by April Wilson

Created on: November 17, 2009

One of the main reasons people can't often maintain their weight without an exercise program is because a pound is not a pound. A pound of fat is a whole different animal from a pound of muscle. If you look at a woman that is 140 pounds but most of it's muscle, she will look much slimmer than a woman that is 140 pounds where most of it is fat. Fat takes up more room.

So here is what people normally do. They diet and exercise until they get to their dream weight. Then they think they don't have to exercise anymore. All the hard work is behind them, now all they have to do is just eat right and they won't gain it back. Wrong.

But why is this wrong?

It's very simple. What happens is, if they restricted too many calories while exercising too hard, they likely burned into their muscle stores. Though they may have lost ten pounds, their body fat composition may be the same or higher than it was before the weight loss. This results in a slowed metabolism. They can now eat the same amount of foods they ate to lose weight initially and gain weight. Because their body is less efficient at burning this fuel.

If you want to turn your body into a fat-burning machine, you have to exercise. And you have to feed your body so that it has the fuel necessary to repair the damage and build stronger muscles. The more lean muscle mass you have, the better.

Women usually have a lot of trouble maintaining their ideal weight because many of them are still afraid of the "scary weights." They want to lift three pound dumb bells because they don't want to "bulk up." I can guarantee you, you will not "bulk up." It is physiologically impossible for a woman to accidentally bulk up. In fact, it's pretty much impossible for her to do it on purpose unless she's taking steroids or eating a very strictly fine-tuned diet and working out 4 hours a day in the gym.

Bottom line, you aren't going to have to worry about it.

By exercising regularly, especially a simple fat-burning exercise like walking, and a strength training routine, you keep your focus away from diet and more on muscle. When you don't use muscle it gets weaker and your body goes straight to that for fuel, which slows your metabolism. So if you want to keep your metabolism humming, make sure you're eating enough healthy proteins, and exercise.

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