Fat Loss vs Weight Loss - FIGHT!
Author: Jonathan Wong, Singapore Personal Trainer And Fitness
Expert
It is important to know healthy weight loss facts. It can sometimes
be hard to tell what is real from what is fake. I have had clients
who have, in the past, spent many thousands of dollars on what can
only be called weight loss scams.
Weight loss and fat loss is a MULTI-BILLION dollar industry. In the
United States alone, this industry is estimated to be worth over
100 Billion US dollars in the year 2007. That is one country, in
one year!
The truth is, the weight loss and fat loss market is so incredibly
huge, that it is possible to be profitable by simply selling a scam
and leaving a customer or client disappointed, upset, frustrated
and worst of all... too scared to try again. Thus damning them to a
life of poor health and low quality.
So what is it about fat loss vs weight loss? If you search for
either of these terms in an online search engine, you will get
millions of hits. Many from the same websites. It may seem slightly
obvious to some, but fat loss and weight loss are not the
same.
I say that I can help a person "lose weight" simply because weight
loss is what most people commonly ask for and it is a term they
easily understand. But as soon as I get the chance, I educate them
that FAT LOSS is the key issue not weight loss. Once you start
reading the articles on this site, it will become very clear that I
don't actually care about weight loss. Why is this so?
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss: Round 1
Weight loss simply means "being lighter on the weighing scale"
(scale weight).While its true that overweight people do tend to
carry a lot of fat, we cannot just considerscale weight;when we set
goals for ourselves. I don't care that much about my client's scale
weight. I couldnt care less if they lost 30 pounds. 20 or 40 or
even NONE would have been fine as well. Why is that? The simplest
way I explain it to people is as follows:
You see, most of us want to look good and perform well, whether in
daily tasks, or as an athlete who needs to control their own body
to play a sport well. In general, this means having more muscles
and less fat.
Fat doesnt help us at all in most sports, muscles do.
Fat doesnt look good on our hips, thighs or tummies, muscles
do.
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss: Round 2
In general almost all of us need to gain some muscle and lose some
fat to get to our fitness goals. Here is where scale weight comes
in. Muscles have a large amount of water in them. Fats well they
are fats. Have you ever seen oil (fats) and water (muscles) in the
same glass? Which one floats? Yup its the oil. Oil is less dense
that water. It takes up less space. Fat is about 20% less dense
than muscle (0.9g/ml vs 1.1g/ml) if you want to be calculative
about it.
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss: Round 3
In practice all this means that if you are following a good
exercise and diet plan, you can gain muscles and lose fat at the
same time. The increased muscles will offset the “weight loss” from
the reduced fat resulting in a “disappointing” change in scale
weight. This can be discouraging but in reality it's great
news!
So if scale weight doesn’t matter, what then should we look for to
check our progress? I look for 2 things.
Appearance: This can be easily seen: “hey my arms don’t jiggle when
I wave at my friends”. Easily touched: “wow my stomach feels a lot
firmer now”. And changes easily measured via fat measuring
calipers. Seeing and touching is enough for most people to notice
progress. Calipers just give a more consistent way to quantify
it.
Performance: Simply put, you can do more with respect to your
bodyweight if you are not carrying a lot of fat around. A good
example is the chin-up. The chin-up exercise is all about strength
to weight ratio. Fat doesn’t help at all. If a person increases
his/her ability to lift their bodyweight, we can be pretty sure
that they have gained some muscle and probably lost some fat.
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss: Round 4
Society as a whole has to get off the “weight loss” bandwagon and
onto the “fat loss” one. Eating disorders, fad diets and slimming
centers focus on weight loss. But usually the quality of their
nutrition is doubtful, and they don’t do ANY proper training so the
majority of the weight loss is muscle. It's even shown that when we
go on a lousy weight loss plan, to body PREFERS to lose muscle
weight rather than fat weight because its biologically efficient to
do so.
It’s a never ending cycle:
Client comes in-->
Client uses scam product-->
Client achieves weight loss (but this is actually muscle
loss)-->
Client's reduced amount of muscle means lower calories burnt per
day thus making fat gain easier-->
Client goes back to his/her regular lifestyle but now that they use
even less calories due to the muscle loss from the poor
product-->
Client gets fatter than ever-->
Client goes back to the slimming center or fad diet-->
Unscrupulous makers of bad products/services have a never ending
supply of "satisfied" clients
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss: CLEAR WINNER! Fat loss is king.
So remember, if you are looking better and performing better, you
are on the right track. Let the scale weight fall where it may, it
really doesn’t matter because we are going for performance and
appearance. So please tell all your friends that you are on one of
my "fat loss" programs even though you searched for "weight loss"
on Google!
Contributed to Coachjon.com, site of Singapore Personal Trainer and
Fitness Coach Jonathan Wong
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