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Do you know how much fat you're carrying, compared to how
much muscle?
·
Do you know where you tend to gain weight–upper body,
lower body or around the middle?
Until you know the answers to these questions, you are not
ready to make your personal plan for losing weight and keeping it off.
Understanding your body is the first step to reaching your best personal shape.
Body shape counts
Weight loss has been overemphasized and body shape
underemphasized. Body shape counts. Shapes are personal and go beyond the usual
apple and pear.
·
Women can have three typical body shapes–upper body fat,
lower body fat and both upper and lower body fat.
·
Men usually only
get upper body fat.
·
The upper body stores fat in times of stress and some
people can lose and gain weight rapidly in the upper body.
·
The lower body fat
in women responds to female hormones such as estrogen and progesterone and
stores fat for breastfeeding a new born baby.
·
Women who have both
upper and lower body fat will lose their upper body fat first.
·
Women with more upper body fat tend to have more muscle
than women with lower body fat and will need more protein in their diet to help
control their hunger.
·
Losing weight is harder if you have lower body fat rather
than upper body fat, but the medical benefits of losing your upper body fat are
greater.
·
Losing weight around your neck, face, chest and waist
usually goes along with losing fat on the inside as well. So as you look
better, you are also improving your health tremendously.
Finally, there are two more body shapes to consider:
- The shape you can change and the shape you can't change.
- It is important to know the difference and work on the shape you can change, while adjusting your wardrobe and attitudes to the shape you cannot change.
- Due to low metabolism, many women with lower body fat can't lose weight just by cutting calories.
- These lower body-fat cells are resistant to both exercise and diet.
- Only a personalized program can help make sure you get enough protein to control cravings and build or maintain lean muscle.
