Body fat is basically just stored energy, if you consume more calories than you burn off then your body stores the excess energy as body fat.
Metabolism
Your metabolism is the rate at which your body converts food into energy. You may have heard that some people have fast or slow metabolisms, this is not actually true. Apart from a few exceptions everybody’s metabolisms is around about the same. With that being said, exercise does increase your metabolism, muscle usage and repair requires calories, this can make weight training very effective for burning calories and fat loss.
Energy from food
The first source of energy that the body uses comes in the way of sugars and glucose from carbohydrates, this gives us energy. When there is no more energy from our food the body then turns to burning body fat as a means of keeping us moving and alive. The process of the body burning body fat for energy is called Ketosis.
Don’t starve yourself
When the body enters starvation mode it will seek to gain energy from where ever it can. The body can break down muscle tissue quicker than it can breakdown body fat for energy, the process of breaking down muscle tissue so the body can use it as energy is referred to as a catabolic state. Catabolic is the opposite of anabolic, anabolic is the technical name for increasing muscle mass.
So when you starve yourself you may lose weight, but you may not be losing body fat, you may be losing muscle. Something else to keep in mind when considering starving yourself to lose weight, your body organs require energy and calories to keep on going. Starving yourself could damage your organs, and you really don’t want to be doing that, for obvious reasons.
Genetics
Genetics do play a part in our body shape, including muscle mass and body fat. When it comes to fat loss alone, judging from recent studies in this area, your genetics only play a minor role in how much body fat you have.
There was a study on three family members, two of the family members were considered to be obese and the other was classed as morbidly obese. Their genetics were tested by medical professionals and the results were actually very surprising. All three family members came back with results that classed them as having good genetics. Their obesity was down solely to their lifestyles, a lack of exercise and poor diets. Our diets are considered to be the most important thing when it comes to weight loss, even more important than regular exercise.
