Staying Toned After Weight Loss
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Following significant weight loss, it is vital to have an
exercise routine to keep your muscles firm and help to
tighten the skin. One of the biggest drawbacks to
significant weight loss is the flabby skin that is visible
that often can take months to disappear.

First the pectoral muscles
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First of all, we recommend performing any exercise that
works the pectoral muscles will help tone the chest, but be
careful not to do exercises that work the breasts directly.
Breasts are not muscle tissue, they are fatty tissue, and
therefore do not respond to weightlifting or resistance
exercise of any type. In cases where the breasts are small,
toning the pectoral muscles will lift the chest and possibly
the breasts along with it, but if there is a lot of breast
tissue, the exercises will not lift it. This tissue may
disappear over time, or it may not. Your only option would
be surgery.

How much will my skin tighten?
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How much your skin will tighten depends on your age, length
of time the skin was stretched and how much it was
stretched, how much weight you lost (and to some degree how
fast you lost it), the amount of elastin in your skin, and
genetics. Exercise can help as it will tighten the skin,
plus it will tighten and tone muscles under the skin, which
can have an affect on your appearance. We generally ask
people to wait 8-12 months to see how much the skin
tightens. If after this time the skin is unacceptably loose,
then surgery may need to be considered to correct it. In
some of these cases, when it is deemed a health risk,
insurance may cover the surgery.

What about my stomach?
----------------------
For the stomach, the bottom line to weight loss is to burn
more calories than you consume. If you eat 2,000 calories in
a day and only burn 1,500, you're going to gain weight. On
the other hand, if you eat 1,500 and burn 2,000, you'll be
in caloric deficit by 500 calories. Given that scenario, at
the end of the week, that would be 3,500 calories, and 3,500
calories equals one pound.

Diet and exercise
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The combination of modifying your diet and exercise is a
good plan. Aerobic exercise will burn lots of calories and
help you stay healthy and fit (independent of body weight),
and resistance exercise will tone, strengthen, and increase
your muscle mass. More muscle mass is important for weight
control because it is the engine on your body that burns
calories. Not only that, but when you lose weight, you can
lose up to 25% of your weight from muscle, so you want to
keep as much of it as you can.

You can lose weight without exercise, but...
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It is important to note that you can lose weight without
exercise by modifying your diet. People lose weight all the
time without exercise by reducing caloric intake. In fact,
in virtually all studies of weight loss, people who diet
ALWAYS lose more weight than people who exercise. If you ask
those same people to diet AND exercise, they lose a little
more weight than the dieters alone, but not that much. Why
is this? This is due to muscle weights more than fat. With
more muscle mass, your body will turn to fat as its energy
source and burn the fat for energy. As a pound of fat can be
five times the size of a pound of muscle, you can keep the
same weight, yet look trimmer and healthier, as lean muscle
gives you a sleek, toned physique.

People who are most active are most successful
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In virtually every study of weight maintenance, the people
who are most active are most successful in maintaining
weight loss. Most scientists agree that exercise is the
single best predictor of weight maintenance success.

So the bottom line is to burn more calories than you
consume, by either reducing your caloric intake, and then
increasing your activity as you lose weight so by the time
you get to your goal weight you can keep it off because you
are active.

One final point: Aerobic and resistance exercise are also
both very important for health. In fact, you can be healthy
and fit if you exercise independent of body weight. In one
very important study, overweight, fit people were healthier
and lived longer than lean, unfit people. That's a very
important point because weight loss can be slow,
frustrating, and not everyone gets to an "ideal" weight. So
keep up the exercise, watch your caloric intake, and results
will follow.

About the Author
Michael Lewis has been collecting articles and information
on Weight Loss, HGH and related
health benefits. Michael is a
staff writer for www.ageforce.com and several other
websites.
If you would like to know more about Weight Loss, HGH (Human
Growth Hormone) and related health topics please visit us
at
www.AgeForce.com