People are more concerned about their health and fitness than ever and when asked about their goals, losing weight is usually at or near the top of the list. Since so many people are concerned about their health and are actively trying to lose weight, you would think that the percentage of people who are overweight would be decreasing, but obesity rates are still as high as ever. Was. There are many reasons for this, but one problem is that people usually focus on gaining weight when they should be focusing on losing weight.
You may be thinking that losing weight and reducing fat are essentially the same thing, but while they sound similar, they are definitely not the same. As you probably realize, losing fat means reducing the amount of fat stored in your body, while losing weight means reducing the amount of any substance (fat, muscle, bone, water, etc.) in your body. do, many of which you do not want to lose. Even though people primarily use the phrase “losing weight,” they almost always actually mean losing fat.
It makes sense to think in terms of losing weight rather than losing fat, because it’s easier to measure weight loss simply using a scale, which most people already have. Monitoring your body fat is significantly more difficult and requires additional equipment and testing. Furthermore, some body fat tests are not very accurate and those that are reliable can be expensive, time consuming, and/or require a trained person to administer them.
Another reason why people think of losing weight primarily is because the concept of weight loss is simpler than the concept of fat loss. Weight loss involves an increase or decrease in a number (weight), whereas fat loss is usually measured in terms of percentage (body fat), which is not numerically meaningful to most people. Of course, society plays a big role too, with almost every media source mentioning weight loss more often than fat loss.
Using the term weight loss as opposed to fat loss may seem like a minor difference in terminology, but this apparently small difference can make a big impact on your ability to lose fat. The main problem is that people understand that losing weight is different from losing fat, yet they make the assumption that when they lose weight, all or at least most of the weight is from fat. As a result, this creates the mindset that weight loss equals fat loss.
This mindset is very problematic, as it causes weight loss to be used as a direct measure of fat loss. Since the scale is used to measure weight loss, people tend to assume a decrease on the scale means a decrease in fat loss, yet they are often far from the same thing. With this mindset, actual fat loss becomes less and less important and the real goal becomes trying to lose weight, only to have the scale read low.
Whenever your primary goal is simply to get a lower number on the scale, it usually leads to decision making that ultimately hurts your fat loss. There are many ways to lose weight and many of them result in losing more healthy weight (muscle, bone mass, etc.) than losing actual fat weight, but the scale can’t tell the difference between them. In addition, approaches designed to maximize weight loss alone, especially quick weight loss, typically result in losing the highest amount of the healthy type of weight and the lowest percentage of long-term fat loss. .
By only being concerned about losing weight, people don’t have to worry about a complete health and fitness program, which leads them to overly focus on doing whatever they can to lose weight. . This approach has led many people to follow poorly designed weight loss programs that only result in short-term weight loss or yo-yo dieting, which actually results in higher body fat percentage over time. causes an increase in
Probably the most common example of this problem is when people eat fewer and fewer calories as a way to encourage weight loss. Everyone knows that if you want to lose weight you have to consume fewer calories than you consume, so they assume that the fewer calories they eat, the more weight and fat they will lose. If you don’t already know this, the previous assumption is completely wrong.
Cutting extreme calories and making other drastic changes to increase weight loss may take some significant weight loss before, but most of this weight loss will be from water and it will come back as soon as you start eating more calories. In addition, this type of weight loss leads to a loss of muscle mass, especially if you don’t exercise, which will lower your metabolism and cause your body to burn fewer calories each day. This will make it even more difficult to lose fat in the future.
If you want to maximize fat loss, your primary goal can’t just be to lose weight. You have to find a balance between cutting calories and maintaining a balanced nutrition program, including adequate amounts of protein, healthy fats, high-quality carbs, water and other nutrients. Still you need to exercise, get enough rest/sleep and reduce your stress levels. All of these things are important to help your body function properly and maintain good overall health.
Taking this well-balanced approach may not result in as much weight loss as a program designed to lose weight, but this slower approach will result in a higher percentage and perhaps even lower overall amount of body fat. . Plus, since this approach helps you maintain your good weight (muscle, etc.), you’ll be able to maintain your fat loss and continue to lose even more fat in the future.
On the other hand, programs that focus solely on losing weight typically sacrifice elements that are essential to long-term success and general health. Many weight loss programs do not provide enough calories or nutrients to maintain your metabolic rate, daily recovery capacity and immune system function. Eventually your progress will stall and your body will essentially shut down unless you switch to healthier eating and exercise habits.
However, once you are off the weight loss program, you will probably gain back much or all of the weight, even if you start eating right and exercising. This is because the quality of the previous weight loss was not fat loss and under normal circumstances this type of weight loss is not able to be sustained. At the end of the day, the only weight loss that really matters is fat loss, and the problem with trying to lose weight is that it often results in the wrong kind of weight loss, which actually leads to long-term fat gain. harms your ability. loss.
Source by Ross Harrison
