Weight loss is a complicated process that is affected by many factors, including hormones, food composition, calories, physical activity, sleep and stress. Weight loss can reflect on the scale as a loss of water, lean muscle tissue and fat.
When we decrease calories in our diet and undereat or lack protein, our body can break down fat and lean muscle tissue too. When we are losing lean muscle tissue, this can result in a slower metabolism and increase our likelihood of regaining the weight we lost.
We at bistroMD develop our meals and menus to optimize fat loss and not a loss of water and lean muscle tissue by providing meals with adequate lean protein, controlled carbohydrates and healthy fats. Adequate lean protein helps to preserve your lean muscle tissue and fuel your metabolism best. Controlled carbohydrate intake helps to keep blood sugar stable which is essential to weight loss as the body has difficulty losing fat when glucose and insulin are in surplus. To read more about the science of weight loss, click here!
When we consume a diet that helps to preserve lean muscle tissue and target fat loss and keeps your metabolism high, a slower and steady rate of weight loss is important and more sustainable. A healthy rate of weight loss is considered 1-2 lbs per week. So although this seems small, this can equate to losing 52 lbs in 6 months or 104 lbs in 1 year. That is incredible progress and much more sustainable for the body to adjust to all the metabolic and cellular changes that occur during that time.
