Personal Wellness - Jan

http://www.dietwords.com/muscle_mass.shtml

Found this to be a good reading. I had weighted myself on the scale on Tuesday. While I lost abt 1kg++ from last month, I found that my body fat is increasing. Two months ago, I was weighted at 2kg heavier, but I had a much lower body fat percentage. (You see, I had been skipping dinner..well maybe not, but I just ate whatever's available. Too lazy to cook when you are back at home so late in the night..hehehe).

So I googled.

It seems that as you put yourself on a diet, you may lose some of your muscle mass as well as your body fat. You may find yourself at a plateau eventually where you will not lose any more weight even as you continue your dieting. This is due to a drop in your metabolic rate.

So the article was saying that to reduce body fat effectively, you need to support, maintain and build lean muscle mass by incorporating these 3 things:

1. protein - muscle is build by protein
2. calcium - maintains muscle
3. strength training - pick up those weights!

Note: Muscle mass increases the rate at which your body requires calories by burning body fat i.e your metabolic rate. So you look slimmer even if you actually weighs the same.