Your body is composed of lean body mass and body fat. Generally, when people are trying to lose weight, they want to shed the nonessential fat they are carrying around. This is the fat that you have in stores. You can burn off excess fat with diet and exercise. Monitoring body fat is easy with the right equipment.
Diet
Calorie restrictive diets are the easiest way to use body fat for energy. This kind of diet emphasizes eating less calories than your body needs for its activities throughout the day. When you have a negative energy balance, your body must obtain the nutrients for the extra energy that it needs from your stores. Regularly reducing your calorie intake will force your body to burn fat for use. For women, a moderate calorie diet means eating 1,000 to 1,200 calories per day. Men should eat between 1,200 to 1,600 calories per day.
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is the kind of exercise that uses calories and burns fat. During moderate intensity exercise, your fat mobilization from storage sites and fat use is elevated. According to "Exercise Physiology," by Brooks, Fahey and Baldwin, fat is used most during exercise when you work at a 50 to 65 percent of your maximum aerobic capabilities. For weight loss and fat use, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends exercising five to seven days per week for 45 to 60 minutes per session.
Lean Body Mass
Using fat for energy takes your body more work than using glucose, a simple carbohydrate. Your body needs to mobilize the fat, break it down, put it into the mitochondria of your cell and turn it into something that your mitochondria can use. Since this is a long process, it is easier for your body to use fat for energy at rest and during mild to moderate exercise. If you increase your lean body mass, your body will need more energy at rest and will use more of your stored fat. You can increase your lean body mass by participating in regular weight-training activities. Resistance training overloads your muscles through sets and repetitions of an exercise in order for them to adapt to the training stimulus. Resistance training increases both the strength and size of your muscles, increasing lean body mass and raising your metabolism.
Assessing Body Fat
In order to know if you are burning body fat, you need to monitor it. You can easily track your body fat percentage with a specialized scale that uses bioelectrical impedance. This works by sending a tiny, harmless current of electricity into one of your feet and monitoring the amount that comes back through the other foot. Since lean body mass conducts electricity and fat mass does not, the machine can deduce your percent body fat from the feedback. These scales are available in most sporting goods stores.
References
- "Exercise Testing and Prescription"; David C. Nieman; 2007
- "Exercise Physiology"; George A. Brooks, Thomas D. Fahey, Kenneth M. Baldwin; 2005
- "ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription"; Mithcell H. Whaley, PhD, Peter H. Brubaker, Phd, Robert M. Otto, Phd (Eds.); 2006
- "Health Fitness Instructor's Handbook"; Edward T. Howley and B. Don Franks; 2003
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