourself to lose weight.
1. Starving yourself can ruin your health
First, starving yourself is a serious blow to your health. When you limit your calories drastically, you deprive yourself of the energy you need to sustain your body’s systems.
Furthermore, the yo-yo dieting that often results from individuals starving themselves to lose weight can be very taxing as well.In an animal study by the International Journal of Obesity, it was found that yo-yo dieting lowers tolerance for glucose and changes fat tissue makeup.
This can increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes. Furthermore, you’ll also get headaches more often and you’ll be tired when you shouldn’t be when you starve yourself. Lastly, many people have trouble sleeping at night when they don’t eat properly.
2. Working out will tone your physique
Of course, one of the most wonderful things about exercising is that it tones your muscles. You can’t tone your muscles by not eating. We all have heard the fact that muscle weighs more than fat, and it’s true.
To help you visualize it, think of a basketball full of fat. Now, think of a softball full of muscle. On your body, these two things weigh the same amount. But do they look the same?
A basketball on your behind is certainly not the same as a softball. Every time you go the gym or hit the road for a walk or run, you are building muscle. When you exercise, you tone and build muscle, but you also burn calories, and that means that you’re melting away the fat. It’s the best of both worlds.
3. Starvation diets aren’t sustainable
The goal of any weight loss program is to provide yourself with a plan that will be sustainable. A starvation diet in which you are eating only 500 to 1000 calories each day cannot be sustained.
In the end, exercise will save you. Yes, your diet will indeed be a large part of your weight loss efforts, but it must be a sustainable diet. You won’t be able to eat fried foods, hamburgers and ice cream for every meal, but you can learn to limit your unhealthy foods while still eating what you’re hungry for.
This is what any person at a healthy weight does. They figure out a balanced diet that can sustain them, and if they happen pack on a few pounds, they head to the gym to burn them off.
4. You’ll crash and burn eventually and it won’t be pretty
We know that starvation diets can’t last, but most of them don’t just peter out. It’s rare that a starvation diet helps you lose your desired amount of weight and then you go back to a healthy and balanced diet.
Instead, cutting your calories by huge amounts will often result in a crash and burn. This is also known as a binge.When you deprive yourself so long of both healthy and nutritious foods and those goodies you love, you build up a nervous energy.
You also become moodier and less tolerant. Something may happen that really irks you or sets you off. Instead of letting it roll off your back like you might have done, you could let loose on a binge of bad foods and ruin any progress you may have made in the first place.
5. You can boost your metabolism with exercise
Do you want to burn more calories all day even while you’re sitting at work or driving your car? Exercise and working out can do that for you.
Your metabolism is your body’s mechanism for regulating calorie burn. Have you ever noticed how people who are very busy and hyper tend to be thin? These people have fast metabolisms. Their bodies burn calories quickly, and they are very active in their daily lives.
As you become more active with cardio exercise and strength training workouts, you’ll find that you have more energy and subsequently lose more weight. Your metabolism will be boosted from your exercise, and you’ll be burning calories even when you’re not on the treadmill or yoga mat.
6. The weight you lose from starving yourself will come back
The weight that you lose from working out is permanent. When you burn calories on the treadmill or in the weight room, they’re gone forever.
But when you try to lose weight by cutting out all your calories, that weight doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, it’s just water.Yes, after a few days of eating next to nothing, the scale will dip.
But if you go back for just one day of eating a balanced and normal diet, you’ll see the scale pop back up again. Water weight is the first weight to go when you cut calories, so it’s not actually fat leaving the body. It’s just your bloating getting rearranged because you’re dehydrated and malnourished. The best way to get rid of real fat is to truly burn it off with exercise.
7. Exercise makes you happier and calmer
Research shows that exercise evens out your mood and makes you happier and calmer.
This is not only because people tend to feel better about themselves and life in general when they are healthy and at sustaining a reasonable weight, it’s also because scientifically, you reduce the amount of the stress hormone, cortisol, when you workout.
Many people calm their stress by working out, and you can too. Imagine what progress you would make if you went to the gym every time you’re stressed out instead of reaching into your kitchen cupboards for some crackers or cookies. If you work out to reduce stress, you can lose the weight you want to lose, and you can also improve the way you feel on a regular basis.
8. You’ll get sick more often if you don’t eat
The food you eat on a daily basis contains vitamins and nutrients that keep your immune system strong. But your immune system is severely compromised when your body doesn’t have enough energy.
When you’re starving yourself to get thin and you feel so tired each and every day, your immune system basically checks out. That means that kid that sneezed next to you on the bus becomes a serious threat.
If you don’t have enough food and fuel in your body, you’ll get sick from this encounter. And when you’re finally feeling better, you’ll get sick again. Eat a balanced diet as you work to be healthy, and leave the weight loss worries for the gym. You’ll stay healthier longer.
9. Strength training makes your bones healthier
Did you know that strength training throughout your life can keep you from experiencing bone loss or getting osteoporosis in the future? It’s true.
If your goal is to lose weight to be healthy, your doctor may have told you to cut back on calories. People often interpret this as advice to lose weight as fast as possible to get healthy.
Actually, a slow and steady loss of weight is the best route to success. Along the way, exercise like strength training will improve your health by leaps and bounds. To become healthy, working out is vital. Strength training on a regular basis will not only burn calories, but it will also support the growth and overall quality of your bones.
10. You’ll miss out on life if you starve yourself
No, your life should not revolve around food. But food is one of life’s enjoyments, and it is a social and celebratory part of living.
People and cultures on every part of the planet use food to bring people together for joyful weddings, solemn funerals, and festive holidays.When you starve yourself to get thin, you miss out on all of these occasions.
You’ll find yourself having to say no to invitations with friends. You’ll have to decline the cake your grandma made especially for your birthday. This is not to say that you should devour each and every thing that is put in front of you just to be polite. But you should partake in your life, and that means eating a healthy diet and sharing food with those around you.