Weight Loss vs Fat Loss
130 lbs 20%
body fat
130 lbs 35%
body fat
smaller, weaker, missing limbed version of your original self. There’s no shape, form, or contour to the body. What’s more: now you have to do everything with your left arm. How awkward is that!?
I think this is a topic that leaves a lot of trainees fl ummoxed, and it’s something that unfortunately, despite our best eff orts, is a message that gets lost in translation.
If nothing else, I thought my insight would serve two purposes: 1.
I think it’s a topic that a lot trainees
(especially women) need to hear more often, and is something I feel pretty strongly about. 2. Hopefully help turn the tides and help people realize that it’s not necessarily an education thing, but rather a BEHAVIOURAL issue that we need to address.
With the weight loss issue, I think it’s important to understand that there’s a huge diff erence between weight loss and fat loss. Far too often – at least in my experience, and this may or may not apply to you – women get overly caught up on what the scale tells them. Weight loss can be completely subjective, and the truth of matter is that scales really doesn’t tell you anything (bearing body composition in mind).
If I told you to not eat for eight hours, you would weigh less. If I told you to not drink water for a day, you would weigh less. If I told you to cut off you right arm, you would weigh less. In all three scenarios you weigh less, but does that really mean you made any signifi cant progress? NO.
Okay, you weigh less... but all you’re really going to accomplish is to make yourself a
22
How most women (and I’ll throw a lot of men under the bus here, too) approach weight loss is wrong. Many would bode well by changing their mindset altogether and start thinking in terms of FAT loss. More to the point: to MAINTAIN as much muscle as possible (even better, build some muscle) and focus on fat loss.
One lb of muscle weighs the EXACT same as one lb of fat. The diff erence, however, is that muscle is more dense than fat and takes up less space.
It’s often a good idea for women to not only toss their scales into the bin, but to not be scared of adding a little muscle to their frame as well.
Muscle is more dense than fat, and that’s why a woman who’s been training hard and, despite losing body fat, hasn’t seen the number on the scale change too much, because she’s built muscle too. Think “body shape” rather than body weight.
You can GAIN pounds and look leaner, more “toned”, and more athletic because of lost body fat and built muscle. (This isn’t to say that weight will always be gained). When it comes to fat loss, almost always, nutrition is going to be the biggest determining factor.
So, with that said, we need to come up with some “system” that starts to change your behaviours - eating more veggies, stressing protein with every meal, increasing healthy fats, food prep, etc. But just telling you that isn’t going to help you so much. Instead, we need to fi gure out a way to fi x/change your behaviours one at a time. As an example, on a scale of 1-10 (one being “I’d rather swallow a live grenade” and ten being “I could do that
To advertise in thewire t. 07720 429 613 e.
the.wire@btinternet.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100