Just Face It
Posted on August 24, 2008, under Health.
FAT CHANCE
The goal towards achieving the body beautiful is no longer the exclusive domain of a specific gender.Today, men and women have become conscious about diet and exercise.As a result, almost every second person you meet will, in all like hood, be following some kind of a weight loss/health schedule.
In fact, people are not just exercising, they are also reading up on health and ways in which to lose weight.But funnily enough, most of the literature available on weight gain/weight loss and exercise is not addressed to a particular gender-it’s unisex.This poses a real problem.Men and women’s bodies are fundamentally/different any form of health/fitness education that ignores this, inevitably creates more problems than solutions.
To begin with, let’s try and understand the difference in how fat metabolizes in women and men.Manyآ hormone, epinephrine etc influence the fat cell.These hormones are not present in the same concentration in men and women.As a result, the impact these hormones have on men and women differ and this ultimately results in a difference in the way both the genders metabolize fat.
BIG DIFFERENCE
This won’t should like great news to women fitness buffs but women have hormones, which are more active in storing fat rather than in breaking down fat as opposed to men whose makeup is more prone to break down fat.What it means is that women eating foods with a high fat content will find it extremely difficult to lose that fat from their bodies even when they exercise vis-a-vis men who can burn off fat more easily.To put it simply, if the men eat butter chicken in the evening and hit the gym the next day for an extra hour they can still minimize the fat gain, but in the case of women, the fat will stick on.Ouch!
As a result, women have to be extra careful about what they eat if they want to lose weight.The scientific explanation for this is that women who are of child-bearing age have a metabolism which promotes and prepares the body to carry a child i.e. the body helps in fat deposition for pregnancy.And because the hips and thighs are the storage areas for this fat, biologically a fertile woman’s body will try to store more fat than lose it.So it’s only logical that eating less fat and fat-forming foods is the way to go if you want to get the body to lose fat.
CYCLICAL CHANGES
Also, don’t forget that women have a hormonal cycle, which occurs every month.During the first half of this cycle, the body prepares for pregnancy and in the latter portion, the body flushes out the sloughed off uterine tissues.This whole process is dominated by estrogenic influences in the first half and progesterone in the second half.The estrogen promotes fat storage and progesterone, mobilization.That is why just before a woman gets her periods; she tends to eat more as the body is getting ready for pregnancy.Water retention will help prevent any weight loss during this time.
This question arises-what is the best way to lose weight?The secret is to eat less fat laden food in the phase before the 15th day of the cycle so that the net fat intake is low and as a consequence less is stored.After the 15th day of cycle, eat more iron and fibre rich food.This will help the body to flush out excess water.Needless to say, not eating salt at night will help in a big way.
