Losing Weight Vs Losing Fat

I see many people in the gym trying to drop unwanted weight and shed the fat. VERY few of those people actually now how to exercise and diet to reach their fitness goals. This segment is going to focus on helping those overweight people understand a CRUCIAL concept: the difference between LOSING WEIGHT and LOSING FAT.

When attempting to diet, too many people are concerned with the number on the weight scale and not concerned enough with their body composition. Losing fat and losing weight are NOT the same. Yes losing weight could also mean you ARE losing SOME fat, but you’re also going to be losing muscle.

But for those individuals that are very overweight and do not necessarily care about “losing muscle” does it matter?

YES IT MATTERS

Body Composition

Everyone’s total body weight is composed of EVERYTHING inside his or her body. This includes the weight of their organs, bones, muscle tissue and fat. The weight that the body loses can come from a person’s fat stores OR muscle tissue

Have a look at the picture below. Both individuals are the same height and same weight, yet their BODY COMPOSITION is completely different. The reason for this is because both individuals have a very different muscle-to-fat ratio in their body. Remember your body weight is composed of muscle AND fat. The person on the right has a much higher percent of MUSCLE contributing to the 190 pounds of his total body weight, where as the person on the left has a higher percent of FAT contributing to his 190 pound figure. An individuals body composition can be measured by his or her BODY FAT PERCENTAGE. Your Body fat percentage tells you the percentage of your TOTAL body weight that is solely FAT.

For an example lets say Tony weighs 200 pounds at 10% body fat. This means that out the 200 pounds he has on his body 20 pounds of it is pure fat. Say Tony want to go on a diet and lose 10 pounds. If Tony diets and loses 10 pounds, but that 10 pounds is lost from his muscle mass instead of his fat, Tony will now weigh in at 190 pounds but STILL have 20 pounds of FAT on him! So even though Tony LOST WEIGHT he’s actually in worse shape than he was before he started, because now his body fat% has increased! Even though the scale is telling Tony his weight has gone down 10 pounds, when he looks up at the mirror he will look even more out of shape because his body composition would have gotten WORSE.

Fat vs. Muscle

Many of you may have heard the old popular riddle “what weighs more, 1000 pounds of feathers or 1000 pounds of bricks?” The answer is, they both WEIGH the SAME, they’re BOTH 1000 pounds!

 It is important to remember one thing about this riddle, and that is even though 1000 pounds of bricks will weigh the same as 1000 pounds of feathers, the AMOUNT of bricks required to add up to 1000 pounds verses the AMOUNT of feathers required to add up to 1000 pounds ARE VERY DIFFERENT. Have a look at the picture below.

Since bricks are much HEAVIER and DENSER than feathers, you would need significantly LESS bricks to compose that 1000 pounds, where as you would need significantly more feather. So even though the the bricks and feathers would weigh the same on the scale, the feathers would take up more SPACE since you need MORE OF IT to compose that 1000 pounds and since the bricks are more dense and compact they would take up LESS SPACE on the same scale.

Have a look at the picture below. On the left you have 5 pounds of fat and on the right you have 5 pounds of muscle. Even though both weigh only 5 pounds you can see that the muscle is more DENSE and COMPACT and takes up LESS SPACE than the fat.

Why "The fat get fatter and the fit stay fit"

Muscle tissue is Denser and more compact than fat tissue. Recall that muscle needs energy to maintain and build itself. That means if a higher percent of you total body weight is composed of muscle; your body burns MORE calories without you doing ANYTHING. Individuals with higher muscle mass have a higher BMR which stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. Your BMR is the amount of calories your body uses while at rest. So if Tony had a higher BMR than Bob and they both did nothing but sleep all day, Tony's body would still use up more calories than Bob's.The key point to remember here is that muscle needs calories to survive, so the more lean muscle you carry the more calories your body is able to burn and NOT store AS FAT.

Also, since muscle is more COMPACT and DENSE, a 200-pound person whose weight is composed of muscle will be much smaller, tighter, and harder than a person whose 200 pounds is composed of fat. The 200-pound person composed of fat will take up more space and be much softer. Both people in this picture are the same weight and height, yet their body composition is significantly different because one person has much more muscle mass, and the other has much more fat contributing to their respective weights.

If higher percent of your bodyweight is composed of FAT than MUSCLE than your body doesn’t need to use as many calories for energy. As a result, the more fat you carry on your body the more your body is likely to store extra calories as fat.

Cardio or Weight lifting?

Another common mistake I see overweight people making in their attempts to get fit is performing hours and hours of cardio. Many people are unaware to the fact that if your goals including burning a significant amount of fat performing cardio alone is very inefficient to help you get fit. 

Why is that?

Consider this, in order to lose one pound the body needs to burn about 3500 calories. Think for a second about how long an overweight person would have to do cardio to lose a significant amount of fat. As I mentioned before its not ONLY about working hard, it’s about working smart. The biggest tool people looking to lose weight should include in their routine is WEIGHT TRAINING. Even if your goals are not to put on muscle and just strictly focus on fat loss weight training should be a CORE part of your training program.

The difference in efficiency between burning calories through cardio and burning calories through weight training to lose body fat is enormous. Consider this, while performing cardio you are burning calories for as long as you are performing the exercise. As soon as you hop off that cardio machine your body stops burning calories. Weight training is significantly different. Recall that muscles use up calories to maintain and build/recover. Therefore weight training not only burn calories during the exercise session, but CONTINUES to burn calories even while you’re resting and your muscles are still recovering from the workout! In fact weight training lets your body CONTINUE to KEEP burning calories for up to 48 hours AFTER the workout.

This segment was just designed to help you understand the difference between losing weight and losing fat. This topic is one I find people have the most difficulty grasping so I will be getting back to it and talking about it in more depth in the near future.

And please DONT BE THAT GUY..

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