Because I am a man that lived being aware of muscular importance, and because my job needs me in top shape, always active and strong, I can not risk losing muscles when I diet, but at this point in my life a diet must be undertaken again. I am slightly overweighed, mainly because I mostly disregarded any rule of healthy eating lately. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve been in this situation and I now have the necessary experience to try preventing muscle loss while dieting.
Alimentation is of course essential. Muscles and diet do not go well together, especially if you are quite sedentary and you’ve just choose a seriously restrictive diet. I choose my diets wisely, I can not risk the loss of muscular tissues while dieting on a solely cabbage soup diet or by trying to eat just fruits and vegetable without any added proteins. I know now that muscles are actually developed by protein usage and if the body lack proteins, then preventing muscle loss while dieting is not possible because your metabolism will start consuming muscular protein to keep the body from starving. In fact, I’ve noticed that whenever I’m on a restrictive diet I lose weight slowly at first, but loose strength rapidly. Well, this is nothing more than the muscular loss that occurs, until the valid proteins from muscles are consumed. Only then the body turns to burning fats.
But preventing muscle loss while dieting is possible. Just because muscles are the ones that get consumed first when you are on a diet it doesn’t mean that I allow them to get consumed. You see, the trick is to constantly solicit them while on a diet, and what better way to solicit muscles than to work them? A constant gym schedule is crucial for me, as a man that wants to remain strong but also wants to eat healthy at least once in a while and occasionally needs a quick or not so quick diet that will decrease the weight to normal levels. I aim to burn fat, without destroying muscles, and I’m pretty sure I have managed to do just that by boosting the exercise schedule whenever I diet.
It’s natural to feel hungrier when you exercise. In fact, I can not keep normal weight loss diets because I do exercise. It’s kind of funny, because I need to eat more than recommended if I want to lose weight efficiently and without loosing muscles. But you see, I burn plenty calories while at the gym, way more than in a usual day, and I believe that the weight shown by my weight scale is to my main focus. I aim to have zero fats and 100% muscles, and that is not necessarily a loss in weight. Of course, it’s absolutely impossible to replace all fats with muscles, and there are persons that don’t even want that. I myself don’t want to look like a body builder…that’s their job. I just want an efficient and fit body, that can remain young for as long as possible, and replacing the muscles or growing new muscular tissue can re-new the skin and inner organs in many ways.
One day, I met an interesting man. He was well in his 50s, and still, he was jogging early morning and from behind, he looked like a teenager. Very athletic and very energetic. I didn’t talk to him; I just passed him and then realized just how old he was. Since them, he remained a living proof that sports are possible at any age and for everyone. It also occurred to me that he is one of the “healthy living” people, eating lots of fruit shakes and raw vegetables, on a constant diet if you wish. Still, he had nice muscles, so sports were the thing that helped him preventing muscle loss. Of course, everything is just my imagination, even the image of him having women-like snacks like salads and then doing some more gym exercises. But, some truth must be in this, because it’s clear that sports and healthy eating keep us younger for longer.
Maybe it would be easier for men to stay connected to weigh loss programs if the society would care for they way they look as much as it cares when it comes to women. I look at my work colleagues, neither of them seems to care what’s happening to their weight, and when I ask them if their wives are happy with them, they simply respond :”Of course she is, I work, I’m a decent man, what more could she want?”. I wonder why women never seem to care about the aesthetic aspect of their partners. Maybe if they did, men would also diet for a living and learn how to diet and still keep great muscles.
Preventing muscle loss while dieting is in my option only a matter of common sense. I mean it’s more than striking that eating something scarce in calories will eventually kill your muscles. And it’s equality stinking that a sedentary schedule will only cause weight gain and muscle loss. Preventing muscle loss while dieting and in general can only be done by building muscles.
Please post your thoughts in a comment below.
