Don't Forget These 3 Markers When Looking to Lose Fat

Just a brief post to continue with recent thoughts on making dietary choices that support losing fat while improving health and longevity.

Most people who embark on the journey of losing fat cut down on carb-rich foods, often categorized as white foods like potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, and sugar. Some will also avoid fruit, believing that ingestion of natural fruit sugar (fructose) leads to large spikes in insulin release which in turn contributes to insensitivity to insulin over time, leading to accumulation of fat.

My experience has been that for most people, avoiding potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, sugar, and fruit will indeed lead to weight loss. But in most cases, such loss includes close to equal parts fat and muscle tissue, which isn't ideal for energy, strength, and longevity. We always want to preserve muscle tissue, and where realistically possible, even increase our muscle mass. The amount of muscle mass we carry is a strong marker for longevity.

Beyond being mindful of preserving our muscle mass, strength, and energy, it's also important that we make food choices that allow us to experience comfortable digestion and bowel movements with well formed stools. Without a healthy digestive tract that can efficiently extract nutrients from the foods that we eat and eliminate waste materials in a timely and comfortable manner, we cannot come close to accessing our full health potential.

So in striving to make food choices that lead to sustainable and healthy fat loss, if longevity is as much a priority as aesthetics and function, it's best to make choices that continually support muscle mass, strength, energy, and healthy bowel movements.

In my next post, I'll share more on specific food choices and timing of meals.

Related Post:

5 Keys to Losing Fat While Improving Health and Longevity